January 14 is New Year’s Day according to the old, Julian Calendar. On January 14, 1514, Pope Leo X issued a papal bull against slavery. On the same date in 1639, the first written constitution to create a government, the “Fundamental Orders,” was adopted in Connecticut.
At all times man approached his surroundings with wide open senses and a fertile intelligence, at all times he made incredible discoveries, at all times we can learn from his ideas.
Iraq War vet Daniel Gade is a lieutenant colonel, professor of public policy, and triathlon competitor with a message for fellow veterans: disability pay may be doing you more harm than good.
Having lost a leg in combat himself, he submits that he is a messenger somewhat harder to dismiss than some others would be.
Professor Gade criticizes how the government puts vets with relatively mild problems in the same category as those with true disabilities, and gives them incentives to stay out of the job market.
An example is the Individual Unemployability program, which treats veterans rated as at least 60 percent disabled as if they are 100 percent disabled as well as 100 percent long-term unemployable. Demonstrating that level of disability and unemployability to the satisfaction of the government means a bump in monthly benefits from $1,200 to $3,100.
“It’s a trap,” Gade insists.
He is working with private donors on a pilot program for vets. His idea is to give grants to develop employment skills rather than to maintain unemployment. Participants must forego any attempt to increase their disability pay by seeking a higher disability rating.
According to one soldier who gave the professor’s pitch a hearing, the government’s system to help vets “is just ‘Give me the money, who cares about anything else.’”
Gade’s proposal, on the other hand, “says go out and work, be productive, feel good about yourself. There is where we do well. If we don’t have a mission, we don’t do well.”
Accept the mission.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
The separation of state and church must be complemented by the separation of state and science, that most recent, most aggressive, and most dogmatic religious institution.
I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.
I have a suggestion. Bear arms.
Commenting on the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo, a Reason.com reader points to a profile of Henry Jarvis Raymond (1820-1869) at the website of Green-Wood cemetery.
At the moment, the most urgently relevant detail of Green-Wood’s profile is not Raymond’s co-founding of The New York Times, his politics or his friendship with Abraham Lincoln, but how he defended his paper against threat of assault.
“During the ‘high tide’ of the Confederacy . . . Raymond fought to rally public opinion in favor of the Union. When draft rioting mobs approached the offices of The New York Times in July 1863, Henry Raymond held them off with three Gatling guns he had obtained from the army.”
Charlie Hebdo has been attacked by Islamo-terrorists before. In 2011, its Paris office was badly damaged by a firebomb unleashed in reply to a “Charia Hebdo” issue of the satirical magazine.
At least since that attack, then, the risk to Charlie Hebdo staff for ridiculing Islam, Islamism and/or Muhammad* has not been merely theoretical. I applaud the fact that they have fearlessly persisted in their satiric mission despite what happened — and are fearlessly persisting now despite a much steeper cost.
But if you’re in that situation, please don’t just brave the odds. Even the odds. Ensure that personnel are well-trained in the use of firearms, and that these weapons are easily accessible at all times.
And if you’re a government, make bearing arms easy.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* It may be worthwhile pointing out — as many have — that the satirists were not narrowly ridiculing one culture, that of Muslims; they have been and are across-the-board satirists, mocking politicians, clerics and partisans of most (if not all) stripes. Further, though widely considered a left-wing magazine, its editorial policy has never fallen into the lefty rut of blaming only the West and bending backward to defend foreign criminals and tyrants.
On Jan. 12, 1904, Henry Ford set a land-speed record of 91.37 mph on the frozen surface of Lake St. Clair in Michigan, driving a four-wheel vehicle, dubbed the “999,” with a wooden chassis but no body or hood. Ford’s record was broken within a month, but the publicity from Ford’s achievement was valuable to the auto pioneer, who had incorporated the Ford Motor Company the previous year.
It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.
On January 11, 1571, the freedom of religion was granted to Austrian nobility.
What does a South Dakota physician have in common with an Egyptian political activist? Persecution by their respective governments.
Yes, it can happen here, folks.
Click on over to Townhall, and come back here for a little extra medicine.