Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now. Thus in France the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine, and the potatoe as an article of food.
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-1783), Query XVII, pp. 169–170.
Paul Jacob expands upon the big stories of the week, not excluding the mostly positive tales of the mask mandaters routed:
This Week in Common Sense, January 22, 2022.
“The subjects of every state,” says Dr. Smith, “ought to contribute [490] towards the support of the government as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”
This maxim, though it sounds fairly, will not bear examination. What mean those last words, “under the protection of the state”? They are either irrelevant, or else they mean that the protection enjoyed affords the measure of the duty to contribute. But the doctrine that the members of the community ought to contribute in proportion to the benefits they derive from the protection of the state, or according as the services performed in their behalf cost less or cost more to the state, involves the grossest practical absurdities. Those who derive the greatest benefit from the protection of the state are the poor and the weak—women and children and the aged; the infirm, the ignorant, the indigent.
Even as among the well-to-do and wealthy classes of the community, does the protection enjoyed furnish a measure of the duty to contribute? If so, the richer the subject or citizen is, the less, proportionally, should he pay. A man who buys protection in large quantities should get it at wholesale prices, like the man who buys flour and meat by the car-load. Moreover, it costs the state less to collect a given amount from one taxpayer than from many.
Returning to the maxim of Dr. Smith, I ask, does it put forward ability to contribute, or protection enjoyed, as affording the true basis of taxation? Which? If both, on what principles and by what means are the two to be combined in practice?
Francis Amasa Walker, “The Social Dividend Theory of Taxation,” in Political Economy (Third Edition, Revised and Enlarged: 1888), pp. 489-490.
Paul Jacob returns this weekend to recap the big stories of the week, in this episode of This Week in Common Sense:
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-1783), Query XVII, p. 169.
It is wasteful for the government to commandeer resources from the private sector during good times, and it’s even more harmful when the government kicks the economy during a recession.
Robert P. Murphy, Ph.D., Contra Krugman: Smashing the Errors of America’s Most Famous Keynesian (2018), p. 18.
It was not immediately clear what had changed regarding “the science,” when, midweek, Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson lifted the Queen’s government’s mask mandates and other coronavirus restrictions.
The case for and against mask efficacy has been about the same for a very long time. There’s no obvious statistical evidence for mask mandates working. And pre-2020 studies showed ambiguous results for preventing virus transmission by wearing masks — and certainly not for the cloth masks most people wear.
So what changed?
Well, Johnson cited the omicron variant. “Our scientists believe that the omicron wave has now peaked nationally,” he said, adding that hospital admissions had stabilized and that London admissions were falling.
So he lifted mask requirements in schools, too.
This takes some pressure off him. The vast majority of Brits are tired of masks, especially on students.
Predictably, however, some school masters appear to be clinging to the cloth.
Regardless, why the change?
Spokespersons for the beleaguered opposition party, Labour, argue it’s mostly political, since Boris was caught at two bigwig parties where no one was wearing masks. “Can the PM share the evidence,” asked one, “behind his decision and that he’s not just protecting his job?”
And Johnson says that “the scientific evidence is there for everybody to consult” — but, face it, everything these politicians say is half-assessed and untrustworthy.
Still, at least the people of Britain will receive a little let-up from the oppressive “scientific” tyranny of their government.
Not all states to the west of the Atlantic can say the same.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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What people want is simple. They want an America as good as its promise.
Barbara Jordan, Commencement Address, Harvard University (June 16, 1977), as cited in Let me tell you what I’ve learned: Texas Wisewomen Speak, PJ Pierce, University of Texas Press (2010), p. 16.
Some Google shareholders are pressing Google for records of its communications with the Biden administration. And not just any old records. They are specifically demanding those pertaining to the administration’s demands for censorship.
Per the First Amendment, it is unconstitutional for government to seek to muzzle people for saying things that government officials disapprove of.
Yet the Biden Administration and others, including members of Congress, have openly (and repeatedly) urged big-tech social media companies to more assiduously censor discussion of COVID-19 policy, COVID-19 vaccines, the nature of COVID-19. The president did this again just last week: “I make a special appeal to social media companies and media outlets — please deal with the misinformation and disinformation that’s on your shows. It has to stop.”
Everything we’ve seen adds up to a slam-dunk case against the government for violating the First Amendment. We know that government officials are asking social-media companies to censor. They’re not hiding it.
Suing the government’s big-tech lackeys — and government officials, when plausible — is one way to combat the evil.
The National Legal and Policy Center, a Google shareholder, is trying to secure a requirement that the company disclose the content of any communications between itself and the government related to the Biden Administrations calls for censorship. Last summer, the administration stated that it was “in regular touch” with the big-tech giants.
Will Google voluntarily produce documents showing that it acquiesced in specific Biden administration demands for censorship?
No. But as Charles Glasser has pointed out, there is precedent for a judicial finding that media are de facto “government agents” when they work “hand-in-hand with government in violating constitutional rights.”
The effort may not succeed, but it’s worth a shot.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Francis Amasa Walker, Money in Its Relation to Trade and Industry (1889).
Paying debts is always a disagreeable necessity.