Category: national politics & policies

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general freedom national politics & policies political challengers

President Johnson?

Gary Johnson, Williamn Weld, libertarian, party, president, election

An unusual year, far from over.

This week, the Libertarian Party holds its presidential nominating convention in Orlando, Florida. Next November, after all the votes are counted, the party’s likely nominee, former two-term New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, and his likely vice-presidential running mate, former two-term Massachusetts Governor William Weld, may finally be going to Disney World.

To celebrate . . . before moving into the White House.

Crazy? Sure. But this is the year for crazy.

Polls show Gov. Johnson garnering 10 percent support. With both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton drowning in their own negatives, plenty more votes are winnable to the right, left and everywhere in between Crooked Hillary and the Trumpster Fire.

Okay, sure, but . . . win the presidency?

One needs 270 electoral votes to be elected president and to win states to nab those electoral votes. In 1992, Ross Perot received 19 percent of the vote nationwide, without winning a single state.

But what if Johnson won his home state of New Mexico? In 2012, he got only 3.6 percent in the Land of Enchantment. If that grew ten-fold to 36 percent in a three-way race, he could prevail.

And, as explained at A Libertarian Future, if Trump carried enough swing states (say, Colorado, Florida, and Ohio) to keep Clinton from reaching 270 electors, the whole shebang . . . would be thrown into the House of Representatives.

Who trusts Congress to choose responsibly?

Yet, with the Libertarian ticket sporting this much horse-race relevance, more Americans might contemplate greater freedom and less Big Brother government.

Think liberty, America.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Gary Johnson, Williamn Weld, libertarian, party, president, election

 

Categories
Accountability folly free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights responsibility too much government

Fatherland, Socialism and Death!

Venezuela, store, socialism, column

The fall of Venezuela is an atrocity.

The comic elements are clear enough — the further you remove yourself from the poverty, chaos, and collapse. We can wallow in a bit of Schadenfreude, taking glee as some American leftists squirm to explain why the socialist paradise they ballyhooed a mere three years ago now tail-spins to the grave.

The collapse of this socialist experiment offers an enormous level of tragedy. It’s not pretty.

The country’s leader, President Nicolas Maduro, makes his predictable desperation play. Rather than confront his own errors, and the futility of making socialism work in anything like a rigorous form, he boasts. “Venezuela Leader Says US ‘Dreams’ Of Dividing Loyal Military,” reads yesterday’s Reuters report. While no doubt true, this is one of those cases where whatever we dream to the north, our dreams are better than their current reality.

Of course the Venezuelan military should turn on Maduro, Hugo Chavez’s inheritor, protecting the right of recall, which Maduro is denying. By painting the U. S. as the bad guy, Maduro hopes to unite his people — especially his armed forces — around him. That’s what a desperate demagogic dynast does. Citizens and subjects traditionally abandon skepticism about their leaders when they feel threatened from the outside.

Which is one reason it would be a mistake for the U. S. to intervene.

Reuters poetically reports that the military is still united behind the socialist government, and resists the recall referendum, singing “Fatherland, Socialism, or Death!”

Wrong conjunction. Not “or” but “and” . . . if you insist on socialism.

The government, military pressure or no, should allow the recall vote, and soon.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Venezuela, store, socialism, column

 

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folly free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies

Guilt and Association?

Christianity, socialism, capitalism, Christ, poll, illustration

A few days ago, the Barna Group released the results of its latest poll, asking “Americans whether capitalism or socialism align better with the teachings of Jesus,” explains The Hollywood Reporter. The results are that “socialism won 24 percent compared to 14 percent, with the rest answering ‘neither’ or ‘not sure.’”

And what about the year’s big race?

“When asked which presidential candidate’s policies aligned closest to the teachings of Jesus, Sanders was on top with 21 percent, compared to 9 percent for Hillary Clinton and 6 percent for Donald Trump.” Ted Cruz, no longer in the race, fared better than Hillary, but below Bernie, at 11 percent.

