It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?
Author: Redactor
The Arkansas Chamber of Commerce’s CEO and chief lobbyist, Randy Zook and Kenneth Wall, have formed Arkansans for Common-Sense Term Limits.
The Chamber has a burning hatred for term limits — Common-Sense or otherwise — just like every other lobbyist and special interest. But Zook and Hall are fibbing in their name because they realize that voters love term limits.
The ballot committee’s stated purpose? To “advocate for the disqualification or defeat” of the Arkansas Term Limits Amendment, which citizens just petitioned onto the ballot, collecting 129,000 signatures.
Defeating such a popular ballot measure isn’t likely. Instead, these politically-experienced lobbyists are preparing to sue, hoping to disqualify valid voters’ signatures on some ginned-up technicality, feigning confusion over the clear ballot language — anything that might keep democracy from coming this November.*
At issue? The difference between real term limits and ridiculous ones.
That is, between term limits set by citizens and those set by legislators themselves.
Currently, legislators can serve for 16 years in a single seat under the state’s “limits.” And because two-year Senate terms aren’t counted at all, senators can stay as long as 22 years.
Legislators snuck this past voters in 2014 with a ballot title claiming only to “establish” term limits . . . amidst other lies. Politicians thereby turned Arkansas’s toughest-in-the-nation term-limit law into the nation’s very weakest — a significant 50 percent longer than limits in any other state.**
Unfazed by all the corruption in the Arkansas Legislature, Chamber lobbyists are focused on putting politicians in their pocket for as long as possible.
But those pesky Arkansas voters are once again in the way.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* After recently threatening to challenge the signatures of another initiative petition, Zook had to admit that he was not aware of a single problem or deficiency in the petition. But he quickly added, “It’s a very complicated process.”
** Arkansas’s term limits were the same as Michigan’s until 2014, three terms, six years in the House and two-terms, eight-years in the Senate.
Original photo by Jeff Kubina
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Nat Turner
On August 21, 1831, Nat Turner led slaves and freed black Americans in a rebellion that was quickly suppressed.
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Benjamin Constant
Where there are no rights, there are no duties.
The failures of the public high schools in the District of Columbia go on an on. It is quite a scandal, as I explained this weekend at Townhall.
And yet some “charter schools that serve large populations of children from low-income families,” notes the Washington Post, after providing much detail about the massive failures, “recorded big increases in scores.”
What hint about improving education does that fact give?
Well, Kevin Welner, a professor who heads the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, has an interesting thought: “People want to read into these test scores lessons about what the schools are doing. But these scores, even the growth scores, depend a great deal on students’ opportunities to learn outside of school. If we address the poverty and racism, then we will see these test scores increase.”
Hmmm. Let’s review: (a) the problem is at home and (b) it cannot be overcome by the schools. Moreover, the esteemed professor perceives the cause of these detrimental home environments to be “racism and poverty.”
Once upon a time, public education was proclaimed to be the great equalizer, allowing the disadvantaged to climb the economic ladder, and, if not wipe out poverty completely, to certainly dramatically reduce it.
Now, we discover from a certified education expert that we had it backwards.
So maybe it is time to chuck the whole experiment and just try to educate kids.
Not “save” them, or society.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Estonian Independence
On August 20, 1991, Estonia issued a decision to re-establish independence on the basis of historical continuity of the Baltic country’s pre-World War II statehood, sloughing off Soviet rule since 1940.
On August 20, 1935, Ron Paul was born. Paul is now famous for his heroic congressional record, his several presidential campaigns, and for books such as End the Fed and Liberty Defined.
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Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy does not attach men strongly to each other; but it places their habitual intercourse upon an easier footing.
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Townhall: The ABCs of Failure
Click on over to Townhall for the latest public schooling debacle. Then come back here for more testimony.
- Washington Post: In D.C. high schools, few students are passing national standardized test
- Common Sense: Reading, Writing & Racketeering
- Townhall: Teaching Students How to Cheat — and Fail
- NPR: What Really Happened At The School Where Every Graduate Got Into College
- Washington Post: Teachers at a D.C. school say seniors’ absences were erased, prompting investigation
- NPR: Head Of D.C.’s Schools Resigns After Personal Scandal And Amid District Tumult
- Washington Post: Stop enrollment fraud? D.C. school officials are often the ones committing it.
- Common Sense: Only Make Believe
- Common Sense: Cheaters Never Prosper
This article is now archived on this website.
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Patriotism and Protest and Ousting
On August 19, 1919, Afghanistan gained full independence from Great Britain. The British attempts to maintain an imperial presence in this region elicited an earlier, infamous essay in protest by English sociologist and anti-imperialist Herbert Spencer (pictured), “Patriotism” (Facts and Comments, 1902).
On this day in 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was placed under house arrest, a crucial event leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
In 1999, a mass rally of Serbians demanded the resignation of Slobodon Milosevic.
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War Party Protocols and Priorities
An interesting point about a little-talked-about media bias: