Category: national politics & policies

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crime and punishment education and schooling general freedom national politics & policies responsibility Second Amendment rights too much government

Good Men With Guns

guns, gun control, school shootings, 2nd Amendment, good men, self defense

We hear too much about “successful” mass murderers — from news readers, journalists, and so-called experts.

And it is hard not to think about the disturbed gunmen who kill as a way to feel powerful for a few seconds as they seek revenge for whatever they hate about their lives.

Now families in Sante Fe must deal with the horror.

We don’t hear as much about the good men who interrupt such rampages.

A report about how a killer was stopped on May 24 begins with these matter-of-fact words: “A gunman who opened fire at an Oklahoma restaurant Thursday evening was confronted by two people who saw what was happening, got their guns and shot him dead, police said.”

The gunman was able to wound three people. But before he could hurt others, Carlos Nazario and Bryan Wittle, outside the building as the shooting began, quickly grabbed firearms from the trunks of their vehicles and ended the threat.

A week earlier, Mark Dallas, a police officer on duty in Dixon High School in Dixon, Illinois, had exchanged gunfire with a recently expelled student, stopping him before anyone else could be shot. The attack took place in a gym where many students were gathered for a graduation rehearsal.

Mark Dallas happened to be an officer of the law. But you don’t need to be a policeman to use a gun justly and well in a bad situation. What you need is training and presence of mind — the willingness and ability to protect yourself and others.

And you need the gun.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Photo by Ken on Flickr

 

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Accountability folly general freedom media and media people national politics & policies

The Ex-Explosion

Margaret Sanger, population, progressivism, panic, birth rate,

When I was a kid, the trendy worry was “the population bomb.” Now we are supposed to worry about a population . . . fizzle?

“The U.S. birth rate has hit a new record low,” writes Peter Dockrill in Science Alert, “with women in nearly every age group giving birth to fewer babies than a year ago.” Titled “U.S. Fertility Rates Have Plummeted Into Uncharted Territory, And Nobody Knows Why,” Dockrill’s article fails to mention that diminishing population by reduced reproduction is an old worry.

It fanned the flames of eugenics and racism in Europe and America in the first half of the 20th century. Progressivism was full of this concern, in its heyday.*

As societies get wealthier, reproduction rates decrease. Economist Theodore W. Schultz called it the swapping of “quantity of children” for “quality of children.” This appears to be a natural, voluntary sort of eugenics — which scares actual eugenicists.

The study that Science Alert focused on fingered a different cause: lead in the environment. Over at Reason, Ronald Bailey sees some plausibility in this Lead Poison Theory. But mostly, Bailey writes, population rates in America (and elsewhere) are declining “largely because Americans are choosing to have fewer children.”

Is this really a problem?

Well, for Big Government it is.** German’s demographic collapse appears to have been one factor prodding Angela Merkel to open the doors to millions of refugees — whom Europe seems to have more trouble assimilating than does America.

I like kids — both making and rearing them. But to each his or her own, of course. Still, maybe if people freaked out less about population explosions, the implosion would prove less serious.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Before progressivism changed its name to “liberalism.” And now back. Oh, and note that the Nazis’ more famous eugenic programs were not identical to progressives.

** Ponzi-based safety-net pension systems worldwide were designed for growing populations. Oops!

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(Illustration from Margaret Sanger’s “Birth Control Review” from 1918.)

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Accountability crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies privacy too much government U.S. Constitution

Hooray for Congress!

right to try, treatment, healthcare, Rights, FDA, democrats, Congress, medicine, experimental,

When Congress behaves badly, I criticize. When it works well, I applaud.

I’ve waited a long, long, long time to put my hands together in polite applause.

It happened yesterday.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a Senate bill, largely along party lines, to give those facing a terminal illness the “right to try.” That is, the right to try experimental drugs and treatments that haven’t yet been approved by the federal Food & Drug Administration (FDA). 

Of course, Congress doesn’t actually give us rights. We have always had the common law right — indeed, the human right — to freely seek a path to wellness when we are ill.

From time immemorial. Even before the FDA.

