Author: Redactor

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First Amendment rights international affairs privacy

Private Chat, Back Now in Europe?

European Union, EU, Germany, surveillance, censorship, civil liberties

We seem to have Germany — not a typo: Germany — to thank for the fact that one of the most intrusive EU gambits attacking freedom of speech is about to fail.

The proposal would let governments monitor all private chat messages, via mandatory back doors, without bothering with such trivialities as warrants, probable cause, evidence.

The European Union centralizes many assaults on liberty that member countries are supposed to supinely accept once enacted. But it can’t ignore individual members as proposals are still en route to becoming law. And the German government, often not exactly a beacon when it comes to free speech, has now made its opposition to this particular mode of surveillance and censorship loud and clear.

As Germany blocked the plan, first announced in 2022, German Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig said that “unprovoked chat control must be taboo in a constitutional state. . . . Germany will not agree to such proposals at EU level.”

Parliamentary leader Jens Spahn of the Christian Democratic Union also uttered some common sense, explaining that warrantless monitoring of chats “would be like opening all letters as a precautionary measure to see if there is anything illegal in them. That is not acceptable, and we will not allow it.”

Although the proposal is not yet quite dead, the German opposition makes it extremely unlikely that EU bosses can go further with it.

Great spirit, German officials. Cheers to now applying this principle consistently — as is required of principles.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Roger Bacon

Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.

Roger Bacon, in Robert Belle Burke The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon Part 2 (2002), p. 583.
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Today

The Big Book Debuts

On October 10, 1957, Ayn Rand’s dystopian/utopian (quasi-science fiction) novel of ideas, Atlas Shrugged, was published. Written to advance an individualist, freedom/free-market point of view and to show the consequences of statist ideology, it became one of the most influential and literarily successful didactic novels ever written.

Atlas Shrugged appeared on The New York Times Bestseller List for 21 weeks, and continued to sell thereafter, averaging 74,000 copies per year in the 1980s, over 95,000 copies per year in the ’90s, and in 2011 sold 415,000 copies. Atlas Shrugged has also appeared on numerous “best of” lists. In 1991 the Book of the Month Club and Library of Congress asked readers to name the most influential book in their lives: Atlas Shrugged came in second only to the Bible. Numbered among the book’s fans have been many artists, politicians, and thinkers, not least of whom was Ludwig von Mises.

Categories
ideological culture too much government

Too Big for the Hermit Kingdom

Kim Jong Un, North Korea, women

North Koreans endure one of the least fun-loving, most sensuality-repressing regimes on the planet.

Normally, government officials in the Hermit Kingdom strictly enforce all manner of regimentation and self-deprivation, at least for those being ruled. If you’re a happy citizen in North Korea, check the map. You are not in North Korea.

There may be light at the end of the tunnel, though. Kim Jong-un’s administration has put out an all-points edict, also all-areolas, ordering North Koreans to be on the lookout for women with un-socialist breasts. 

The precipitant is an “ongoing show trial of two women in their 20s accused of undergoing breast enhancement operations by a backstreet surgeon.”

As you know, every socialist breast is the product of the forces of dialectical materialism, in consequence of which such bosoms, albeit firm and loyal to the supreme leader, are often Marxist-Leninist to a fault. Normally, then, we expect collectivist cleavage to be immune to capitalist leering as well as any other such “rotten capitalist act.”

Now, however, North Korea has turned a corner in its attitude toward mammary glands. Everyone is being ordered to stare at women well below eye level, especially any that might have benefited from augmentation in violation of Das Kapital.

While this new all-eyes alert may sound like a recreational activity for most men, it won’t be fun for the women who get dragged off to hospitals to be medically examined to determine whether their breasts are entirely for real or have been corrupted by “bourgeois customs.” 

But North Korea isn’t supposed to be fun.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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William Whewell

And so no force however great can stretch a cord however fine into an horizontal line which is accurately straight.

