Category: ideological culture

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Common Sense general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies

Lions and Lambs

LIons and Lambs

“March comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb.”

Tell that to Indiana Governor Mike Pence, whose signing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) into law at the end of March created a roaring controversy.

Does the law enable discrimination? Or protect religious freedom? Or both? Neither?

An Associated Press report explains: “Religious freedom laws like the one causing an uproar in Indiana have never been successfully used to defend discrimination against gays — and have rarely been used at all, legal experts say.”

Of course, discrimination continues. In 2014, a Texas restaurateur refused service to a gay couple. As a FindLaw.com article explains, the 1964 Civil rights Act “only prohibits discrimination on the basis of color, race, religion, or national origin, and says nothing about sexual orientation.”

So some states, such as New Mexico and Oregon, added legal protections for sexual orientation. But that’s led to reverse violations of rights — facing a $150,000 fine, a bakery closed its shop after the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries ruled it violated a lesbian couple’s civil rights by declining to make a wedding cake; a New Mexico photographer was found guilty of violating the state’s Human Rights law for declining to photograph a gay couple’s commitment ceremony.

In times’ past, both state and private violence enforced invidious racial discrimination. Thankfully, those days are gone — cafes, hotels and stores are open to all.

But the civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination in public accommodations cases are distinct from forcing photographers or florists or flutists to personally participate in a ceremony they choose not to.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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LIons and Lambs

 

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ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

Count to Ten

Counting the Commandments

Yesterday I argued that the Ten Commandments can and should be promoted — privately. Promoting one’s religion is expected . . . outside of government. But do that as a government official and suddenly what most folks consider good common sense morality sows discord.

Why? Simple. Your religion is yours. But the government is ours. It’s supposed to be. But since we don’t all share the same religion, your monument on public property or public commemoration seems nothing more than you shoving yours at us.

With the Decalogue, it’s even trickier. The Ten Commandments aren’t numbered as such in either Exodus or Deuteronomy. Jews, Catholics, and various Protestant denominations differ on ordering them. What one group calls the Fifth Commandment another calls the Fourth. What most American Protestants call the Tenth Commandment is numbered as the Ninth and Tenth by Catholics. And so on.

So any enumerated Decalogue is not merely Judeo-Christian-centric, likely to make Buddhists, Hindus, Yazidis and Sikhs at the very least uncomfortable. It would necessarily be denominationally preferential.

I bet most Ten Commandment listings promoted by American politicians are not the ones Catholics have memorized, by order — or Jews, or even Lutherans and Episcopalians.

These differences usually appear quite small, of course, especially in light of the overwhelming similarities. Accordingly, any disagreements about the Ten Commandments remain friendly, and will likely stay that way — unless government chooses one version over another.

In politics, the doctrine of enumerated powers is divisive enough. Add in multiple, competing enumerations of the Ten Commandments? Too much to divide us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Counting the Commandments

 

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general freedom ideological culture

Commanding Controversy

Ten Commandments

Is “Thou shalt create controversy” one of politicians’ Ten Commandments? Is “Thou shalt pass a law to solve every problem” their eleventh?

Meet Arkansas Senate Bill 939, which would authorize placing a monument to the Ten Commandments on capitol grounds. It passed the state senate last week, 27-3, and is headed to a similar slam-dunk in the House.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that, according to authors Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Bigelow) and Rep. Kim Hammer (R-Benton), the effort “should be seen as a way to honor the historic role the biblical text has had in U.S. and Arkansas history and not seen solely as religious.”

No public dollars are involved, say proponents — private money is to purchase the obelisk. Opponents, many testifying, counter that the upkeep will still tap taxpayer money.

Not to mention the certain and certainly expensive litigation over the constitutionality of the endeavor.

I’m not one to shy from a constitutional battle, having launched more than a few of my own. But, well, I think the Ten Commandments might best serve as more than a prop.

Let me offer an alternative that (a) could actually get real people to read the Ten Commandments, no doubt with varied but valuable educational result, and (b) won’t cost the State of Arkansas one thin dime in maintenance or legal fees.

Download a copy of the Ten Commandments here. Share with others.

Reading and talking about the Decalogue has to be far better than picking an expensive fight about it.

No law necessary.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Ten Commandments

 

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general freedom ideological culture nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Marriage Savings

Paul Jacob on how governments can save money, and clean up the marriage business, too

We’ve all seen lawmakers yammer on and on about how they want to “streamline” government, or “save the taxpayers money.”

But they rarely show us much for all the talk.

Paul Woolverton, writing this weekend in the Fayetteville Observer, noted one such lapse after the North Carolina Senate voted to create a law to let magistrates “opt out of conducting any weddings if they have a religious objection.”

