Category: Accountability

Categories
Accountability general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders political challengers Regulating Protest too much government

Know Your BS

Tim Eyman, Washington, initiative, free speech, tax, taxes

“Help me get my B.S. in the voters pamphlet,” read the subject-line of Tim Eyman’s email. 

Eyman is a practitioner of the art of the voter initiative, foremost in his state, Washington, and one of the most effective nationwide.*

This particular call to action concerns the voter pamphlet statements about a tax increase placed on Washington State’s November ballot by the mayor and city council in Tim’s hometown of Mukilteo.

“In the pro statement,” Eyman explained, “they wrote that the need for the tax increase was ‘indisputable.’” Which his rebuttal countered with: “Politicians always say the need for higher taxes is ‘indisputable.’ We call B.S. on that.”

It is rather to the point.

But soon he received word from the city that, “The Auditor feels the language is inappropriate and would like you to choose different wording.” Rather than “We call B.S. on that,” it was suggested that he might use: “We call foul.”

Eyman objected. He pointed out that B.S. is used ubiquitously; he sent the city examples.

“I called the ACLU,” his email noted, and “they thought it was B.S. for the government to say you can’t say B.S.”

Eyman’s own attorney, Stephen Pidgeon, sent the city a detailed letter pointing out that this is “exactly the speech protected under the First Amendment.”**

The City of Mukilteo has yet to announce a final decision. Tim Eyman invites all of us to send an email to encourage the city to Let Eyman Keep his B.S. in the Voters Pamphlet.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* He was once even dubbed “America’s No. 1 freedom fighter” — by me.

** Pidgeon also offered, “While the pious may construe the inference of these two alphabetic avatars as meaning something crude, my client may very well have been referencing an ancient Latin phrase ‘Bubulum Stercus’ which no average voter would ever find inappropriate.”

PDF for printing

 

Categories
Accountability folly free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture media and media people nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Political Regroupings

Democratic Party, Democrats, strategy, principles, big government, leftism, donkey

What’s true for hurricanes is true for the Democratic Party.

After a disaster, it takes a while to regroup, really get a handle on what went wrong. Men and women take some time to absorb new realities.

A few interesting think pieces have come out of the left and center-left, recently, trying to digest what is wrong with the Democrats that they lost so much ground last year — even to someone like Donald Trump. To serious people, the “Russians did it” and “the Deplorables!” are not exactly winners.

Hillary Clinton may be stuck in that mode, but the Democratic Party needn’t be.

The more radical response came from John B. Judis, whose name was big in lefty magazines when I was young. His article “The Socialism America Needs Now,” in his old stomping grounds, The New Republic, tried to make the case for a vague leftism that could be called socialism, if you stretch the term, emphasizing bigger government without seeming too . . . Marxist.

Meanwhile, Mark Lilla has a new book of a somewhat more perceptive nature. Interviewed in Salon, Lilla makes much of the fact that while “smack in the middle” of the GOP’s website “is a list of 11 principles” . . . the Democratic Party could sport “no such statement.” Just a bunch of interest groups.

Interesting. Because, today, I went to GOP.com and saw no such principles list. But I did find a lot of Trump stuff . . . and a bunch of links to “identity groups.”

Talk about regrouping!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

 

Categories
Accountability ideological culture local leaders media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

The Eye of the Storm

Hurricane Harvey, Cajun Navy, government relief, aid, Texas, Houston

Hurricane Harvey has been amazing in its devastation. All that rain, all that flooding — what  a frightening time it must be for those caught within it.

While Harvey’s winds brought in waves and rain and floods, for most of us, far away and snug in our homes, it brought an occasion to donate, and . . . nostalgia.

Nostalgia? It’s not the disaster element so much as an old-time exhibition . . . of journalism. For more than just a few hours, we watched reporters actually report. We saw them stand waist-deep in water. We saw them cover actual events.

And we read them deal in facts . . . like the heroic efforts of the “Cajun Navy.”

