On December 12, 1939, Finnish forces defeated those of the Soviet Union in the first major victory of what became known as the Winter War, in the Battle of Tolvajärvi.
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Herbert Spencer
It is not, then, chiefly in the interests of the employing classes that socialism is to be resisted, but much more in the interests of the employed classes.
Herbert Spencer, “From Freedom to Bondage,” in Thomas Mackay (ed.), A Plea for Liberty: An Argument Against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation (1891).
President Donald Trump may win re-election because he dares speak the truth about toilets.
A Washington Post tweet presents the president talking about the insanity of American plumbing: “People are flushing toilets ten times, 15 times, as opposed to once. They end up using more water.”
Jeffrey Tucker, in a terrific piece for the American Institute for Economic Research, focuses on our national disgrace: “I know a man — a proxy for tens of millions — who came from a foreign country, threw down $500 per night at a New York hotel, and was astonished to find himself plunging the toilet within the hour of checking in.
“Not surprising,” Tucker writes. “Not unusual. American toilets don’t work right. This is why there are plungers next to every toilet.”
And Tucker suggests that Trump may beat whoever ends up as his Democratic challenger for no better reason than because, every now and then, Trump sides with common sense against bureaucrats, regulators, and politicians. And, in this case, seeks to do something about it.
Would any Democrat dare mention that it is Congress that ruined our commodes?
Of course, Republicans let it happen.
Our toilets, I have long insisted, provide a perfect object lesson for what is wrong with government today. Early in the history of this Common Sense commentary, I explored the theme: it has been over 20 years ago since I wrote of “A Congressman in Your Bowl”; a few years later, when I started writing columns for Townhall.com, I offered “Flush Congress.”
I don’t know precisely what Trump can do regarding either the plumbing issue or the clogged-up Congress issue, but I — plunger in hand — salute him for trying to do something.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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On December 11, 1957, American cartoonist and Reason magazine contributor Peter Bagge was born.
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Won But Not Over
The Office on Smoking at Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is not telling the truth about the war on tobacco use.
In an article at Reason, Jacob Sullum convincingly argues that the CDC persists on portraying tobacco use amongst teens as in crisis.
According to the CDC, past progress has been “erased.”
Looked at one way, the stats are alarming: “The share of high school students who reported using e-cigarettes in the previous month jumped from 11.7 percent in 2017 to 20.8 percent in 2018,” Sullum summarizes.
Sounds bad, eh?
But Sullum noticed something:
- the increase tobacco use is wholly the result of increased e-cigarette usage, which is less harmful than smoking;
- very few of the increased number of vapers actually vape regularly, with less than 6 percent vaping daily; and
- smoking has dropped dramatically, with “past-month cigarette smoking among high school students [falling] from 28.5 percent to 5.8 percent.”
So, why isn’t the CDC proclaiming victory?
Well, there is something called “Spencer’s Law.” Taken from Herbert Spencer’s essay “From Freedom to Bondage,” it goes like this:
“The degree of public concern and anxiety about a social problem or phenomenon varies inversely as to its real or actual incidence.”
“In plain English,” philosopher Stephen Davies explains, “this means that when a social problem is genuinely widespread and severe it will attract little notice or discussion. It will only become the object of attention, concern, and controversy precisely when it is in decline and its severity is diminishing.”
Why?
In the CDC’s case, could it have something to do with unlikely funding for a war already won?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
From a photo by Airman 1st Class Brittany Perry
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Herbert Spencer
A fundamental error pervading the thinking of nearly all parties, political and social, is that evils admit of immediate and radical remedies. ‘If you will but do this, the mischief will be prevented.’ ‘Adopt my plan and the suffering will disappear.’ ‘The corruption will unquestionably be cured by enforcing this measure.’ Everywhere one meets with beliefs, expressed or implied, of these kinds. They are all ill-founded. It is possible to remove causes which intensify the evils; it is possible to change the evils from one form into another; and it is possible, and very common, to exacerbate the evils by the efforts made to prevent them; but anything like immediate cure is impossible.
Herbert Spencer, “From Freedom to Bondage,” in Thomas Mackay (ed.), A Plea for Liberty: An Argument Against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation (1891).
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Passy, Dunant and Huck
On December 10, 1884, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was first published. This novel, narrated in the first person by the title character, is a dark comedy of the antebellum South and slavery, and has been considered by many American critics and writers to qualify as the “Great American Novel.”
On this date in 1901, the first Nobel Peace Prizes were awarded — to economist Frédéric Passy (pictured above), co-founder of the Inter-Parliamentary Union; and to Henry Dunant the founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Passy was an admirer of Richard Cobden and an active member in the French Liberal School of Political Economy that developed in the tradition of J.B. Say, Destutt de Tracy, and Frédéric Bastiat. His published works include Leçons d’économie politique (1860-61); La Démocratie et l’Instruction (1864); L’Histoire du Travail (1873); Malthus et sa Doctrine (1868); and La Solidarité du Travail et du Capital (1875).
In ten days, the Democratic Party will hold a presidential debate that, according to the rules established by the Democratic National Committee, includes six qualified candidates all of whom are white.
Which is apparently not the right color.
“Of course, there is nothing wrong with Democrats selecting a white presidential candidate to represent the party,” writes David de la Fuente at The Daily Beast. “But that should be up to the voters, and not the DNC by means of their debate inclusion practices.”
Those “practices” or rules seem straightforward enough — at least, they did . . . until the results were not to the liking of some. To earn a place on the Dec. 19 debate stage, a candidate must have garnered donations from 200,000 individuals, while also reaching 4 percent or higher in four recognized polls, or 6 percent in two polls.
The six qualified pale-faced candidates are: former Vice-President Joe Biden, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), billionaire activist Tom Steyer, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
A seventh candidate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, a woman of color, had also qualified for the debate stage — before she dropped out of the race.
Not yet able to jump all the hurdles? African-American Sen. Corey Booker (D-N.J.); Asian-American entrepreneur Andrew Yang; and Samoan-American Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii). They have all reached the donation requirement, but not yet met the polling threshold.
I wish them luck, especially my favorite, Gabbard.
Still, the choice is rightly up to Democratic voters. If enough speak up for Booker, Yang or Gabbard in polls, “diversity” will obtain its place.
If not, should Democrats use a racial quota system?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Emma Goldman
Witness the tragic condition of Russia. The methods of State centralization have paralysed individual initiative and effort; the tyranny of the dictatorship has cowed the people into slavish submission and all but extinguished the fires of liberty; organized terrorism has depraved and brutalized the masses and stifled every idealistic aspiration; institutionalized murder has cheapened human life, and all sense of the dignity of man and the value of life has been eliminated; coercion at every step has made effort bitter, labour a punishment, has turned the whole of existence into a scheme of mutual deceit, and has revived the lowest and most brutal instincts of man. A sorry heritage to begin a new life of freedom and brotherhood.
Anarchist Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment in Russia (1923), after she had traveled to the new Soviet Union and then returned.
On December 9, 1958, the John Birch Society was founded in the United States. December 9 also marks the birthdays of
- Poet and anti-censorship advocate John Milton (1608), author of the masterpiece of blank verse narrative, Paradise Lost (1667) and a classic prose defense of free speech and the press, Areopagitica (1644).
- Russian prince and anarchist theoretician Peter Kropotkin (1842), author of Mutual Aid and other books and pamphlets.
- John Malkovich (1953), who directed The Dancer Upstairs (2002) and starred in the odd eponymous film Being John Malkovich (1999). He recently appeared on streaming video with the movie Velvet Buzzsaw and, starring as Hercule Poirot, in The ABC Murders.