Author: Redactor

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Common Sense

Petitioners May Petition

A leading indicator of a free nation? The lack of political prisoners. We Americans are aghast when we learn of dissenters jailed in other countries.

But, even in America, politicians in various states seek to put people in jail for engaging in legitimate (if dissenting) political activism.

I am one of their targets.

You may have heard that two other citizen activists and I are under the gun in Oklahoma. Allegedly, we defied the state’s residency requirements for people who circulate petitions.

The charge is false, as I explain at FreePaulJacob.com. But our glaring innocence didn’t prevent Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson from indicting us for supposedly defrauding the state.

Moreover, the Oklahoma law, imposed to thwart rather than foster the initiative process, is unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court has said as much regarding similar restrictions elsewhere.

And recently, in Ohio, a federal district court granted preliminary relief to plaintiffs who wanted to use out-of-state circulators, which Ohio legislators had outlawed.

The court endorsed the U.S. Supreme Court’s conclusion that since the demand that circulators be registered voters “decreas[es] the pool of potential circulators, the requirement imposed an unjustified burden on political expression. . . .”

That’s right. America still doesn’t jail dissenters who work peaceably to put issues on the ballot and people up for office.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense

A Wish for Presidential Transparency

The blogger Alaskan Librarian has a list of things he’d like done by the next president. I share at least one of his wishes, “to see policy formulated in the open.”

Specifically, he wants candidates to sign the Reason Foundation’s “Oath of Presidential Transparency.” The pledge has two parts. The first endorses “effective management, accountability, transparency, and disclosure” of federal spending. The second is a commitment to enforce the Federal Funding and Accountability Act, passed by Congress in 2006.

This legislation was introduced by Senator Tom Coburn. Both Barack Obama and John McCain signed on as co-sponsors. It requires all recipients of federal funds to be fully disclosed on the Web. And hey, they even set up a website.

Obama has already signed the Oath of Presidential Transparency. I have to wonder who is asleep at the McCain camp, given that their candidate has yet to add his John Hancock. Same goes for Ralph Nader, Libertarian Bob Barr and the Green and Constitution Party nominees.

But since we’re all in agreement here, let’s demand more.

Like what? Like real-time updates about budget items, allowing citizens time to protest particular pork projects and other prodigalities. Like forbidding the last-minute stuffing of earmarks into reconciliations bills.

Maybe we need a new compact with our government, one where, as Leslie Graves of the Lucy Burns Institute suggests, there would be “No taxation without information.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense

The Little Boy Who Almost Could

One thing about toddler Mikolaj Sobolewski: He sure shows initiative.

The three-year-old Polish boy unlocked the front door to his home by himself, took the bus to the airport by himself, and apparently expected to board a plane.

Police found him at the airport and returned him to his parents, who, of course, were quite relieved. The police say there is “no suggestion of negligence on their part.” The kid just found his chance and took it.

It seems Mikolaj’s mom works near an airport in Warsaw and the boy had seen a lot of planes flying past her office. He wanted to see what it was like to be on one. He’d done enough dreaming about it, I guess, and decided to just do it.

Mikolaj made a mistake. He didn’t have enough information about how to fulfill his desire. He didn’t give enough thought to how his parents would feel when they found him missing. I know I’d have been worried sick if one of my own children at age three pulled the same disappearing act.

You might say that young Mikolaj has some growing up to do. All the same, we’ve got to give the boy credit for spunk, don’t we?

Write that name down and see if we hear about him again in twenty or thirty years. Mikolaj Sobolewski.

I don’t think he’ll grow up to be a bureaucrat.

Here’s hoping you and your kids have a great summer. Keep track of each other. And happy flying!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability Common Sense free trade & free markets insider corruption

A Real Reform for Obama

Barack Obama’s record as a maverick, either in the U.S. Senate or his years as an Illinois legislator, is slender at best. Behind the self-avowed reformer’s rhetoric, his policies seem typical, demanding ever-bigger government, ever-more intrusive government.

