Category: general freedom

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general freedom ideological culture

Q and an Answer

Q Anon, conspiracy, MAGA

Can we start laughing again?

If the actual positions of our goofy ruling class won’t do it for you, then . . . what about QAnon?

A few weeks ago, President Trump was asked about QAnon. “At the crux of the theory,” a reporter explained, “is this belief that [Trump is] secretly saving the world from this Satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals.” She went on to ask the president if that was something he was behind.

“I haven’t heard that, but is that supposed to be a bad thing?”

This may be the most politic and understated response ever given by our impolitic and hyperbolic leader.

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives took QAnon seriously enough to formally condemn it, asking the intelligence agencies to monitor it closely. Though it is a set of conspiracy theorists, a few enthusiasts apparently have taken criminal actions.

Not included in “the widely supported bipartisan measure”? Seventeen Republicans and “Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.),” reported Christian Britschgi on Friday. “The latter argued the resolution posed serious free speech concerns and could be counterproductive.”

Amash had the wit to see that sending the FBI to investigate “conspiracy theorists who believe in a deep state that’s fighting against them” might possibly . . . “just confirm . . . their fears.”

If you are like me, you know little about pedophiles and bupkis about cannibal cults. But if Trump supporters who spin tall tales about Trump directing secret military units to nuke underground nests of alien deviltry unnerve politicians enough to publicly condemn them for doing so, three responses seem rational:

  1. Uproariously chortling;
  2. Recognition that if pedophile cannibal cults do exist, unearthing them would be helpful; and
  3. Wondering on which side in that struggle Congress might place itself.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling folly general freedom

The Foam Rubber Bullet

OBEY

The reports say the color of the top of the Nerf gun is neon green. In the photo I saw, it seemed less colorful than “neon” — but that hardly matters. It is a toy gun. Its ammo is nerfy soft. And it was held by a boy, Isaiah Elliott, briefly, during a Zoom chat educational session as has become common during these days of the pandemic. And his teacher saw it.

And things spiraled out of control from there.

Now, while cities are burning and Marxists are sharpening their knives and dulling their wits for the summer season’s final gasps of “protest,” you might think that teachers and public school administrators would have obtained some perspective.

But no. This is 2020 and we are to be spared nothing.

In a decades-long tradition of educators freaking out at boyish (and girlish) play with pretend firearms, the teacher informed on Master Elliott — though she knew it was a toy gun. 

And the school suspended the lad for five days.

This has nothing to do with school safety, of course. The school is virtual, now. Pretense that this is about safety is an insult to not only adult intelligence, but child intelligence, too.

I guess what public school administrators want to teach their charges is that they are running a cult, that boys and girls and all on the sliding scale in-between must OBEY. 

Must not offend against the State by showing even playful reverence for the Great Taboo and Talisman of Freedom, the Gun.

Thankfully, young Isaiah is headed to a different school.

And his Nerf play days are not over.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly general freedom responsibility

Bath Tub Fails

Coronavirus, Covid, panic, risk

“Barely one in 1,000 Britons has died from coronavirus,” states Tim Harford, in U.K.’s Daily Mail, “and yet the economy is in cardiac arrest, Government debt has run into hundreds of billions and many parents are terrified of sending their children to school.”

Trying to put the pandemic in context with actual numbers, to assess realistic risk, Harford goes on to argue that “given the current low risk of infection, combined with the low risk from the disease, a 30-year-old is far more at risk from riding a motorbike, going skiing or horse-riding — let alone sky-diving, rock-climbing or scuba-diving — than from the virus.”

He makes the startling claim that a trek outside, with possible SARS-CoV-2 exposure, “is not much more serious than taking regular baths over a year.”

Harford makes many attempts not to minimize the danger, and assuage Brits’ past and present concerns, thus acknowledging that they weren’t exactly crazy, but in the end the situation is like this: “The prospect of bathtime tragedies has never shut the country down.”

People die of risky activities every day, and not just on slippery porcelain: we risk our lives on asphalt, staircases, and in the air. Yet we go on, plunging ahead.

Brave people, we?

Not now. The worldwide government response has been, with a few notable exceptions — Sweden and South Dakota, to name the two most famous for bucking panic and lockdowns and mask-wearing mandates — a pitch to people’s fears.

Maybe in Britain thought leaders and statesmen have praised valor and fortitude as well as caution and individual responsibility. But in America, calls to courage have been few and far between.

Hey: I just noticed something, “panic” is contained within the word “pandemic”!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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general freedom

Government’s Job One

law enforcement, rights, children

What should governments do?

At the very least, and perhaps at the very most, defend our rights.

Now, rights-defense is not easy; folks in government along with folks who demand more government have other plans. It’s easier to attack peaceful people for not doing what you want than to come to the aid of victims who are under attack — or have been conned or kidnapped — by really sick and evil people.

So every now and then it is a good idea to call attention to governments actually doing Job One.

