Author: Redactor

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Townhall: Surreal Silver Spring Again

Post author By Redactor
Post date April 19, 2015
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The story that won’t go away, because the government just won’t let up. Click on over to Townhall.com, for today’s sad iteration of government overreach. Then click back here for a little more perspective:

Washington Post: ‘Free-range’ family again at center of debate after police pick up children
Common Sense with Paul Jacob: Well-Substantiated Insanity
Townhall: “Trickle-down Tyranny,” by Paul Jacob
Facebook: I Stand with the Meitivs against CPS
Bethesda Magazine: “A Timeline of the Incidents Involving the Free-Range Meitiv Kids in Montgomery County”
ABC News: 911 Call of Man Reporting Children
Washington Post: “Parents rally around ‘free-range family’ with petitions, protest plans”
Huffington Post: “Free Range Parents Danielle and Alexander Meitiv Need to Stop Fighting and Put Kids’ Safety First”

Today

The Revolution Begins

On April 19, 1775, the American Revolution began when the “shot heard around the world” was fired between the 700 British troops on a mission to capture Patriot leaders Sam Adams and John Hancock and to seize a Patriot arsenal and the 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the Lexington town green. The Battle of Lexington ended with eight Americans killed and ten wounded, along with one wounded British soldier.

In Concord, a couple of hours later, British troops were encircled by hundreds of armed Patriots. The British commander ordered his men to return to Boston without directly engaging the Americans, but on the 16-mile journey they were constantly attacked by Patriot marksmen firing at them Indian-style from behind trees, rocks, and stone walls. By the time the British reached the safety of Boston, nearly 300 soldiers had been killed, wounded, or were missing in action. The Patriots suffered fewer than 100 casualties. (See Liberty’s Kids for a video on these events, or the video featured on this page.)

On April 19, 1782, John Adams secured the Dutch Republic’s recognition of the United States as an independent government.

Thought

Tom Clancy

“Nothing is as real as a dream. The world can change around you, but your dream will not. Your life may change, but your dream doesn’t have to. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it. Your spouse and children need not get in its way, because the dream is within you. No one can take your dream away.”

Tom Clancy, commencement address, Loyola University 1986 graduation

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Video: Executing Innocents

Post author By Redactor
Post date April 18, 2015
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The horror of an evil crime prompts us to demand the death penalty. But the horror of executing — killing — innocent people should make us worry about that same death penalty, no?

Today

April 18

On April 18, 1689, Bostonians rebelled against the government of Sir Edmund Andros.

On this day in April, in 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States, split 5-4, upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

April 18 marks the 1772 birthday of David Ricardo, English political economist and one of the most influential thinkers in economic theory.

Thought

Frédéric Bastiat

“I wonder how we could have ever thought of doing anything so fantastic as to pay many millions of francs for the purpose of removing the natural obstacles that stand between France and other countries, and at the same time pay many other millions for the purpose of substituting artificial obstacles that have exactly the same effect; so that the obstacle created and the obstacle removed neutralize each other and leave things quite ‘as they were before, the only difference being the double expense of the whole operation.’”

Frédéric Bastiat, from Economic Sophisms, a book against the artificial obstacles created by the protective tariff.

Today

Ronald Hamowy

April 17 marks the 1937 birth of Ronald Hamowy, Canadian historian, who first came to international prominence for his writings in the short-lived New Individualist Review. Hamowy died in 2012.

Thought

Frédéric Bastiat

Nature has provided, by means as simple as they are infallible, that there should be dispersion, diffusion, coordination, simultaneous progress, all constituting a state of things that your restrictive laws paralyze as much as they can; for the tendency of such laws is, by isolating communities, to render the diversity of condition much more marked, to prevent equalization, hinder integration, neutralize countervailing circumstances, and segregate nations, whether in their superiority or in their inferiority of condition.
Frédéric Bastiat, from Economic Sophisms, “To Equalize the Conditions of Production” — the “such laws” mentioned are protectionist measures, and protectionism was the chief target of Bastiat’s famous book.

Thought

Frédéric Bastiat

[I]f two countries are placed under unequal conditions of production, it is that one of the two that is least favored by nature that has most to gain by free trade.
Frédéric Bastiat, from Economic Sophisms, “To Equalize the Conditions of Production.”

Thought

Frédéric Bastiat

“The state can put its taxes to either a good or a bad use. It puts them to a good use when it performs services for the public equivalent to the value it receives from the public. It puts them to a bad use when it squanders its revenues without giving the public anything in return.”

Frédéric Bastiat, from Economic Sophisms (included in the Laissez Faire Books ebook edition, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen, 2014)