Category: general freedom

An Evil Ism

socialism, Antifa, means, ends, refutation, fascism, intentions

With “democratic socialism” again on the rise, a refresher course in history seems apt: socialism has demonstrated the strong tendency to end up in totalitarian tyranny, poverty, and genocide.

As I mentioned on Monday, Reason’s Nick Gillespie suspects that this response is not very convincing to people tempted by socialism. But really, why not? What about a history of horror could be appealing?

Which is why the question “Do Socialists Mean Well?” as answered by Grant Babcock, might help. Babcock answers in the negative.* “Socialism is not ultimately an end but a means. And as a means, socialism is evil.”

With an evil means, one’s chosen end is irrelevant, because of other results. “If I told you I wanted to end homelessness, you might say I had good intentions,” Babcock explains. But if he confessed to seek that end “by conscripting the homeless into the army . . . [n]ot only should you say I have bad intentions, you shouldn’t give me any moral credit for saying I want to end homelessness.”

True. But Babcock has to engage in his extended argument about means because, for purposes of his essay, anyway, he began with the premise that while fascists are evil because they seek directly to harm some people, socialists do not.

Uh, really? Most socialists make much of taking from “the rich,” however they define the rich — as “the one percent” or “the privileged,” etc.

Call it expropriation; call it theft: that’s a lot of anger and ill will directed to one group of people.

In that way, the appeal of socialism is too much like the appeal of fascism.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Babcock, by the way, denies the label “socialist” to social democrats who call themselves “democratic socialists” — by definition. On this matter, see “Bernie’s Slippery Definition of Democratic Socialism” and “Is Denmark Socialist?” on this site.

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Tags Antifa, ends, fascism, intentions, means, refutation, socialism

free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture too much government

The Ambit of an Ambition

“The geopolitical situation makes this Europe’s hour: the time for European sovereignty has come,” said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker this week, staking a big claim for the future in this year’s State of the Union Address.

Juncker wants the EU to be a shiny new “global player,” but shies from the word that comes immediately to mind: “We have to be super,” Juncker clarifies, “but not a superpower.”

The big question is how Juncker’s ramped-up globalism would serve European citizens. Juncker itches to build a “More United, Stronger and More Democratic Union,” but his biggest problem may be that the people seem increasingly iffy on this whole unity thing.

Brexit is only the most spectacular popular rebellion.

“The Visegrad nations of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic,” the Washington Times noted yesterday, have balked at EU migration policies, and “all face EU legal sanctions.” Meanwhile, “Populist governments have been elected in Italy and Austria, where voters are sick and tired of the constant intrusions into their lives by Brussels.”

And on Wednesday the EU enacted Article 13, an intrusive copyright law that Net activists have dubbed a “meme killer” capable of destroying “the Internet as we know it.”

While Juncker talks about Europe taking “destiny into its own hands,” Europeans seem more interested in taking their government into their own hands.

After all, it is not as if Europeans cannot prosper in a world economy without confederation — much less something much more, a stronger central bureaucratic authority.

European states could, for instance, adopt free trade. It would make them richer and the world safer.

And they could, in addition, junk Juncker.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom national politics & policies term limits

Wise American Tradition

George Washington, resignation, king, father, term limits

On Sunday, former Pres. Barack Obama acknowledged — in the breach — the “wise American tradition of ex-presidents gracefully exiting the political stage and making room for new voices and new ideas.”

The former president’s talk at the University of Illinois made big news in large part because it was a direct attack on the current president.

“We have our first president, George Washington, to thank for setting that example,” Mr. Obama explained to the students. “After he led the colonies to victory, as General Washington, there were no constraints on him, really. He was practically a god to those who had followed him into battle. There was no Constitution. There were no democratic norms that guided what he should or could do. And he could have made himself all-powerful; he could have made himself potentially president for life. Instead, he resigned as commander-in-chief and moved back to his country estate.”

Noting that “six years later” Washington was elected president, Obama added, “But after two terms, he resigned again and rode off into the sunset.”

The two-term limit, constitutionally imposed on modern presidents, was established as a tradition when self-imposed by the man known as the father of our country.

“The point Washington made, the point that is essential to American democracy, is that in a government of, and by and for the people, there should be no permanent ruling class,” the former president concluded, “. . . only citizens, who through their elected and temporary representatives determine our course and determine our character.”

On that, Americans across the political spectrum can agree.

