Author: Redactor

Categories
free trade & free markets general freedom U.S. Constitution

Equally Unequal

Two court cases come to our attention, courtesy of Cato’s Ilya Shapiro. Both involve the favoring of members of one group over another.

The Sixth Circuit ruled that a voter-approved amendment to the Michigan state constitution outlawing racial preferences in college admissions would violate the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause. The amendment states in part that Michigan public colleges and universities shall “not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. . . .”

In his dissent, Judge Richard Griffin writes: “The post-Civil War amendment that guarantees equal protection to persons of all races has now been construed as barring a state from prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race.” Shapiro calls the decision Orwellian.

The other case involves California law banning sellers of eyewear who are not state-licensed optometrists and ophthalmologists from conducting eye exams and selling glasses at the same place of business. The law prevents national eyewear chains from competing effectively in California (since customers prefer to get their glasses and eye exams in one shop).

Cato joins an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to take up the California case. Shapiro also says that because there are two conflicting lower-court decisions on the Michigan question, the Supreme Court is likely to add that case to its docket.

Let’s hope all further rulings are based on a clear-sighted respect for equal rights under the law.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Thought

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall video

On the Road in South America, Part Three

Last Friday, at the 2012 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy in Montevideo, Uruguay, Paul interviewed Daniela Bozhinova, a Bulgarian Green Party and direct democracy activist. Daniela spent the better part of a year studying initiative & referendum in the United States as a Fulbright scholar and you might be surprised by what she has to say.

Paul returns from his South American travels today.

Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall video

Video: On the Road in South America, Part Two

Taking a few moments away from the main events of the Global Conference on Direct Democracy, an interview:

More to come.

Categories
Today

Nov 16 US recognized

On November 16, 1776, the Republic of the Seven United Provinces (Netherlands) recognized the independence of the United States of America. The date in 1811 marks the birth of free trade advocate and British politician John Bright.

Categories
term limits

No a la Reelección

Her name is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and she’s Argentina’s president. She is apparently chafing under the country’s presidential term limits.

The last time I wrote about Mrs. Kirchner, five years ago, I had some advice: “Don’t cheer for Cristina, Argentina.” Thankfully, the Argentines aren’t cheering. In Beunos Aires, “Throngs of people banged pots and pans Thursday, as they protested government policies in Argentina,” relates a CNN report:

The massive march was the latest in a series of “cacerolazos,” protests named for the cooking pots participants hit to draw attention to problems they say are growing in the South American nation, including crime rates, inflation and political corruption.

Many demonstrators said a key issue drove them to the streets: the possibility that President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner could push through changes to the country’s constitution and run for re-election.

Term limits. The people want them, and if the signs at the protest rallies are any indication, Argentines are against “Corrupcion,” oppose Kirchner’s “Reelección,” and are for “Libertad.”

And here in the putative Land of Liberty, a Miami, Florida, neighborhood known as Little Buenos Aires heard pots and pans clanging, too, as marchers expressed sympathy with friends and relatives in the Southern Hemisphere: “We are not afraid” and “We don’t want a communist Argentina.”

The full story of the protests, which have been going on since June, echo some of the issues and criticisms that were pushed for and charged against both Tea Party and Occupier protests in past years here in America. There’s talk of secret partisanship, even “astro-turf.”

But fear of dynastic rule isn’t confined to any party, or require any special organization.

For Argentines, I wish only the best: “Libertad.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

P.S. I will be in Buenos Aires later today — this evening, actually — and if I find anything to modify or amplify this story, you can be sure I’ll do so at thisiscommonsense.com.

Categories
crime and punishment

When It’s Smart to Play Dumb

In 1993, I was in Russia to witness Boris Yeltsin’s first referendums, which was perhaps the high point of Russian democracy.

Along with the sweep of history, I also remember boarding a midnight train from Moscow to St. Petersburg and being accosted by some kind of Russian gendarme. This fellow berated me in words none of which I understood. I could tell he wanted something from me (money, probably). So I stood there looking bewildered and playing dumb — my specialty — until the guy finally lapsed into frustrated silence and I could walk away. Another Russian later told me that it was indeed a shakedown attempt.

The incident came to mind when I heard about a recent attempted robbery down in Tampa. Three masked thugs spilled into a Chinese restaurant and demanded the contents of the cash register. According to a brief report, the trio “left empty-handed after the restaurant workers who only spoke Cantonese couldn’t understand what the English-speaking suspects were saying.” At one point, a gun went off when the would-be robbers banged the cash register with it.

The report states that the “botched robbery” was caused by a “failure to understand English.” Well, maybe the workers knew little English. But they knew what the robbers wanted. The workers played dumb. More basically, they refused to cooperate.

Risky. I’m not saying you should try this at home. But sometimes being too dumb to be victimized is the smartest thing you can do.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall video

On the Road in South America, Part One

This week Paul Jacob is traveling down south — way down south. Here he reports from the Lima, Peru, airport, explaining what he’s up to:

If all goes according to plan, he’ll report a few more times while in South America, and after.

You can view this video in HD, here.

Categories
Thought

G.K. Chesterton

Bigotry may be called the appalling frenzy of the indifferent. This frenzy of the indifferent is in truth a terrible thing; it has made all monstrous and widely pervading persecutions. In this degree it was not the people who cared who ever persecuted; the people who cared were not sufficiently numerous. It was the people who did not care who filled the world with fire and oppression. It was the hands of the indifferent that lit the faggots; it was the hands of the indifferent that turned the rack. There have come some persecutions out of the pain of a passionate certainty; but these produced, not bigotry, but fanaticism — a very different and a somewhat admirable thing. Bigotry in the main has always been the pervading omnipotence of those who do not care crushing out those who care in darkness and blood.

Categories
Thought

G.K. Chesterton

The oligarchic character of the modern English commonwealth does not rest, like many oligarchies, on the cruelty of the rich to the poor. It does not even rest on the kindness of the rich to the poor. It rests on the perennial and unfailing kindness of the poor to the rich.