Selling Obamacare turns out to be not as easy as its devisers thought. The folks at PJ Media have some thoughts:
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Author: Redactor
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Samuel Adams
Among the natural rights . . . are these: first, the right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. Those are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature.
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December 28, Calhoun resigns
On December 28, 1832, John C. Calhoun resigned as Vice President of the United States, the first to do so.
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Samuel Adams
Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.
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Against Innovation in Ohio
Why so many things are made in China, or Taiwan, Singapore . . . or Mexico?
I have no beef with foreign trade, mind you. Just as I don’t want government to favor one business over another here in the U.S., I don’t really want that to happen across borders, either. I know what comparative advantage means.
But one reason we rely so heavily on imports is that we don’t have a free market in the states. Too much regulation favors some businesses at the expense of others.
Tesla Motors is trying to sell its cars direct to the public. But, in most states if not all, the market for automobiles is heavily regulated. Direct, factory sales are prohibited by law. Why? To protect dealerships.
So, after the Ohio legislature failed to make a special deal to keep Tesla’s electric car out of the state, a number of special interest groups, including Midwestern Auto Group and Ricart Automotive Group, have sued Tesla, the Ohio Department of Public Safety, and the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles. The idea is to get Tesla’s license to sell cars in the state revoked.
Forget competition and the innovation it brings. Instead, businesses conspire with governments to keep out upstarts, competitors. You know, the innovators.
Tesla’s electric sportscar may be way out of my price range, but it would be interesting to see an electric car actually make a go of it. I hope the suit fails, and we get to see whether Tesla can make it on the open market.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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December 27, Flushing Remonstrance
On December 27, 1657, a group of English citizens in Flushing, New York, who were not themselves Quakers, signed a petition protesting the persecution of Quakers, a document that has become known as the Flushing Remonstrance. An eloquent statement of the principle of religious liberty, it is widely regarded as a forerunner to the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
The petition was delivered to Director-General of New Netherlands, Peter Stuyvesant.
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December 26, death of George Washington
On December 26, 1799, four thousand people attended George Washington’s funeral where Henry Lee III honored him as “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
The Decembrist revolt againt Tsar Nicholas I occurred on the 26th of December in 1825. It was, alas, put down. Later revolts would prove less liberty-minded, more communist, and more bloody-minded.
“Colorado’s ski resorts and mountain towns are bracing for an influx of tourists,” writes Trevor Hughes in USA Today, “seeking a now-legal Rocky Mountain high.”
Recreational marijuana legalization worries some “police and ski area operators,” Hughes explains. Marijuana tours have been set up by some enterprising folks, and the locals worry “that tourists who don’t understand the rules will be sparking up on the slopes.”
Or in their cars.
Or on the sidewalks.
One sheriff clarified: “We do have this misperception . . . where people have smoked in public, been charged, and were under the perception that it’s a free-for-all.”
An over-reaction to what appears to be an end to the war on drugs? A lack of awareness that all sorts of things get regulated at the local level?
Or perhaps a few people don’t really understand the nature of liberty.
Liberty — freedom for all — isn’t a free-for-all!
That is, the freedom that we all can have isn’t a “do anything you want/anywhere you want/any time you want” deal. The freedom we can all have is a freedom from initiated force, from intrusive coercion, from interference with our persons and our property.
“Free speech” doesn’t mean you can barge into my home and shout in my face. “Freedom of association” doesn’t mean the Skeptic Society can hold a conference in a Christian Science Reading Room, or the Klan can march through the campus of Howard University. “Free Exercise of Religion” doesn’t mean you will be allowed to hold a candlelight vigil in a fireworks factory.
There’s a logic to liberty. Most Americans get that. Even most tourists.
This worry should should vanish like a puff of smoke.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Samuel Adams
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.
There’s a quiet on Christmas morning . . . after Santa has come and gone . . . and the kids are still sound asleep . . . sugar plum fairies dancing to their gentle snoring.
A moment to stop and think.
I hope they’ll like their presents; they always do. There’s so much love my wife and I want to share, to give to them.
Of course, the biggest gifts are never under the tree. The most important being a staple home, with love, and the freedom for children to grow into themselves.
My parents gave me that . . . along with the bicycles and baseball gloves and some really good books. I’ve tried to be the same kind of parent.
Another incredible endowment I’ve enjoyed is to be born in a country “conceived in liberty.” A place where individual citizens are the sovereigns, creating government to be a servant and not a master. Land of the free.
What a gift!
But Tom Paine told us that, “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly, ’tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
Freedom is under siege. And, therefore, we who love freedom, grateful for our historic luck, must come together to protect our “expensive” gift.
Some may get discouraged after setbacks, recent and not-so-recent, but none of us got involved in politics because we like “the game” and figured we’d pile up a shelf of trophies. We’re engaged because we must be and we seek victories because, as Churchill once put it, “without victory, there is no survival.”
In 1776, on this very day, General George Washington and his soldiers of the American Revolution crossed the Delaware River to score a surprise military victory against the British at Trenton, New Jersey.
Thank goodness, for these brave patriots and their muskets. Three Americans gave their lives in the battle. To secure our liberty.
Today, the Gift has been handed to us. Not to play with on Christmas morning and forget about, not to let get broken without our fixing it, but to protect and defend and cherish.
My commentary strives to illuminate, to amuse and to motivate toward action, bringing citizens together. Citizens in Charge protects the initiative process — the best weapon citizens have to cut taxes, term-limit politicians, stop the drug war, protect property rights, and place limits on government. The Liberty Initiative Fund partners with leaders across the nation putting measures on the ballot to protect freedom and hold government accountable.
Thanks for your gifts to these efforts and to the many other important ones. We aim to protect the precious gift of freedom.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!