Category: ideological culture

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ideological culture too much government

Shirkers of the World, Unite

socialism, freedom, control, democracy

“Now it is our turn,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders told the crowd gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, last Friday, celebrating the 63rd anniversary of Martin Luther King’s March on Washington speech. 

Socialist Sanders was followed by New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

“We the people demand guaranteed healthcare for every American as a right and not a privilege,” insisted AOC.

“We the people of the United States of America demand that one job with no need for overtime,” she declared, “should be enough for our most basic needs.”

Then Ocasio-Cortez added, “Which also include rest.”

“Exactly,” remarked Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, “We became number one in the world by resting and not working overtime.

“Right behind her is an army of socialist foot soldiers,” Kilmeade continued, “ready to work 30 hours and then take a break.”

That army is the Democratic Socialists of America — to which AOC had just re-upped her membership.

“Imagine taking a day off from work,” reads their program’s very first message, “in a future without capitalism.” You see, in that socialist utopia just around the corner, “You enjoy your work; it’s interesting to you” and “you would control your own labor” and it would never be “just a job to pay the bills.” 

The promise of socialism fulfilled at last.

“Speaking of bills,” the DSA assures you won’t “really have them anymore.” And there will be “no debt”! Why, you won’t even “pay a mortgage or have a landlord, because comfortable housing is a human right.” Simple as that, plus, “Your retirement is publicly funded.” 

Sure sounds like they’re going to take care of us real nice. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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general freedom ideological culture

My Sporting Double-Standard

WNBA, trans, sports, gender, sex

I like sports. Even soccer.

That’s why I oppose “transgender women” — biological men, for those playing at home — competing in women’s sports. The physical advantages that men, transgender or not, have over women make such athletic contests inherently unfair. 

Worse, from a marketing standpoint: unexciting. 

And sometimes dangerous.

Look, women are better than men at a lot of things. Maybe everything else.

The problem is one of uncompetitive competition, not hatred of transsexuals. It’s no more anti-trans to forbid men from competing in women’s sports than it is anti-men to limit girls’ sports to biological girls. 

“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans,” WNBA star Sophie Cunningham told ESPN. “And I’m like, ‘I never once said that.’

“I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest,” Cunningham explained. “And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”

What about the reverse? That is, “transgender men” — biological women — competing in men’s sports?

There doesn’t seem to be a big controversy about that. Why not? 

It just hasn’t happened, I figured. But I discovered that yes, it has. 

Without sparking much controversy, I note. And why? Because in this scenario the transgendered person is at a disadvantage. Punching up, so to speak. Trans men going against bigger, stronger, faster competitors (biologically likely to be, at least) and yet they’re still willing to suit up.

That’s what I love about sports.

This is Common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture too much government

The Greed of Socialism

socialism, national debt

Do the young think that their trendy-again socialist notions are new?

There’s no hat older than socialism. Our civilization has been grappling with socialist ideas for at least two centuries. While the arguments for and against socialism are many and varied, maybe it all boils down to ignorance and greed.

“This century’s socialist wave starts at a big disadvantage,” wrote Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., for the Wall Street Journal, yesterday. “It arrives as the socialism we already have runs out of that famous quantity, other people’s money.”

Today’s allegedly “democratic” socialists use “the socialism we already have” as an excuse for more. Truth is, we cannot afford what we now must put up with.

“An American baby born today owes $376,000 in federal debt and unfunded entitlement liabilities, assuming the burden is evenly distributed,” explains Mr. Jenkins. “Of course, it isn’t. We oldsters plan on checking out before the bill comes due.”

The intergenerational conflict of actually-existing socialism has been buried under nice phrases like “Social Security” — even as that specific program teeters, insolvent, requiring re-jiggering to ratchet up burdens on the young every other generation. 

I see why the young would object. It’s harder to see why they would want more of the dog that bites them.

“Let me be the 1,000th to notice that the New York socialism of Mayor Zohran Mamdani seems to appeal especially to privileged young people, still supported in adulthood by their parents.” 

And let me be the millionth to observe that demanding other people do your work and pay your bills amounts to exactly what these very nice socialists have always railed against.

Greed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling ideological culture Internet controversy

A Scandal’s Arc

Jason Arday, scandal, plagiarism, Cambridge, DEI, race

When did you first hear the story of Jason Arday? 

In 2023, Mr. Arday became something of a public sensation in Great Britain, where his claims to being autistic, mute till age 11, and illiterate till 18 made a striking rag-to-riches/up-from-racism story upon his appointment as Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge.

The youngest Black professor at that institution ever.

But few in America heard much about him. 

Last September, Times Higher Education journalist Jack Grove documented what he alleged to be plagiarism in Arday’s 2015 PhD thesis and academic publications. Grove contacted Arday for comment; Arday responded with a letter from his lawyers. The story was not published. 

Then, a month ago, philosopher Nathan Cofnas published his exposé, which began with a litany of Arday’s autobiographical whoppers, not including the one I heard most bandied-about: that at age 7 the young Jason had been interviewed for the famous documentary Seven Up! — a glaring fib because the movie came out 21 years before Prof. Arday was born.

