On November 27, 1896, Also sprach Zarathustra — a tone poem by the great composer Richard Strauss — was first performed. It is a program work referencing a book by Friedrich W. Nietzsche of the same title. It begins and ends with a fanfare that became the musical signature to the Stanley Kubrick film classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Or forwarding harsh words about them.
Animus toward free speech isn’t a new thing in Germany, even post-twentieth-century Germany. But it seems that the censorship, aka hate-speech hatred, is getting more intense lately because of an election.
One recent victim is a 64-year-old pensioner, Stefan Nieoff, who forwarded a “meme” about Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck. Habeck wants to be chancellor. According to the “meme,” Habeck is a “professional idiot” (Schwachkopf Professional).
But in consequence of Herr Nieoff’s reckless act of disseminating information of merely figurative accuracy, Bavarian police (a) raided the man’s home and (b) arrested him. Incidentally traumatizing his daughter, who has Down syndrome.
Why, exactly? Because the Bavarian police are idiots acting at the behest of other idiots.
In a video posted on X, Nieoff says, as Google-Translated: “What they did to me is awful. I’m going to court. It can’t be that everyone keeps their mouth shut and lets themselves be oppressed like that. . . . So please, Mr. Habeck, I beg you, come to my kitchen table sometime. Like the police officers from the Schweinfurt Criminal Investigation Department.”
The Alternative for Germany party asserts that although Habeck “presents himself as a ‘people-friendly’ candidate for chancellor, his critics are being relentlessly pursued.”
Reports say that Habeck, a member of the Green Party, has little chance of becoming chancellor. Let’s hope his chances are sehr schwach.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.
Thomas Sowell, “Random Thoughts,” from his Creators Syndicate column.
One of his would-be interrogators, Chi Onwurah, a Labour committee chairwoman, said she wanted to “cross-examine him to see . . . how he reconciles his promotion of freedom of expression with his promotion of pure disinformation.”
What a mystery. How can someone champion freedom of speech and letting people say things with which others disagree? Isn’t freedom of speech only for government-authorized speech, the kind King George III would have approved?
On X, a Malaysian commentator sought to warn Musk: “This is a trap,” tweeted Miles Cheong, “They’ll detain him at the border, demand to see the contents of his phone, and charge him under counterterrorism laws when he refuses.”
If we were concerned even a little that Mr. Musk might fall into this or a similar trap, we needn’t have been.
In reply to Cheong, Musk asserted that MPs will, rather, “be summoned to the United States of America to explain their censorship and threats to American citizens.”
In September, in response to being pointedly and publicly not invited to a British investment conference, Musk had said, “I don’t think anyone should go to the UK when they’re releasing convicted pedophiles in order to imprison people for social media posts!”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.
Affurisms. From Josh Billings: His Sayings (1865).
November 25, 1975, Suriname gained independence from the Netherlands.
On the same month and date 17 years later, the Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia voted to split the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia (officially disjoined as of January 1, 1993). This split has been called “The Velvet Divorce” (following, in style and method, “The Velvet Revolution”). The Czech Republic is now also known as Czechia.
At Ballotpedia, referenced here yesterday, we learn that a number of minimum wage measures were on the ballots this last election. The results were interesting. “In California and Massachusetts, voters rejected ballot measure to increase the minimum wage — the first time since 1996 that minimum wage increase measures were defeated.”
As Paul Jacob has often explained, in these pages, minimum wage hikes do not do what their advocates think, or at least say, they do. And the usual results present a problem for the policy’s advocates. A Reason article by Justin Zuckerman, “The New York Times Claimed D.C.’s Minimum Wage Hike Created Jobs. We Exposed Their Error,” from Friday, shows a grand example of a persuasive article in the Gray Lady being used to convince voters that a Washington, D.C., minimum wage hike did no harm while also being based on a gross misunderstanding of statistics. Its author “misunderstood the data she was looking at. The chart she linked to in the article presented numbers ‘in the thousands,’ meaning that the actual data were not 14,168 but 14,168,000, which also makes sense because Krishna [the Times contributor] didn’t realize she was reading national BLS data — not local figures.” A huge error. Which Reason told The Times about, “and the paper issued a correction.”
But the advocates for minimum wage hikes continued to cite the article, despite the error, despite the admission that was the official correction.
Some errors go on repeat because they re-inforce ideological prejudice. The minimum wage is one of those policies usually advanced in ignorance of all the work done on the issue. Often in defiance of common sense.
November 2024: There were 146 ballot measures certified for statewide ballots in 41 states. On the Fifth, “Election Day,” these measures were decided by voters.
According to Ballotpedia, from “2010 to 2022, the average number of statewide ballot measures in an even-numbered year was 161,” making 2024 slightly below average — noting that Louisiana will decide four constitutional amendments on December 7, and five states decided nine measures earlier in the year, bringing the total for the year up to 159.
Ballotpedia is a great resource, and if you are looking for good information about what people are voting for and against, ballotpedia.org should be your first resource.
I have said that almost every president of the last 100 years deserved to be impeached, but I never suggested any of these people should be charged and tried in court.
Brion McClanahan, “What’s at Stake in the Trump Immunity Case?” May 8, 2024.
On November 23, 1644, British poet John Milton published Areopagitica, a pamphlet decrying censorship.
Revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse.
John Milton, Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England (1644).
The name “Areopagitica” references a speech by Isocrates, the “Areopagitikós” that itself referenced a hill in Athens, Greece, the Areopagus, which had been the site of an important tribunal that the Greek orator had hoped to restore. It may also refer to the defense that St. Paul made before the Areopagus against charges of promulgating alien gods and outré teachings (see Acts 17:18–34).