Author: Redactor

William Leggett

A legislature is always badly set to work in manufacturing crime. To risk money in a wager is not a crime per se, whether the wager be on the result of a race, on the fate of a lottery ticket, on the turn of a dicebox, or on any other like contingency. It is folly, perhaps, in all cases, and it becomes crime and madness in some; but to draw the line between allowable folly and criminality, in a matter of this kind, is rather the office of publick opinion, than of the law.
William Leggett, in an editorial in the Plaindealer, January 28, 1837, republished in A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett (1840), and titled “Gambling Laws.”

Today

On July 26, 1533, Francisco Pizarro’s Spanish conquistadors strangled to death Atahualpa, the 13th and last emperor of the Incas, thereby ending 300 years of Inca civilization. The conquistadors were greedy and murderous, but the Inca civilization, arguably, was worse: totalitarian and radically inegalitarian. But they made great high-mountain roads. (Arguments about infrastructure promoted by Big Government continue to this very day. And it is quite possible that an earlier civilization made the roadways, which the Inca merely renovated.)

On this day in 1948, U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981 desegregating the U.S. military.

Bombers Off the Coast

No wonder Taiwan is going ahead, despite a typhoon battering the island, with its annual war games.

China threatens. And threatens. And threatens.

As discussed yesterday, it is unclear just how committed a Trump 47 administration would be to protecting Taiwan.

President Joe Biden, on the other hand, has repeatedly pledged to engage U.S. military forces in defense against China. But since he is physically and cognitively unable to run for the presidency, are we safe letting Joe hang out at the White House for the next six months performing the “lesser” job of being America’s commander-in-chief?

That position might suddenly take on a less sleepy character.

Just prior to Biden’s Oval Office address, NORAD disclosed that it had “scrambled fighter jets to intercept two Russian Tu-95 ‘Bear’ bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers off the coast of Alaska.”

Lately, the Philippines has gotten most of the CCP’s bullying, enforcing their ridiculous claim to 90 percent of the South China Sea. The U.S. has an unambiguous treaty obligation to the Philippines.

On the other hand, the U.S. position toward Taiwan, right there 80 miles off the Chinese coast, is friendly . . . but the U.S. doesn’t officially recognize Taiwan as a country and our policy toward its defense remains one of “strategic ambiguity.”

Still, unless the U.S. plans to leave Asia, and maybe even then, we will have to stand up to China. Best to draw that line, to mount that defense at Taiwan.

Why?

Because of the island’s worldwide dominance in producing vital computer chips, a New York Times headline declared, “Pound for Pound, Taiwan Is the Most Important Place in the World.” Kept free, that is.
But it’s more than that: without a free Taiwan uniting Japan and the Philippines in the “first island chain,” China can divide those two countries — both of which the U.S. is treaty-bound to defend — and conquer.
Taiwan is freedom and democracy’s success story of the last half-century, successfully throwing off four decades of martial law authoritarianism to become, arguably, Asia’s freest and most democratic nation.

Making it in my interest and yours to disallow the snuffing out of freedom on the other side of the globe.

We need a president who knows the world is a dangerous place, understands how critical Taiwan is, and levels with the American people about the challenges ahead.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

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

Thought

Gordon Cooper

Nothing like I’d ever seen. . . . I knew that we didn’t have any vehicles of that kind, and I was 99 and nine tenths percent sure that the Russians didn’t have any of that type either. . . . At that point in time there was no doubt in my mind that this vehicle was made at some other place than here on Earth.
NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper, on one of his several encounters with UFOs in the 1950s.

defense & war general freedom international affairs

Breaking Taiwan?

“Would you defend Taiwan against China?” Bloomberg News recently inquired of former President Donald Trump.

After mentioning his great “respect” for the Taiwanese — though complaining that the nation “did take about 100% of our chip business” — the Republican nominee responded: “I think Taiwan should pay us for defense. You know, we’re no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn’t give us anything. Taiwan is 9,500 miles away. It’s 68 miles away from China. A slight advantage . . .”

Indeed. But the Nazis and Imperial Japan once flaunted the same geographicadvantage. And note that the Japanese island of Yonaguni is closest to the big island of Taiwan.

Taiwan is much freer than China. And, accordingly, richer per capita . . . because the Taiwanese do give us (and the world) something: computer chip manufacturing, especially high-end chips. An important commodity. The Chinese government encourages and facilitates the stealing of our intellectual property; Taiwan companies just kicked our butts in the marketplace.

