Author: Redactor

Emancipation Proclaimed

On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. One curious thing about the document is its promise of compensation:

And the executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States, and their respective States, and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves.

The proclamation was signed by Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward:

Done at the City of Washington this twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

The final version of the proclamation was delivered on January 1, 1863.

Thought

Blaire White

They don’t kill you because you’re a Nazi, they call you a Nazi so they can kill you.
Blaire White (@MsBlaireWhite) on X (September 12, 2025).

Today

At Salamis

On September 21, 480 BC, Greeks defeated Persian forces in the massive naval battle of Salamis.

Update

The Kimmel Question

What do people think of the firing of Jimmy Kimmel?

Well, not a firing exactly, as Paul Jacob mentioned yesterday, but, let’s agree, Kimmel’s exact employment status is not quite the issue. What’s at issue is what he said, and to what extent was the government influential in removing Kimmel from his on-air position even if only temporarily.

Dave Smith took, generally, Paul’s position: what Kimmel said was odd, dumb; and the FCC should not pressure a media corporation to remove on-air talent:

Joe Lancaster, at Reason, addressed the Kimmel FCC problem:

This week, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr criticized TV host Jimmy Kimmel for comments made about Kirk during his show. Carr openly intimated that ABC should take action or potentially face reprisal; within hours, the network suspended Kimmel’s show indefinitely. (Trump later praised Carr as “outstanding. He’s a patriot. He loves our country, and he’s a tough guy.”)
Of course, when the opposing party was in power, Carr recognized the error of such a threat. In 2022, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told podcaster Joe Rogan that during the 2020 election, Facebook artificially decreased the spread of a story about Hunter Biden in response to a request from the FBI.
“The government does not evade the First Amendment’s restraints on censoring political speech by jawboning a company into suppressing it—rather, that conduct runs headlong into those constitutional restrictions, as Supreme Court law makes clear,” Carr posted on X in response. Now that government power is in his hands, Carr apparently has fewer qualms about wielding it like that.

As for the influence of the FCC, one major player in the cancellation out-right denies any such influence: “‘The decision to preempt ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ was made unilaterally by the senior executive team at Nexstar, and they had no communication with the FCC or any government agency prior to making that decision,’ a Nexstar spokesperson told CBS News in an email Thursday.”

But, of all the reactions, The Babylon Bee aimed for a wider perspective:

Thought

Friedrich W. Nietzsche

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
Friedrich W. Nietzsche, The Dawn (1881).

Thought

Chester the Stalwart

On September 20, in 1881, Vice President Chester Alan Arthur was sworn in as the 21st President of the United States, after the death of James A. Garfield the previous day.

Garfield had cut an impressive figure in mid-century politics and was surely one of the smartest men to inhabit the office — if so briefly, having been sworn on March 4th. He was also a reformer. His successor, Arthur, was the very opposite . . . as was his assassin, Charles Julius Guiteau, who shot him on July 2nd. Indeed, Guiteau’s words upon shooting the president troubled more than one faction in American politics: “I did it. I will go to jail for it. I am a Stalwart and Arthur will be President.”

Guiteau was executed, rather than jailed for life. Chester Arthur went on to end the spoil system, but did appoint his old Stalwart patron, Roscoe Conkling, to the Supreme Court: the Senate confirmed the appointment, but Conkling declined the nomination.

First Amendment rights ideological culture media and media people regulation

Cancel Kimmel Culture

Reverse cancel culture is here, so to speak.

For years, leftists hounded any and all offenders against politicalcorrectness — meaning they’d root out anyone they disagreed with, including for saying anodyne things like “women are adult female humans and men are adult male humans” — directing hysterical online mobs against offenders’ employers, advertisers, and even ISPs.

Now it appears rightists are doing the same. People have lost their jobs for saying horrific — tasteless, hateful — things regarding the killing of Charlie Kirk. And Jimmy Kimmel just lost his high-profile late-night “comedy show” with ABC.

He’s literally been cancelled.

What happened? The Sinclair and Nexstar affiliate groups announced they will not (barring some apology) air Kimmel’s show anymore, and the two, together, own over 70 ABC affiliates — suggesting a substantial hit to the network’s bottom line.

“‘Jimmy Kimmel Live will be pre-empted indefinitely,’ a spokesperson for the Disney-owned network said in a statement,” reports the BBC.

The offense? “In his Monday night monologue, Kimmel said: ‘The Maga Gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.’”

One could nitpick.

It has, after all, been embarrassing to watch the anti-MAGA folks desperately try to pin the accused shooter’s motive on some bizarre theory about “groyper” culture and “furry” larping; truth is, after an obviously political assassination, nearly everyone will aim to “score political points.” Kimmel one-sidedly points only to his opponents.

Missing in the back-and-forth? The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates broadcast TV in the first place.

The FCC actually has a case that what Kimmel said was offensive and not “in the public interest.” But why should that count for anything? Were the broadcast spectrum privately owned — slots sold to the highest bidder, getting government out of any regulatory role whatsoever over media outlets — then, maybe, ABC wouldstand by its divisive host to satisfy only their core audience of partisan MAGA-haters.

And keep losing money . . . as is its right.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Thought

Voltairine de Cleyre

When I look at this poor, bleeding, wounded World, this world that has suffered so long, struggled so much, been scourged so fiercely, thorn-pierced so deeply, crucified so cruelly, I can only shake my head and remember: The giant is blind, but he’s thinking: and his locks are growing, fast.
Voltairine de Cleyre, conclusion to her essay, “The Economic Tendency of Freethought,” Liberty Vol. XI, #25 (February 15, 1890), alluding to the Biblical Samson (Judges) as the giant.

Today

First U.S. budget

On September 19, 1778, the Continental Congress passed the first budget of the United States.

Congress last passed a budget in 1997.

First Amendment rights

A Finn Reviled, and Worse

Post author By Redactor
Post date September 18, 2025
No Comments on A Finn Reviled, and Worse

Päivi Räsänen cited the Bible’s characterization of homosexuality, about men inflamed by “shameful lusts” (Romans 1:24-27). That’s why Finland is prosecuting her.

The effort continues even though the former minister of interior has been acquitted, twice, by lower courts.

Originally, Räsänen’s prosecutors cited three proofs of heresy. A post that she published in 2019, comments made during a radio interview, and her 2004 pamphlet “Male and Female He Created Them: Homosexual relationships challenge the Christian concept of humanity.” The radio “evidence” has been dropped from the case.

You may wonder why Finland’s prosecutors are dredging up religious expression from 2004 in order to pursue its bogus prosecution for a 2019 speech-“crime.” The pamphlet’s publisher, also being prosecuted, probably also wonders. I’m not sure, but my theory is that the prosecutors are jackasses. (The preceding sentence isn’t hate speech, just reasonable-postulate speech.)

The U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, part of the State Department, has taken up her cause, saying that “no one should face trial for peacefully sharing their beliefs” and that the case against Räsänen “for simply posting a Bible verse is baseless.” Then the Bureau also quotes the Bible, Matthew 5:11: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

Räsänen has expressed her gratitude and the hope that “justice will prevail not only for me, but for the wider principle of free speech in Finland.”

Americans should be looking in alarm at governmental attacks on freedom across the globe. As well as here at home.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Illustration created with Krea and Firefly

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