But there’s at least one reform practiced by candidate Obama that could yield some very good changes indeed: His rejection of government funding of presidential campaigns.

Note I say “practiced by,” not “advocated by.” Obama has opted out of the system for tactical reasons only. In doing so he broke a promise earlier in the campaign that he would accept matching funds – along with the limits on his own general election spending that this would entail. But he had scooped up so much financial support so fast that he decided it would be shooting himself in the foot to accept spending restrictions.

Obama may be uncomfortable with his flip-flop. I applaud it – no, not the hypocrisy of it, but the example it sets for policy.

We should never force taxpayers to fund campaigns they may not support. And while we’re at it, let’s cut away the tangle of campaign laws regulating how much money we can give a candidate, or what and when and where we can say things about candidates.

If Obama could sign on to that proposal, he could really punch away at McCain on the issue. Obama would then be advocating real reform. Real good reform.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense

Tim Russert’s Different Angle

When Tim Russert died, many journalists had many good things to say about the Meet the Press host. Russert did his homework. He asked tough but fair questions. He was a decent man, a family man, who never lost sight of the important things. He had a zest for life.

But in all the praise for Russert’s virtues, was something being overlooked?

Former CBS journalist Bernard Goldberg thinks so. When Goldberg’s book Bias, a critical examination of the media, was published in 2001, only one person on the network news shows would touch it with a ten-foot pole — even though the book was a bestseller and many Americans obviously thought the topic important.

The exception was Tim Russert, who spent an hour interviewing Goldberg on CNBC. Russert declared that “if there’s a liberal bias or a cultural bias [in the newsroom], we have to sit up and tackle it and discuss it. We have got to be open to these things.”

Peggy Noonan, the former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush, now writes commentary for the Wall Street Journal. There, she agreed with Goldberg: Russert was eager to give non-liberal points of view a hearing when other broadcast journalists turned a deaf ear.

Wouldn’t it be a good thing, Noonan reflects, if many of the journalists generically praising Russert for his open-mindedness and fairness paid more attention to the implications of their own words?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense

Mistakes Were Made

Choices. Gotta love ’em. But they can be a kick in the pants, too.

A few weeks ago I chose to criticize Subway for a kids’ essay contest that didn’t allow homeschoolers to participate. And I pointed out two misspellings in its printed rules. And, wouldn’t you know it, my readers detected several typos in the email version of my rant.

Radio listeners missed out on this bit of hilarity.

Subway had spelled “United States” as “Untied States,” and added an extra “t” to another word. I had used the wrong kind of “bear,” and left out a “c” in another word. Once an email’s out, it’s out . . . but right away I made sure the website had it right.

Since Subway’s instructions were printed, they had a harder time of it. But they were quick to correct the chief error I had chastised them for: Not allowing homeschoolers to participate in their contest.

When Subway realized that customers were angry, the company did more than confess to the lapse. With remarkable speed, Subway found a way to allow homeschoolers to compete.

This was a far more important problem than any typo. My proofreaders may have fallen a bit short in the homonym department, and someone at Subway got his or her fingers tangled. But leaving a contest open to everyone is very, very basic.

Thankfully, unlike in government, such mistakes tend to get fixed fast in the private sector. Why? Customers can choose to go elsewhere, taking their money.

That’s the kick in the pants.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense Second Amendment rights too much government

I Second that Amendment

The First Amendment recognizes some very basic rights:

  • to speak truth to power, personally and through the press;
  • to practice our religion – or not – as we choose;
  • to associate with others and peaceably assemble together;
  • to petition our government for a redress of grievances.

The Second Amendment, which recognizes our right to arm ourselves, means we – as individuals – may legally and practically secure the rights of the First.

Or does it?

The Amendment reads: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”

A debate has raged over what these words actually mean. Does the Amendment support an individual right to be armed . . . or only when enlisted in a state militia? This makes a big difference for gun regulation and prohibition.

Now, in the case D.C. v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court has settled the issue. Voting 5-4, the court says Yes, the Second Amendment does enshrine an individual right to bear arms.

