More War, More Cronyism, More Corporate Give-Aways, More CrowdedPrisons, More Taxes, More Regulations, More Drug War, More PoliceMilitarization and Civil Rights Violations, More Assaults on Free Speech, More Economic Bungling, More Debt, More Control, More Corruption.
Politicians make us suffer. Isn’t turnabout fair play?
No. Two wrongs don’t make a right. And equal suffering is not a worthwhile goal.
Nonetheless, politicians do indeed need to “suffer” — by which I mean to bear a serious and sobering cost for their service in pubic office, to view their relationship with power through the lens of sacrifice . . . not as cashing-in.
Like every other decent person, I’ve always been offended by midnight pay raises and the myriad sneaky, sleazy ways that our so-called servants enrich themselves at our expense. But, until recently, I considered politicians being over-compensated as a symptom of the problem and not a big problem in and of itself.
Now I’m convinced that lavish pay, pensions and other benefits for city councilmen, state legislators and congressmen constitute a serious problem. It breeds bad behavior when politicians line their own pockets — and laugh their way into retirement.
But even without the tricks, when our representatives receive too many treats for their, ahem, “service,” they tend not to serve us very well.
Some contend that compensation must be “competitive” to attract the best and the brightest. But with rare exceptions, we’re not getting those folks to run for office. Instead of enticing successful people or those committed enough to public service to accept less lucrative pay, we’re getting folks who see public office as their path to success — personal financial success.
One cannot serve two masters. If our representatives are in it for their own benefits, as opposed to making a sacrifice for the greater good . . . well, we wind up with government like we have now.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“If I order the killing of someone,” Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said last Friday, “you cannot arrest me: I have immunity.”
Yikes. Nearly everything negative imputed, perhaps dubiously, to Donald Trump applies double to Duterte, without a hint of dubiety.
Ordering killings with impunity? Only the U.S. president can do that.
The former mayor of Davao City was in the news during his presidential bid, for his ultra-Trumpian outbursts, saying daring, ugly, even wicked things.
Most scandalous was his remark about a young woman who was gang raped in his home town. It was “only a tragedy,” as Breitbart.com phrases it, “because he himself did not get to have sex with her first.”
Vile, yes; downright evil.
And terrifying coming from a politician entrust with protecting his countrywomen’s rights.
But then, Duterte is clear: he doesn’t care about human rights.
In his ruthless war on drugs, he’s instructed drug-warrior police to shoot first, ask questions later. The nation’s “narco-mayors” (politicians who cooperate with drug dealers) are begging for protection, leniency, anything. If those mayors have armed defenders, Duterte threatens to have the Air Force bomb them.
The American ambassador to the Philippines has publicly censured Duterte, but not (that I’m aware of, anyway) for humans rights violations, but for Candidate Duterte’s earlier rape comment. Duterte struck back calling the ambassador names and claiming his public condemnation was out of line, undiplomatic.
True enough.
I guess that’s why Secretary of State John Kerry just “inked a deal,” says Breitbart, sending $32 million to support Duterte’s war on drugs.
Duterte’s response? “[L]et’s insult them again so these fools try to make amends again.”
Fools, indeed.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
There’s no accounting for taste, especially regarding humor.
For instance, the 1966 film “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” is, to me, a classic. And I think Donald Trump’s recent sarcasm — “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” — was funny.
And surprisingly appropriate to the situation.
Did the Russians give WikiLeaks the hacked DNC emails? We don’t know.
Was Trump malevolently, traitorously standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue inviting a foreign adversary to criminally cyber-attack his political opponent, as hyped? No.
Still, I’m not copasetic with Trump’s apparent buddy-fest with Russian President — and thug — Vladimir Putin. Yet, Trump is hardly the first American politician to act the fool before Putin.
Republican President George W. Bush bizarrely claimed to have looked into Putin’s soul. It was cloudy that day.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton jetted over to the Kremlin with a silly “Reset” button. Still, friendly Russian interests have been financially generous to the Clintons.
Russia bailed out President Obama (and Assad) after Syria crossed Obama’s apparently evanescent red line. Recall that open microphone that caught Obama telling outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to let Putin know, “After my election, I have more flexibility.”
Vladimir Putin must wonder how his Soviet forebears could have possibly lost the Cold War to a country led by such ninnies.
In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney called Russia our number one geopolitical foe . . . only to be ridiculed by Obama and mocked in the media. “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back,” scoffed a contemptuous Obama. Current Secretary of State John Kerry called it a “preposterous notion.”
Since then, Russia has annexed Crimea, made war in eastern Ukraine and occasionally bombed U.S. forces in Syria.
The Baltic nations, some of which have significant Russian minorities, understandably feel threatened. America has pledged to militarily defend these tiny countries bordering Russia.
But no discussion of that on the campaign trail.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
The persistence of the issue of raising the minimum wage is an indictment of public education, for at least two reasons:
Bernie Sanders wanted a 15-buck minimum. Hillary went on record supporting a 12-buck rate. Donald Trump would prefer that the minimum wage regulations be enacted by the states, though he says a hike to ten dollars per hour would really help the less fortunate.
It wouldn’t.
That is the tacit theme in a Wall Street Journal piece on the recent minimum wage rate hikes in 14 American cities, including the nation’s capital. A classic, succinct article on BET makes the point even more stark: a duo of economists from Trinity University “report that when a state, or the federal government, increases the minimum wage, Black teens are more likely to be laid off. The duo analyzed 600,000 data points, which the Employment Policies Institute says included ‘a robust sample of minority young adults unprecedented in previous studies on the minimum wage.’”
