Author: Redactor

Of course the Democrats are chomping at the bit to raise . . . the gas tax. With gas prices having plunged so low, they see a green flag. But then, high prices at the pump are something they like. You know, to “save the planet.”

And across the aisle in the Senate, anyway, it’s not just Inhofe who’s sending up smoke signals to indicate a willingness to “bargain”; Senators Hatch (R-Utah) and Thune (R-SD) seem onboard. (Thankfully, House Republicans appear less enthused.)

To aid the cause, Inhofe calls the gas tax a “user fee.” Euphemistically. He has the tiniest of points: the modern “deal” has been to tax fuel and then use that revenue to pay for new roads and upkeep.

But recent congresses have been spendthrift, misusing the revenues on idiotic projects (hiking trails, bike paths, museums) and not so much on repair. In that context, the call for higher taxes almost looks responsible.

There’s a problem, though. Several.

You cannot go on rewarding government when government fails. They waste money? Why, give them more! Sheer folly.

Further, lower gas prices have meant an effective increase in incomes for regular people. Taxing that away, after so many bad years, is just cruel — to both the middle class and the poor.

Only a politician could call that “responsible”!

I have a modest alternative proposal: Devolve all federal roadways to the states; abolish all federal taxes on fuel. Let the separate states figure best how to fix “our crumbling infrastructure.”

Congress, after all, has failed. Miserably.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags Democrats, gas tax hike, House, House Republicans, infrastructure, Inhofe, Senate, Senate Republicans

Today

Poddy, Jan 16

On January 16, 1930, conservative writer Norman Podhoretz was born.

Thought

Washington Irving

The tongue is the only tool that gets sharper with use.

ideological culture media and media people

Through a Glass, Tinted

One day last year, Slate Star Codex blogger Scott Alexander “woke up” to discover that “they had politicized Ebola.”

How?

It was, he explains, more than just a series of partisan cheap shots. Though there were plenty of those. It was something more startling, and in its own perverse way impressive. Everybody seemed awfully certain about what should be done, immediately, and along ideological lines, red and blue:

How did both major political tribes decide, within a month of the virus becoming widely known in the States, not only exactly what their position should be but what insults they should call the other tribe for not agreeing with their position?

The answer to the question?

Each tribe has its myths, er, “narratives,” and members of each concentrate on those stories that seem to demonstrate the truth of their . . . narratives. How you cover Ebola depends on other beliefs you already hold.

“Ideas are forces,” 19th century writer G. H. Lewes put it. “Our acceptance of one determines our reception of others.”

The result of sticking to one’s in-group mythos can have negative consequences, however. You can end up in Silly Putty Country, “saying ISIS is not as bad as Fox News, or donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to the officer who shot Michael Brown.”

Conservative journalists see everything through red-tinted glasses, liberal journalists refuse to look at the world through anything but blue-tinted one. And too many people follow their lead.

Occasionally, we could try on lenses of different colors.

But perhaps I speak so confidently because I come from another tribe. Green? Orange? Purple?

What color is liberty?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags myth, red and blue, Slate Star Codex

Today

Jan 15

On January 15, 1777, New Connecticut (present day Vermont) declared its independence.

Thought

Washington Irving

History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from the tablet: the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust?

crime and punishment insider corruption political challengers

Time to Drop Charges

Annette Bosworth is a medical doctor. She’s also a political neophyte, last year having sought the Republican Party nomination for the U.S. Senate in South Dakota.

She lost. Which is not surprising.

But the next day, she was arrested on twelve counts of election fraud and perjury. She awaits a Feb. 3 trial facing an incredible 24 years in the hoosegow — and, not insignificantly, the loss of her medical license if convicted.

Is Bosworth some sort of threat?

Here’s the story: She gathered ample signatures to earn a spot on the ballot, some at her medical office. During the petition drive, however, she went to the Philippines for two weeks to help victims of a typhoon.

According to dates on the petitions, 37 people signed when Dr. Bosworth was saving people and not in South Dakota. Yet, she signed as the circulator, stating she witnessed the signatures being affixed.

To the guillotine!

Bosworth had asked her campaign attorney if she needed to get those 37 folks — whom she knows, one being her sister — to re-sign. She was advised that she didn’t.

Attorney General Marty Jackley insists Bosworth’s crimes are “serious, deliberate and must be addressed in order to preserve the integrity of our elections.”

Calling such haphazard signature petitioning “commonplace” in South Dakota, former state senator Gordon Howie explains that “during the frenzy of political seasons, MANY (and I do mean MANY) South Dakota politicians circulate petitions and sign as circulators when they are not ‘in the room.’”

Let’s you and me ask* the AG to do the right thing: drop the felony charges.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Here is contact information for Attorney General Marty Jackley:

Ask him to do the right thing. Please drop all felony charges against Dr. Annette Bosworth.

Phone: (605) 773-3215

Email: atghelp@state.sd.us

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/MartyJackley

Official Contact page on AG’s website