On January 21, 1950, Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury, with Whittaker Chambers being the main witness in Hiss’s prosecution. Chambers confessed to having been a Soviet spy, and accused Hiss as an accomplice, which Hiss denied to his dying day. Chambers gave a fascinating account of all this in his bestselling 1952 memoir, Witness.
Paul’s weekend podcast has been discontinued. But he still has something to say — from the streets of Taipei:
I am sick and tired of flying all the time with these white pilots landing safely and on time. Boring!
Punchline to comedian Rob Schneider’s bit about United Airlines’ new DEI hiring practices.
On January 20, 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union was founded.
North Carolina, in the form of its Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors, disagrees. The Board sought to prohibit his speech unless he obtained a professional license, and it threatened him with sanctions.
As Institute for Justice puts it, the Board ordered Nutt “to stop talking about math in public.”
In response, Nutt sued, with IJ’s help.
Nutt often writes letters or speaks at public meetings to discuss problems with the designs of buildings and other structures. He also testified in court about flooding of a housing development. This is what caught the attention of the Board, which claims that for Nutt to utter such testimony or any public statements enlisting his specialized knowledge is illegal, amounting to practicing engineering without a license.
“I like the freedom to be able to speak up,” Nutt says.
I sympathize with this desire, as did the Founders who gave us the First Amendment to protect freedom of speech. Fortunately, so does Chief Judge Richard Myers of North Carolina’s Eastern District. He has just issued a favorable ruling in the case.
“This is a win for more than just me,” Nutt says. “There are a lot of people in the same situation — people who have expertise that they’ve been blocked from talking about. This decision is an affirmation that the First Amendment protects all of our rights to share what we know.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Do not surrender to a political class that only wants to stay in power and retain its privileges.
Argentinian President Javier Milei, at the recent World Economic Forum at Davos, as quoted by Tom Woods on X, January 17, 2024.
On January 19, 1808, Lysander Spooner was born.
Spooner’s achievements in American life, law, and political philosophy, are among the most colorful of the 19th century. Studying law privately, he sued to practice without joining the bar, and won the suit. He set up a postal service that directly competed with the United States Postal Service, delivering mail at a fraction of the cost. He wrote The Unconstitutionality of Slavery, and convinced noted Garrisonian abolitionist Frederick Douglass of his argument. (The book became the centerpiece of intellectual ammunition for the Free Soil Party.) Later in life Spooner turned against constitutionalism itself, and penned some of the most radical political works of his day, including Vices Are Not Crimes and The Constitution of No Authority. Spooner also clearly articulated a “jury nullification” position in his classic treatise Trial by Jury.
So it is that dozens of Republican congressmen have filed an amicus brief to support an NRA lawsuit against Maria Vullo, a former New York State regulator of the financial services industry. And so it is that the NRA will be represented before the Supreme Court by the American Civil Liberties Union.
After the 2018 Parkland shooting, Vullo pressured financial service companies to boycott organizations like the National Rifle Association that advocate Second Amendment rights.
The NRA sued, contending that Vullo had acted against their First Amendment rights. When the Supreme Court agreed to take their case, the NRA thought: who better to represent us before the justices than the ACLU?
The ACLU, which has not always been consistent in defending free speech, agreed.
Its national legal director, David Cole, says that “the ACLU has long stood for the proposition that we may disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Although this case is also about speech, more directly it is about using governmental force to try to stop people from conducting peaceful financial transactions.
If such intimidation of financial companies — or, what is being challenged in separate litigation, of social media companies — were allowed to stand, government would be fully unleashed to threaten market actors in order to prevent constitutionally protected actions and speech that officials dislike.
Our constitutional rights made meaningless.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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I would like to leave a message for all businesspeople here and for those who are not here in person but are following from around the world. Do not be intimidated, either by the political caste or by parasites who live off the state. Do not surrender to a political class that only wants to stay in power and retain its privileges.
You are social benefactors. You are heroes. You’re the creators of the most extraordinary period of prosperity we’ve ever seen. Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral. If you make money, it’s because you offer a better product at a better price, thereby contributing to general well-being.
Do not surrender to the advance of the state. The state is not the solution. The state is the problem itself.
Argentinian President Javier Milei, at the recent World Economic Forum at Davos, as quoted by Tom Woods on X, January 17, 2024.
On January 18, 1689, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, French satirist and philosopher, was born.
His treatise The Spirit of the Laws was a major influence upon America’s founding generation. He is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, which is implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. He did more than any other author to secure the place of the word despotism in the political lexicon.
In 1811, former U.S. President Thomas Jefferson translated and published Destutt de Tracy’s Commentary and Review of Montesquieu’s ‘Spirit of Laws,’ a very popular review of republican principles — which helps demonstrate how important these French writers were to the American form of government.
Montesquieu died on February 10, 1755.