Category: free trade & free markets

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First Amendment rights free trade & free markets judiciary

The Wrong Kind of Speech

California, AB5, exemptions, freelance, contract work

In 2019, California imposed a law to force many independent contractors to become standard employees if they wanted to keep working for erstwhile clients.

AB5 threw many gig workers out of work. Many lost all of their clients, who typically could not afford to simply convert contractors from whom they had been buying stuff once in a while into regular employees.

Even in the original legislation, exemptions from AB5 were granted for certain contractors. In response to angry controversy, many more categories of contractors were added to the exemption list. Then passage of Proposition 22 allowed Uber and Lyft drivers to continue as contractors.

But guess who still may not hire independent contractors in California? People running political campaigns and petition drives, who often can’t afford to hire many or any employees. The Wall Street Journal notes that today in California, “people who sell ‘consumer products’ count as ‘direct salespersons,’ while those who work on political campaigns or ballot petitions must be counted as employees.”

Thus, under the state’s current anti-contractor law, political speech is impaired in a way that sundry commercial speech is not.

A group called Moving Oxnard Forward has taken their First Amendment-based complaint about this injustice to court, with the help of the Institute for Free Speech. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 against the group. But the case can proceed now to the full Ninth Circuit or on to the U.S. Supreme Court.

At the High Court, I think we petitioners and speakers of political speech would probably win.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights free trade & free markets too much government

The California-Canada Connection

Canada, California, Medical License, consensus, censorship

What do California and Canada have in common, aside from bone-chilling temperatures?

Well, the fact that they’re trying to chill the discourse of doctors.

In California, a new law empowers medical boards to punish doctors who spread “misinformation” about COVID-19. The misinformative nature of a stated view about the pandemic is allegedly proved by the mere fact that it contradicts a putative scientific “consensus.”

Such laws rely on misinformation for their very existence. 

When coping with complex, incomplete, sometimes murky evidence, do scientists and others ever simply disagree, even fundamentally, on the road to scientific “consensus”? Can a consensus ever be wrong? Does anybody ever hew to an asserted consensus out of fearful desire to conform rather than honest intellectual agreement?

To ask these questions is to answer them. But let’s move on.

To Canada — and the case of Dr. Jordan Peterson, whose professional status in the country is being jeopardized because of medical and/or political views, like opinions criticizing “climate change models,” “surgery on gender dysphoric minors,” and Canadian officials who threatened “to apprehend the children of the Trucker Convoy protesters.”

Stated on social media, these opinions are apparently incendiary enough — i.e., candid enough — to vex Canada’s powerful medical censors.

According to Peterson, the Ontario College of Psychologists demands that he submit to “mandatory social-media communication retraining” because of his views. If he doesn’t comply, he may lose his license.

Such repressive impulses, he says, are “way more widespread than you might think.”

It’s cold outside.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights free trade & free markets too much government

X Information

big government, big tech, big business surveillance, censorship

For well over a century, politicians have pushed Big Government/Big Business partnerships. The policy, indeed, is as old as politics. While we who like free markets often like [some of] the products of today’s biggest businesses, we must recognize that much of what these corporations sell us comes with strings attached — as we’ve found out to our dismay in the corruption of major social media outfits; as proven by the attacks on our speech and to the undermining of free elections.

Before the #TwitterFiles revelations, Michael Rectenwald, author of The Google Archipelago and other books, wrote a commentary that appeared in the pre-Christmas edition of The Epoch Times: “Who Really Owns Digital Tech?” In less than a thousand words, Rectenwald makes clear how deep governments have been involved in the tech space — particularly the Internet Space.

“Given the evidence of government start-up funding,” Rectenwald reasons, “we may have to concede the argument that the internet might have developed differently, more slowly, or not at all if the Defense Department hadn’t been involved at the outset. Likely, what we know as the internet would have become a system of private networks” — and in this dispersed-power system, free speech would not become a major issue, because not as easy a target.

As it is, however, “Twitter has operated as an instrument of the uniparty-run state, squelching whatever the regime deems ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,’” Rectenwald writes, giving us an ominous list of the topics of xinformation:

  • warfare
  • economics
  • pandemics
  • elections
  • climate change catastrophism
  • the Great Reset

There are big gains for . . . some. Big Biz/Big Gov partnerships imply gains for both partners: business people gain access to governmental power and favors, and politicians and functionaries gain leverage to mold the citizenry. 

And that is where we have seen the partnership’s worst.

So far.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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X Information (alternate illustration)

For well over a century, politicians have pushed Big Government/Big Business partnerships. The policy, indeed, is as old as politics. While we who like free markets often like [some of] the products of today’s biggest businesses, we must recognize that much of what these corporations sell us comes with strings attached — as we’ve found out to our dismay in the corruption of major social media outfits; as proven by the attacks on our speech and to the undermining of free elections.