So, this legislation was, more correctly put, a way to announce that the congressionally-created FDA would stop blocking our freedom . . . provided we are dying and the government-approved medical establishment has no more licensed hope to offer.

The bill now goes to President Trump. “People who are terminally ill should not have to go from country to country to seek a cure,” he declared in his last State of the Union, “I want to give them a chance right here at home.”

Democrats overwhelmingly disagreed. 

“This will provide fly-by-night physicians and clinics the opportunity to peddle false hope and ineffective drugs to desperate patients,” argued Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.).

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) likewise charged that the legislation “puts patients at risk by allowing the sale of snake oil.”

But of course these patients are dying. That’s already as “at risk” as it gets. Our right to live includes a right to try to live.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability free trade & free markets general freedom media and media people national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Working for Whom?

Rand Paul, John McCain, Vladimir Putin, balanced budget, spending cap

Two articles on Sen. Rand Paul appeared in my Reason feed the other day. Up top.

So it was hard not to look.

They were “John McCain: It ‘Wasn’t Incorrect’ to Say Rand Paul Was ‘Working for Vladimir Putin’” and “Rand Paul’s Plan to Balance the Budget by 2023 Will Get a Senate Vote This Week.”

The latter story is the bigger one, of course. In it, Eric Boehm asked, “Do Republicans have the guts to impose strict spending caps?”

His answer was “probably not.” Good guess.

“Passing the Kentucky Republican’s so-called ‘Penny Plan’ would be a dramatic reversal for Congress,” Boehm wrote, “which earlier this year approved enormous spending hikes that busted Obama-era spending caps and threaten to put the country on pace for a $1 trillion annual deficits. . . . Paul tells Politico that it will be a ‘litmus test for Republicans who claim to be conservative, but are only too happy to grow the federal government and increase our debt.’”

I am afraid the litmus paper has turned . . . red. As in red ink. As in accumulating debt till we drop.

Yesterday Paul’s plan was voted down, 21-76.

In the other Reason piece, Matt Welch noted that Arizona’s senior senator stands by his calumny, last year, against Kentucky’s junior senator. Paul had delayed “ratification of Montenegro’s entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).” McCain, a gung-ho NATO expansion proponent, accused Paul of “working for Vladimir Putin.”

If Putin really seethes with ill will towards America, wouldn’t he want to see the country burdened with debt?

So, on this vote, those 76 senators who didn’t “stand with Rand” are undoubtedly working for Putin.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Photo of Rand Paul by Gage Skidmore | Photo of John McCain from Wikimedia Commons

 

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Accountability crime and punishment education and schooling ideological culture national politics & policies responsibility Second Amendment rights

Cowards All Around

Scot Peterson, Parkland, police, pension, Broward County, Florida, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, guns, gun control, second amendment

Just-retired Scot Peterson is a millionaire, thanks to the generous taxpayers of Broward County, Florida.

You know Peterson as the sheriff’s deputy assigned to protect students at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, who, instead of entering the building where the shooter was mowing down 17 unarmed students and teachers, protected himself by waiting outside.

Peterson claimed “he remained outside the school because he didn’t know where the gunfire was coming from,” noted BuzzFeed. But “[r]adio transmissions from the day of the shooting have since contradicted Peterson’s defense . . .”

Following the cowardly non-performance of his duty, Peterson promptly retired and began drawing his pension. As the Sun Sentinel newspaper reported Tuesday, his monthly check is for $8,702.35 — an annual salary of $104,428.20.

Should the 55-year-old live to the age of 75, he’ll draw more than $2 million.

In fact, the cowardly Peterson is being further rewarded with a $2,550 annual raise — earning more in retirement than he was earning while actually working.

I use the word “earning” and the phrase “actually working” loosely.

Reacting to the news, the father of one of the murdered students called Peterson’s lavish pension “disgusting” and “outrageous.”

Recoil at the thought of this derelict policeman raking in such mega-moolah during decades of retirement — but that isn’t the only outrage.

How can Broward County afford to pay even their bravest police officers millions of dollars in retirement?

