An interesting take on what the Wall Street Journal calls “little fiefdoms”:
Maybe they should be called “little thiefdoms”!
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Author: Redactor
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Baruch Spinoza
Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.
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Thanks for Freedom
For two days my message has been about thankfulness. I’m going for the trifecta.
This may disappoint Sheldon, a commenter at ThisisCommonsense.com, who pooh-poohed my earlier expression of gratitude. “It sounds as though one of the guests invited to your Thanksgiving table will be your very distant relative Pollyanna,” he teased.
Countering my view that “the abundance on our Thanksgiving tables” comes from “the freedom to work and produce and trade with each other,” he argued that this abundance “decreases yearly as government-produced inflation eats away at our purchasing power. Every single aspect of our ‘freedom to work and produce and trade’ and even to eat, drink, travel and enjoy life is surveilled, controlled, obstructed and regulated by ‘our’ government.”
Though I certainly didn’t notice any diminution of the “abundance” at yesterday’s feast, Sheldon nonetheless has a point. Heck, it sounds like he’s been reading these commentaries word-for-word!
There is, indeed, a lot that’s wrong in this world — and the power and arrogance of government is right there in the middle of most of it.
But in necessarily focusing on the problem, on our eroding freedom and lack of control over our lives, let’s not lose hope. Instead, let’s be thankful for what we do have: the ability to do something about it.
There are solutions. Even with all the political corruption and rules rigged to favor the insiders, we still have meaningful freedom to stand up, to speak out, to help create and organize and agitate for desperately needed change.
I’m thankful for that much freedom. Let’s use it to make more.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
On November 28, 1893, women voted in a national election for the first time . . . in New Zealand. On the same date in 1917, the Estonian Provincial Assembly declared itself the sovereign power of Estonia. November 28 also marks the independence of Mauritania from France (1960), and East Timor from Portugal.
In 1894, on November 28, economics journalist Henry Hazlitt was born. Halitt went on to write “Economics in One Lesson,” “Time Will Run Back,” and several books criticizing Keynesianism. He was the main proponent of the work of Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek in America during the 1940s and 1950s.
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Baruch Spinoza
Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.
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November 27, 2012, Model Parliament
November 27, 1295, the first elected representatives from Lancashire were called to Westminster by King Edward I to attend what later became known as “The Model Parliament.” On the same date in 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, thereby establishing the Nobel Prizes.
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Baruch Spinoza
If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.
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Happy Thanksgiving, 2014
And thank you for your continuing interest and support.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Tomorrow will be a day of Thanksgiving, a wonderfully unpretentious holiday in a terribly pretentious time.
Thanksgiving is a national celebration about simply having enough food to eat and about eating it together . . . and recognizing, at least for a moment, how great that is.
The “dining together” part is so important that enormous controversy has erupted in recent years as retailers jump the next day’s usual start of the Christmas season, “Black Friday,” by daring to open up on Thanksgiving Day itself. Many complain that stores are frustrating the feast by “forcing” their workers to work.
Last year, I made the point that families truly committed to eating a meal together could find a way to do so, and that workers are not “forced to work,” but actually enjoy a meaningful degree of freedom in when they work. And I remember being very grateful for the opportunity to earn a living by working on a holiday.
In fact, the abundance on our Thanksgiving tables every year is only possible through the freedom to work and produce and trade with each other. This American holiday is also about giving thanks for that freedom.
Freedom has, like it or not, led to long lines of eager customers waiting for those retail doors to open. I’m no big fan of shopping, but more power to those who are.
Still, freedom has also led to a full-throated public discussion — and backlash. A New York Post article credits social media with mobilizing public sentiment against stores opening on the holiday and causing some stores to roll back their hours.
Brian Rich runs Boycott Black Thursday, a Facebook page with over 100,000 likes. “We are not anti-capitalism,” says the Idahoan, who suggests shoppers spend to their hearts’ content on Friday, but celebrate “a good old-fashioned holiday at home” on Thursday.
I’m thankful stores can open if they wish and that customers have money to trade for products they want. And I’m mighty glad that we don’t have to shop if we don’t want to and that we can speak out freely against stores opening and in favor of folks spending more time with loved ones.
On Thursday, I’m grateful for all those in my family and my wife’s with whom I’ll get to break bread. On Friday, well, my youngest daughter will get me up way too early to take her shopping.
And, doggone it, as painful as it is: I’m thankful for that, too.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Baruch Spinoza
The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.