Before the #TwitterFiles revelations, Michael Rectenwald, author of The Google Archipelago and other books, wrote a commentary that appeared in the pre-Christmas edition of The Epoch Times: “Who Really Owns Digital Tech?” In less than a thousand words, Rectenwald makes clear how deep governments have been involved in the tech space — particularly the Internet Space.

“Given the evidence of government start-up funding,” Rectenwald reasons, “we may have to concede the argument that the internet might have developed differently, more slowly, or not at all if the Defense Department hadn’t been involved at the outset. Likely, what we know as the internet would have become a system of private networks” — and in this dispersed-power system, free speech would not become a major issue, because not as easy a target.

As it is, however, “Twitter has operated as an instrument of the uniparty-run state, squelching whatever the regime deems ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,’” Rectenwald writes, giving us an ominous list of the topics of xinformation:

  • warfare
  • economics
  • pandemics
  • elections
  • climate change catastrophism
  • the Great Reset

There are big gains for . . . some. Big Biz/Big Gov partnerships imply gains for both partners: business people gain access to governmental power and favors, and politicians and functionaries gain leverage to mold the citizenry. 

And that is where we have seen the partnership’s worst.

So far.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets property rights too much government

First, Stop Doing That

zoning, regulations, buildings, permits

If a government’s taxes and regulations are making shelter ever more expensive, what should that government do instead?

Stop pushing the disastrous policies, perhaps?

Unlike some other governors who shall remain nameless (one of them rhymes with “DeSantis”), Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin understands that you don’t make things better by making them worse.

In August, Youngkin bluntly told a state senate committee that Virginia homes are too expensive and that a major cause is government interference with the market: “unnecessary regulations, over-burdensome and inefficient local governments, restrictive zoning policies, and an ideology of fighting tooth and nail against any new development.”

The many bottlenecks include low-density zoning rules that permit only a single house per property. Arlington County, Virginia, is one local government working to reform zoning so that more houses can be built on a property.

In November, Youngkin proposed a Make Virginia Home plan to unravel many regulations. City Journal notes that although the plan is “short on details,” it’s a good start.

Under the governor’s plan, the state would streamline environmental reviews, investigate how to liberalize the state’s building codes and land-use and zoning laws, impose deadlines on local governments to speed up approvals of development, and give local governments incentives to adopt their own market-liberating reforms.

This agenda is indeed only a beginning. But it does recognize a major cause of sky-rocketing housing costs and what must be done to begin to reduce those costs.

That’s just Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment free trade & free markets too much government

“m” Is for “Misnamed”

Florida, zoning

What does Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration — more specifically, the state’s misnamed Department of Economic Opportunity (mDEO) — think it’s doing?

The town of Gainesville, Florida, has liberalized its zoning laws to legalize the construction of certain small apartment buildings.

Who knew that building any housing on property owned by developers or by persons letting developers build on their property was illegal to begin with? But better late than never, Gainesville.

Not so fast! says the reputedly pro-free-market but apparently also pro-central-planning DeSantis administration.

According to an mDEO lawsuit, it’s illogical “for the City to argue that by entirely removing the concept of lower density detached residential dwellings…it is doing anything more than helping provide housing to college students and higher income residents.”

Huh? Providing housing only for people who will use that housing! Via various voluntary market transactions!! Is there no end to human deviltry?

Of course, as Reason writer Christian Britschgi points out, increasing the supply of housing units of any type will tend to reduce the demand for all already-existing housing, lowering the rents of units, including low-end units, that developers may not be building at the moment. 

I guess the folks at the mDEO aren’t especially ardent fans of Henry Hazlitt’s Economics In One Lesson.

And anyway, what about the inalienable right of anybody of any income level to make market arrangements to shelter themselves from the elements?

In the last few years, DeSantis has gained a good reputation, daring to resist the Big Government mob. Now he needs to resist that mob in his own administration. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets media and media people too much government

Time & Tide & Race

Daylight Saving Time, racism, race

The big news? Daylight Saving Time may soon be history. “The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the Sleep Research Society and other medical groups have advocated for ending the practice, calling for the adoption of a permanent standard time that would not involve shifting forward each spring and falling back each autumn.”

That’s an important organizational voice for getting rid of Congress’s current jury-rigging scheme for commerce and recreation in America.

It has costs. Imposed on us. On our sleep patterns.

But the passage quoted from CNN was not the news angle that the “Cable News Network” story, by Jacqueline Howard, emphasized.

The deleterious effects of lurching back and forth twice a year is not what CNN headlined. The fact (and commonsense conjecture) that these bi-annual shifts are bad for us? Not as interesting as that it could all be racist.