Of course, this opinion-free window of media coverage did not last long. The talking heads and Twitter-journos and partisan hacks came flooding back not long after the worst.

Did Trump do enough? Or the right thing?

Did Houston’s no-zoning policy lead to the disaster?

Doesn’t “price gouging” really suck?

Did . . . Enough. It was and is too early for finger-pointing and “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.”

Of course, the Houston zoning discussion is interesting. It is worth noting that there are building rules and governments in Houston, as well a national rules that made homes and businesses there less safe. And economists have already come to their usual defenses of “price gouging” and criticisms of disastrous government programs.

Still, the enormous relief efforts remain the biggest human interest story — thousands of individuals taking the initiative and their boats to join first responders and the National Guard in rescuing thousands trapped by flooding.

So, before we explain it all, let’s luxuriate in what remains of the fact-based reporting.

And help.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

 

Categories
Accountability ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies political challengers Popular responsibility

The Law of Unintended Trump Support

Donald Trump, Afghanistan, outsider, consensus

Last week, when President Donald Trump abandoned his previous policy position on getting U.S. troops out of Afghanistan in favor of continuing the establishment-supported policy of keeping those troops there, he was very well-received in our nation’s capital.

NeverTrumper/neo-con Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) spoke of Mr. Trump’s “smarts” and “moral courage.”

The #NeverPraiseTrump Washington Post applauded the president’s valiant “self-correction.”

Yet when Trump holds a view contrary to the Washington consensus his wisdom and moral bravery elicit less celebration.

Instead, we hear that The Donald is unfit to command.

“I really question his ability to be — his fitness to be — in this office,” says James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence.

“The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) concurred, “that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful.”

And from the usual suspect list of television talking heads we get clinical diagnoses, talk of “erratic behavior and mental instability that place the country in grave danger.”

Mr. Trump combines every bad personality trait imaginable, the litany runs.

But all this is for nought.

Donald Trump has been able to withstand media negativity as well as the lack of support from his own party’s insiders for one simple reason: it validates him.

Every insider attack, every media-fueled outrage campaign, just proves him as the ultimate outsider to a system that the long-frustrated, increasingly angered electorate wants turned upside down.*

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

*This episode of Common Sense condenses my regular weekend remarks at Townhall.

PDF for printing

 

Categories
Accountability crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights responsibility too much government

Google: Disagreement

Google, censorship, Boycott, Competition, free market, be evil

Once upon a time, Google penned a stern note to self: “Don’t be evil.”

What you regard as avoiding evil, though, depends on what you regard as doing good.

Does Google think it’s “good” to fire someone for offering reasoned objections to vapid pieties about why there are more men than women working as programmers, and about how to fix the problem? Assuming it is a problem.

If the answer is yes, then it’s up to more reasonable people to say, “No, Google, stomping on candid internal discussion of your (bad) politics and policies is not ‘doing good.’”

Alas, some Google critics push for a “remedy” worse than the problem: government force. They want government to impose new prohibitions and mandates on large private firms that help people to spread their opinions.

I don’t necessarily agree when a firm — Google, Twitter, PayPal or anybody else — stops providing services to persons expressing views that managers and HR departments disdain. Yet I may agree. No one is morally obligated — and no one should be legally compelled — to help spread the views of others.

I certainly refuse to distribute any installment of “Common Sense” guest-authored by The Anti-Paul-Jacob Club.

When market actors make bad decisions without violating anyone’s rights, others have many powerful and peaceful means of opposing those decisions. Criticism. Boycott. Competition.

But we shouldn’t seek to outlaw the decision-making.

The right to freedom includes no guarantee that one will always do the right thing as others see it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

 

Categories
Accountability ideological culture media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies

One Way to Do It

Philip K. Dick, Nazi, ovens, ashes, smoke, abortion, crematorium, camp

While reading CBS’s recent story on Iceland’s success at reducing the number of Down syndrome cases, I was reminded of the Amazon Prime series Man in the High Castle.

