Author: Redactor

Categories
individual achievement responsibility

That Ol’ Double Standard

On Townhall​.com I discussed the ominous parallels between giving an award to a statesman who’s accomplished almost nothing and Hollywood insiders’ weirdo defense of international, jet-​setting rapist Roman Polanski. My point was that people tend to relax their standards for the people they like, remaining harsh to the people they oppose.

Though I picked on the liberalish mindset, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: This is not a problem limited to the Left.

I remember Republicans of my younger days thinking that Richard Nixon got a raw deal. True enough. Nixon’s two predecessors did nearly everything he did. But let’s remember: Nixon got justice. Or nearly so.

What he’s getting right now is none of my business.

There’s also the delay that I saw in conservative reactions against Tom DeLay’s obvious corruptions. And I’m not talking about his recent stint on Dancing With the Stars. I’m talking about his fancy footwork — and that of his supporters — in Congress.

The tendency to support a double standard — leniency for friends and cohorts, hanging judgments for enemies and opponents — is not new. It will never go away. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t surprise ourselves by sticking up for principle especially for those on our side.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency

Steal This Free Document

Is it possible to steal a free good? Ask a lawyer. She’ll look it up, probably in federal court records.

Now, our federal courts use a not-​very-​user-​friendly database system, known as PACER, for distributing public records. These records are the work product of democracy. Federal law prohibits copyrighting the information, making it public property. But the PACER system nevertheless requires lawyers and others who want to access court decisions to plunk out eight cents per page to get them.

Worse than this, the database isn’t keyword searchable.

Enter the geeks.

In a free market, a potential demand meets supply by the entrepreneurial minded. In this case, it’s just the freedom-​minded, the transparency-​minded. Some Harvard and Princeton affiliated computer whizzes developed a new tool or two to retrieve these documents little pieces at a time, planning to place them in a truly searchable system.

And then the courts opened the records to law libraries without charge, and one hacker wrote a PERL script and started downloading the whole database, in huge, streaming chunks.

Half a month later someone noticed. Egads, someone was stealing free information!

The FBI investigated, started following the infiltrator.

So, what do you do when someone steals public information? Exactly what the FBI determined, in the end.

Yes, sometimes “nothing” is the proper response.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies porkbarrel politics

Way More than Enough

“Enough is enough.” We say that when we’ve had too much.

When do we reach enough government spending?

One way to figure this out would be to determine what is the real public interest and spend enough to cover that, and no more. 

Take defense. A good diplomatic policy, backed by adequate military might, serves us all. We can argue what that good policy is, but we certainly don’t want more spending than required to serve said policy.

And yet, a much-​ballyhooed current defense spending measure is laden with line-​item spending projects that the Pentagon didn’t ask for.

President Obama, when he was a candidate, promised to crack down on such spending. It’s usually called “pork.” Unfortunately, politicians like pork. 

A fascinating post on the USA Today website explains how our prez signed “a pork-​laden spending bill left over from the previous year but vowed to be more vigilant going forward. Now, his administration is lauding a $636 billion defense spending bill, for the fiscal year that began Thursday, that includes $2.7 billion in earmarks” — including funding for destroyers and cargo planes the Pentagon didn’t ask for. 

Such spending doesn’t serve us all. It serves a few, back home in some districts. And it helps re-​elect their representatives. 

All at our expense.

By definition, it’s more than enough. It’s too much.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies

A Halloween Sermon

It’s amazing how often my online critics assume that I am a Republican. Hey, I’m not a member of either major party.

Still, I reserve the right to hold Republican feet to the fire — using their own principles. Democrats, likewise. I have to: Politicians in both parties control too much of our lives and ignore too many of their principles.

I was driving the other day and caught businesses putting up their Halloween-​themed promotions. I almost drove off the road: Halloween is almost here?

Of course, the holiday is several weeks away, but as I wrapped my mind around the idea of a “Halloween Season,” it hit me: So it is with politics.

Christmas is a notoriously imperialistic holiday. The season keeps starting earlier and earlier — gobbling up more of the calendar.

The Democratic Party is like Christmas. It has its Santa figures and its lore about sleighs full of goodies and a lot of activity in chimneys, being swept clean, etc.

The Republican Party is like Halloween: A bit scary sometimes — sometimes too eager to throw out the Bill of Rights … and its own Santa-​ish treat giveaways.

But the chief function of Halloween is to put an early, pre-​Thanksgiving stop to the imperialist creep of the big-​spending Christmas Season.

And maybe the real meaning of a Democrat Christmas is to stop the foolery of the Republican’s Halloween.

As an independent, of course my favorite holiday is Independence Day.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Will Politicians Ever Learn?

We don’t have time to research everything. That’s why, in theory, citizens have political representatives. They are supposed to research the issues for us, learn from past mistakes, and make improvements. Better laws. Better programs.

Welcome to reality. Instead of doing their job, politicians tempt us over and over with the same old, disproven get-​rich-​quick, get-​healthy-​quick schemes.

Peter Suderman, writing in the Wall Street Journal, looked at “The Lessons of State Health-​Care Reforms.” He did what our federal politicians should have. “Like participants in a national science fair,” Suderman writes, “state governments have tested variants on most of the major components of the health-​care reform plans currently being considered in Congress. The results…?” Suderman puts it bluntly: “[D]ramatically increased premiums in the individual market, spiraling public health-​care costs, and reduced access to care.… The reforms have failed.”

He discusses Maine’s public plan, “Dirigo Choice,” which I’ve talked about before. He traces the cause of Massachusetts’s individual mandate to its horrible effects: higher prices pushing businesses and individuals to bankruptcy. Tennessee’s 1990 reforms proved even more destructive.

One of the reasons we’re even talking about reform, now, is because of past reform failures. By our careless representatives.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom too much government

Wait Until Next Year

Enjoy the Major League Baseball playoffs. Me? I’ll be crying in my beer. Except that I don’t even drink beer … it messes with my sinuses.

I had very high hopes that the Detroit Tigers would make it to the playoffs, perchance to the World Series. In first place in the Central Division throughout June, July, August and September, the Tigers tied for first at season’s end with the Minnesota Twins. So after 162 games, it took one more to anoint the division champion. That 163rd game went back and forth for twelve innings. But we lost.

Boo and hoo. Not everyone can be a winner. Except, maybe, in another sense.

The corporate-​government complex that has taken over baseball and most of professional sports has milked billions from taxpayers. Everyone pays for stadiums even as players and owners rake in extraordinary rewards.

We could all win if this subsidy system were stopped. The fans, especially, could rejoice, savoring in good conscience the game’s important lessons: The ethic of always working your very hardest, doing your best, never giving up.

It’s entertainment and solid lessons about life that I can share, even now, with my kids. This summer we had the opportunity to travel to Detroit to see one game. And then, sitting on our couch, we watched on TV until the final pitch, hooping and hollering enough to make my wife shake her head.

After the game, we complained about missed calls and blind umpires, reminding ourselves that there’s always next year.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.