Now, it is worth mentioning that more significant polling on issues relating religion to politics has been done by Barna. Still, the commentary over at Fox on this poll was . . . interesting.

On Bill O’Reilly’s show, Monica Crowley made the crucial distinction between Jesus’ command to give to the poor and modern socialists’ demands to take from some, through taxation and by force, to give to others.

O’Reilly himself, however, went on a bizarre and joking riff about “buying his way to heaven” by leaving his wealth to charity . . . after he dies.

Looking over these poll numbers, I can only conclude that advocates of a free society have much work to do convincing Americans of the justice and benevolence of free markets, of “capitalism.”

And Christians have their work cut out for them, too . . . at the very least to disencumber themselves from the stench of socialist states and the brutal force those states inevitably rest upon.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Christianity, socialism, capitalism, Christ, poll, illustration

 

 

Categories
Accountability folly incumbents meme national politics & policies term limits

Indicting Incumbency

term limits, indictments, democracy, elections, meme, Congressman Chaka Fattah, illustration

How does that old, pithy anti-term limits slogan go, again? “We already have term limits, they’re called indictments!”

Wait . . . is that it?

Must be. This election year — the year of the outsider, the year of unbridled contempt for establishment, Washington, D. C., politicians — has seen only one incumbent congressman defeated by the voters.

Just one. It came late last month in the wake of a 29-count felony indictment charging Congressman Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) with bribery, theft, bank and mail fraud, racketeering, and more.

In all the other congressional primary contests pitting incumbents against challengers across the country so far this year, a solid 100 percent were won by the incumbent — zero won by challengers.

Rep. Fattah, whose corruption trial began in federal court on Monday, has pled not guilty to all charges, proclaiming his innocence. “Chaka Fattah’s lifestyle is not on trial,” his defense attorney told jurors. “Philadelphia politics are not on trial. [Congressional] earmarks, donations, grants to nonprofits are not on trial.”

But Congressman Chaka Fattah certainly is.

The incumbent’s previous re-election had been a breeze — completely unopposed in the all-important Democratic Primary, and then garnering 88 percent of the vote against his sacrificial GOP challenger. That was in 2014, before the felony charges.

Following the indictment, the Washington Post reported that Fattah “found it difficult to raise money after the party establishment all but abandoned him.” So, even in this single instance, the FBI and the party establishment, more than voters, sent this 22-year incumbent packing.

I have a new slogan: “We don’t have term limits, and we need ’em!”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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term limits, indictments, democracy, elections, meme, Congressman Chaka Fattah, illustration

 

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Accountability crime and punishment folly free trade & free markets ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

A Vapor’s Chance in Hell

vape, vaping, smoking, law, regulation, unintended consequence, illustration, photo

There is a big difference between government designed to protect our rights and a government tasked with protecting us from ourselves.

You couldn’t find a better example of this than the current Federal Drug Administration and its regulation of vaping.

Vaping is the imbibing of water vapor laced with nicotine and other ingredients. It is designed to replace the smoking of tobacco cigarettes. It is much, much less harmful than smoking. The genius of this innovation is that while it looks a lot like smoking, it involves no smoke. But it does involve inhaling, and blowing out wisps of . . . well, vapor.

It’s safer than smoking because smoking tobacco involves burning organic (and inorganic) matter, which puts tars and other chemical substances into one’s lungs.

But the competing companies that make the product are not allowed to tell us about its advantages.

New regulations of the e-cigarette industry from the FDA prohibit a lot of truth-telling in advertising. “Even if a few companies survive the shakeout caused by the FDA’s onerous regulations,” Jacob Sullum writes in Reason, “they will not be allowed to tell consumers the truth about their products.” It appears that “any intimation that noncombustible, tobacco-free e-cigarettes are safer than the conventional, tobacco-burning kind” places them under a category that simply must “be marketed only with prior approval.”

The legal judgments Sullum quotes will make you sicker . . . than your first cigarette puff.

Paternalistic government designed to save us from our vices ends up blocking us from actually lessening the bad effect of those vices.

