Category: individual achievement

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free trade & free markets individual achievement too much government

I’ll Clink to That

Awards, known as the Sammies, are given annually by the Sam Adams Alliance to recognize the efforts of citizen activists fighting governmental lunacies.

This year’s winners for best video, Caleb Brown and Austin Bragg, produced a film on the anti-competitive liquor laws of Virginia.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should report that I received a Sammy this year too — partly for fighting the Oklahoma Attorney General’s attempt to jail me for supporting Oklahoma democracy. Long story made short, we won that battle.

The award also recognized my decades-long work for term limits and citizen initiative rights.

Caleb and Austin’s video is entitled “The ABCs of Virginia Alcohol Law.” “ABC” is a pun on the name of the agency spewing the nonsensical edicts, the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. The brief video gives you a good glimpse of the silliness, which includes violation of free speech rights.

Did you know that it is legal for a Virginia bar to sell you a beer, or a shot of liquor, or a beer and a shot of liquor, but not a shot of liquor in a glass of beer?

Or that America’s Founding Fathers would be thrown in jail under the liquor laws of today’s Virginia?

Watch the video. It’s slick, it’s funny. And it should make you mad.

For more on all of this year’s Sammy winners, visit samadamsalliance.org.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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individual achievement

Watch Susan Boyle

I dislike “reality” TV shows, including American Idol and others that seem to specialize in degrading people.

But I have cast my aversion aside after being urged to watch a YouTube clip of one Susan Boyle, a 47-year-old, unemployed Scot and aspiring singer.

What a performance. What a story! If you’re not on the bandwagon yet, hop on. Go to YouTube, search for “Susan Boyle,” watch the seven minute clip of her appearance on Britain’s Got Talent, the clip that snagged over 50 million hits in just a few weeks.

When Susan walked on stage, the three judges of Britain’s Got Talent — including sardonic Simon Cowell of American Idol fame — were not impressed. The audience tittered when she said she was “trying to be a professional singer.”

Susan was nervous at first, awkward, a bit silly, a bit dowdy-looking. Apparently everyone thought she’d be hooted off the stage after five seconds of song.

Nope. Within maybe three seconds, her rendition of “I Dreamed the Dream” from Les Miserables turned it all around. The audience was on its feet. Shocked. Ecstatic.

Susan Boyle was shocked too. She has been struggling for decades. For whatever reasons, her dreams had “turned to shame,” to quote from the song. But now, whether or not she wins top prize on Britain’s Got Talent, she’ll not only dream the dream, she will live it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture individual achievement

A Good Father

Every February, we celebrate George Washington’s birthday because he was the father of our country.

Washington was a good father. He set a high personal standard of honesty and integrity. He led by example. He rejected power for the sake of power. He could be trusted. Without his rock-hard integrity, we might not have survived as a free nation.

After Washington led our rag-tag army to victory over the most powerful nation on the globe, some American military leaders wanted to make him King. Washington squelched these efforts. Instead, he resigned his commission as the commander of the army and returned to his farm. There would be no king, said the man who could have been king.

When King George heard the news over in Britain, he didn’t believe it. What man would win a revolution and then, with an entire nation his for the taking, refuse to grab that power? If it were true, remarked King George, “Then Washington is the greatest man in the world.”

Since that time, many nations have been formed with noble words about freedom and rule by the people. Too often the men entrusted with guarding that freedom couldn’t be trusted. Their lust for power led them to betray their countrymen.

We’re free today because of the trail our country’s father blazed for us not only as a great military and political leader, but as man of integrity who loved freedom so much more than power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.