William Whewell, Elementary Treatise on Mechanics, The Equilibrium of Forces on a Point (1819).
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Today

Roger Williams

On October 9, 1635 — and after many religious and policy disagreements — Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

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government transparency insider corruption national politics & policies

The Stick-to-it-iveness of the Deep State

James Clapper, Amy Semple McPherson, Russia, Donald Trump

“It is essential that we (CIA/NSA/FBI/ODNI) be on the same page and are all supportive of the report,” wrote former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, “in the highest tradition of ‘that’s OUR story, and we’re sticking to it.’ ”

Clapper wrote that in a recently declassified email from late 2016. It’s about RussiaGate, which his inter-departmental team had concocted out of Clinton oppo campaign research leading up to Donald Trump’s unexpected win that year.

“This is one project that has to be a team sport,” urged Clapper, expecting unity on his scheme to undermine Trump’s presidency.

While you and I may hope that saving the country isn’t mere sport to our leaders, we should learn from divulgations of this kind. They know what they’re doing, and are serious about it, even when “sticking to” an obviously nutty story.

Do you remember where that phrase came from?

On May 18, 1926, Aimee Semple McPherson vanished while swimming at Venice Beach, California. A massive search — involving divers, the Coast Guard, and a $25,000 reward — came up bupkis. But this media innovator and founder of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel reemerged five weeks later near the Mexican border, saying she had been abducted by three strangers, held captive in a desert shack, tortured, and forced to write ransom notes before her escape, walking 40 miles through wilderness. Her wild story quickly fell apart as evidence of a torrid affair was made public. But in response to relentless questioning from prosecutors, journalists, and skeptics during the following grand jury hearings and trials, the Pentecostal evangelist repeatedly affirmed her account, often uttering variations on what became an infamous theme: “This is my story, and I am sticking to it.”

James Clapper channeled that while orchestrating his much more serious public fraud. And he expects to get away with it, too, like “Sister Aimee” did, through bluster. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Herodotus

In peace sons bury fathers, but in war fathers bury sons.

Herodotus, The Histories, Book I, Chapter 87.
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Today

Solzhenitsyn for the Win

On October 8, 1970, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize in literature. In his acceptance speech, given after his deportation from the USSR, he said that “during all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared this would become known.” In 1962, Nikita Khrushchev had allowed Solzhenitsyn’s short novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch to be published, and defended the novel at the presidium of the Politburo, claiming that there is “a Stalinist in each of you; there’s even a Stalinist in me. We must root out this evil.” Nevertheless, Solzhenitsyn’s works were not published in the Soviet Union from 1964 through 1989. Stalinists won, for a time, with Solzhenitsyn being deported to West Germany in February 1974.

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crime and punishment ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall

Mostly Democratic

Michigan, illegal immigrants, voting, democracy, violence

An email from Voters Not Politicians (VNP) predicts that if a certain popular ballot measure gets enough signatures “it’s likely to pass.”

Great! Wonderful to see democracy in action, eh?

Not so much for this leftwing political action committee, however. “We have to keep this proposal off of Michigan’s ballot in 2026,” the email went on.

The initiative petition in question is Michigan’s Citizen Only Voting Amendment, which (1) clearly establishes that “only” U.S. citizens are eligible voters in all state and local elections, (2) mandates that the Secretary of State check the voter rolls for citizenship status, and (3) requires photo ID to vote. 

Polls have shown upwards of 80 percent of Michigan voters support the measure. Perhaps spurred on by the noncitizens who were shown to have voted unimpeded in last November’s presidential election.

How will VNP honchos accomplish their mission of suppressing a petition for a public vote on this ballot initiative? They urge folks to “learn how to peacefully disrupt circulation.” 

“Disrupt”? That doesn’t quite go with “peacefully.” 

Last month, Charlie Kirk was assassinated speaking on a college campus. According to a recent poll,* the percentage of Democrats who believe “Americans may have to resort to violence” to achieve political goals has doubled this year. Back in April, a survey found that a majority of self-identified “left-of-center” respondents agreed it was “somewhat justified to murder President Trump.” The same survey found that 15 percent found it “completely justified.”

Destroy democracy to save it? 

As chairman of Americans for Citizen Voting: We won’t let you. Stop trying to block us and others from speaking. Instead, speak out against our measure to your heart’s content. 

I also suggest looking for a rallying slogan that fits better with “peacefully.” 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* From 12 percent of Democrats saying so in May of 2024 to 28 percent this year. The percentage of Republicans believing violence may become necessary is higher still — 29 percent in 2024 and 31 percent in 2025. A whopping 77 percent of the public cited political violence as “a major concern.”

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