The title of Howard’s piece is “Daylight Saving Time sheds light on lack of sleep’s disproportionate impact in communities of color.”

The key piece of information? “Growing evidence shows that lack of sleep and sleep disorders, such as obstructive sleep apnea, remain more prevalent in Black, Asian, and Hispanic or Latino communities, and these inequities can have long-term detrimental implications for physical health, even raising the risk of certain chronic diseases.”

If true, this is a political reason to get the Social Engineering Class to finally balk at the pseudo-Saving chronometer-jiggering laws.

But what does that say about said class? (A class not limited to, but somehow paradigmatically represented by, Democrats?) That they don’t care about the harm they do unless it can be shown to accrue predominantly to racial minorities?

There’s something sick here, oddly racist.

But we can accept this nonsense for the win, if it helps stop our ritual springing forward and falling back.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly free trade & free markets

Allowed to Make a Living

Bureau of Occupational Affairs

In 2014, Sally Ladd started a service to help clients in the Poconos rent out their vacation homes. She posted notices on Airbnb, arranged for cleaning, and performed other chores.

But then, in 2017, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs — one of the many government agencies in the world that should not exist — told her that she was operating in Pennsylvania as a real estate broker without a license and must get one or shut down.

The obstacle was senseless. Ladd was already satisfying her customers. And getting the license would have entailed more than 300 hours of schooling, two exams, three years of apprenticeship, and opening an office in Pennsylvania. (Ladd lives in New Jersey.)

She had to shut down.

But she didn’t give up. 

She teamed up with Institute for Justice, which filed suit, arguing, in IJ’s words, that “forcing her to get a full-blown real-estate license violated her right to earn an honest living under the Pennsylvania Constitution.”

At first, a lower court would not even consider the case, a decision overruled by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2020. Finally, on October 31, 2022, a trial court affirmed that the “licensing requirements are unreasonable, unduly oppressive, and patently beyond the necessities of the case,” and therefore unconstitutional.

Once again, it’s IJ to the rescue! 

In a world filled with government agencies that shouldn’t exist, the Institute for Justice exists to check them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies

The Biden’s War on Independents 

California, contractors, independent, legislature

They know. They aren’t complete idiots. When enemies of the market routinely try to stop people from earning a living through restrictions like minimum wage laws and arbitrary licensing to thwart such dangerous activities as hair-braiding, few are ignorant of the disastrous consequences.

Case in point? 

The Biden administration is on the verge of using a federal version of California’s AB5 law to mass-slaughter the opportunities of millions of gig workers and freelancers. The administration hasn’t managed to do it legislatively. So it’s trying to inflict the damage with a Department of Labor regulation.

The idea is to stop companies from classifying independent contractors as independent contractors. Passed in California a few years ago, AB5 prohibited companies and many contractors from working with each other unless companies took them on as regular employees.

To avoid the costs of doing that, many companies instead simply ended their relationships with hundreds of thousands of gig workers. For example, Rev, a transcription service, stopped working with all freelancers residing in California.

California lawmakers knew how destructive AB5 would be when they passed it — proof-positive being the many exceptions for politically connected groups that were stipulated as part of the law. AB5 has now been repealed and replaced by AB2257, which increases the varieties of worker exempt from the new requirements. But it still leaves many other people, like California-based truckers, in legal limbo.  

It’s okay though, because all truckers do is deliver the stuff that all the rest of us need to survive.

This madness should not be imposed on everybody throughout the country.

And certainly not by back-room bureaucratic machinations.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture

Okay Not to Harm

freedom, slavery, equity, health, trans

A recent appeals court ruling means that (some) doctors and other medical practitioners won’t be forced to violate their ethical principles against doing harm.

The Fifth Circuit ruling affirms a lower-court decision “permanently enjoining [HHS] from requiring Franciscan Alliance to perform gender-reassignment surgeries or abortions in violation of its sincerely held religious beliefs.”

What is troubling about the decision is its apparent incompleteness.

In a truly free society, no private professionals or organizations would be coerced to offer their services to anybody. Everybody would be free to participate or to decline to participate in any transaction with a prospective customer related to any medical procedure. Just as any person is now (mostly) free to patronize or not patronize any provider of a good or service.

We don’t live in that free society. But at least we can hope that no person will be compelled to provide the types of services that violate the person’s moral conscience.

Like services they believe harm others.

That harm children . . . including the unborn.

So the court’s ruling is fine — as far as it goes. But it seems to protect only persons making religious objections, or only members of the Franciscan Alliance, not also non-religious medical practitioners who also morally object to providing abortions or sex-change operations.

Which means that there is more legal work to be done to protect the rights of all of us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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