They can’t . . . for much longer.

Regardless, elected officials dare not do anything about it. They fear incurring the wrath of public employee unions . . . and risking their own pension windfalls.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability education and schooling folly government transparency insider corruption local leaders moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Reading, Writing & Racketeering

schools, corruption, D.C., Washington, education, cheating, incentives, teachers, union

When I attended a public school — many decades ago, in a galaxy far, far away — teachers told students that cheating was unacceptable and would be punished.

Harshly.

Today, the idea has students laughing — all the way to graduation.

Last year, after DC Public Schools officials breathlessly announced massive improvements in graduation rates, several honest teachers broke ranks, and an investigation uncovered massive fraud: a whopping one of every three graduates across the city resulted from falsified records.

Many students played hooky for a third or even half the school year. Administrators also pressured teachers to improve grades to hike the graduation rate.

“The problem,” Washington Post columnist Colbert King concluded, “is systemic indeed.”*

You see, employment evaluations and cash bonuses for teachers and administrators were — and still are — tied in part to student graduation stats. It turns out that an incentive to good work can also serve as an incentive to cheat. Could it be that government employees grading their own work does not encourage honesty?

Just months after confirmation of the worst fears of public school corruption, new allegations against teachers and administrators at Roosevelt High School more than suggest fudging attendance records is ongoing.

“This growing environment of fear and mistrust,” asserts Elizabeth Davis, president of the Washington Teachers’ Union, “has never been addressed and continues to be a disservice to students and teachers.”

City officials have had plenty of time to address the issue. And of the common sense idea that the best way to avoid fear and mistrust is to follow the rules?

Crickets.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Nor is the fraudulent behavior limited to dishonestly boosting graduation rates. Former DCPS Chancellor Antwan Wilson resigned back in February after it became public knowledge that his daughter jumped 600 other students on a waiting list for her school. A recent Post story about enrollment fraud, whereby non-residents grab spots at prestigious schools such as the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, without paying the non-resident fee, was entitled, “Stop enrollment fraud? D.C. school officials are often the ones committing it.” Two-thirds of pending cases involve a current or past DCPS employee.

 

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education and schooling general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Grading Democracy on the Curve

public schools, education, democracy,, propaganda, ignorance

Voters, we are told, are amazingly ignorant. So, what to do?

“Ultimately, the ideal democracy is one in which as many citizens as possible vote,” writes Dambisa Moyo at The Guardian, “and the voters are armed with the most objective information. Yet today only a fraction of the electorate are voting, and many are armed with a diet of hyped-up statistics and social media propaganda.” Among her proposals is a voting booth access test: “why not give all voters a test of their knowledge?”

I can think of a whole bunch of reasons, as can Ilya Somin, over at Volokh Conspiracy, who considers just a few. One of the more interesting is this: whereas Moyo has no wish to shove poor people out of the voting booth, and so envisions public schools to teach to the test — “the knowledge needed should be part of the core curriculum” — Somin quotes John Stuart Mill about the very political dangers of the very idea of public schooling: “A general State education,” wrote Mill in On Liberty, would inevitably be devised to please and serve “the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation” and must constitute “a despotism over the mind.”

Though Moyo does observe incumbency and political careerism as big problems, she is innocent of the more fundamental issues.

Indeed, she does not consider the obvious: today’s voter ignorance of politics and government is in no small part the result of government schools.

For politicians, general ignorance is not a bug, it’s a feature.

Let’s look for solutions to political problems that do not give politicians more power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders national politics & policies political challengers property rights Regulating Protest too much government

A Sanctuary from Centralization

decentralize, centralize, federal and state and county, power, nullification, distributed

Defiance . . . nullification. It is a trend.

I take it as a sign of our contentious times that we now witness states in open rebellion against centralized control from the Imperial City of Washington, D.C., while cities and counties are also rattling the chains set by their respective state capitals.

The sweep of marijuana decriminalization and legalization is only the most obvious. The rise of “sanctuary cities” defying federal government immigration laws — often backed up by state legislatures — has been a contentious issue, with progressives supporting this sort of nullification and conservatives opposing it.

