On October 29, 539 BC, Cyrus the Great entered the city of Babylon as conqueror. His general policy of religious toleration would be extended to the exiled Hebrews, who were, not long after, allowed to return to their homeland.
On the same date in 1923 AD, the Ottomon Empire’s dissolution marked the start of the Turkish Republic.
That’s what liberal philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill called Britain’s Tories, and affixing the “stupid” label to conservatives has been important for intellectuals ever since: it’s one way they feel good about themselves.
We can argue about the (in)justice of the accusation till the cows come home and go out to pasture again, but it’s the Democrats who are pushing brain-damaged leaders, not Republicans.
I’m not just referring to President Joseph Robinette Biden’s many out-of-mind moments. I’m also talking about Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s run for the U.S. Senate.
The man suffered a stroke last spring, and has mostly been hiding out in the proverbial Biden Basement ever since. But on Tuesday he appeared on stage to debate his Republican opponent Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Fetterman’s mental impairment? Obvious.
He began with the immortal clumsiness of “Good Night” rather than “Good Evening,” and stumbled through question after question. His handling of the minimum wage issue was slow-witted, and his awkward and robotic — and so obviously deceptive — repetitions regarding fracking sent shivers down my spine.
It’s not my purpose to make fun of people with brain injuries. But it is my role to call attention to the apologetics by Democrats (and the center-left/far-left news media) for their candidate, and their pretense that Fetterman’s just fine.
He isn’t. Biden isn’t.
And this says something about where Democrats are — intellectually; spiritually.
Very not fine.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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The second you attain power, you become what you’ve been fighting against.
Mike Resnick, Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (1986), Chapter 23.
On October 28, 1886, in New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated by President Grover Cleveland, despite the fact that the monument was not a federally funded project.
It’s extremely difficult to carry firearms for protection in states like Illinois, California, New Jersey and New York — except for certain Very Special Persons — rich enough or connected enough for special treatment.
Thankfully, the judicial system — which has the benefit of various guiding principles from a long-gone time when the rulers wore red coats — is disallowing some of the nonsense.
Still, it’s a struggle to “de-class-ify” Second Amendment rights — that is, take gun rights from being a class issue favoring the rich and famous and allowing all peaceful citizens legal access to firearms.
“Two weeks ago, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against many of the restrictions on public possession of guns that New York imposed after the Supreme Court upheld the right to bear arms last June,” writes Jacob Sullum in Reason. “Unfazed by that warning, New Jersey legislators this week advanced a strikingly similar bill that includes a subjective standard for issuing carry permits and sweeping, location-specific restrictions that make it legally perilous even for permit holders to leave home with guns.”
Politicians in these blue states remain resolute: they aim to unconstitutionally restrict access to guns. They strongly resist the current individualistic (as opposed to class-based) trend in judicial interpretation of the Second Amendment.
Their idea seems to be: guns for us, but not for them.
And we’re the Them.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
Rudyard Kipling, from the poem “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” (1919).
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘Stick to the Devil you know.’
On October 27, 1964, Ronald Reagan delivered a speech on behalf of Republican candidate for the United States Presidency, Barry Goldwater, thereby launching Reagan’s political career. The speech came to be known as “A Time for Choosing.”
Two years earlier, Vasili Arkhipov, a flotilla commander present on the Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine B-59 in the Caribbean sea, defied the order of the sub’s captain, Valentin Savitsky, to launch a nuclear device. The captain had concluded that war had started while the submarine had been submerged. He had inferred this from the depth charges that American ships had deployed in order to force the submarine to the surface during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Captain Savitsky, seeking the necessary approval of two others on board, ordered political officer Ivan Masslenikov and the flotilla commander Vasili Arkhipov to launch a nuclear torpedo.
Masslenikov agreed. Arkhipov refused.
The date was October 27, 1962, and World War III was prevented by this one man, Arkhipov, who held his ground while facing the increasing anger of the submarine commander, refusing to approve a nuclear torpedo launch that would most almost certainly have triggered a conflict that would have doomed civilization, perhaps most or all of humanity.
That, we can now agree, was a “time for choosing” — and the correct choice was made.
Much of the evidence coughed up as a result of the litigation has taken the form of email exchanges. An official might email a social-media rep something like: “We find this post disturbing. Can you do something about? Like maybe censor it?” The rep might double-quick reply: “Done! Anything else I can do today to secretly help the government circumvent the First Amendment?”
Certain officials have been particularly central in the saga, including eight persons that a judge is now letting plaintiffs depose: Anthony Fauci, former press secretary Jennifer Psaki, FBI agent Elvis Chan, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Carol Crawford of the CDC, Daniel Kimmage of the State Department, and a couple of others.
During her tenure Psaki spoke openly about the Biden administration’s demand for more censorship of “misinformation,” which is the new code word for disagreement. So it’ll be hard to deny that she said that stuff.
Crawford is in charge of the CDC’s digital media activities, activities that included regular meetings with staff of social-media companies.
Among other subjects, plaintiffs will be asking Anthony Fauci about an email exchange with Francis Collins discussing a “takedown” of the Great Barrington Declaration, which opposed lockdown policies.
I’m all ears.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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The first duty of power is to perpetuate itself. The first duty of free men is to resist it.
Mike Resnick, Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (1986), Chapter 23.
On October 26, 1774, the first Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Exactly one year later, King George III of Great Britain went before Parliament to declare the American colonies in rebellion. And one year later yet, to the day, in 1776, septuagenerian Benjamin Franklin (pictured, above) departed from America for France, seeking financial support for the American Revolution.