Just as theory predicts.
Could it be that politicians promise a raise because they believe government-schooled Americans too miseducated to know better?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“We were blessed to raise our three sons in a nation where they were free to be themselves and follow their dreams.”
Those eloquent words came from the lips of Khizr Khan, the Pakistani immigrant who spoke at the Democratic National Convention last week about losing his son, Capt. Humayun Khan, to a suicide bomber in Iraq.
Describing his family “as patriotic American Muslims with undivided loyalty to our country,” and charging that, “Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims.” Khan asked Donald J. Trump a great question: “Have you even read the U.S. Constitution?”
Then, reaching into his suit pocket, Khan pulled out a copy, adding, “I will gladly lend you my copy.”
Yesterday at Townhall, I declared Khan my Person of the Week. Not just because Mr. Khan is fond of handing out pocket-sized copies of the U.S. Constitution and told the New York Times that his “real hero” is Thomas Jefferson, but because he asked a great question.
Let’s ask all the candidates. That question, for sure, and three additional ones:
I’ve got more questions. I bet you do, too.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Most folks are so unused to seeing normal people carrying guns around, out in the open, that when they it, they freak out.
Among those who are at least, well, unsettled by the spectacle? The police.
Funny, the gun freaker-outers don’t usually freak when they see police with guns. But that may be changing as more and more video footage comes out regarding police shootings of suspects under suspicious circumstances.
It is not exactly by accident that there are protests in numerous cities.
So, police being human, we cannot be surprised when, after the Dallas and Baton Rouge killings of police, “[t]he head of the Cleveland police union called on the governor of Ohio to declare a state of emergency and to suspend open-carry gun rights during the Republican national convention. . . .”
The governor’s office responded that Gov. John Kasich had no authority to do such a thing. Open carry was a law in the state. Only inside buildings could carry rights be suspended (as they have been, selectively).
Steve Loomis, the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association head, said that he did not “care what the legal precedent” may be, and “couldn’t care less if it’s legal or not.”
If Loomis, a leader in “law enforcement,” boasts this attitude, no wonder police have had so many trigger finger incidents, sparking so much anguish, protest, and debate.
It’s time for police to rethink their approach to people who have rights to carry weapons.
Perhaps more importantly, we should all try not to freak out so easily.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right.”
Quote (from Paine’s “Common Sense”) verified here.
Yesterday, we discovered that modern America asks police to do “too much.” Which prompts the next question: What should police stop doing?
Here are two immediate reforms where police can do less, while protecting the public more:
(1) End the War on Drugs. Preventing violence and fraud is the rightful role of police. Not preventing people from engaging in activities that are peaceful, however misguided or self-harming. The criminalization of marijuana means more than 150 million Americans are criminals, warranting police involvement.
Now, Mr. Obama has released some convicts serving long drug-related sentences, but we need a president who will go much farther in changing law enforcement priorities.
(2) Stop Using Civil Asset Forfeiture, whereby police steal people’s stuff without charging and convicting those people of any crime. Not only do federal agencies from Justice to the IRS take our property in violation of our rights, but the Feds encourage state and local police to join them in this bad behavior through their “equitable sharing” program.
While Obama has spoken against seizing assets without a criminal conviction, he hasn’t stopped it. And he could at the federal level, with a stroke of his pen — as I have advocated at Townhall. Ending civil asset forfeiture is an executive order actually within his constitutional power.
Would these two steps end all racism or violence or crime? No, no, no.
They would be, however, two steps forward toward a more principled, lawful and respectful style of policing that would better serve to unite rather than divide citizens and police.
It’s a different two-step than reformers have been witnessing.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Photo Credit: Tomasz Iwaniec
Virginia delegate Beau Correll won’t cast his first ballot vote at the Republican National Convention for Donald Trump, and won’t go to jail, either.
As discussed last Thursday, at issue is a state statute requiring* delegates to vote for the plurality winner of the party’s primary. On the Republican side, that’s Mr. Trump. Yesterday, Federal Judge Robert Payne ruled the law unconstitutional, no law at all, because it violates Correll’s First Amendment rights to speak and associate politically.
“In sum, where the State attempts to interfere with a political party’s internal governance and operation,” the federal judge wrote, “the party is entirely free to ‘cancel out [the State’s] effort’ (Def. Resp. 28) even though the state has expended financial and administrative resources in a primary.”
Love ’em or hate ’em, political parties are private associations, properly protected by the First Amendment.
But is it fair to hold primary elections, at taxpayers’ expense, and then ignore the votes of so many people?
Easy answer: NO.
Sure, Judge Payne correctly struck this statute, but it doesn’t follow that states must foot the bill for party primaries and national conventions or provide legal preference. Up to now, incumbent politicians have quietly legislated a relationship of too-friendly collusion between government and the major parties.
It’s time for citizens to look at initiatives to mandate separation of political party and state.
More immediately, the implications for the coming GOP convention in Cleveland are obvious and far-reaching. “The Court’s decision,” as Correll’s attorney David Rivkin summarized, “follows more than 40 years of precedent in firmly rejecting Donald Trump’s legal opinion that delegates are obligated by law to vote for him.”
The delegates are free.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Penalty for non-compliance? One year in prison.
Original photo credit: Gage Skidmore on Flickr