Author: Redactor

Categories
Thought

Kenneth Arnold

If our government knows anything about these devices, the people should be told at once. A lot of people out here are very much disturbed. Some think these things may be from another planet. But they aren’t harming anyone and I think it would be the wrong thing to shoot one of them down — even if it can be done. Their high speed would completely wreck them.

Kenneth Arnold, as quoted in “‘Flying discs’ called real by 2 air veterans,” Chicago Times (July 7, 1947). Businessman and aviator Arnold had reported seeing nine mysterious flying objects speeding by Mount Rainier in Washington State, on June 24, and thereby starting the modern UFO craze.
Categories
free trade & free markets judiciary

Musk’s Bête Noire

Elon Musk, judge, space

Should a judge decide how much Elon Musk can be paid?

Well, when the job that Musk is doing is not a government job and a company’s internal process of determining the compensation is voluntary and aboveboard . . . no.

But according to a Delaware judge, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormic, who last January rescinded Tesla’s compensation package then worth $56 billion, now worth more than $100 billion, Musk is not entitled to this compensation. And she has just affirmed her ruling.

Musk says that “shareholders should control company votes, not judges.”

Tesla says: “The ruling is wrong, and we’re going to appeal.”

The appeal could take a year or more.

There’s nothing in the U.S. Constitution authorizing judges to run private companies or decide how much their most valuable personnel may be paid. The judge has no constitutional warrant. And no moral warrant. 

Not her business.

Ignoring the enormous success of Tesla, McCormic is simply deciding that Musk’s pay is way too much with respect to some arbitrary personal criterion that is irrelevant to the decisions that companies must make to attract and keep their greatest entrepreneurial talents, the ones who do the most to make it all go.

Still, maybe we should give the judge a break — I mean, just a tad?

Remember, it was Chancellor McCormic who forced Musk to go through with his Twitter purchase — which turned out to be the most consequentially favorable free-speech/-free-press event of our time. 

Sure, then too she was grinding a personal or ideological animus against the magnate.

But credit where credit’s due!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with …

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
Thought

Montaigne

There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.

Michel de Montaigne, Essais, Book III, Ch. 13 (1595).
Categories
Today

The 13th & Paul Jacob

On December 6, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, banning slavery in all states and territories.

One-hundred-and-nineteen years later, to the day, in 1984, Paul Jacob (of ThisIsCommonSense.org, LibertyiFund.org, and the Citizens in Charge Foundation) was arrested by the FBI for his refusal to register with Selective Service System (the draft people). The Government was probably not attempting to make a commemorative point about involuntary servitude.

Categories
ideological culture media and media people

DEI Realities Unreported

DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion

The high tide of DEI policies — which reward racial affiliation, gender affiliation or gender wishing, group-think, and group-wackiness at the expense of sanity and individual merit — seems to be starting to recede. 

But we’re not on safe ground yet. One example of rearguard action by the proponents of these lunacies is the willingness of major publications to hide evidence of harm caused by DEI.

Colin Wright reports that both The New York Times and Bloomberg have “shelved coverage of a groundbreaking study that raises serious concerns about the psychological impacts of diversity, equity, and inclusion pedagogy.”

The Network Contagion Research Institute finds that DEI ideology incites hostility (between members of favored and disfavored groups, you see) and authoritarianism (by bullies eager for new weapons to intimidate and control others).

When presented with various scenarios, participants in the study who had first been exposed to DEI propaganda were much more likely than participants who hadn’t been thus exposed to impute racism to agents in the scenario — even when no evidence to justify the accusation was also presented in the scenario.

Wright suggests that at both the Times and Bloomberg, reports-in-progress about the research were killed outright by editors whose decisions to spike the story “align conspicuously with the ideological leanings” of those editors.

NCRI’s work confirms what we know about the dishonesty, injustice, and destructiveness of the DEI enterprise. 

As does the conduct of certain gatekeepers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Flux-Realtime/Firefly

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
Thought

Hannah Arendt

The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.

Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind (1978).

Categories
Today

Prohibition Ends

On December 5, 1933, nationwide alcohol Prohibition in the United States ended after Utah became the 36th U.S. state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75 percent of states needed to enact the amendment that overturned the 18th.

Categories
education and schooling folly

Disaffirmative Action

DEI, race, bias, affirmative action

Even making the horrific DEI steamroller illegal can’t deter the determined indoctrinators at the University of Oklahoma.

As we all know by now, woke administrators and educators, chanting “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” endeavor to induce guilt in (and otherwise punish) persons of certain races, sex, etc., for the grave sin of allegedly benefiting from “systemic” “privileges.” DEI arbiters are ever eager to promote preferential treatment that benefits members of currently favored groups as defined by unchosen physical traits.

Since December 2023, Oklahoma state law has prohibited universities from requiring anybody “to participate in . . . or receive any education . . . to the extent such education . . . grants preference based on one person’s particular race, color, sex, ethnicity or national origin over another’s.”

Nevertheless, Oklahoma University requires undergrads pursuing a degree in education to take a course preaching alleged white-person complicity in institutional racism.

We do find organizational racism in today’s world. But not quite in the way preached. It’s not hidden beneath surfaces and doesn’t have to be arbitrarily imputed. The course itself, full of topics like “Critical Whiteness in Education” and “Microaggressions in Educational Spaces,” manifests such racism.

A spokesman for the governor’s office says it’s “insane that this is a required course. It’s time to look at the accreditation entities that are pushing courses like this and bring common sense back to the classroom.”

DEI policies somewhat resemble the affirmation action policies of yesteryear. But they aspire to be much more thorough and pervasive. They are animated by a mentality of totalitarian control, a mentality loath to, let us say, course-correct.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Flux/Midjourney/Firefly

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
Thought

Say

Opulent, civilized, and industrious nations, are greater consumers than poor ones, because they are infinitely greater producers.

Jean-Baptiste Say, A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition, 1832), Book III, “On Consumption,” Chapter 1.

Categories
Today

A Farewell to Arms

On December 4, 1783, at Fraunces Tavern in New York City, General George Washington formally bade his officers farewell.