Category: ideological culture

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ideological culture judiciary litigation

Trouble with Definitions

Supreme Court, gender, sex, sports

Is it time to push for a complete wall of separation between Sports and State?

The First Amendment helped the United States — together and separately — protect religion from the ravages of regulation, taxation, suppression, and favoritism. Maybe it’s time to extend the concept. 

This came to mind as I skimmed through the transcript to a current case before the Supreme Court, Little v. Hecox (Docket No. 24-38), which involves a challenge to Idaho’s law restricting “transgender women and girls” from participating in women’s and girls’ sports.

I doubt the forthcoming ruling will get government out of sports generally, much less out of sports in public schools — which is what this is all about, Idaho’s law applying only to athletic teams sponsored by public educational institutions (or certain nonpublic ones competing against public ones), not to purely private teams. 

One lawyer for the respondents, Kathleen R. Hartnett, Esq., got stuck with the “tough” job. She was asked by Justice Alito if an understanding of what men and boys are, and what women and girls are, was relevant to the Equal Protection Clause. She said yes, but then confessed to lacking a definition of the sexes for the Court.

Then “how can a court determine that there’s discrimination on the basis of sex,” Alito inquired, “without knowing what sex means. . . . ?”

Her answer started out on a most unpromising note: “I think here we just know . . .” immediately pivoting to the statute’s applicability. Alito went on to challenge her on a key notion in trans ideology, that one becomes trans just by saying so.

I see a lot of people online chortling on the comedy of it all.

But I think here we just know it’s … seriously troublesome.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment ideological culture subsidy too much government

Tip of the Socialism-berg 

socialism, immigration, welfare, communism, self destruction, suicidal empathy

“In 2024 alone, state Medicaid Fraud Control Units reported more than 1,151 convictions and more than $1.4 billion in civil and criminal recoveries,” writes Veronique de Rugy at Reason. “Federal enforcement recovers a tiny share of what is stolen. Fraud that goes undetected never appears in the data.”

And then she makes a claim that increasing numbers of astute observers make: “That’s only the tip of the iceberg.” She goes on to suggest that Medicare, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and “many other welfare programs” constitute a huge hunk of fraud.

The solution? “If we want less fraud,” she argues, “we need less government.”

Fraud and big government seem to go hand in hand. At least this kind of big government, which resembles the biggest kind of government imaginable. For taking wealth from many productive American citizens and giving it to a small but growing population of refugees from distant lands, that’s not necessarily fraud, I suppose, but it is something close to socialism.

We see in Venezuela just how devastating rule by thieving socialists can be. (Hugo Chavez nationalized oil industry infrastructure and then ran it into the ground.) In Minnesota and in other states of the union, we see a similar ethic. When done on a limited basis, we could call it “helping the poor,” the folks who just cannot produce what they need. That’s how transfer socialism was sold to us.

And they could say, truthfully, that’s not full socialism.

But extending the beneficiary class from our most needy friends and neighbors to the less-and-less needy, and then to waves of refugees from other countries, that’s a recipe for disaster. Like socialism when “full.”

How far should Americans go to help “others”? To our own ruin?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture media and media people tax policy

Post California Soaking

California, taxes, wealth, government

Rumors that Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has been pushing the Post in a more commonsensical editorial direction could very well be true.

A recent Post editorial slams progressives who “think of taxation the way teenage boys think about cologne: if some is good, more must be great.”

I’m no fan of even a moderate amount of that brand of cologne. But anyway. The Post is discussing a proposed ballot measure backed by the ultra-lefty Service Employees International Union.

SEIU troops are currently collecting signatures. And before they’ve even gotten enough to post it to ballot, the people being targeted have started moving. 

Out of state.

The measure would impose a new 5 percent tax on billionaires. Some of the state’s billionaires, including Google cofounder Larry Page and Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel, aren’t willing to wait and see whether it actually reaches the ballot and passes in November. Why? The measure would apply retroactively “to those who were California residents on January 1, 2026.”

Some Democratic lawmakers are saying “good riddance,” as if it’s possible to loot billionaires who don’t wait around to be looted. Or that it’s good for state coffers to lose their billionaire entrepreneur “contributors.”

The Post says the retroactivity would open the measure to legal challenges, but that if it gets passed and survives litigation, “it’s a safe bet this won’t be a one-off. Funding ongoing expenses like health care with one-time taxes isn’t sustainable. Progressives will want to return to the well until they’ve sucked it dry.”

And no one should know better than Californians how dangerous dry wells are.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

California, taxes, wealth, government

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ideological culture property rights

Hot in New York City

Zohran Mamdani, New York City, property rights

Zohran Mamdani was not yet the new mayor of New York City when the city council signaled that it would serve as willing accomplice in his assault on fundamental property rights.

In December, the city council passed legislation that had been hanging fire for several years, the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA), to further limit New Yorkers’ right to use and dispose of their own stuff.

COPA would give “give certain nonprofits . . . an early shot to bid on certain residential properties that go up for sale, before they hit the wider market.” The law pertains to buildings “with poor conditions or where an affordability provision is expiring.”

COPA’s advocates contend, as if this were a response to the objection about how the new law violates property rights, that it gives nonprofits an advantage in the housing market.

What happens if quite wealthy nonprofits with enough political pull make an offer that a property owner declines? Will the property owner have the right to say “I pass” and then make the property available for anybody to bid on?

If COPA is not dead on arrival, it will depress market prices as the city strongarms owners into making deals at lower-than-market prices. And I doubt that a Mamdani administration will simply playact at eroding and destroying property rights.

Mayor Mamdani took office yesterday, on January 1, 2026, dedicated to the idea of replacing “the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” It doesn’t portend to be a very good year for New Yorkers opposed to the heat of the looters’ madness.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense general freedom ideological culture

Have an Endurable New Year!

Paul Jacob, 2025, 2026, ,New Year

So that was A.D. 2025.

We made it.

Endured.

What must we bear in 2026? 

Most of us, I think, would prefer “more of the same” to something entirely new. Especially if the “something new” can be interpreted as reaping all the consequences of bad choices all at once.

So what was 2025? Going by stats on this website, here’s what I’ve covered:

  • Fiscal Irresponsibility: 15% of coverage.
  • Free Speech/Censorship: 20%.
  • Political Scandals/Elections: 15-20%.
  • Government Overreach: 25%.
  • Representation/Local Issues: 10%.

Grok did the analysis, and added another category, “Historical Reflections,” at 10% of content — but this likely reflects the “Today” feature on the website, highlighting the most important event(s) concerning human liberty occurring on each date.  

I do like to think that I have a sense of history, which informs what I do here. In 2023, a meme spread around the Internet, where women asked the men they knew how often they thought about the Roman Empire. “The results will surprise you,” for men tend to think about the past generally, and the classical Romans in particular, a great deal indeed. The meme played out as a “gender” issue, with women finding men’s apparent fixation inexplicable. 

Truth is, for me, I think a lot more about the Revolutionary War. I suppose it’s possible to identify people’s ideologies by which historical war they think about most. This last year and earlier — really since the 2019 protests in Hong Kong — I’ve developed this strong suspicion that we are already in a war and just don’t quite know it.

Wishing you the best in 2026. And girding for what comes. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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government transparency ideological culture

That Non-Science Stink

Avi Loeb, science, space

Not long ago we were screamed at: “Trust the Science!”

So those of us paying attention came to distrust the scientists.

Especially “scientists” in positions of political power.

Sadly, tragically, more than one scientific discipline has been perverted in shockingly non-scientific ways. A hidebound denialism about new data has crept in. Sure, it is about the money, but often we catch a whiff of ideology.

This is apparently the case regarding astronomy — about which Harvard astrophysicist Abraham “Avi” Loeb offered testimony on a recent podcast. 

In 2014, a meteorite (CNEOS 2014-01-08) splashed into the Pacific Ocean — too fast to be solar-system native, says the U.S. Space Command. Without investigating, a published paper dismissed the evidence, discouraging further inquiry; Avi Loeb, on the other hand, led a team to the site, producing evidence from the ocean floor as well as an actual research paper.

Loeb’s first paper on the current obsession, the third officially recognized interstellar object, 3I/ATLAS, was published only on the condition he took out his killer final sentence — about the possibility that the object might be technological in nature (as its anomalies suggested). 

Loeb appeased the editor . . .  and then wrote a whole new article on that unspeakable (alien tech) possibility — for another journal.

NASA’s also infected. After watching a recent press conference by NASA on 3I/ATLAS, Loeb argued it would have been better to have actual scientists field questions rather than feature NASA bigwigs dutifully reciting the currently acceptable (safe?) determination that the object is “just a comet.”

“The intellectual climate, right now in Academia, is such that any new knowledge is resisted by experts,” Dr. Loeb explains. 

That’s the opposite of science. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights general freedom ideological culture international affairs regulation social media

U.S. Bans EU Censors

EU, censorship, free speech, Visa

European leaders are condemning American use of visa bans to penalize European enemies of American freedom of speech.

Which is understandable, since the U.S. State Department more than merely condemned the European Union.

In the words of Marco Rubio, the five just-sanctioned persons “have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose.”

Thierry Breton. Former EU commissioner and top proponent of the Digital Services Act, which seeks to force U.S. tech giants to “police illegal content more aggressively” or face big fines. “Illegal” here doesn’t mean speech deployed to commit bank robberies; it’s speech EU censors dislike.

Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg. Leaders of HateAid.

Clare Melford. Leader of Global Disinformation Index, which, the State Department observes, exhorts “censorship and blacklisting of American speech and press.”

Imran Ahmed. Leader of Center for Countering Digital Hate, described by Breitbart as the “deplatforming outfit which defined its central mission as ‘Kill Musk’s Twitter.’ ” CCDH also worked hard to get Breitbart and other sites blacklisted from social media.

Maybe none of these villains was planning a trip to the United States anytime soon.

And, doubtless, much more could be done to combat overseas attempts to censor Americans. But at least this much action against enemies of our First Amendment rights is warranted, even if mostly symbolic.

Just give us a little more time, European leaders. We’ll do more to oppose and thwart your obnoxious global censorship agenda. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture social media

Of Loudmouths and Silence

Rob Reiner, Donald Trump, civility, rudeness

The murders of Rob Reiner and his wife — allegedly by their son, Nick — were horrific enough. But because the elder Reiner was, in rallies and interviews and on social media, a spittle-flecked progressive who said vile things about his opponents, including the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it was inevitable that President Donald Trump’s reaction would fail to serve as a stellar example of gracefully acknowledging the death of a
public figure.

After calling the fatal knife attack a “sad thing” but before exclaiming “May Rob and Michele rest in peace,” Trump made the incident about himself. 

The butchery, he asserted, “reportedly” was the result of “the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS.” Trump referred to Reiner’s “raging obsession” and “paranoia” that reached “new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before.” 

More extreme than Rob Reiner’s derangement may be Trump’s own. 

But the actor and director, in his heyday, also demonstrated some difficulty assessing his public persona honestly. Reiner never seemed to realize that he became the “Meathead” he played (maybe with only inadvertent satire) on All in the Family in the 1970s.

Some folks find it hard to condemn Trump for being petty and political upon Reiner’s death when that seemed to be precisely what Reiner was upon, say, Rush Limbaugh’s.

Both Reiner and Trump inhabit the “loudmouth” camp of public rhetoric, using strong condemnatory language and a reliance on over-statement when railing against their opponents. At death, do loudmouths deserve less honor?

The acceleration of history being what it is, perhaps, “too soon” no longer sticks as a useful censure when it comes to gallows humor and double-murder indecency.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture political economy too much government

Capitalism’s Communism?

The problem is communism — in finance.

That’s the world according to Robert Kiyosaki, says an Epoch Times profile. “Kiyosaki described the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank — established in 1913 with a goal of stabilizing the nation’s monetary supply following years of extreme volatility, and preventing panic — as a Marxist organization,” Travis Gillmore writes.

“When the Fed came to America, it was the end of America,” states Kiyosaki, who co-authored a bestselling investment book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, in 1997, “and our freedom is being stolen via our money.”

This is a familiar theme. Attacking crony capitalism as a massive swindle, and central banking as the lynchpin of bad government practices and general exploitation, that’s so basic to my view of “political economy” that I hardly bring it up anymore. It’s just so obvious.

But is our central bank communist? 

If you don’t like “communist” or “socialist” you can add the suffix -ic: communistic or socialistic.

“As most people know, there’s a big movement to end the Federal Reserve Bank, because it’s not federal, it’s not a reserve, and it’s not a bank,” adds Kiyosaki. 

“U.S. currency was once tradeable for silver or gold,” Gillmore’s article summarizes. “The Federal Reserve notes in circulation today, however, carry no guarantees, which results in significantly devalued currency. . . .

“Marxists want to destabilize society by ‘taking the currency,’ Kiyosaki said,” blaming this kleptocracy for the rising tide of homelessness along with other maladies.

The Epoch Times ends on a hopeful note, but does not quote recent tweets by Kiyosaki, warning us that the “biggest crash in history” is underway, predicting millions would “lose everything” while prepared investors (like himself) get richer.

All very familiar?

Sure.

But that does not mean there is no truth in it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights general freedom ideological culture international affairs Internet controversy

Constant Caved

China, censorship, FreeWeChat, free speech

Sometimes people suggest that the People’s Republic of China is no threat beyond its borders.

You can’t reach this doctrine based on a thorough canvass of the evidence. From China’s perspective, though, it is true insofar as the Chinese government treats its borders as encompassing the entire earth and perhaps even the moon.

What is also true, though, is that not every person or organization outside of China that advances China’s totalitarian agenda is being threatened by China.

For example: the company Constant, which operates the hosting service Vultr. Based in Florida (a U.S. state), Constant has willingly cooperated with Beijing’s censorship agenda as promoted by the China-based conglomerate Tencent.

Tencent owns the social media platform WeChat. As the Chinese Communist Party demands of all such platforms within China, WeChat censors discussion of topics that the CCP dislikes, e.g., Tiananmen Square or Xi Jinping pictured as Winnie the Pooh. 

An organization called GreatFire produces a Chinese-language website, freewechat.com, which archives many of the posts on taboo subjects that get censored on WeChat.

Since 2015, FreeWeChat had been hosted by Constant’s Vultr — until several months ago, when Vultr started receiving harrumphing letters from Tencent, demanding that it stop hosting FreeWeChat. Vultr obeyed; dropped FreeWeChat.

Which, fortunately, managed to transfer its site to another hosting service.

Tencent’s letters offered an array of specious claims that GreatFire refuted in detail. GreatFire’s attempts to communicate with inconstant Constant about the matter have had no effect. Nevertheless, FreeWeChat and its noble mission survive.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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