The show, based on the celebrated alternative history novel by Philip K. Dick (1928–1982), explores a timeline wherein the Axis powers won World War II. The United States is divided between the Greater Nazi Reich and the Empire of Japan.

In one scene, one of the protagonists — a hero? a villain? — is stalled on a Midwest country roadside. He smells something in the air. Smoke. Ash.

The very American sheriff explains: it is a local hospital destroying defective humans. The weak, the sick, the disabled.

And we, the viewers, recoil: how evil. Nazis actually execute the weak, the sick, the disabled. Well, they did, in history, not just fiction.

But, as CBS explains, the reason Down syndrome cases are disappearing all over the place, and in Iceland most of all, is not a new cure. Chalk it up to the rise of prenatal screenings. We see fewer Down syndrome people because, before birth, they are executed. Aborted.

In our non-fictional timeline, many Americans are incensed that a few folks proclaiming to be Nazis have been “allowed” to demonstrate in public.

Nazism is evil. I agree.

But how do these morally horrified people react about the very “progressive” and culturally acceptable practice of killing the unwanted?

Think I’ve gone over the top, have abused a revered author to make a point alien to his own? Well, please read Dick’s “The Pre-Persons,” a story about abortion, way post-natal . . . until the age at which a person can understand algebra.*

Quite the moral calculation we make, eh?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* That could mean it’s open season for murder as states are moving to drop algebra requirements because so many fail to master the subject. 

PDF for printing

 

Categories
Accountability folly general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies

Of Course, You Know, This Means War

Afghanistan, war, Trump, foreign policy, defense, middle east, east asia

When Steve Bannon was booted out of the White House, my thoughts turned immediately to war. As I wrote in frustration on Friday,

Bannon’s departure probably means the slim chance that the US might withdraw from “our” open-ended, never-ending occupation of Afghanistan has been foreclosed.

If we don’t win the war by ushering in a completely transformed, modernized and westernized Afghanistan, at least our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, etc., etc., will each have. their turn.

Of course, if the fabled “Graveyard of Empires” continues to work its historic magic, maybe future generations won’t face that burden: the United States could fall . . . as a worldwide imperial presence. And, if our global military archipelago fails — for, say, want of wealth to throw overseas — do we have any reason to believe that our republic would bounce back?

There remains more than enough reason to work for foreign policy sanity.

Prior to his evening national address on the day of the eclipse, Trump explained what he intends to do in Afghanistan — send 4,000 more troops.

Meanwhile, Steve Bannon’s door-slapped rump did not dissuade him from tweeting out what he intends to do “on Capitol Hills, in the media, and in corporate America”:

If there’s any confusion out there, let me clear it up: I’m leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents. . . .

Call this the Bugs Bunny Policy: “Of course, you know, this means war!”

And considering the promises made in the President’s speech, we can amend that to “of course, this means never-ending war.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

 

Categories
Accountability general freedom local leaders term limits too much government

Term Limits for the Memories

Councilman John Crescimbeni, term limits, congress, Florida, promises, politicians

Opponents say term limits destroy “institutional knowledge.”

Imagine legislatures where unsophisticated solons blindly fashion public policies lacking any knowledge of the pluses or minuses of past legislation.

Well . . . actually that explanation bears a striking resemblance to the status quo in our career-dominated Congress. Who wants that?

Now comes an interesting real-world example of such institutional memory: term limits itself.

Back in 1991, residents of Jacksonville, Florida, petitioned a limit of two consecutive terms for city council members onto the ballot — after the city council voted not to place it before voters. When voters had their say, a very loud 82 percent endorsed term limits.

The Florida Times Union called it a “landslide decision.”

That was 26 years ago.* Last month, Councilman Matt Schellenberg proposed that the voter-enacted two-term limit should be replaced by a more politician-friendly three-term limit. He wants to stay in office for 12 years, rather than just eight.

“I think we restrict democracy when we put limits on us,” he declared. “I find the position of being on the council for 12 years is a perfect number . . .”

That’s when Councilman John Crescimbeni offered a dose of outside-the-institution memory, explaining that council members who voted against placing term limits on that 1991 ballot were run over.

