The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.
John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765).
We know this because they voted to continue federal government operations by raising the debt limit. Or so Mrs. Clinton says. It’s just “common sense”!
Talking with Christiane Amanpour on CNN, last week, the former presidential candidate explained that these sane Republicans are “intimidated,” adding, “they oftentimes say and do things which they know better than to say or do.”
To get to common ground with these compromised GOP folks, however, the measures that intimidate them — while exciting their extremist, insane MAGA proponents — must be roundly defeated.
No compromise.
In times past, our representatives in Congress could work together; but back then, argues the former First Lady, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State, “there wasn’t this little tail wagging the dog of the Republican Party.”
That is, conservative representatives would kindly admit defeat every time the green light was given to more and more spending. Now they won’t cooperate.
It’s extremism, in Hillary’s judgment, to oppose the ceaseless growth of the warfare-welfare state.
But, Hillary being Hillary, she had a corker to unleash. “Maybe at some point there needs to be a formal de-programming of the cult members.”
Just like Mrs. Clinton to generously offer re-education camps to her opponents.
Followed by an admonition: “we have to be smarter.”
How is it smart (or sane) to continually grow the federal debt, its mere service now larger than the defense budget?
By talking about formally deprogramming MAGA extremists Hillary Clinton skillfully deflects her supporters’ attention from the real need: informally deprogramming their own insane debt-piling status quo mindset.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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A gun is not an argument.
Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966).
On October 10, 1957, Ayn Rand’s dystopian/utopian novel Atlas Shrugged was published. Written to expound and defend an individualist, freedom/free-market point of view, it is one of the most influential and literarily successful didactic novels ever written.
On October 10, 1973, Austrian-born American economist, Ludwig von Mises* (pictured above) died.
Two-hundred fifty-nine years earlier, the French law-maker and Jansenist Pierre le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert died.
Both economists were known for their defenses of freer markets: le Pesant for pioneering the critique of mercantilism, arguing that a nation’s wealth consisted in what its people produce and trade; Mises for systematizing economic theory and advancing the critique of both socialism and latter-day mercantilism (what he called “interventionism”).
* In January 1958, following the publication of Atlas Shrugged, Mises wrote Ayn Rand a letter of congratulations.
“I really think if we can identify the ‘why,’ especially amongst the juveniles, we might be able to change our approach on how to slow this down,” says Carlos Heraud, an assistant chief at the DC police department.
Along with other crime in Washington. D.C., carjackings are up. Why?
Some people choose to be criminals. And some policymakers choose to aid and abet them.
It’s a matter of incentives and disincentives, but also choices and character.
Since different people react differently to being born into poverty — or being disrespected, being peer-pressured, being bored, being fired — we cannot simply say that criminals are created by difficult circumstances.
Most do not become thugs and hoodlums.
Some who make criminal choices pull back and determine to do better. Others commit offenses forever. Chief Heraud and D.C. mayors and lawmakers should heed the insights of Stanton Samenow’s Inside the Criminal Mind. Although criminals make excuses for themselves and latch onto the excuses made for them by others, they know they’re responsible for their actions.
But while circumstances don’t create the criminal mind, circumstances can abet crime. For example, if you make it easier for criminals to get away with assault and theft, they’ll likely commit more assaults and thefts.
The government of our imperial capital makes it hard for potential victims to arm themselves, easy for criminals who are “caught” to walk away. If you’re a criminal operating in a town like that, it’d have to be encouraging to receive by this kind of encouragement?
After all, it’s not a question of bad incentives incentivizing all to be wicked. The effects can be seen on the margin, among those most likely to be induced by corrupt incentives, or to not be dissuaded from criminal action by reduced disincentives.
No great mystery.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Empire may be gained by gold, not gold by empire. It used, indeed, to be a proverb that “It is not Philip, but Philip’s gold that takes the cities of Greece.”
Plutarch’s Lives: “Aemilius,” sec. 12.
On October 9, 1635, Protestant theologian Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a religious dissident after he spoke out against punishments for religious offenses and giving away Native American land. He moved south, founding Providence Plantations, where he worked for separation of church and state, the rights of aboriginal Americans, and against slavery.
“It’s just beyond belief”:
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
Plutarch’s Lives: “Sertorius,” sec. 16.
The date October 8, 1582, does not exist in the records of Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain, the result of that year’s implementation of the Gregorian calendar.
Fearing a Catholic plot, Protestant countries adopted the more accurate calendar much later. By the time Britain and its colonies got on board in 1752, eleven days had to be “disappeared.” This caused riots in some places, as people suspected some horrible chicanery — and in actual fact the inspiration for the “Give us our eleven days” protest had something to do with taxes, so it might not have been as idiotic as it now seems.
On October 8, 1793, American merchant, president of the Second Continental Congress (1775–1777) and first and third Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, John Hancock (b. 1737), died.