The U.S. Marshals Service put out a press release last week, and it got some attention: “U.S. Marshals find 39 missing children in Georgia in ‘Operation Not Forgotten.’”

This law enforcement campaign “resulted in the rescue of 26 children, the safe location of 13 children and the arrest of nine criminal associates. Additionally, investigators cleared 26 arrest warrants and filed additional charges for alleged crimes related to sex trafficking, parental kidnapping, registered sex offender violations, drugs and weapons possession, and custodial interference.”

The coverage of the operation so far has produced little beyond what’s in the press release. So our job is to praise the effort and hope that the these children are cared for and can begin to heal.

We live in a time of heightened awareness of the “trafficking” of under-age persons for prostitution and sex slavery. We can thank Jeffrey Epstein for that. And the U.S. Marshals and local law enforcement for this rescue. 

This is, after all, the reason we have governments in the first place. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom international affairs

All Dogs Go to Heaven Early

dog, North Korea

In July, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un declared possessing pet dogs to be a “decadent trend” from the West.

Along with eating well and living without fear of one’s government.

Oh, not that last bit.

But, apparently — and there are many news stories, if not much exactitude or certainty — he did order all dogs confiscated. 

Why?

Well, reports vary. A search of DuckDuckGo will yield much speculation and a few sparse facts. 

A South Korean newspaper relayed a leak saying that Un called dog ownership “a ‘tainted’ trend by bourgeois ideology.”

How could dogs have been with us for tens of thousands of years, and may have been key to our species’ success, yet somehow now be “decadent” and “tainted” and “bourgeois”?

And, for that matter, a “trend.”

How many tens of thousands of years does it take to make a trend? On Twitter, it takes just a few minutes!

There is a lot of talk of a COVID-19 famine (on top of the Kim Family Famine that has been trending for decades) and meat shortages. I’ve read reports that the dogs are to go to restaurants. And then there is the business about higher-ups in the Hidden Kingdom’s un-hidden but Un-ridden hierarchy who have been taking advantage of a cultural loophole to display their status with expensive pet dogs from the West. 

Un prefers his displays of status, apparently, to be public executions and harsh and abrupt edicts . . . such as putting all dogs into execution chambers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom ideological culture responsibility

Racism as Health Crisis?

George Floyd, race, racism, Covid, Coronavirus

How can you tell when people really care? 

It is not when they mouth the right platitudes.

Or advance a carefully crafted political agenda.

What counts more? Something practical.

Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer cracked down further with COVID-related health care mitigation efforts this week. One stands out: on Wednesday she “declared racism a public health crisis, ordered implicit bias training for all state employees, and,” reports Paul Egan of the Detroit Free Press, “created a state advisory council to focus on issues affecting Black people in Michigan.”

“We have a lot of work to do to eliminate the systemic racism that Black Americans have experienced for generations,” the governor said.

Whitmer noted that black Michiganders are four times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white Michiganders — because, well, you probably do not need to read deeply into her communiqués or watch USA Today’s helpful video. The arguments are familiar.

And not completely without merit.

But notice what she did not say.

She did not advise darker-skinned people to take Vitamin D supplements and go outside and soak in more rays than they might, otherwise.

Vitamin D deficiency has been repeatedly linked as a co-factor for the development of severe COVID-19.

Race, not racism, may be what’s most relevant. Or, as the president might say, “it is what it is”: white skin more efficiently absorbs solar radiation to produce Vitamin D than higher-melaninned skin, an adaptation for northern climes where solar radiation is less intense than in the tropics.*

While this is certainly not the only factor in susceptibility to the virus’s worst effects, and it is still unproven — a word to the wise.

From the caring.

Not the politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* “According to a CDC study published in 2006,” offered the Arizona Republic, “21% of non-Hispanic white people are at risk of having inadequate levels of vitamin D, versus 73% of Black people and 42% of Hispanic people.”

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general freedom national politics & policies

Masking Upside Down

upside down, inside out, masks, surveillance

After initially being downgraded as worthless, perhaps even harmful, masks are now heavily promoted. There are even demands that the federal government step in to make mask-wearing mandatory.

Nationwide. 

Bad idea. And I could marshal a number of arguments to make the case. Indeed, one really sticks out: when the CCP virus is no longer the fear, but a bad flu season strikes at an unsuspecting populace, will the masks be required then, too? What’s the threshold? How do we decide when to go into all-panic mode?

How much better it would be to argue for mask-wearing as a matter of manners — consideration for others during pandemics or simply if ill — than as policeable government policy. 

And maybe we should look at it upside down. You know, like we can reflect on school closures in perpetuity as a possible blessing — because they encourage private and communal responses.

Maybe it is a downside up, but the current pro-mask state mandates mean that governments cannot stop you from wearing masks when they don’t want you to wear masks.

All around the world, but especially in Britain, and increasingly in the United States, mass surveillance with face-recognition AI is turning free peoples into the subjects of Big Brother’s watchful gaze.

