For some reason, the much-touted, golden rule of “follow the science” is not being taken seriously by our leaders in the fight against the CCP contagion. They cannot help themselves??? They are basically just authoritarians. Or so say Paul Jacob and Timothy Virkkala in this weekend’s podcast:
It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him. They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others.
Henry David Thoreau, “A Plea for Captain John Brown” (spoken at a meeting in Concord, Massachusetts, October 30, 1859, while John Brown was still in jail).
Over the weekend, I said goodbye to two friends: Ronn Neff and Mike Gravel.
Ronald Nelson Neff passed away September 26th, at age 72, after “a prolonged illness,” wrote his longtime friend, Tom McPherson, at The Last Ditch, a libertarian/anarchist newsletter the two co-founded.
Neff, a well-respected editor of numerous books and publications throughout his career, was perhaps best known as managing editor of Joe Sobran’s newsletter from 1994 to 2007. Ronn also authored important libertarian essays, including “Polite Totalitarianism.”
Jacob Hornberger, president of The Future of Freedom Foundation, remembered Neff as “one of the most committed, passionate, knowledgeable, and principled libertarians you’d ever meet.”
Ronn was that sort of Christian, too. Before ever meeting him, while I sat in prison for refusing to register for the military draft (1985), he and his wife began tithing each month to help my family. When our car broke down, Neff’s generosity made it possible for my wife and daughter to continue to travel the six hours to visit me.
Yes, there are people like that.
Mike Gravel died at his California home on June 26th from multiple myeloma. History may remember the 91-year-old best as the courageous Democratic U.S. Senator from Alaska who — five decades ago, during Vietnam — dared to read the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record and filibustered against the military draft.
In 2008, Gravel decided to advance his political causes by running for president somewhat unconventionally — seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination and later the Libertarian Party’s.
Then in 2020, at 90, he allowed a group of high school students to use his Twitter feed to run him for president in a “front-porch” campaign. A new documentary about the effort, American Gadfly, is being released later this year.
I first connected with Mike in the 1990s, when I was running U.S. Term Limits (another issue the two-term senator and I clicked on). Yet, what inspired me most about Gravel was his incredible zeal for direct democracy, for citizens having more say-so through initiative, referendum and recall.
Instead of the disdain for the public exhibited by so many Washington insiders, Senator Gravel had a profound respect for the people.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse.
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953), Coda (1979).
On October 15, 1894, Alfred Dreyfus (1859 – 1935) was arrested for spying: The Dreyfus Affair began. And thus began a scandal that brought anti-Semitism into the cultural center.
‘Yoda is the green face of white supremacy.’
‘Gone too far, inclusion has.’
Bridget Phetasy, Dumpster Fire #70, “Take Me to the Glue Factory,” September 27, 2021.
On October 14, 1644, Willliam Penn was born. An English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania (the English North American colony and future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania), he was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful treaties with the Lenape Indians. Penn died in 1718.
“Southwest Airlines crews are walking out and so are FAA air traffic controllers,” Buzz Patterson tweeted on Sunday. “This is just the beginning.”
Buzz’s running for a House seat in California’s Seventh District. But I saw the tweet as quoted on Facebook by Erin Leigh, who wrote “Exactly what needs to happen. Over 1800 Southwest flights have been canceled in the last 48 hrs . . . employees from other airlines are joining as well as Amtrak.” And she concluded with “Mandates have consequences!!”
But what really caught my attention was Facebook’s warning: “Independent fact-checkers say this information has no basis in fact.”
Really? None?
You see, much of what was tweeted and Facebooked was definitely true: Southwest Airline pilots and other workers have walked out. And though the airline and the union provide the silliest rationales for the mass cancellations as cover — including blaming non-existent bad weather — it seems pretty obvious this is tied to the vaccine mandates. Tucker Carlson is nearly alone in covering this angle of the story — bemoans The Guardian — while the rest of corporate media relays the “nothing to see here” official spin (or “media blackout”).
Meanwhile, Facebook promotes its guardian of truth, “Lead Stories” — but its “fact-check” was entirely about the Amtrak shutdowns!!
Candidate Patterson didn’t mention Amtrak. And Ms. Leigh noted Amtrak almost as an afterthought.
And then, up on my screen, came Facebook’s altered image of the initial tweet, with “Regular Delay” super-imposed.
The Facebook post was mostly about airline business.
And while Amtrak officials and mouthpieces for the Transport Workers Union of America assure us that it’s all very regular . . . the jab mandate is in place, and labor . . . dislocations . . . are one consequence.
Our regularly scheduled re-scheduling will be re-explained by history.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Capitalism and socialism are mutually extinct. Why? Because science now finds there can be ample for all, but only if the sovereign fences are completely removed. The basic you-or-me-not-enough-for-both — ergo someone-must-die tenets of the class warfaring are extinct.
Richard Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1969), p. 39.
On October 13, 1870, American social critic and education theorist Albert Jay Nock was born. Nock was the author of a number of books, including Jefferson, the Man and Our Enemy, The State, but was probably most famous for his intellectual autobiography, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, which was widely read and admired amongst conservatives in the 1950s and ’60s.