It’s called term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Illustration: detail from “The Resignation of General Washington, December 23, 1783,” oil on canvas, by the American artist John Trumbull.

Tags father, George Washington, King, resignation, term limits

general freedom ideological culture media and media people moral hazard

Until the Fat Lady Offends

Richard Wagner, Israel, censorship, radio, law, offence, offensive, outrage

We live in a new Age of Offense. A whole lot of people make a whole lot of fuss about what other people say and listen to, view and experience.

Then again, some things are enormously offensive.

One of the latest offense-takings takes place in Israel, where a classical music station played music by Richard Wagner. And so of course had to apologize.

The music played was from the final opera in Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Not my cup of tea. Or coffee. Or latte. As those who follow me on Facebook know, I have varied musical tastes, but more classic rock than classical.

Israelis who listen to classical tend to be none too fond of Wagner not because he was an especially bad composer (I’m told he is a “Great”) but because he was very much an anti-Semite, and Hitler’s favorite composer.

“While there is no law in Israel banning the German composer’s works from being played,” The Telegraph informs us, “orchestras and venues refrain from doing so because of the public outcry and disturbances accompanying past attempts.”

Understandable.

Still, some Israelis do like Wagner’s music. But since the radio station is State-owned and -controlled, the Israel Wagner Society’s president’s admonishment that “Whoever doesn’t want to hear the music can always turn the radio off,” doesn’t quite work.

That would apply only were the station owned by the Israel Wagner Society — willing to bear the loss of customers one might expect in Israel.

In America, of course, Wagner is often on the air.

And those who object . . . turn the dial.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags censorship, Israel, law, offence, offensive, outrage, radio, Richard Wagner

crime and punishment general freedom insider corruption

Puppycide

The cost of the War on Drugs is not to be reckoned just in dollars. Or in that more serious accounting index: lost lives. The hit to our civil liberties has been enormous, too, and instrumental in setting up the modern Surveillance State.

But beyond these, there is a stranger result: the War on Drugs is also, de facto, a War on Dogs.

“Detroit police officers shot 54 dogs last year, according to public records obtained by Reason,” writes C.J. Ciaramella. “That’s a marked increase over the number reported by the department in 2016 and 2015, and more than twice as many as Chicago, a city with roughly 2 million more people.”

Reason magazine has been covering the War on Dogs by police forces across the country — identified in Ciaramella’s article as “puppycide” — for years, and I’ve mentioned it here on Common Sense, too. The problem is not dogs shot because they are wild, or have rabies, or the like. One expects that sort of thing.

What is problematic is that a third of the Detroit shootings took place in the course of no-knock raids and other common police actions entailed by contraband interdiction. The Detroit number turns out to be “more animal shootings than the entire Los Angeles Police Department performed — 14 total — in 2016,” Ciaramella relates.

Excessive shooting of dogs is costly to cities, of course — to taxpayers, to be precise — in terms of civil lawsuits filed and settled. And to families, some of them quite innocent of any crime, who lose their pets.

It is a sign of a police culture corrupted by . . . the War on Drugs.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags abuse, dogs, Drug War, family, police, puppycide, shooting

Accountability general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies Popular too much government

Pulling It Off

Cornel West, socialism, socialist, Venezuela, starvation

Give democratic socialism a chance?

So says Dr. Cornel West, the “provocative democratic intellectual” who serves as one of eight honorary co-chairs of the Democratic Socialists of America.

This accomplished Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University, and Professor Emeritus at Princeton, explained to Fox News host Tucker Carlson that socialism’s “fundamental commitment is to the dignity of ordinary people and to make sure they can lead lives of decency.”

“What happened in Venezuela?” Carlson asked West. “They called that democratic socialism. But they don’t have toilet paper and it’s less equal than ever.”

“But part of the problem is though, brother,” the professor responded, “that any time there [have] been attempts by ordinary people to engage in self-determination, they can get crushed by external nations. Look at U.S. policies toward Venezuela [which have] been very, very ugly — Nicaragua in the same way.”

West offered nary a specific to his charge, but was handy stating his conclusion. “So, we have never had a chance to really pull it off,” the “it” being socialism.

“So it’s only been a movement so far.”*

How convenient.

West implicitly acknowledges that those ruling Venezuela and Nicaragua are practicing socialism. But he won’t hold them or the -ism responsible for the economic collapse, the hunger, the exodus of millions of very desperate “ordinary” citizens, the arbitrary arrests, use of torture and murder of innocent citizens.