Frightening.

And the easiest way to throw a monkey wrench into face-recognition systems is to wear masks when we are out.

They can hardly stop us when they are requiring masks because of contagion fears. So even if the forces of totalitarian control fail to mandate masks nationally, take the “new normal” as an excuse to mess up their larger agenda.

Big Brother?

You may lose this one after all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture media and media people U.S. Constitution

The Mobs Attacked and Defended

Portland, riots, protests, Ted Wheeler

It’s “mobocracy” — the riots in major cities around the nation, but especially in Portland, Oregon, where the president sent federal agents. Local police had stood back for weeks as Democratic politicians — such as Joe Biden — referred to the rioters as “peaceful protesters.” Even as the mobs lit fires in the streets, defaced property, and attempted to break into government buildings.

Buck Sexton, writing at The Hill, makes the obvious linkage between the “anarchists” and the “Democratic” Party. 

But Sexton doesn’t really answer the key questions: “Why are anarchists terrorizing Portland? What was the real purpose of the Seattle ‘Capital Hill Autonomous Zone’? Why were ‘Occupy City Hall’ protesters allowed to fight with police in lower Manhattan for a month, until officers cleared out their encampment on Wednesday?” Sexton rejects the official reasons give by the movements’ apparent leaders, but doesn’t go very far beyond Democratic Party attempts to leverage the riots.

Which may at least offer amusement. “The reason I am here tonight is to stand with you,” Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler assured the mob as he put on goggles. “So if they’re launching the tear gas against you, they’re launching the tear gas against me.” But that same night, his security detail “scuffled” with “protesters” and his own police department threatened to use tear gas and impact weapons on the incendiary horde.

Is this really about legitimate protest, as Biden insists?

Fighting federal fascism, as Democrats and many others insist?

Americans are all-in for criminal justice reform and the right to protest. Many, me included, have peacefully taken to the streets in recent weeks.

But there is nothing peaceful about assault, arson, property destruction.

And Democrats who aim to use the fracas to beat Trump in November may find that ‘playing with fire’ . . . burns. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom media and media people

The Four Froms

freedom, positive, negative, undefined

Liberty was a straightforward concept.

Once. 

Then The New York Times got ahold of it back in April with a featured editorial: “The America We Need.” 

“Our society was especially vulnerable to this pandemic,” the paper alleges, “because so many Americans lack the essential liberty to protect their own lives and the lives of their families.”

The fight against the Wuhan virus has been deficient due to a deficit of . . . “essential liberty”? 

This isn’t the Merriam-Webster definition of “liberty,” i.e. the “quality or state of being free” or “freedom from physical restraint.” Dump that retro “narrow and negative definition,” advises the editorial; it represents an “impoverished view of freedom” that “has perpetuated the nation’s defining racial inequalities and kept the poor trapped in poverty.”

Freedom of speech, religion, the press, etc., are all negative. Trade them in for a “broad and muscular conception of liberty: that government should provide all Americans with the freedom that comes from a stable and prosperous life.”

Prosperity for all! For free! Come on down!

Noting the “extraordinary nature of the crisis,” the editorial calls for “permanent changes in the social contract” to take the nation “beyond the threadbare nature of the American safety net.”

Free stuff from the government, housing, healthcare — all very positive ideas of liberty. 

But what about these positives’ negatives?

“A government big enough to give you everything you want,” former President Gerald Ford once explained to Congress, “is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”

The cost of “positive freedom” is our freedom from dependence, from interference, from coercive control, from . . . oppression.

Positively negative, if you ask me.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Illustration adapted from Liberty Leading the People (La liberté guidant le people) by Eugène Delacroix (1830)

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general freedom international affairs

iQuisling

apple, China, quisling

Sometimes you should not try a balancing act.

Last weekend, Hong Kong citizens voted in opposition primaries — conducted in defiance of China’s new “national security” law that deprives Hong Kong of the last vestiges of democracy and individual freedom that the region had been allowed to retain after Great Britain handed it over to China in 1997. 

General elections will be held in September.

The primary organizers developed a voting platform called PopVote with apps for iOS and Android. 

Although China condemns the elections as illegal, Google has accepted the app for Android. But Apple first voiced technical objections to the code; then, after programmers made requested changes, the company stopped responding to them at all.

“We think it is being censored by Apple,” says Edwin Chu, one of the developers. 

It wouldn’t be the first time Apple has rejected apps in obedience to the Chinese government.

The Quartz website says that the firm “has long had to walk a tightrope between its commitment to user rights and placating China” because of the large market for (and production of) iStuff in that country.

Apple’s conduct may be unfavorably compared to that of companies like the one responsible for the secure messaging app Telegram. When China banned the app in 2015, founder Pavel Durov saw no point trying to get the ban reversed. He said: “It’s pretty obvious that the Chinese government’s desire for total control over its population is incompatible with our values.”

Not so incompatible with Apple’s values, apparently.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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