On January 29, 1761, Albert Gallatin was born. Gallatin served as the fourth United States Secretary of the Treasury — a post in which he served longer than any other in American history — advanced the anthropological and linguistic study of native Americans, and became the subject of a biography by Henry Adams. Called the “father of American ethnology,” he has been honored with a 1967 U.S. stamp as well as many place names, including the Gallatin National Forest in Montana.
Wartime brings the ideal of the State out into very clear relief, and reveals attitudes and tendencies that were hidden. In times of peace the sense of the State flags in a republic that is not militarized. For war is essentially the health of the State.
Randolph Bourne, “The State” (1918)
Challenged to a push-up contest at a town hall campaign meeting in New Hampshire, Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) hit the floor and won.
The presidential candidate (polling at 5.4 percent in the Granite State) probably will not win the nomination, alas.
Or her lawsuit against Hillary Clinton.
Lawsuit?
Yes, a slander suit against the author of What Happened.
It is one thing to publicly call out Mrs. Clinton for her prevaricative snipes — but sue her?
Boldness, at the very least.
Would you dare to stand directly in Hillary’s way?
Not to give credence to old #ClintonBodyCount conjectures, which connected a number of strange deaths in close proximity to her and her husband’s transit through the firmament of power, including old and more recent “suicides” . . . but the hashtag #TulsiDidntKillHerself is now trending on Twitter.
The lawsuit — dubbed a publicity stunt by David Frum in The Atlantic — involves Hillary’s public speculations (or conspiracy theory, if you will) that Tulsi is a “Russian agent.”
“Tulsi Gabbard is running for President of the United States, a position Clinton has long coveted, but has not been able to attain,” explains the lawsuit, filed in the State of New York. “In October 2019 — whether out of personal animus, political enmity, or fear of real change within a political party Clinton and her allies have long dominated — Clinton lied about her perceived rival Tulsi Gabbard. She did so publicly, unambiguously, and with obvious malicious intent.”
I am not a lawyer, but . . . while Mrs. Clinton’s insinuations-and-worse were malicious and almost certainly untrue, perhaps even diabolical, in our politics lying is the norm and hardly legally actionable.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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On January 28, 1912, Belgian economist Gustave de Molinari died. Molinari was one of the last major economists of the French Liberal School, heir to Frederic Bastiat, and a prominent advocate of free trade. His last book, The Society of To-morrow (the only one of his many books to be translated into English in his day) envisioned a future of extremely limited government, and argued against the growing tide of socialism and war that was becoming all too apparent as the future of Europe.
Indeed, the old liberal order of Europe ended with the beginning of the Great War, exactly two and one half years after Molinari’s demise.
On Jan. 28, 1981, President Ronald Reagan lifted the federal government’s remaining domestic petroleum price and allocation controls in the United States, helping to end the 1970s energy crisis and begin the 1980s’ oil glut.
The deregulatory move had been begun by Democrats in Congress, particularly Sen. Ted Kennedy, but had been placed on a gradual schedule, and the whole effort clouded with talk of “windfall profits” and a tax on those allegedly unfair returns on investment.
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
W. Somerset Maugham, Strictly Personal, Chapter 31 (1941)
Suppose I disagree with you — say, on whether I have the right to bear arms. I favor, you oppose. (We’re just supposing here.)
In the heat of online argument, I call you a scoundrel or other unkind things. I am intemperate but avoid libel or threats. Should I be jailed? (Remember, we’re just supposing here. Don’t call the constables!)
You and I would say “No.” But we can’t take our freedom of intemperate speech for granted, or our freedom of any speech at all that ruffles the feathers of rulers like those currently ruling the roost in Virginia.
Our forefathers understood the danger of abusing power to squelch dissent. Hence the First Amendment’s sweeping protection of even obnoxious peaceful speech.
Yet right after launching a massive assault on our Second Amendment rights, Virginia legislators are now launching a massive assault on our First Amendment rights. House Bill 1627 would make a Class 1 felony of “Harassment by computer”: “threats and harassment,” “indecent language,” “any suggestion of an obscene nature” when directed against the governor or other Virginia potentates in state government. Possible penalties include jail time.
Who will decide when rhetoric is mean and vulgar, blunt and honest, or some jumble of all the above? Or when the bill’s ambiguous catchall provisions, if enacted, are being violated?
Why, the only* people it’s meant to protect: those in government . . . who don’t like it when the people get angry and loud.
This legislation does not defend you and me. The opposite of the First Amendment, it’s designed to keep us plebs — the riffraff — silent.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* The special protection pointedly covers only “the following officials or employees of the Commonwealth: the Governor, Governor-elect, Lieutenant Governor, Lieutenant Governor-elect, Attorney General, or Attorney General-elect, a member or employee of the General Assembly, a justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia, or a judge of the Court of Appeals of Virginia.”
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On Jan. 27, 1973, President Richard Nixon’s Secretary of Defense, Melvin R. Laird, announced an end to the military draft in favor of a system of voluntary enlistment. Since 1973, the United States armed forces have been known as the All-Volunteer Force.
The Selective Service System, the federal agency that would administer a military draft, continues to be funded, however. Furthermore, American males continue to be forced to register for the draft.
I hasten to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to weep.
This weekend’s podcast covers last week’s big stories and a whole lot more. Call it an abundance, a hyper-abundance. But don’t call it a cluster anything — for, all yucks aside, this is serious stuff:
The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.