“Cool to the idea of the U.S. protecting Taiwan,” was how Nancy Cook, Bloomberg’s senior national political correspondent, not unreasonably characterized Mr. Trump’s comments. Still, Trump may have been simply negotiating up Taiwan’s military commitment, much as he did to NATO countries in his first term.

Of course, “Taiwan has been paying for its own defense,” says the State Department.

Taiwan has “consistently been one of the biggest buyers of U.S. weapons,” argues Michael McCaul (R-Texas), acknowledging that Trump “is right that U.S. allies should” pony up “in their own defense.”

Lastly, is the United States like an “insurance company”?

Well, it’s certainly a breakable world. But the idea is to prevent more breakage, not pay out after a disaster.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly

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

Tags China, Taiwan, Trump

Thought

Herbert Gerjuoy

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.
Herbert Gerjuoy, as quoted by Alvin Toffler in Future Shock (1970), Ch. 18, p. 414. Quotation from this psychologist is often misattributed to Toffler.

Today

A Liberation Day

On July 24, 1487, citizens in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, went on strike against a ban on foreign beer.

On the same day of 1823’s calendar, slavery was abolished in Chile.

July 24 serves as Pioneer Day in Utah and as Simón Bolívar Day in Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela.

On this day in 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court told President Richard Nixon that he lacked constitutional authority to withhold the infamous “Nixon Tapes” from Congress.

crime and punishment free trade & free markets general freedom

Rogue City Government?

Is it a coup?

Two years ago, Azael Sepulveda, a mechanic, sued the city of Pasadena. The city had demanded that he provide 28 parking spots before he could open a shop to fix things. The property his shop is on can accommodate only a few parking spaces.

With the help of Institute for Justice, which fights for people’s right to earn an honest living all over the country, Sepulveda reached a settlement with the city. He would be allowed to open.

Hurray. Big hassle, but now he could go on with his life.

Except that for two years the city has still blocked him from opening up.

So IJ had to sue again. And get this. Members of the Pasadena City Council recently said that for the past year they have been kept in the dark about developments in the case. This, “even though the city’s attorney claims to be acting on ‘instruction from city council.’”

That attorney, Bill Helfand, has been arguing that the city should be immune from litigation to enforce the city’s own settlement.

So . . . is it a coup? Is Helfand running local government himself, unauthorized, randomly ignoring settlements and whatnot?

Could some weirdly pervasive and persistent miscommunication be the problem? It just seems unlikely that mislaid telephone messages are why Sepulveda is still being stonewalled.

Whatever the problem is, Pasadena, fix it. “Stop with the games,” as IJ says. And let Azael Sepulveda get started fixing other things.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly

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

Tags business, government, regulations

Today

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell

I happen to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomenon is real, although it’s been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it’s leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it.
Edgar Mitchell, lunar module pilot on NASA’s Apollo 14 mission, as quoted in the July 23, 2008, edition of The Daily Mail UK.

nannyism national politics & policies

President Next

I’ve never liked Joe Biden. Not as a U.S. Senator, or Vice-President, or President. But I’ll be the first to acknowledge that his decision, announced yesterday, to relinquish his party’s presidential nomination, which he was set to formally receive at the Democratic National Convention next month, was the right thing to do.

Way to go, Joe!

First, however, Democratic Party bigshots decided — most importantly with money — that Mr. Biden was not cognitively up to the mighty arduous task of running for president. This fact became ever clearer to many Democrat representatives and senators the more they envisioned themselves becoming collateral political damage.

President Biden held out against their calls for his ouster for weeks after that fateful June debate. The subsequent campaign stops and high-profile interviews designed to showcase his abilities illustrated, instead, that our commander-in-chief was frail, feeble, feckless.

Now the president has endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democrat’s new standard bearer this fall. Still, stay tuned for an interesting DNC convention where Harris may face other challengers for the nomination.

And, as Detective Columbo used to say, “Just one more thing.”

There has been no word on whether in the coming days, not weeks, we will see the first female president of these United States, Kamala Harris.

If Democrats are too scared to have Biden as their leader this fall, should the American people really be okay with Biden sticking around for six months to be ours? Giving national and world leadership a continued go?

Thanks, but no thanks. Hello, President Harris.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly

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