“Six of the ten people who voted against [term limits] didn’t come back to office,” Crescimbeni warned. “If you want to push the green button tonight, I suspect that’s going to seal your fate.”

Suddenly, the city council decided to push off making any decision . . . until this week’s meeting. **

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* A new poll commissioned by U.S. Term Limits shows  that Jacksonville voters oppose weakening their term limits law by a better than four-to-one margin.

** Your displeasure can be communicated to the Jacksonville council by calling (904) 630-1377.

Printable PDF

 

Illustration based on a photograph by Mark Bonica

 

Categories
Accountability folly general freedom ideological culture media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies too much government U.S. Constitution

Statues and Limitations

Thomas Jefferson, pixelated, Robert E. Lee, Washington, Jefferson, free speech, slavery, Nazis, Charlottesville, KKK, slippery slope

“Should they take down the Jefferson Memorial?”

That is what PBS’s Charlie Rose asked Al Sharpton. Now, the “Reverend” is not my go-to source for political insight, but his answer* caught my attention.

“I think that people need to understand that, when people that were enslaved and robbed of even the right to marry and had forced sex with their slave masters, this is personal to us,” replied Rev. Sharpton. “My great-grandfather was a slave in South Carolina . . . Our families were victims of this.”

Asked if this precluded “public monuments” for “everyone associated with slavery,” Sharpton argued: “When you look at the fact that public monuments are supported by public funds, you are asking me to subsidize the insult to my family.”

One can attack the messenger, Sharpton, sure. But what if we instead think of him as our neighbor? I certainly wouldn’t want to insult a neighbor, much less make him pay for the privilege.

Notably, the Reverend embraced privatization, suggesting, “You have private museums.” Privatizing controversial monuments would certainly solve Sharpton’s stated problem.

Of course, the logic behind taking down statues or dismantling the Jefferson Memorial — or merely privatizing them — might also lead to changing the names of cities, counties and states, rivers and mountains. And it’s not just Washington and Jefferson — twelve presidents were slave owners, including Union General U.S. Grant.

Who knows how many are undeservedly memorialized?

Frankly, I’ve never liked the name of my Virginia county: Prince William. A liberty-loving people ought not be stuck with such a monarchial brand.

Let the people decide.

But by vote, not street brawl.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* This exchange begins at the 15:22 mark in the interview.

PDF for printing

 

Categories
Accountability folly free trade & free markets local leaders nannyism property rights responsibility too much government

How to Ruin a Thoroughfare

city planner, city planning, Portland, Oregon, Better Naito, business

Cities require some planning. But the further beyond a certain minimum, the greater the ease with which a central planning authority can be captured — by zealots with more stars in their eyes than brains in their heads.

Portland, Oregon, is a case in point. Students from Portland State University had this brainchild: “Better Naito,” a project to transform SW Naito Parkway to “enhance the lives of pedestrians and bikers along the Waterfront,” as Jessica Miller of Cascade Policy Institute explains. Their notion was to reduce “car capacity from two lanes to one” during the peak season (actually more than half the year), opening up the cordoned-off lane to folks walking and riding bicycles.

I’m not kidding.

Though proponents of the program enthuse about the “positive feedback” from the public, they tend not to deal with complaints from adjacent business owners, who now “see fewer shoppers” and must accommodate “employees who experience longer commutes.”

Opponents are organizing. The Portland Business Alliance promotes its petition with a simple question: “How Exactly Is ‘Better Naito’ Better?”

Portland is a prime example of the New Urbanism in action, which seems set on creating cramped places for people to live and discouraging folks from using their own cars. I’ve talked about this before, focusing on planning critic and Cato Senior Fellow Randal O’Toole. He has long been fighting the city planning cranks who appear dubious about their very job: providing roads and sewers and waterways that serve the all a city’s citizens, native, newcomer, and traveler alike.

My advice? Sign that petition, if you vote in Portland.

The rest of us better plan to take a hard look at our city planners.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing