To govern well, one must see things as they are.
José Martí, Nuestra América (1891).
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José Martí
Author: Redactor
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Corn Laws Abolished
On January 31, 1849, the Corn Laws were abolished in the United Kingdom, one of the most impressive and far-reaching anti-protectionist moves of all time.
“Corn” stood for all grains, including wheat, oats & barley; the free-trade agitation by John Bright & Richard Cobden was one of the main impetuses for the reform.
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Charges Aborted
Can people now report on controversial subjects without being targeted by California officials?
At least for the next four years?
David Daleiden has announced on X that the charges against him and Sandra Merritt for reporting on Planned Parenthood’s alleged sale of the body parts of aborted fetuses have now been dropped. Daleiden’s no-contest plea, “which cannot be used adversely” against him, will be “entered into judgement as a misdemeanor . . . then converted into a ‘not guilty’ plea and dismissed.”
Why all the rigmarole instead of dismissing the charges fully and immediately?
Blame the sulking psyches of California poohbahs and jacks-in-office, who may have felt pressured to unload the case because of the regime change in Washington. It seems that President Trump nominated Harmeet Dhillon, who has represented Daleiden and Meritt, to help lead the Civil Rights Division of DOJ.
Charges of filming people without permission — in the kind of sting operation that still happens quite often without anybody getting arrested for it — had been brought against Daleiden and Merritt in 2017 by California’s attorney general at the time, Xavier Becerra. This prosecution was based on an investigation launched by one Kamala Harris.
The supposed crime was the recording, in 2015, of interviews with Planned Parenthood personnel by members of the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress. Daleiden is CMP’s founder.
Now, with the charges gone, Daleiden and CMP can focus on their work, which he describes as reporting on “the injustices of taxpayer-funded experiments on aborted babies.”
A work that their prosecutors obviously wished to forestall.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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José Rizal
The glory of saving a country is not for him who has contributed to its ruin.
José Rizal, El Filibusterismo (The Reign of Greed, 1891 — Charles Derbyshire, translator).
On January 30, 1835, a house painter named Richard Lawrence attempted to shoot former military leader and then-President Andrew Jackson, but failed. He attempted to fire with two pistols, but both misfired, and he was subdued by a crowd, including several congressmen. That marked the first attempt on the life of a sitting U.S. president.
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Age of Arms
While it is entirely reasonable to treat children and adults differently, and for laws to reflect this basic division, questions of precisely when children should become adults have eluded rationality.
In Argentina, where the legal age to vote is 16, young people may join the military at age 18, but had to wait till 21 to own a gun.
Until Argentine president Javier Milei’s reduced the minimum age to purchase and carry a firearm to 18, a step towards greater consistency.
But that is not how the culturally dominant left-wing media and intelligentsia see it. They paint dire dystopian visions of violence as a consequence of Milei’s libertarian pro-carry, pro-armament philosophy.
A December article in The Epoch Times shows that this old, elitist attitude is falling to the wayside as “Residents of Argentina’s Crime-Ridden Cities Welcome Milei’s Gun Reform.”
Key point? Dire dystopia is current reality.
Years of inflationism, government growth and regulation, as well as the seemingly endless political struggle between communists and Peronistas, has left a rising rate of homelessness and poverty.
And the homeless are getting grabby.
In public.
More daring and violent everywhere.
Against this, the pre-Milei government’s soft-on-criminals approach left normal people feeling defenseless. So gun ownership has understandably increased. The Epoch Times quotes a Buenos Aires resident who “believes that the public’s attitude toward firearms ownership is shifting away from the notion of less guns equals less gun crime, an ideology that was promoted by the previous administration.”
While Javier Milei’s program to reduce inflation appears to be on course, Argentina has been so dystopian for so long, most changes for the good will be incremental.
Like setting the age to carry firearms to equal the military service age.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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José Martí
A knowledge of different literatures is the best way to free one’s self from the tyranny of any of them.
José Martí, On Oscar Wilde (1882).
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Quoth the Raven
On January 29, 1845, “The Raven” was published in The Evening Mirror in New York, the first publication with the name of the author, Edgar Allan Poe.
Five years later, Henry Clay introduced the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress.
In 1907, Charles Curtis of Kansas became the first Native American U.S. Senator.
January 29th births include Tom Paine (1737), Albert Gallatin (1761), William McKinley (1843), and Megan McArdle (1973).
Among the reasons one might be glad Donald Trump won the presidency is the reprieve he has given to many who attended the January 6, 2021, rally in Washington, DC.
While it is true that some who were punished did engage in violence and riot,* many were peaceful but were imprisoned anyway, under horrific conditions. And even some who avoided imprisonment were treated atrociously.
Among the latter is former police officer Michael Daughtry, who recently told his story. A few of the details:
Invited by President Trump to go to the West Lawn to peacefully protest, Daughtry did so. There, “police officers removed the barricades and waved us onto the West Lawn.” The FBI later confiscated Daughtry’s video of this.
On January 16, he was charged with trespassing on the West Lawn.
Though he had been a police officer and had no criminal record, Daughtry was jailed for hours before being brought before a judge . . . “in handcuffs, leg irons and belly chains. . . .”
Even after he was released, his home was raided repeatedly.
He was forced to turn over passwords to email, social media, bank accounts and much other private information to federal agents, who threatened him with prison if he did not comply.
Daughtry was under house arrest “for almost two years for a crime that carries a maximum punishment of less than a year. I have not been allowed to plea in this case.”
More here.
Trump pardoned Daughtry for his non-crime. Would a President Harris have done so?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Those who assaulted police officers or plotted to do violence on that day should not have been pardoned — even if deserving of mercy, commuted sentences, without wiping their record, would have sufficed.
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Neil Gaiman
Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.
Neil Gaiman, American Gods (2001).