This makes perfect sense to me. That’s why the framers wrote “right of the people.”

Indeed, this is a wonderful victory for freedom.

It is also welcome news for Washington, D.C., residents who now, whether driving a cab or sitting at home alone, will be able to protect themselves. Which means, in the end, less crime and violence.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense

Experience in Tyranny

Experience counts.

For years I’ve been saying that a person can bring applicable experience to a new job, including a legislative job, and be effective right away. An accountant might get elected and still, as a freshman legislator, look at a state budget and say, “Uh, folks, the government is spending more than it takes in.”

Maybe even a pilot or belly dancer could figure that out.

Incumbent lawmakers also say experience is important. But they’ll add that the only way to get experience relevant to legislation is by accumulating years in a single seat of power. They explain that they can’t learn the job until they’ve been around eight, ten, twenty years or so.

Such confession of incompetence might seem, to most people, more an argument for resigning than for being awarded permanent tenure. Or an argument for term limits. But the self-serving assertions of American incumbents now receive a powerful boost from overseas. From Cuba. From a son of the sainted communist soldier and mass murderer Che Guevera, head of the revolution.

Seems Camilo Guevera has endorsed Raul Castro’s ascendancy to the presidency of Cuba. Fidel, dictator for decades, has been ill. Earlier this year his brother Raul, one of Fidel’s most important flunkies for almost 50 years, took over. Camilo says “it would stupid not to take advantage of all that experience.”

Hey, that’s just what our “experienced” politicians say! Maybe we can send them to help Raul?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense term limits

Still Cage-Rattling

Even in his second term as South Carolina’s governor, Mark Sanford continues to flout the political establishment’s typical way of doing things.

A former congressmen who pledged to limit his tenure to three terms max, Sanford was one of a number of self-limiters in the Congress who showed that keeping one’s word does not amount to a political death sentence. You get the idea of his level of commitment from both the title and content of a book he wrote some years ago, The Trust Committed to Me.

Sanford’s fiscal conservatism is a tough sell wherever political incumbents just want to spend, spend, spend taxpayers’money. So the governor doesn’t always use his political clout on behalf of incumbents who share his party affiliation but not his principles.

Sanford recently endorsed the candidacy of Ed Rumsey, who is challenging Bill Sandifer for a South Carolina House seat. This was the third time in recent weeks Sanford had endorsed a GOP challenger over a GOP incumbent. This angers Republicans who prioritize partisanship over sound policy.

Governor Sanford has a different idea. He and Sandifer are at odds over the issue of bloated spending. The governor wants to increase the chances that his vetoes will be upheld, instead of routinely overridden.

Sanford’s politics may stir up a ruckus, but, as he puts it, “seats don’t belong to individual members. It is not a franchise one gets to own.”

That’s common sense – and so’s this! I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability Common Sense insider corruption porkbarrel politics too much government

Waterboarding Term Limits

Here’s a story about a government board whose members endlessly dish out taxpayer money. And want endless years in power to keep doing so.

Recently, members of the Santa Clara water board approved steep salary hikes for two of their staffers, making them the highest-paid for their jobs in all of California. For example, the water district attorney will get an 8-percent hike so that she now pulls down $221,720 a year. Well, not exactly. She also got a $12,000 bonus. Then there’s her monthly car allowance: $750.

Yikes. Guess I’m in the wrong line of work.

Interestingly, the board doled out these huge hikes right after refusing to consider a proposal to let voters consider term-limiting board members. These antics are a strong argument for privatizing the water industry, frankly. Short of that, these guys definitely need to be term-limited.

It’s not exactly a secret in Santa Clara that the town’s water board is lavish with its budget. A spate of critical stories made the rounds of California papers after the board’s latest twirl of the financial spigot. As one reporter notes, the board has been “buffeted by charges of excessive spending.”

But you know, there’s buffeting and there’s buffeting. Trust me, any kind of buffeting that leaves incumbents in place to continue their exploitative fun and games is not enough buffeting.

Oh, forget “buffeting”! I’ll take term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.