Paul von Mauser was born on June 27, 1838, and would go on to become a weapons designer. In 1869, Emma Goldman was born, to later become known as a feminist, anarchist, and early leftist opponent of Soviet Communism. In 1880, Helen Keller was born on this date.
Years ago, I dubbed Tim Eyman “America’s #1 freedom fighter,” and how does he repay me? Washington State’s anti-tax crusading initiative guru has gone and stolen my bread-and-butter issue, term limits . . . and married it up with another one of his tax initiatives.
He’s calling Initiative 1648: Term Limits on Taxes.
“This measure would require state tax increases to expire after one year unless approved by a majority vote of the people,” informs the official ballot title, “and immediately terminate any tax increases imposed in 2019 without such approval.”
Did someone say “tax increases”?
“They went absolutely bonkers this legislative session,” Eyman told radio host Lars Larson recently. “There were 11 tax increases; they totaled over $27 billion over the next ten years. And there’s just no checks and balances.”
Speaking with Dori Monson of KIRO Radio, he noted that “all of them were passed without a vote of the people. This initiative says whenever they raise taxes without a vote of the people, we’re going to put it on a strict time limit.”
But with a July 5th deadline, supporters have less than two weeks left to gather the 320,000 voter signatures required on the petition.
It is terrible that Evergreen State voters can’t term-limit their state legislators directly. But in 1998, the state supreme court struck down a term limits initiative passed by voters, ruling that a constitutional amendment was required — something only legislators can propose.
Now, thanks to Mr. Eyman, at least voters can slap term limits on their legislators’ tax increases.
Still, he stole the idea from me.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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The largest cultural menace in America is the conformity of the intellectual cliques which, in education as well as the arts, are out to impose upon the nation their modish fads and fallacies, and have nearly succeeded in doing so. In this cultural issue, we are, without reservations, on the side of excellence (rather than “newness”) and of honest intellectual combat (rather than conformity).
William F. Buckley, Jr., “Our Mission Statement,” National Review (November 19, 1955).
On June 26, 363, Roman Emperor Julian was killed during the retreat from the Sassanid Empire. On this same date in 1960, Madagascar gained its independence from France; in 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech.
“[H]ow quickly our differences worldwide would vanish,” said Ronald Reagan in 1987, “if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.”
Does that Reaganite talking point give us any hints about the current series of disclosures about Unidentified Flying Objects?
I noted the most recent story to hit mainstream news on Sunday, about members of the U.S. Senate being briefed on the many repeated Navy encounters around the world with Unexplained Aerial Phenomena — “UAP” being the current euphemism for “UFO.”
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the bulk of these news stories have been driven by a cadre of former government officials and contractors who have investigated UAP as part of a Pentagon research program. Now members of a non-profit educational corporation, they are on a mission to break the government-imposed silence and compartmentalized lock-up of knowledge about the phenomena.
This being America, the effort also has a History Channel tie-in.
But much of the buzz appears to be coming from outside that core group, some of it focusing on leaked documents relating to a 2002 meeting between a scientist and a Navy admiral. The subject matter includes a secret program studying actual, hangered examples of ultra-strange flying craft* kept deeply secret — even from current military command — in the corporate wing of the military-industrial complex.
A new threat to unite us all? Or just another excuse to throw taxpayer funds down the Pentagon/military-industrial complex rathole?
The ongoing UFO disclosure might be neither of these yet still not what it seems.
We should keep our minds open, but our suspicions set on high alert.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* The technology in question, in this document as well as in the footage disclosed in 2017, purportedly does not use propellers, jets, or rockets to move extremely rapidly, change course immediately, and hover.
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Virginia became the tenth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, on June 25, 1788. Other events on the 25th of June include Custer dying at the Battle of Little Bighorn (1876); Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird debuting (1910), with the composer becoming an instant celebrity; and Civil War veterans began arriving at the Great Reunion of 1913 at Gettysburg.
That peculiarly American religion, President-worship.
Gore Vidal, Matters of Fact and Fiction (1978)
“I love my students so much,” a protesting teacher in Hong Kong told a BBC reporter, wiping tears from her eyes. “I worry about they cannot have the freedom we have before. They cannot speak what they want to speak like us. So, I don’t want . . . this.”
Her English grammar notwithstanding, she speaks a language we should all understand: Liberty.
“If there must be trouble,” Tom Paine wrote in The American Crisis, “let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” As usual, it is the young, whose idealism and courage has not been worn down and compromised — and who have their own future children to fight for — who lead the effort, facing tear gas and truncheons. That is precisely what they’ve encountered in Hong Kong . . . along with pepper spray and rubber bullets . . . for now.
It can get worse.
Nonetheless, millions of Hong Kong residents have taken to the streets against Hong Kong’s legislature considering a bill to allow Mainland China the power to extradite criminal suspects. People well understand that, if the bill passes, their civil rights will be extinguished in China’s crooked, totalitarian justice system.
What to do? Hope and pray for Hong Kong.
But let’s draw some lessons. Freedom requires not merely bravery, but also unity. An attack on the rights of anyone is an attack on us all. And attacks on precious democratic checks on political power are attacks on everyone’s freedom.
Instead of the United Nations, we need an organization of united citizens across the globe. People everywhere want to be free and democratic. We should work together . . . bypassing our governments.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.
Thomas Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774).
June 24 birthdays include Henry Ward Beecher, clergyman and reformer (1813); Ambrose Bierce [pictured], author of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and The Devil’s Dictionary — his dark, cynical wit earned him the epithet “Bitter Bierce” (1842); Karin Pilsäter, Swedish politician of the Liberal People’s Party (1960).