But the latest development does not hail from the left.

In Illinois, a number of rural governments have taken a cue from the immigration debate by “declaring themselves sanctuary counties for gun owners,” we learn from the AP’s Don Babwin, writing in the Chicago Tribune. “The resolutions are meant to put the Democratic-controlled Legislature on notice that if it passes a host of gun bills . . . the counties might bar their employees from enforcing the new laws.”

An Effingham County Board Member calls “sanctuary” an attention-getting “buzzword,” reporting that “at least 20 Illinois counties and local officials in Oregon and Washington have asked for copies of Effingham County’s resolution.”

Now, cities and counties do not have an analogous relationship to their state governments as do states to the federal government: the states created the “United States of America,” while cities and counties are also state creations.

Yet this move is important. It shows a growing recognition of the tyrannical nature of centralized power.

And the usefulness of decentralization.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability general freedom media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

Matter-of-After-the-Fact

Trump, dictator, war powers, Congress, Executive, power, incompetence

“For some time now,” writes Sen. Rand Paul for The American Conservative, “Congress has abdicated its responsibility to declare war.”

Kentucky’s junior senator knows how unconstitutional this is. “The Founders left the power to make war in the legislature on purpose and with good reason,” Rand Paul explains — correctly. “They recognized that the executive branch is most prone to war.”

So, Washington Senators Bob Corker and Tim Kaine are here to help?

This bipartisan pair has retrieved — from deep within the bowels of congressional R & D — a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). This would, explains Paul, give “nearly unlimited power to this or any other president to be at war whenever he or she wants, with minimal justification and no prior specific authority.”

The wording of the new AUMF “would forever allow the executive unlimited latitude in determining war, and would leave Congress debating such action after forces have already been committed” — allowing Congress only carping rights.

Shades of the Roman Republic, in which the Senate appointed dictators in tough times.*

These days, all times are tough times.

Meanwhile, Bob Corker is in the news for having just received the “George Washington University Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication’s first annual Walter Roberts Award for Congressional Leadership in Public Diplomacy.”

And Kaine just a few weeks ago made a big deal about his no vote for Trump’s Secretary of State nominee: “We have a president who is anti-diplomacy and I worry that Mike Pompeo has shown the same tendency to oppose diplomacy.”

How does making a foreign policy dictator out of Trump (or any future president) advance diplomacy?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Arguably Congress’s open-ended AUMF’s are much worse than ancient Roman practice, since today’s crises are not specified and the dictator is not forced to step down after the problem is solved — or a term limit of six months reached.

 

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crime and punishment free trade & free markets general freedom media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights too much government U.S. Constitution

The Studio System: The Sequel

Studio System, antitrust, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon

Evermore virtue signaling, everless virtue — that pretty much encapsulates Oscars’ night. The industry that brought us Harvey Weinstein and the occasion for #MeToo made the 90th Academy Awards two months ago unwatchable for most of us.

Now, as the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences loses touch with audiences around the country, Netflix appears to have decided to horn its way into the Oscars. “Netflix will reportedly begin purchasing movie theatres,” informs The Independent, “to help it get ahead in the race for Academy Awards.

The streaming giant has aimed to land an Oscar nod since the release of its first original feature in 2015, Beasts of No Nation. 

I have not seen that film, but I have made time for some entertainment (and a few documentaries) on Netflix. After Stranger Things and Wormwood, I think I can safely repeat a point I’ve made before: this is the new Golden Age of Television.

But Netflix wants more prestige than the TV industry’s “Emmys.”

Whether the company succeeds with the Oscars, notice: Netflix is becoming a major studio — complete with “vertical integration.” Just what the Supreme Court tried to kill in 1948 when it ruled against the studio system’s “monopoly” status.

That decision, plus the rise of broadcast television, dealt a death blow to the studios — and arguably movie quality.

Maybe a new studio system (also courtesy of Amazon Prime, Apple, and other players) will make for a renaissance.

For feature-length films.

If we can just keep government out of it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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