Category: general freedom

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general freedom

The Motorhome Diaries

The Motorhome Diaries, or MHD, is a documentary project by Jason Talley, Pete Eyre, and Adam Mueller.

Jason are both former heads of Bureaucrash, a website that lampoons government bureaucracy and big, intrusive government in general. This crew has been touring the U.S. with his crew to interview fellow freedom fighters. The video annals of their journey are posted at the motorhomediaries.com website. Interviewees include David Nolan, founder of the Libertarian Party, and Congressman Ron Paul, last year’s most interesting Republican presidential candidate.

Now the MHD team is documenting not freedom fighters, but, apparently, the fighters of freedom fighters.

In Jones County, Mississippi, a police officer pulled them over allegedly because he had trouble reading their vehicle’s tags. Soon the police demanded to know “where the drugs are,” and began ripping the trailer apart. There were no drugs.

Adam was handcuffed for trying to tape the proceedings. The other two were also detained. Jason managed to send a few Twitter messages to supporters while all this was happening, and received an outpouring of support. At the moment, the situation remains unresolved.

I know only one side of the story. But the blow-by-blow account posted at the MHD website is chilling. Visit and see for yourself.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom

Twitter Not Always Annoying

You’ve probably heard of Twitter, now that Oprah has. It is a “micro-blogging” tool that lets you keep in touch with people by sending messages of 140 characters or less, maybe 30 words. Senders are supposed to answer the question, “What are you doing right now?”

This sounds like a lot of people telling each other they’re hunting for a renegade sock or catching the bus. But people and imagination being what they are, savvy practitioners assure us that Twitter has been put to a very wide variety of uses, not all of them snooze-worthy.

I was sold as soon as I heard how it was used last year to help get innocent men out of jail.

James Karl Buck, an American grad student, was arrested in April 2008 while covering an anti-government protest in Egypt. So was his translator, Mohammed Maree. Conciseness being the better part of valor, Buck sent a one-word “tweet” to his “followers” on Twitter. To wit: “Arrested.”

Recipients knew that Buck was in Egypt covering a political demonstration. So comprehension was immediate, action swift. Soon, Buck’s college hired a lawyer to represent him. Soon thereafter he sent another message: “Released.”

His Egyptian translator, Mohammed Maree, was not so lucky. Buck worked hard to help his friend. Twitter was one of his tools. Three months later, Mohammed was free as well.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom

Panic in the Streets

A few people get sick, and schools shut down.

We have been having and enduring flu epidemics for some time. And people have died even in minor outbreaks. The difference now is that the patterns of epidemiology have become nightly news.

Why the talk about shutting down everything — schools, businesses, government offices? To prevent a major pandemic, like the 1918 Influenza outbreak, which killed millions.

The president went out of his way to tell us to avoid panic. The vice president, on the other hand, went on one of his jags and helped foment more panic.

The media, of course, abundantly repeated the message of panic.

Last autumn, the head honchos in Washington sowed the seeds of panic by proclaiming the mortgage-based financial bubble the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Hardly before anyone had received a pink slip, the government was giving away billions of dollars.

And then, they switched rationales and plans. And then they gave away more. Rinse. Repeat. Only the panic remains.

Well, stock up on water and masks and food. And cash. Or gold. That’s fine. But be wary of stocking up on too much government. When we panic we are not thinking straight, that’s when we are likely to lose the most. With the government and the media leading the charge.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets general freedom

People Power

How many people does it take to run a civilization?

Lots.

And the more things you are doing — the more productive and wealthier you want your civilization to be — the more people it can use.

It’s people who do things. Without people, the things won’t get done. People aren’t the problem, they’re the solution.

But the non-problem of “too many” people bothers Jonathan Porritt, a “green” advisor to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Porritt says if Britain is to feed its population “sustainably,” her population will have to be reduced to 30 million. Britain’s current population is about 61 million, twice that. So . . . do we have 31 million volunteers?

Porritt says “Population growth, plus economic growth, is putting the world under terrible pressure.” That terrible pressure of making it easier and easier to survive.

Industrialized, capitalistic countries are often slammed for consuming a disproportionate share of the world’s economic output.

Less often mentioned is that these countries also produce the lion’s share of the output. They can do so to the extent that people with brains and initiative are free to function. Free to work, keep what they earn, benefit from planning ahead. Let people be free, and they’ll feed themselves fine. They will expand resources.

You want to “sustain” economic development, Mr. Government Official? Get out of the way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights general freedom Second Amendment rights

Show-Me Madness

What if you were profiled by the police as a terrorist simply because of your political beliefs?

A new report entitled “The Modern Militia Movement,” prepared for law enforcement agencies by the Missouri Information Analysis Center, threatens just that.

The report doesn’t detail any current criminal activity in Missouri. It does suggest to police, however, that anyone opposing government bailouts, abortion, or the Federal Reserve is a potential militia member, possibly a terrorist, or both.

The report tells police how to recognize militia members. Look for literature that is “derogatory” toward the IRS, ATF, the CIA, and the like. And look also for people who support minor party presidential candidates, or one sitting Republican congressman.

Tim Neal told the Associated Press that he has become nervous about his Ron Paul bumpersticker. Hearing a litany of the tell-tale signs that a person is in a militia, he said he “was going down the list and thinking, ‘Check, that’s me.'”

Remember, it’s perfectly legal — and peaceful — to wear fatigues.

It is also legal to train, military-style, on private property. So is paintball. And both probably qualify as good preparation for all sorts of emergencies.

