If one awakens in men the idea of freedom then the free men will incessantly go on to free themselves; if on the contrary, one only educates them, then they will at all times accommodate themselves to circumstance in the most highly educated and elegant manner and degenerate into subservient cringing souls.
President Donald J. Trump, former “reality TV” star, often seems merely to skirt reality.
“Our trade deficit ballooned to $817 billion,” President Trump exaggerated to the “men and women of U.S. Steel” last week.
“Think of that. We lost $817 billion a year over the last number of years in trade,” he went on.
“In other words, if we didn’t trade, we’d save a hell of a lot of money.”
This is the sort of dopey bunk a drunk at a bar might say, after the fourth shot had obliterated any remnant of economic understanding from his synapses.
But the president said this in Granite City, Illinois, in front of cameras, a live mic, and a cheering crowd.
And yet, as I wrote yesterday at Townhall, Donald Trump is now explicitly aiming at a worldwide free trade policy, negotiating to break down trade barriers and get rid of subsidies on . . . well, “non-automobile industrial goods.”
I’m almost afraid to ask him why not all industrial (and, for that matter, agricultural) products. Could one expect a coherent answer from someone who does not understand that an $817 billion “trade deficit” means that we, the consumers of the United States of America, got stuff from each billion spent? Each dollar?
And yet, if he pulls off worldwide free trade agreements — for whatever reason — he may almost be worth the attention that Bussa Krishna, of the southern state of Telangana, India, gives him.
The man set up a shrine to worship Donald Trump.
I will never do the same. But I’d tip my hat to almost anyone who fosters trade, and the peace and progress trade brings to the world.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
July 30, 1419, the First Defenestration of Prague: Jan Želivský, a Hussite priest at the church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows, led his congregation on a procession through the streets of Prague to the New Town Hall, on Charles Square. While they were marching, a stone was thrown at Želivský from the window of the town hall. The mob, enraged, stormed the hall. Once inside, the group threw the judge, the burgomaster, and some thirteen members of the town council out of the window and into the street, where they were killed by the fall or dispatched by the mob.
King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, upon hearing this news, was so stunned, the legend goes, that he died soon after.
On July 30, 1619, the first representative assembly in the Americas, the House of Burgesses, convened for the first time in Jamestown, Virginia. On the same date in 1676, Nathaniel Bacon issued the “Declaration of the People of Virginia,” beginning Bacon’s Rebellion against the rule of Governor William Berkeley.
On this date in 1863, representatives of the United States and tribal leaders (including the Shoshone’s Chief Pocatello) signed the Treaty of Box Elder.
July 30 birthdays include Henry Ford (1863), Gen. Smedley Butler (1881), C. Northcote Parkinson (1909), and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947).
Vanuatuans celebrate Independence Day on July 30.
Whenever a Government assumes the power of discriminating between the different classes of the community, it becomes, in effect, the arbiter of their prosperity, and exercises a power not contemplated by any intelligent people in delegating their sovereignty to their rulers. It then becomes the great regulator of the profits of every species of industry, and reduces men from a dependence on their own exertions, to a dependence on the caprices of their Government. Governments possess no delegated right to tamper with individual industry a single hair’s-breadth beyond what is essential to protect the rights of person and property.
Something happened this week that may prove bigger than the possible rapprochement with North Korea. Click through to Townhall to read the big reveal. Then come back here for some background. And stay tuned for further coverage.
This column will appear on this site on Tuesday.
On July 29, 1805, Alexis de Tocqueville was born. His most famous book, Democracy in America (two volumes: 1835, 1840), quickly became a classic of social and political research and analysis, and remains the most important early book about the United States of America. He is often referred to as a founder of sociology as well as a major figure in the development of classical liberalism.
Where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at length blows it down.
“Anderson Cooper and CNN,” Scott Adams tells us, “seem genuinely puzzled about why would the President lie wbout an extramarital affair. But that is not the only mystery they are working on.” Adams jests about other enigmas:
Seriously, Adams solves the mystery of the “cash” problem in the Cohen tapes:
https://youtu.be/tPTn4GSL5S0
The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world. Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations. It is not accidental that our greatest art is intimate and not monumental.
July 28, 1868, is the official date for the certification of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.