Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., penned his Letter from Birmingham Jail while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama, for protesting segregation, on April 16, 1963.
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From Birmingham Jail
Author: Redactor
Star Trek may have adversely affected American politics. Its techno-communist utopian militarism was one thing, its attitude towards engineering? Perhaps worse.
In how many episodes did Captain Kirk demand that Scotty push the warp drives further, or decrease the time required for a task — arbitrarily according to his need, not actual possibility?
And, because television: presto, it was done; just in time for the finale!
We see that in the push for electric vehicles (EVs).
The EV mandates, explains The Epoch Times, “will likely cause a sizable wealth transfer from rural red regions of the United States to urban blue sections, and to wealthy Democrats who reside in them. . . .”
For while Democrats say they’re trying to “save the planet” from an increase in atmospheric carbon, really, analyst Robert Bryce counters, “it’s a type of class warfare that will prevent low- and middle-income consumers from being able to afford new cars.”
How? The EPA’s new “rules are the strictest in history and will effectively force carmakers to have one-third of new car sales be plug-in EVs by 2027 and more than two-thirds by 2032.” But according to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, “as much as $48,000 of the cost of the average EV sold in the United States is paid not by the owner but in the form of ‘socialized costs’ that are spread out among taxpayers and electricity consumers over a 10-year period.”
So the new rules will reduce the supply of gas-powered vehicles, driving up costs. And the increased number of already-subsidized vehicles will also be paid by taxpayers at large, while the benefits go to . . . mostly Democrats in the bluest counties of the bluest states, as
In recent years, Democrats have prided themselves that their “blue states” subsidize “red states,” mocking the “rugged individualist” pretensions of the hapless bubbas in flyover country. But now such boasts ring hollow.
This is the far-flung future?
Subsidy and regulation spoil the
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Ludwig von Mises
The capitalist system was termed “capitalism” not by a friend of the system, but by an individual who considered it to be the worst of all historical systems, the greatest evil that had ever befallen mankind. That man was Karl Marx. Nevertheless, there is no reason to reject Marx’s term, because it describes clearly the source of the great social improvements brought about by capitalism. Those improvements are the result of capital accumulation; they are based on the fact that people, as a rule, do not consume everything they have produced, that they save — and invest — a part of it.
Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow (1979; Third Edition: 2006),
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Bergen-Belsen Liberated
On April 15, 1945, the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated.
“I love America. I love the Constitution. I love the First Amendment. I want to carry . . . fucking guns. I love private property. And let me tell something: if you care about your fucking country, read Ludwig von Mises and the Six Lessons of the Austrian Economic School, motherfuckers.”
This rant by Brazilian fighter Renato Moicano, after a UFC victory, Joe Rogan in the ring officiating, went viral this weekend. But what does the fighter mean? What are the “six lessons” that Mises listed? Mises wrote a lot, after all.
A lot more than six lessons!
Turns out, “Money Moicano” is referring to the short book Ludwig von Mises wrote that is entitled, in America, Economic Policy. The book consists of six lectures, which is why, in Brazil, the book is called Six Lessons:
- Capitalism
- Socialism
- Interventionism
- Inflation
- Foreign Investment
- Politics and Ideas
The lessons of each section could be listed like this:
- A country becomes more prosperous in proportion to the rise in the invested capital per unit of its population.
- Economic calculation, and therefore all technological planning, is possible only if there are money prices, not only for consumer goods but also for the factors of production.
- The idea of government interference as a “solution” to economic problems leads, in every country, to conditions which, at the least, are very unsatisfactory and often quite chaotic.
- Inflation is a policy. And a policy can be changed.
- What is lacking in order to make the developing countries as prosperous as the United States is only one thing: capital — and, of course, the freedom to employ it under the discipline of the market and not the discipline of the government.
- Ideas and only ideas can light the darkness. These ideas must be brought to the public in such a way that they persuade people. We must convince them that these ideas are the right ideas and not the wrong ones.
Moicano’s rant has conjured up quite a bit of interest and appreciation:
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Tom Lehrer
When you attend a funeral,
It is sad to think that sooner o’
Later those you love will do the same for you.
And you may have thought it tragic,
Not to mention other adjec-
Tives, to think ofall the weeping they will do. But don’t you worry.No more ashes, no more sackcloth,
Tom Lehrer, beginning of the song “We Will All Go Together When We Go,” An Evening (Wasted) With Tom Lehrer (1959), track 2.
And an armband made of black cloth
Will some day never more adorn a sleeve:
For if the bomb that drops on you
Gets your friends and neighbors too,
There’ll be nobody left behind to grieve.
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First Abolitionists
On April 14, 1775, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, the first American organization committed to the abolition of slavery, was formed in Philadelphia.
On April 14, 1818, Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language, one of the first lexicons to include distinctly American words. The dictionary, which took him more than two decades to compile, introduced more than 10,000 “Americanisms.”
On April 14, 1988, representatives of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, the United States, and Pakistan signed an agreement calling for the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. In exchange for an end to the disputed Soviet occupation, the United States agreed to end its arms support for the Afghan anti-Soviet factions, and Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed not to interfere in each other’s affairs.
“At least 15 federal agencies knew from the beginning of the pandemic that EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology were seeking federal funding in 2018 to create a virus genetically very similar if not identical to COVID-19,” informs Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) “Disturbingly, not one of these 15 agencies spoke up to warn us that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been pitching this research.”
According to information on the U.S. Senate’s Homeland Security page, foreknowledge of the gain-of-function research program that led to the development of SARS-Cov-2 may have been rather widespread:
“Despite at least fifteen federal agencies having knowledge of the DEFUSE project in 2018,” the page continues, “its existence was not revealed to the public until 2021 and the involvement of NIH Rocky Mountain Lab in the initial proposal has never been previously disclosed. Dr. Paul expressed that the failure of these agencies to disclose their awareness of the risky research proposed in the DEFUSE project raises serious concerns.”
This reminds Common Sense of a catchphrase of the Watergate era: “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” But in 2020, the U.S. President was kept in the dark about the origin of the novel coronavirus — as was the American public. But a whole lot of members of the Administrative State knew a whole lot that they did not let on.
Who knew about the U.S.-subsidized origin of the Wuhan Institute-created virus, and when did they know it?
Past coverage of the origin of the “novel coronavirus” here at Common Sense is extensive, but these four articles might be a place to start:
- Twelve Monkeys in Charge? (June 18, 2020)
- Lab Rats (March 31, 2021)
- Lab Rats II: The Conspiracy (April 6, 2021)
- Lab Rats III: Doubling Down on Danger (April 7, 2021)
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Sen. Howard Baker, Jr.
What did the president know, and when did he know it?
Senator Baker’s key question in the Watergate scandal.
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Thomas Jefferson
On April 13, 1743, Thomas Jefferson was born. Author of Notes on the State of Virginia and the first draft of the United States’ Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was also a scientist, philosopher, inventor, diplomat, and American politician. He also composed music, designed buildings, and translated works from his favorite French writers, whom he had met in his diplomatic missions to Paris: Volney and de Tracy.