Author: Redactor

Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Thought

Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heavens as its center, would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.

links

Townhall: Our world this week

Post author By Redactor
Post date February 19, 2012
No Comments on Townhall: Our world this week

My column this weekend at Townhall.com is about three very different news stories from last week. But really it’s about one thing: our wildly out-of-control government.

Here are links to the referenced stories, for those who want to learn more:

Real Clear Politics: “Fast vote: Congress sends payroll tax cut to Obama” (2/17/2012)
Carolina Journal Online: “Preschooler’s Homemade Lunch Replaced with Cafeteria ‘Nuggets’“
Carolina Journal Online: “Who Is the Mystery Food Monitor?“
Denver Post: “Judge questions precedent cited to defend Colorado’s TABOR“
Townhall.com: “People of, by and for the government?“

Last week’s Townhall column is online at this site, too: “Public School Privilege.” Did you miss it? Check it out.

ideological culture video

Video: The Importance of Institutions

Post author By Redactor
Post date February 18, 2012
No Comments on Video: The Importance of Institutions

You can’t free up society all on your lonesome:

Thought

From the last leaflet distributed by “The White Rose” student group

Post author By Redactor
Post date February 18, 2012
No Comments on From the last leaflet distributed by “The White Rose” student group

“The imperialist ideology of force, from whatever side it comes, must be shattered for all time. A one sided Prussian militarism must never again be allowed to assume power. . . . The Germany of the future must be a federal state. At this juncture only a sound federal system can imbue a weakened Europe with a new life. The workers must be liberated from their condition of down trodden slavery under National Socialism. The illusory structure of autonomous national industry must disappear. Every nation and each man have a right to the goods of the whole world!

“Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the protection of individual citizens from the arbitrary will of criminal regimes of violence — these will be the bases of the New Europe.

“Support the resistance. Distribute the leaflets!”

insider corruption political challengers

As Goes Maine

On Monday I reported on the Ron Paul campaign’s “open secret” strategy: Gaining delegates in the caucus states, while letting the caucus-night straw poll numbers basically take care of themselves. The “popular” vote on caucus nights in states like Iowa and Minnesota and Maine may show Santorum or Romney as a winner, but the Ron Paul folks are picking up the actual, nomination-effective delegates.

Meanwhile, GOP insiders continue to work openly and sub rosa against the Paul candidacy, as is now pretty clear in Maine. Business Insider reports that

“Mitt Romney’s 194-vote victory over Ron Paul was prematurely announced, if not totally wrong”;
“Washington County canceled their caucus on Saturday on account of three inches of snow (hardly a blizzard by Maine standards), and other towns that scheduled their caucuses for this week have been left out of the vote count”;
“nearly all the towns in Waldo County — a Ron Paul stronghold — held their caucuses on Feb. 4, but the state GOP reported no results for those towns. In Waterville, a college town in Central Maine, results were reported but not included in the party vote count”;

. . . and on and on and on.

The open conspiracy of deliberately under-reporting Ron Paul votes may be more than matched, however, by the open secret of the Ron Paul delegate strategy, with the Paul campaign now believing “it has won the majority of Maine’s delegates.”

Real change is, apparently, a messy thing. And preventing it . . . even messier.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags caucus, delegates, electors, Maine, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul

Thought

Thomas Jefferson

“I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.”

Thought

John Adams

“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.”

First Amendment rights ideological culture national politics & policies

Contra Mandated Contraception Coverage

Post author By Redactor
Post date February 16, 2012
4 Comments on Contra Mandated Contraception Coverage

Regulators spawned by “Obamacare” have mandated that employer-provided medical insurance plans provide contraception as a benefit.

The problem, as currently reported and debated, is that only churches are exempted — church-run or -affiliated hospitals, for example, are not. And so Catholic hospitals, along with other religious-based charitable endeavors, must conform, despite their commitment to age-old ideas about the sanctity of life, which they say contraception and abortifacients, especially (some contraceptive methods are de facto abortion-inducing), abridge.

Many conservatives argue that the mandate thus runs afoul of the First Amendment. But it turns out that many Republican politicians have supported similar mandates in several states.

Mike Huckabee signed one such mandate into law in Arkansas.

No big news that GOP politicians are often just as bad as Democrats, of course. But forget, if you can, the First Amendment angle. The mandate runs afoul of something even more fundamental: common sense.

Adding an umpteenth mandate to the list of regulations government places on contracts amongst employers, employees, and insurance companies hardly passes the smell test. The more benefits that government insists you contract for, the higher your insurance rates. The higher the rates, fewer are those who would willingly buy, thus scuttling the whole point of “health care reform.”

We ostensibly want more people to purchase major medical insurance. Not fewer.

It’s possible that some reformers seek precisely that, to put insurance companies out of business, leaving only government to take up the slack, as a “single payer.”

In the case of Republican reformers, however, is there a hidden agenda or just mere foolishness?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.