Governments focusing investigations and gathering “intelligence” on citizens on the basis of peaceful, perfectly legal political viewpoints is far more dangerous. And that’s happening right now in the Show-Me state.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability general freedom responsibility

Good Guys and Bad Guys

There are two types of people, those who divide people into wicked capitalists and saintly victims, and those who don’t.

The folks at ACORN, a lefty activist group, see only evil capitalists and downtrodden everybody-else.

Columnist Michelle Malkin reports how ACORN champions the cause of homeowners crushed by the credit crunch and housing collapse. Except that some of their poster-child victims are hardly innocent.

A few weeks ago, as a mob cheered and cameras recorded, an ACORN gang broke into a padlocked home in Baltimore. It had been owned by Donna Hanks, expelled when the bank foreclosed. “This is our house now,” ACORN activist Louis Beverly declared, with Donna by his side.

Man of the people, right?

Except that Hanks was not merely hammered by circumstances. She bought the house in 2001 for $87,000, but later refinanced for $270,000 — money she presumably spent. In 2008 the house was sold for less than the new loan but more than twice the 2001 price. In 2006, Hanks declared bankruptcy, but did not comply with the terms of the court. Malkin gives further details of her irresponsibility, but you get the idea.

There are innocent victims hurting, now, in the current financial collapse. But being a borrower rather than a lender tells us nothing by itself. As the antics of ACORN show, either can be the victim.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom

The Milan Four

Four executives of Google — call them the Milan Four — are on trial in Italy for the crime of being employed by Google when an objectionable video was posted to a Google video site. The charges are defamation and privacy violation. The accused face jail time.

The video showed teasing of a boy with Down syndrome. As soon as Google was told about the posting, the company removed it. According to reports, the four were not even “directly involved in handling video from Italy.”

Obviously, this is not a just prosecution. If anything, one would go after the persons who posted the video. If prosecuting the four executives is warranted, why not haul every single Google executive into court? Or every single Google employee, for that matter? They’re all equally “guilty.”

In general, it’s bad to prosecute innocent people at random in the service of some political agenda.

This is happening all too often, not just in Italy, but in our own country. Prosecutors are increasingly becoming politicians, and are out for greater name identification. They trade their good judgment for headline-grabbing stunt prosecutions. Oftentimes, the cases fizzle. But too often, the damage done to innocent people cannot be dismissed when the false charges are.

I hope the Italian job fizzles too. Meanwhile, Google should defend itself using the viral techniques of the Internet, never letting up on this outrageous prosecution.

Google that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom

The Losingest Winner

Can you win too much?

Not if the job is worth doing or the game is worth playing to begin with, and is done honorably and well.

Consider the case of Micah Grimes, the coach of a Texas high school basketball team that beat another team 100 to zero. Covenant School recently fired Coach Grimes for failing to apologize for the massive margin of victory. Covenant School had posted a message on its website expressing regrets over the lopsided scale of the triumph, calling it “shameful and an embarrassment.”

Now, nobody is claiming the Covenant girls smashed the kneecaps of the Dallas Academy girls. The Academy players have a very long losing streak under the belts, and didn’t seem all that traumatized by their huge loss when interviewed about it on ABC News. In fact, they showed some pluck and eagerness to keep improving their game to try to improve their chances. As losers go, they have a winning attitude.

Coach Grimes, on the hand, lost . . . his job. He stated publicly that his values would not allow him “to apologize for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity.” Shortly afterward, Covenant School fired him.

The school did wrong. Coach Grimes did right to exhibit that integrity. There isn’t any rule in any sport that says the team that is winning must stop trying to win.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom too much government

Fake Grit

“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” Or maybe not: I prefer it when “cooler heads prevail.”

But as our times get desperate, here comes Tony Blankley with a new book, True Grit.

Blankley calls for a universal draft that would delay college or work for your 18- or 19-year-old boy or girl, forcibly placing them under government control. Under Blankley’s plan the military would get first dibs, but those not forced into military service would be corralled into civilian government service.

This is, well, stupid. One of the federal government’s few big successes has been the all-volunteer military. Forcing people, not suited or interested, into armed service may seem egalitarian, but it undermines the military, which ought to concentrate on winning wars.

Moreover, to force millions more into government make-work programs, again in the name of fairness, will cost taxpayers plenty — and uproot the lives of young people.

Charlie Rangel has been the most persistent conscription pusher. His draft legislation proved so overwhelmingly unpopular that when it was brought up in Congress even he voted against it.

In a review of True Grit at Human Events, Blankley is described as progressing politically from being a libertarian to a conservative to a nationalist.

Sorry, that’s not progress.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights general freedom local leaders

Annoyed by Anti-Annoyance Law

I’m annoyed by a new law passed in the Michigan town of Brighton City.

According to the ordinance, police may fine anyone who is too annoying in public. Up to $500. The ordinance states: “It shall be unlawful for a person to engage in a course of conduct or repeatedly commit acts that alarm or seriously annoy another person and that serve no legitimate purpose.”

Obviously, many different things annoy many different people, most having little to do with the possible or actual commission of a crime.

If you and I are annoyed, think about how annoyed the folks are who actually live there. One resident, Charles Griffin, told ABC News that the new law is “the most ridiculous thing in the world.”

Area resident Chetly Zarko has written to the council asking them to repeal the law, arguing that it is “unconstitutionally vague . . . and impedes on free expression rights under the First Amendment.”

Council members say critics are blowing things out of proportion. They say people aren’t going to be ticketed for talking too loud or making complaints to public officials, but for things like persistent harassment of an ex-girlfriend or the like.

But words mean what they say, don’t they? They don’t mean what they would have meant if only you had said what you meant.

In the spirit of being careful with words, let me revise my opening statement: I am more than merely annoyed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.