Dr. West, a follow-up question: Just what specific U.S. policy triggered these socialists to murder and torture their own people?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Dr. West also announced that socialism “is not an ‘ism,’ brother.” I think the professor needs to take a course in ism-ology.

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Photo by Gage Skidmore

Tags Cornel West, socialism, socialist, starvation, Venezuela

Common Sense free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture meme porkbarrel politics too much government

Wisdom for Labor Day

Jefferson, quote, good government, labor day, “A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring oneanother, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits ofindustry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. . ."

“…a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government…”

–Thomas Jefferson, 1801

Full quote is here

Tags “A wise and frugal Government, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. . .", good government, Jefferson, Labor Day, quote, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits ofindustry and improvement, which shall restrain men from injuring oneanother

First Amendment rights general freedom ideological culture meme moral hazard national politics & policies Popular

Re-Segregation

segregation, bias, right, left, conservative, liberal, water fountains

It is hard not to miss the ideological left’s inconsistency regarding “diversity”: demanding diversity of race and gender, they enforce a monoculture that somehow cannot tolerate intellectual and political competition.

We see this in

higher education, dominated by left-of-center professors and administrators;
in the news media, overwhelmingly filled with Democrats; and
even in the corporate world, especially in HR Departments.

That some areas of life are filled with one type of person, and others with a different kind, should shock no one. But the intolerance of this? It has recently become extra extreme on the left: De-platforming, physical attacks on free speech, censuring and firing employees who dare offer facts inconvenient for progressivism. When a senior Facebook engineer attempted to bring in tolerance and diversity, what should have been a non-story received national attention.*

It amounts to a new segregationism.

People are segregating more and more in their communities based on income and culture (see Bill Bishop’s The Big Sort) — despite many of these same self-segregators support for Martin Luther King’s civil rights agenda of de-segregation.

Another current trend is shunning. When it was discovered, the other day, that the In-N-Out burger chain had contributed $25,000 to the California Republican Party, the Twitterverse cooked up something special: “#BoycotInNOut — let Trump and his cronies support these creeps” . . . well, that gem is from the chair of the California Democratic Party.

Apparently, this Democratic Party official is demanding separate eating establishments for progressives and conservatives.

But hey, where would I eat?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Arguably, many of the stories we fret about should be non-stories — as in, “none of our business.” But when some people make others’ business theirs, the stories just will not stay local.

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Tags bias, conservative, left, liberal, right, segregation, water fountains

First Amendment rights general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies

Snail-mail Your Contribution

Post author By Redactor
Post date August 28, 2018
2 Comments on Snail-mail Your Contribution

Visa, Mastercard, David Horowitz, conservatives, censorship

In the dystopian world of the future, all financial transactions will be made by credit card. In this dark world, the people who run credit-card firms must be appeased. If they dislike what you’re doing, they will have the power to prevent you from receiving financial support for your work — however normal and legal that work may be.

And whom will such financial institutions be, in turn, appeasing?

Politicians.

The politicians won’t have to pass a law to get firms to do their bidding. They need merely grumble ominously.

Perhaps the politicians will cooperate with ideological organizations bearing ironically unrevealing names like Media Matters and Southern Poverty Law Center, dedicated to shutting down anybody they disagree with.

Is that future far away? No.

Here is the situation. Since cash and checks are still very legal, if you wish to support the work of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, you can mail a check. But as of this writing,* you can’t send the Center a payment online, because Visa and MasterCard have thwarted the Center’s ability to accept donations that way.

Why?

Because the SPLC has dubbed the Center a “hate group.”

David Horowitz told Breitbart News that regarding “Tech heads” as the main bad guys here is misguided: “They have been threatened by Senator Mark Warner and other Democrats if they don’t censor conservatives.”

When politicians start bullying, we are no longer talking about voluntary market transactions, or voluntarily abstaining from same. We are talking about a terrible future . . . that is already arriving.**

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* After this installment of Common Sense was sent to our webmaster, it was reported on The Daily Wire that “Credit Card Companies Restore Donations To Conservative Group After Backlash” (August 27, 2018).

** And if it takes a protest campaign to reinstate every deplatformed individual or organization, it is obvious that no great victory of principle has been won in the current reversal. In David Horowitz’s words, the battle is “very much far from over.”

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