Category: general freedom

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Common Sense First Amendment rights general freedom too much government

Happy Birthday, Mr. Jefferson?

Can you get arrested for celebrating Jefferson’s birthday?

I’ve just received an alert from Jason Talley, the former publisher of Bureaucrash.com. Jason remains active trying to get people to think about freedom. He’s made a lot of noise . . . by being silent.

His most recent effort seemed innocuous enough: A ten-minute “silent dance,” abetted by iPods, at the Jefferson Memorial on April 13. That’s Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. The 20 or so participants celebrated in a perhaps startling way. The group performed their dance late in the day, midnight actually, so as not to interfere with the experience of other visitors.

Well, after a few minutes, security at the memorial leapt into action to expel the dancers. One was even arrested. Her sin? Asking “Why?” In a local NBC news report Jason points out that the dancers were silent, which video confirms. So there isn’t much weight to claims that they were disturbing the peace. School kids visiting the monument are rowdier. Jason says he hopes police don’t start arresting school kids.

Videos of the incident at YouTube have already been viewed by tens of thousands. A “Free the Jefferson 1″ blog and Facebook and Flicker and Twitter accounts are helping spread the word. When the charges are dropped, it’ll all stop.

Tom Jefferson once said, “Dancing is a healthy and elegant exercise.” And he didn’t even own an iPod.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom

Privacy Means No Random Drug Tests

Your privacy rights vary from state to state, as citizens of Washington State may have just found out to their surprise.

In a tiny rural county in the Evergreen State, a public school had required random drug tests of its sports participants. Since not everyone wanted to pee to play, the case found its way to the court. In mid-March the issue was decided by the state’s Supreme Court. The state’s guarantee that “No person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or his home invaded, without authority of law,” was held to nix the program.

There has to be reasonable suspicion to require drug tests, at least in Washington.

Urinating into a cup, on demand, is a breach of privacy. Random demands for this were held by the court to be “warrentless.”

Some think random drug testing of children is a great idea, liberties and constitutions be damned. I prefer freedom. It is demonstrated criminal behavior that warrants the intrusion of police power. Not mere generalized suspicion.

And let’s be frank: random drug tests are there only to inspire a general level of fear, leading (it is hoped) to abstinence from the use of prohibited drugs.

You may fear drugs so much that you want your kids to live like that. I don’t.

In one state, at least, “students do not ‘shed their constitutional rights’ at the schoolhouse door.” What about your state?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense education and schooling general freedom

What Leads Us?

There’s a commercial that asks, “What leads us as a society?” And then answers, “Education.” I don’t agree. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against education (who does?), but I’ve always thought that individual freedom leads our society.

Daniel Pink, writing in Reason magazine, makes my point. “Whenever students around the world take those tests that measure which country’s children know the most, American kids invariably score near the bottom,” Pink observes. But he adds, “by almost every measure, the American economy outperforms those very same nations.”

“If we’re so dumb, how come we’re so rich?”

Well I know: it’s because Americans have been more free than other people to dream and to endeavor to make those dreams come true. So we’re more inspired. You didn’t think we were somehow born better than other people, did you?

Pink calls America the “free agent nation.” The richest man in America and the world, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, is a college drop-out. In fact, nearly 10 percent of the Forbes 400 richest Americans never completed their college education. Four of these multi-millionaires never finished high school!

Now I have a child of my own starting college next year and I’m sure not suggesting she drop out. But I do think our kids’ futures depend less on some stupid test score, and more on the freedom they have to chase their dreams. And if you need to teach yourself something to chase that dream, you’ll do it even without a professor giving you an assignment.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.