The problem? “No one in the debate,” Mr. Woolverton asserts, “questioned the underlying premise that a magistrate or clergy member is necessary to seal the marriage contract.”

The involvement of the state in the marriage contract biz is unnecessarily complicated, he explains. “As fiscal conservatives,” Woolverton insists, they could have taken the opportunity to ask something more fundamental:

A man and a woman pay the government $60 to get a government-approved marriage license. Why should they then have to visit another government office and pay the government another $20, or hire a government-designated third party for a fee or “donation,” to finalize their marriage contract?

Woolverton suggests streamlining the process: “. . . [G]overnment should make its involvement the least intrusive it can be. It should record marriages when couples visit the Register of Deeds to buy their marriage licenses.”

And that’s it.

Betrothed couples can legally testify to meeting any and all state requirements — and officially inform the state of their pre-marriage and married names.

Those who want the services of a priest or rabbi or preacher or imam can hire one, or cajole one. Or two.

That’s just not state business.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly ideological culture nannyism

The Problem of No Problem

A scientist has a problem: no problem.

Sounds like a Zen riddle, but it’s really about the riddle of victimhood-worship.

Emily Yoffe writes an advice column called Dear Prudence. A female reader reported a problem pertaining to workplace bias against women. Although she works in a “very masculine scientific field . . . I have never really suffered from sexism.”

Hmmm. Why not? “Maybe I’m just awesome at playing the man’s game (or in denial and don’t have an eye for sexism?).”

It is probably not denial. It is pretty easy to detect abusive treatment when you’re on the receiving end and not rationalizing it away. The bigger problem, though, is that “even quite reasonable and pleasant women” of her acquaintance get nasty when she can’t “contribute to their list of crimes committed by the patriarchy.”

What to do? She dislikes unpleasantness, but doesn’t want to lie.

One thing to do is recognize it’s not up to you to make unreasonable people reasonable. When no discussion is possible, take your conversation elsewhere. I also advise skipping gratuitous self-doubt.

Happily, Ms. Prudence and I are on the same wavelength.

“My general advice,” she writes, “is that it’s best not to engage with unpleasant people. . . . But if you feel like it, you can also counterpunch by saying something like, ‘It’s funny, but the only people who try to bully me are women who aren’t in my profession.’ ”

Commonsensical minds think alike, I guess. Ask me for advice any time.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture Tenth Amendment federalism too much government U.S. Constitution

Manly Firmness

“Is repealing the Affordable Care Act an issue of manhood?” asks Alan Rappeport in the New York Times. He’s referring to the “macho language” in a resolution introduced recently in Jefferson City, Missouri, by State Rep. Mike Moon.

Moon’s House Resolution 99 decimates the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, in a dozen whereas clauses, noting the legislation was

  1. “passed under questionable circumstances”;
  2. found constitutional only on the contradictory determination that it was both a tax and not a tax; and, most notably,
  3. resoundingly opposed by Missouri voters, who have twice trudged to the polls to overwhelming pass measures to block this federal legislation.

HR 99 resolves that, “the members of the Missouri House of Representatives, Ninety-eighth General Assembly, hereby insist that each member of the Missouri Congressional delegation endeavor with ‘manly firmness’ and resolve to totally and completely repeal the Affordable Care Act, settling for no less than a full repeal.”

Among today’s sophisticates, the phrase “manly firmness” elicits giggles, of course. Seasoned Democrats like U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill play the “war on women” card.  She complained that those words come from “a point in time when women were chattels and didn’t have the right to vote. I think we can update our vocabulary.”

Lost on — or purposely ignored by — the senator? The fact that the phrase “manly firmness” comes from the Declaration of Independence, from the fifth listed grievance against King George III.

And firmness is exactly what’s needed: adult, strong, serious standing up as our representatives — rather than representing themselves — and defending our individual freedom and its corollary, constitutionally-limited government.

That’s what was needed back in 1776. It is every bit as desperately needed today.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom ideological culture media and media people too much government

Herd Immunity

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama gave cautious support for the anti-vaxxer cause a few years ago. No scandal.

But only now that Republican politicians Chris Christie and Rand Paul have talked about the risks of (as well as of parental rights and responsibility regarding) childhood vaccination has the issue of mandatory vaccination finally hit big.

Ronald Bailey offers a more modest proposal. “Vaccination is arguably the greatest public health triumph of the past century,” he  begins.  But he argues not for mandating vaccines, but for social pressure: “person-to-person shaming and shunning.”

That is one traditional (and less politically extreme) way to solve such problems.

But what is that problem, at base? Those who fear a negative personal effect from vaccination (and there are some, though the “autism” charge appears to be bogus) become “free riders,” as economists like to put it. They gain a de facto immunity without having to pay — either in money or in the small risk that vaccination does demonstrate.