Cofnas compared passages in Arday’s 2018 paper to someone else’s 2012 paper. One sentence can serve to illustrate: “In particular, I seek to make a direct association between the tools of normative Whiteness and the deployment and consequences of racial microaggressions.” The italics indicate the one word Arday added.

A key contribution.

The Telegraph and The Times published stories on July 24th. On August 1, The Guardian got into it; four days later, the university opened an inquiry; the next day, Arday resigned. 

Eight days later, Jason Arday was found dead in his apartment. Suicide? That’s what many surmise, but police have only said his death was “unexpected but is not believed to be suspicious.”

For some, a cause célèbre! Vigils, ongoing. But his mourners downplay the lies and plagiarism. It’s all about racism.

But whose? Could it be those who rushed to promote a man beyond his merit merely because of race?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture national politics & policies

Awake to Evasion 1.0

AOC, woke 1

There are people who still debate the term “woke.” From the beginning, defenders of woke judgments, discourse, and activism claimed it was “just good manners”; others said it didn’t exist, a mere figment of “right-wing paranoia.” 

Truth is, it was a new, trendy term used to replace “social justice” and the peculiar bent and activism methods of “social justice warriors,” after “SJW” became fodder for ridicule by collegiate leftism’s opponents.

Now, more than a few Democrats are trying to distance themselves not only from the rising tide of know-nothing communism but also the woke style itself, which increasing numbers of Americans have come to loathe. The bellwether in this is U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D.-N.Y.).

What she and her comrades said in the time of the COVID lockdowns was “not rhetoric that we would use today,” she told an ABC This Week interviewer. But she insists that the extremist/radical positions of her fellow Democratic Socialists (she’s still a member of the New York chapter) were “useful.”

Nevertheless, her apologetics for defunding the police and other crazytown nonsense was not what went viral. It was her repeating of a local politician’s statement to the effect that “Woke 1.0 was crazy” that dominated commentary.

Ha ha ha, it was a confusing time; we can move on, seems to be her takeaway.

But she herself was a big part of the madness, says Robby Soave — and so says your memory. “No one,” declares Soave, “should accept these conversions at face value.”

Of course they aren’t even conversions. They are evasions and spin. AOC is a politician, and no more honest about her past positions than she is her ignorance of economics, political philosophy, and especially . . .

Common Sense.

Of which This Is. (I’m Paul Jacob.)

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general freedom ideological culture tax policy

Uh & Other Naughty Words

Francesca Hong, Wisconsin, socialism

The love of other people’s money is the root of so much political evil. 

Francesca Hong, the Democratic front-runner in today’s gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin, embraces that evil. She’s even willing to add curse-words to declare her dedication to soaking the rich: “Tax. The. Fucking. Billionaires.” Or so she says on Facebook.

So edgy.

But Hong blanks out when it comes to the negative fallout of taxing the rich at higher rates. Says lame things; doesn’t use the f-word. She uses the u-word: “uh.” When challenged in last week’s debate, about what she’d do “if all the millionaires leave the state,” she responded with “You know, uh, discussing that hypothetical is, um, a little bit, uh — I’m confused about that.”

“Like most socialists, she is in denial about the costs and consequences of her proposals,” argues The Washington Post editorial board. 

“To fund ‘free’ child care, state-run grocery stores and more health care subsidies” she pushes an additional 1 percent in taxes on the top income bracket. “This might sound fine to a taxpayer who doesn’t make a million dollars, but Wisconsin — like every other state — relies on wealthy taxpayers to support state infrastructure, public schools and social programs,” WaPo explains. “The top 5 percent of earners pay about 40 percent of the state’s net income taxes.”

For years, journalists have enabled demagogues to lie about how much the highest income earners actually pay in taxes, fooling many voters into thinking that the goose that lays golden eggs can be plucked and plundered without consequences. A turnaround on the issue at WaPo is refreshing.

“Recent elections seem to suggest,” its editors conclude, “that Democratic voters no longer fear labels such as ‘socialist’ and are more interested in tearing down the party’s establishment. A better strategy to combat extreme policies is to explain the damage they will cause.”

Too late? I hope not. For Wisconsin and for other states.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets ideological culture national politics & policies political economy

Trump-Approved Profits

Donald Trump, oil, prices, inflation, redistribution, socialism

Occasionally, President Trump takes an anti-capitalist rhetorical turn. He apparently supposes his unleashing of an Inner Mamdani will help him through a political rough patch. 

Or perhaps he is just momentarily confused.

The president recently asserted that oil companies are making too much money right now and “ought to give back” some of it to the public. This, although “I’m a big free enterprise guy.”

But oil companies don’t owe buyers anything more than the oil they supply. Nor, when prices are low, do buyers owe oil companies or gas stations more money than what they pay.

In markets, a sudden big drop in supply of a good — like oil, shipments of which might be blocked by wars in the Middle East — tends to lead to higher prices.

Companies unable to ship or sell the good lose money. If demand remains the same or increases, prices for the part of the supply still available go up. Which means more profits and more money to expand production and distribution.

