Author: Redactor

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Common Sense

Jail the Liars?

Should people caught lying go to jail? Vindictive spouses would have a field day with that one, wouldn’t they?

Lying is objectionable, of course. But only certain kinds of lies — perjury, or lies used to steal from someone — should be punished by force of law.

Some people, however, are forever seeking new ways to harass other people. Especially, it seems, when it comes to perfectly legal activities that these busybodies happen to dislike. For example, petitioning to post a question on an election ballot. A process already suffering a multitude of burdensome restrictions in many states.

Arizona has just passed a law to penalize petition circulators who deliberately misrepresent the content of a petition they’re passing around. Anyone who does lie about a petition is behaving badly. But how can this law be enforced without sending intimidating “truth squads” to follow petitioners around, making their job even tougher? And how does one distinguish between “lies” and the often very sharply different understanding of issues that we always observe in political debate?

What a country this would become if all political “lies” could be punished by six months in jail. All politics would have to take place in a courtroom. And sadly, it’s not only the liars who would be rounded up. It would be those causing the most trouble for those with the most power.

There is, of course, a very easy way to be sure what a petition says. Read it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense

X Prize Marks the Spot

Presidential candidate John McCain has proposed that a $300 million prize be offered to whomever develops a car battery to make electrically powered cars more feasible.

It’s not a half-​bad notion.

Like the profits that serve as “prizes” for succeeding in markets, such a huge incentive would foster innovation a lot more effectively than flinging subsidies and regulations at people. For one thing, you only pay if somebody solves the problem.

Science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle suggests that if the government had simply offered a huge prize for a moon landing in the 1960s, “we might not have built an enormous standing army of development scientists who conceived the Shuttle as full employment insurance.”

But why is John McCain talking about this? We don’t need taxpayer dollars to fund exciting advances. The first prize offered by the X Prize Foundation, the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private space flight, was underwritten by an insurance company. The company didn’t think there would be a winner. So the foundation got a great deal on the premium.

Next thing you know, Burt Rutan’s team, financed by Microsoft co-​founder Paul Allen, flew 100 kilometers above the earth’s surface, twice in two weeks.

More than $100 million had been invested on new technology by the competitors. Not government money, private money. And even the non-​winners learned new things in the process.

Now that’s outta sight.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense

A Muse Not Amused

Blight. One of my favorite bloggers, Blue Collar Muse, refers to the continual abuse of eminent domain by government as “blight.” He“s playing off the slippery concept of blight that local governments use to condemn whole areas in order to steal homes and small businesses.

This Muse also alerted me to yet another instance of government blight: The story of Joy Ford“s light to keep her business, Country International Records, away from the bulldozers of Nashville’s Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency.

You see the MDHA is hooked up with a Houston, Texas, company trying to force property owners off their land to make way for a $100 million development scheme. So far, Mrs. Ford faces the wrecking ball.

It’s too bad Tennessee’s legislature didn’t pass legislation to further restrict eminent domain power after the Kelo decision. But wait … it did.

In one part, the Tennessee law forbids governments from taking property from one owner to give to another private party. But in another part, the law explicitly allows “housing authorities” and “community development agencies” to do just that. Outrageous!

Many states and localities enacted similar laws that are at best band-​aids, and at worst, blatant scams perpetrated against the public. In fact, back in 2006, when Tennessee’s law was passed, Drew Johnson of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research said it was a “joke.”

Funny, for all the jokes in government, why are we not amused?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense

Gas Price Fears

Fear stinks.

Literally, yes; but figuratively, too.

Moved by fear, we tend to get a bit irrational. Whenever something unpleasant happens to us all, there’s this tendency for mass irrationality.

I bring this up just as much to remind myself as to remind you. We’re all affected. Even something as mundane as gasoline prices can send the collective intelligence down a few IQ points.

Recently I wrote a column at Townhall on the widespread belief that prices will always and only go up.

I suggested that gas prices would likely go down soon. I’m not an economist. But I do remember a bit of history … some of the history that has occurred in my own life!

Why would prices plummet? Well, oil is such an important product that not only can it “drive us crazy,” but when the prices go high enough, it can cause recessions — that is, economy-​wide business and project and plan failures. So, during recessions, demand goes down. And when that happens, prices have to go down, to follow. As Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute reminds us, this has happened nine times since World War II. The drops ranged from 44 percent to 76 percent.

And, as Reynolds points out, even small-​but-​persistent demand drops, even without a recession, can cause the downturn in prices.

So the last thing we should do is let our gas price fears drive us to seek solutions from politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense

Remember Rangel

Have you ever tried to build a multi-​million dollar monument to yourself?

No? Well, I guess you’re not New York Congressman Charley Rangel. He’s been trying to fund the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York.

Monday, July 28, 2008

So far he’s nabbed a $1.9 million earmark to help put his name in lights, not to mention two HUD Department grants totaling another $700,000 from taxpayers.

Rangel’s goal is to raise $30 million for his Center. So, now he’s raising more money from special interests. Including those interests that have business before the powerful Ways and Means Committee, which Rangel chairs.

While watchdog groups are questioning the ethics of this fundraising in general, Rangel’s use of official congressional letterhead to solicit contributions for the Center seems without question to be a violation of House rules.

Recently, Rangel ran into more trouble in New York City, when it came to light that the congressman has four rent-​stabilized apartments. Once again, government regulation benefits the powerful.

Did I mention that this same congressman uses taxpayer money — $777 a month — to lease a Cadillac? Rangel says he wants his constituents to think their congressman is “somebody.”

Give him his due, though. After 38 years in Congress, Mr. Rangel has firmly established himself as a somebody — somebody responsible for helping achieve the lowest congressional approval ratings in history.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense

Trashy Governance in Britain

Talk about treating citizens like trash.

According to a New York Times report, garbage removal is getting worse and worse in Great Britain. Many local governments now pick up the trash only every other week, instead of every week.

And there are thousands of rules to obey:

  • About recycling.
  • Exactly when to deposit your garbage.
  • Against depositing “too much” garbage.

Special enforcement officers go around to check — and fine residents who fail to comply.

One victim of the trashy regime is Gareth Corkhill, a Whitehall resident fined £215 for leaving a garbage lid ajar. Then he got socked with another fine, for £225, when he couldn’t pay the first fine. Neighbors got together and paid the fine.

And complained.

The town rector, Reverend John Bannister, says receiving a criminal record “for leaving your wheelie bin open by three inches has, I think, really gone beyond the bounds of responsible behavior.”

That’s British understatement.

It’s not the ability to dispose of garbage that has disappeared in Britain. It’s the permission to do it. What really needs dumping is the authoritarian mentality.

First, stop punishing recipients of mediocre service who imperfectly submit to the mediocrity.

Second, privatize garbage pickup. Let entrepreneurship and competition freely work throughout the land.

Hey, people with extra garbage might be charged a little more. But there is no good reason to treat them like outlaws for providing “too much” business.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.