This particular free rider benefit depends on the concept of “herd immunity.” That’s the conjectured level of protection for individuals who lack biological immunity by the overwhelming presence of vaccinated people in a population who are immune. (The disease can’t spread because it hits too many dead ends in healthy hosts.)

As has been often noted the last few days, though the anti-vaxxer trend has mainly tended to “infect” (as a “meme”) urban populations of left-leaning folks — epitomized by Hollywooders Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey — the new backlash against anti-vaxxer rights has come strongest from the left-leaning media.

The Republican “offenders” provide cover?

Apparently, those of the Democratic herd think they have immunity . . . to criticism.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture media and media people

Hot or Not

“I should have been an engineer,” climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer laments. “I went into science with the misguided belief that science provides answers. Too often, it doesn’t. Some physical problems are simply too difficult. Two scientists can examine the same data and come to exactly opposite conclusions about causation.”

In other words, it’s like all sciences of complex phenomena. Like social science — economics, for instance.

But he’s not complaining that it’s hard. He’s complaining that it’s been taken over.

By ideologues.

When it comes to “climate change,” scientific nuance is gone:

We still don’t understand what causes natural climate change to occur, so we simply assume it doesn’t exist. This despite abundant evidence that it was just as warm 1,000 and 2,000 years ago as it is today. Forty years ago, “climate change” necessarily implied natural causation; now it only implies human causation.

This unscientific leap to the now-de rigueur “anthropogenic” conclusion depresses him.

Understandably. Take the latest news pitch, the NOAA and NASA reports that last year, 2014, stands as “the hottest on human record.”

No, it isn’t, Spencer says.

Such claims are based on compromised data that most respectable climate scientists now avoid: surface temperature recordings, not satellite data. Such “hottest ever” reports “feed the insatiable appetite the public has for definitive, alarming headlines. It doesn’t matter that even in the thermometer record, 2014 wasn’t the warmest within the margin of error.”

But journalists, often moonlighting as lazy political activists, “went into journalism so they wouldn’t have to deal with such technical mumbo-jumbo” as “margins of error.”

And politicians are worse.

I guess that leaves the job of common-sense skeptic to you and me.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
folly ideological culture

Blizzards of Blather

If you’re living in New England and you’ve recently been buried under snow, you probably don’t want to hear how it’s somewhat the fault of (man-exacerbated) global warming. Nor that we can, maybe, tweak the weather to perfection if only we drastically curtail the carbon-emission needed to make boots, gloves and roofs, and to operate snow plows.

Perhaps you’re saying, “Warming? The snow is cold.”

But half-baked conclusions that the concluder is frigidly determined to reach regardless of evidence may be “based on” any set of facts under the sun.

Patrick Michaels and Paul Knappenberger of the Cato Institute point out the silliness of regarding an unknown human contribution to climate patterns as co-responsible for any bad weather.

Blizzard Juno (like pretty much any storm) was “the result of a very complex system of physical interactions — the precise behavior of each one of which is not completely understood, much less perfectly predictable. This makes ascertaining the influence of human-caused climate change virtually (if not entirely) impossible.”

The authors present a graph of snowfall totals in NYC’s Central Park since the late 19th century. Lots of spikes, lots of troughs. In other words, natural variability in the weather is nothing new.

We can’t always predict the course of storms very exactly. But, these days, we sure can predict that when the storms come, humanity will be indicted along with Mother Nature . . . almost as if there were no weather on earth before human beings showed up.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment ideological culture

Honoring Tyrants

A Saudi blogger has just received the first 50 of 1000 lashes for “insulting Islam.” He’s got 950 lashes and ten years of prison to go.

That’s the sentence the Saudis imposed on Raif Badawi last May for criticizing clerics. His blog is shuttered and — because 10,000 lashes and ten years behind bars just isn’t enough — Badawi (pictured with his children) must also pay a cleric-criticizing fee of a million riyals ($266,600). He was spared execution.

The motive for the sadism? Critics of the royal family say that if you do anything to possibly undermine the country’s religious establishment, you’re also threatening Saudi Arabia’s ruling family, of which recently deceased King Abdullah (ruler since 2005) was one member. And the government is ruthless about protecting its turf.

For controversial reasons, our own government thinks it’s important to maintain a strong alliance with Saudi Arabia’s. Even if that dubious proposition were correct, to cooperate on specific questions of foreign policy and to especially sanction the shapers of such a regime are two very different things. Yet with flabbergasting obtuseness, the U.S. military has just announced its sponsorship of an essay competition “in honor of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz” (who was alive in May). (Yes, seriously.)

The contest is a fitting tribute to the now-defunct monarch, according to General Martin Dempsey; it’s an “important opportunity to honor” his memory while also encouraging scholarly research, all at the same time.

Think it through, General.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.