Consumers of oil should want its producers to be as successful as possible. That’s just reason, common sense. High profits encourage and fund more digging, refining, and distribution, and attract more competition — ultimately increasing supply to reduce prices. 

Whenever supply of an urgently needed good takes a hit, producers should be as free as possible to deal with the problem and to enjoy the rewards of dealing with it successfully. Any big free enterprise guy should be able to understand this. 

You too, Mr. President.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment ideological culture partisanship

The Violence Is Inclusive

worried democrat, radicals, leftists, progressivism, socialism, communism

“I don’t feel safe going,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel recently shared about her decision to skip the Michigan Democratic Party state convention later this month. 

“I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at.”

It’s a gathering of her own political party! 

“This cannot continue, and the fact of the matter is, we have to be able to be a society where we can have intelligent discourse and debate about ideas without people being threatened,” the attorney general implored, “and certainly without people carrying out those threats.”

When people don’t feel safe, that indicates a failure of our criminal justice system. The attorney general is each state’s highest law enforcement official. So, what does it say when a state AG feels threatened? Afraid to venture out in public?

“Nessel’s declaration,” explains The Times of Israel, “comes in the final days of the primary between Rep. Haley Stevens, a pro-Israel stalwart, and Abdul El-Sayed, a democratic socialist who is deeply critical of Israel.”

Still, even bitter policy disagreements do not have to metastasize into hate-filled harassment . . . threats of violence . . . or worse.

“Former Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow has also acknowledged antisemitism within the Democratic Party,” the Daily Wire reports, “recounting an incident at the Democratic National Convention in which, she said, an attendee shouted an antisemitic slur at her Jewish husband while he was walking with their five-year-old daughter.”

Michigan’s hotly contested U.S. Senate Primary will end tomorrow. The fear of political violence will not.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture national politics & policies partisanship too much government

Socialists to Seize Power?

socialism, Democratic Party, prison, authoritarianism, totalitarianism

Evan Barker isn’t surprised. 

“The democratic socialist surge of the past several weeks has stunned the nation,” this former Democratic operative wrote last week. “From left to right and everywhere in between, people are asking: How did we get here? What does it mean? And will the Democratic Party survive it? The prevailing reaction has been shock.”

She’s not shocked, though, because for half a decade she had worked for “a slew of progressive candidates” teaching “DSA-aligned staffers how to build a money machine for the left; coached progressive politicians on how to speak to donors; and collaborated with billionaires to create a robust fundraising network.” 

But after the big loss for Kamala “Salad Slinger” Harris and Tim “Cringe” Walz, Barker left the party. And wrote a book, Nothing Left, regaling us with how she became disillusioned with “a leadership class” that had drifted “further and further from the working-class Americans they purportedly represented.”

Barker’s not alone. Others in the rah-rah crowd for an older Democratic Party have also expressed their chagrin. On the First of July, well-known “liberal” journalist Jonathan Chait published in The Atlantic “There’s Nothing Democratic About These Socialists.”

Noting that the Democratic Socialists of America despise the Democratic Party, with many of DSA’s stalwarts veering off into communist advocacy without much nudging, the question becomes why Democrats with some sense don’t come to their alleged senses.

Chait observes that Michael Harrington, the socialist founder of DSA, placed into its bylaws “the expulsion of members who were ‘under the discipline of any self-defined democratic-centralist organization,’ a slightly jargonish way of describing communists.”

Yet, the Democratic Party isn’t as moderate as Harrington!

Truth is, “DSA supporters see internal division not as a risk but as a historic opportunity to seize power.”

And the “means of production.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling First Amendment rights ideological culture

DEI“A” Directive Denied

DEI, first amendment, free speech, compelled speech, freedom, academia

Daymon Johnson has been fighting to speak freely.

A professor at Bakersfield College, a community college in California, Johnson has for years been bucking a mandate that he parrot the state’s “DEI” and “anti-racist” ideology — well, DEIA now: “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” — lest he face disciplinary action or receive the boot.

Community colleges, remember, are creations of the state, and Professor Johnson was being forced, by state directive, to mouth specific bureaucratic verbiage as if he were a mere functionary under a central planning board.

Alan Gura, the Institute for Free Speech’s lead counsel in the case, observed that Johnson’s fight has been for the First Amendment right to speak his mind, which American professors should be able to take for granted.

The settlement with Kern Community College District includes payment of $150,000 for attorneys’ fees. But it’s not perfect.

A permanent injunction against harassing Johnson for speech “in the classroom, in his scholarship, or as a private citizen” covers only five years. Government defendants “typically resist injunctions that are open forever,” making time limits in such settlements common, Gura explained. And five years “more than covers Johnson’s anticipated remaining time” at the school.

Nor does the decision address “whether the laws were constitutional as applied to anyone else.” But, said Gura, “the legal principles adopted by the court are persuasive authority that could lead to relief for other professors. . . .

“It’s easy for Sacramento officials to pass insane regulations . . . in their academic fantasy woke universe. . . . Something else entirely for local districts to try to defend them in a real courtroom where the First Amendment matters.”

So this imperfect ruling paves the way for further vindications.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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