Categories
education and schooling general freedom ideological culture nannyism national politics & policies

Fat Lot of Good That’ll Do

It sounded like a good idea — Michelle Obama would get involved in a campaign to reduce childhood obesity. Obesity is a problem, yes, and a good cause for the First Lady. But, today, advocacy must always be paired with legislation.

An AP news story provides all you really need to know:

A child nutrition bill on its way to President Barack Obama — and championed by the first lady — gives the government power to limit school bake sales and other fundraisers that health advocates say sometimes replace wholesome meals in the lunchroom.

So now we are to have federal government’s micro-​mismanagement reach far beyond the curriculum. The basic idea being … give up on parents. Give up on local control. Go, Washington!

Our national nannies took special care with the bill’s language, adding the category of school fundraisers as a special target of the regulations. Apparently, they can’t stand the fact that, on special occasions, mothers and fathers bake up sugary treats to sell, to support special school activities that affect their kids.

I guess they want us to sell broccoli. 

Yup. That’ll send the school band to Disneyland.

The whole bill is a bad idea, and not just because Washington can’t tell special occasions from one’s day-​in/​day-​out diet. The very singling out of special fundraisers for federal attention shows just how far into our lives Washington’s busybodies believe they can insert themselves. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom

Thank You, Joe Blow

Psychological research has unearthed a completely unsensational truth: Expressing gratitude makes you happier. 

What the research shows, I’m told, is that it doesn’t matter to whom one gives thanks. Just expressing it does the trick. 

Of course, offering thanks to people you really care about, or who helped you in some extraordinary way, must make some other kind of difference. Still, there’s more than a little sense in being thankful for the people you walk by on the street — and expressing it here:

  • That fellow, the other day? He didn’t mug me. Ah, indifference! It’s better than malevolence.
  • That nice woman with the odd hair, some time back? She gave an encouraging smile when I dropped something. She didn’t have to say anything. I understood: “We all drop things, now and then.” No biggie. A little kindness goes a long way.
  • All the people who took my money and gave me what I wanted in return. Without you, my life would be impoverished. Whether you are selling me fruits or nuts or lattes or bread, I live because you work. And I work, too, to help you live. 

In one of my favorite movies, Brazil, the Robert De Niro character encourages our embattled hero with a simple “We’re all in this together.” Actually, much of the time we’re all in this separately. But the connections we make are vitally important, and work remarkably well — for more than our feelings.

Even in tough times.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies too much government U.S. Constitution

Perfect Safety?

Maybe the most interesting thing to come out, so far, from the “porno-scanner”/TSA-gropings controversy is this statement by Rep. Ron Paul of Texas: “You can’t provide perfect safety.”

Going on, Rep. Paul denied that it is “the government’s role … to provide safety.”

It isn’t; it’s to protect our rights. But here we’re being told that we go to the gate, we buy a ticket, and you’ve lost your right, you’ve sacrificed your right. Where did that come from? It’s about the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard.

Rep. Paul has introduced legislation that would prohibit physical contact between TSA screeners and would-​be airline passengers, and would prohibit taking images of people’s bodies using X‑Rays, millimeter rays, etc..

Ron Paul sees all these new, invasive screening techniques as based on the idea that it is the government’s job to ensure airline invulnerability to terrorism, not the airlines’. He suggests putting the onus back on the airlines, who would likely be more respectful of their customers than the TSA is.

9/​11/​01 caught the airlines and the government with their pants down. Maybe the best solution to this security lapse isn’t to institute intrusions into our pants, or the kind of X‑Ray vision scanners that boys used to be enticed with in the back of comic books.

There must be better ways. 

Alas, government probably won’t find them. Which is why Ron Paul is on to something: It should be up to private enterprise.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights general freedom national politics & policies too much government U.S. Constitution

The Costs of Airport Security

John Tyner, a 31-​year-​old man hailing from Oceanside, California, not only declined San Diego International Airport’s kind offer of a full-​body scan via privacy-​invading machine, he also declined a full-​body groping via privacy-​invading human.

Unfortunately for TSA (who would like to make it unfortunate for Tyner as well) he happened to record his interactions with security personnel on a cell phone. Now TSA honchos are growling that they may well follow through with a threat to fine him $10,000 for not submitting to either procedure — inasmuch as it’s now a crime to care about one’s personal dignity.

The penalty has gone up, though, since TSA threatened Tyner at the airport. It’s now $11,000.

Five or ten dollars for refusing an obnoxious groping, I understand. Or a nickel. Better? A penny. But thousands of dollars?

I’m sure other aspiring passengers who initially cooperated with such intrusions also decided mid-​procedure that things were getting too invasive for comfort and that retreat was the better part of valor. I doubt that TSA has sought to extract $10,000+ from each recalcitrant.

But it seems Tyner’s conduct is especially heinous. First, he balked at unreasonable search of his person; second, he blatantly exercised his First Amendment rights by shockingly sharing evidence and testimony about what happened.

If the TSA doesn’t do something, fast, more and more people might act as if their constitutional rights still apply.

Do they?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom national politics & policies too much government

The Tyranny Waiver

Democrats filled their 2000-​page healthcare bill — rammed into law despite growing and vehement public opposition — with obscure but costly mandates. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confessed, Congress would have to pass the bill before we could learn what they were. After all, who, including congressmen, had time to actually read and assimilate the monstrosity?

Choke down first, chew later. That was the ordained (if unhealthy) order of things. 

Now we suffer the consequences — at least insofar as we can’t wheedle special exemptions, loopholes, workarounds.

One provision of the new law boosts the minimum annual benefit that companies must include in low-​cost medical insurance plans given to low-​wage employees. Many large employers contend that the new costs would force them to drop many employees from their insurance rolls. (So much for the Obama lie that “if you like the insurance coverage you have now,” you’d be able to keep it under Obamacare.)

Federal officials have blinked on this issue. The Department of Health and Human Services and Disservices is now granting waivers to many organizations so that their workers can retain coverage. McDonald’s and a New York teachers union are among the employers receiving the waivers.

This is such a great idea, let’s expand it! Give waivers to everybody for all the tyrannical provisions of the new law. 

What the heck, distribute waivers for every single tyrannical mandate that governments have ever imposed on us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

Demolition Time!

The socialist party of Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela, expects to lose seats in the next election. El Presidente pled with voters to not forsake the “revolution.” He dubbed the opposition — which last time around boycotted the elections — “Operation Demolition.”

This is supposed to be a bad thing?

Surely what we hope for in an opposition party, in South America or El Norte, is, in everything but the incendiary, literal sense, demolition.

Of expansive, intrusive, know-​it-​all government.

“Big” and “intrusive” are just two words that characterize what the GOP brought to America during its heyday. Others? Massive spending, a new medical “entitlement,” growing public debt, and — as a sort of crackpot coda — bailouts for rich people. 

Same for united government under the Democrats: More uncontrolled spending, an even more massively expensive medical “entitlement,” ballooning public debt — and, as a variation on a theme — more bailouts yet.

Massive government with no limits. But we’re told we can’t call it socialism!

Reports from Venezuela say the opposition has shifted from hatred of Hugo to issues such as rising crime and cost of living. In America, Tea Party folks have gained most ground when they attack spendthrift and socialistic policies rather than demonizing President Obama.

In both cases, ordinary people’s everyday concerns — taxes, debt, inflation, thuggery, and all the other things that go along with socialist-​leaning policies — trump the cult/​anti-​cult of personality as well as political theory, expressed by this ism or that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.