Some help.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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vape, vaping, smoking, law, regulation, unintended consequence, illustration, photo

 

Photo credit: micadew on Flickr

 

Categories
education and schooling folly ideological culture nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Toiletarianism

toilet, bathroom, trans, transgender, sex, gender, law, folly

President Obama and other politicians are taking a wide stance over the nation’s public restrooms. Important bathroom policy will finally be determined at the highest levels.

Last week, public educators nationwide received a legalistically-worded letter from the Departments of Justice and Education explaining how to legally treat transgender students under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. CNN boiled it down to “Fall in line or face loss of federal funding.”

Friendly federal “guidance” comes after dueling lawsuits between the Feds and North Carolina over that state’s House Bill 2, which establishes statewide restroom regulations. Those regs require that transgender folks use the bathroom appropriate to the sex listed on their birth certificate (whether Kenyan, Canadian or other).

Obama wants Americans to choose the restroom matching their self-chosen “gender identity.” Conservatives seem most worried that his policy is so loosely defined as to allow non-transgender male persons to simply claim to be transgender in order to shower with the girls volley-ball team or lurk in the powder room.

“Have we gone stark raving nuts?” questioned Sen. Ted Cruz, proclaiming: “Grown adult men, strangers, should not be alone in a bathroom with little girls.”

In California, there’s legislation to force businesses to make “all single-stall public restrooms” gender neutral. “Let’s make a clear statement that, if you want to go pee, by all means help yourself,” argued the proposal’s author.

Transgender people should be treated with care and respect, as should every person. But do we really need a national bathroom policy designed for maximum division in an election year?

Before politicians solve today’s glaring non-problem in public restrooms, they should solve a real problem first.

Just one.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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toilet, bathroom, trans, transgender, sex, gender, law, folly

 

Categories
Accountability folly general freedom media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

The Senator Intrudes

Sen. John Thune, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, fairness doctrine, censorship

We know that the media in general, and Silicon Valley, too, have strong anti-conservative biases — even if, in another sense, the Fourth Estate serves as almost the embodiment of one understanding of the conservative impulse: relentlessly upholding established institutions, against all attacks. The American media strongly defends the modern state; every program, it seems, is sacrosanct: the only thing wrong with Big, Intrusive Government is that it is not as Big and Intrusive as it should be.

This week, several ex-Facebook news curators alleged systemic “political bias” in how stories receive the top spot in Facebook’s Trending news section. So Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) intrudes. He wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in his official capacity on the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Communication. Thune says that if Facebook is, in effect, promoting stories by means of a hidden political agenda, this amounts to something like a public fraud, which lies within this committee’s purview.

I don’t see how. And I really would like such biases and pseudo-frauds to be dealt with by consumer pressure rather than government whip. And that should be without regard to the partisan stripe of the bias — or the whip.

Anthony L. Fisher, over at Reason, notes that the senator has a logic problem: he rests his case for government oversight of Facebook rules and consumer relations on the infamous “fairness doctrine,” which is not operative at this time, and which Thune has previously and repeatedly opposed.

And for good reason: the doctrine produced government-enforced muting of speech, not fairness.

But this all may mean almost nothing. I’d never even noticed Facebook’s Trending section.

Have you?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Sen. John Thune, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, fairness doctrine, censorship

 

Photo of Sen. John Thune credit: Gage Skidmore on Flickr

 

Categories
meme national politics & policies

“Populism” and Leader Worship

Red Flag!

When leader worship is called a “people’s movement.”

It was just pointed out to me that it isn’t clear that the people on the left are Bernie supporters. . . so here’s a revised version of the meme:

Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, fake populism, leader, meme, illustration

 

Categories
Accountability ballot access general freedom national politics & policies political challengers

Delegates Unbound

Curly Haugland, voting, Republican, democracy, Donald Trump, illustration

An article in Politico calls Curly Haugland a “rule-mongering crank,” a “gadfly,” “stubborn” (twice), a “pain in the ass,” and a “pedantic curmudgeon.”

And merely in the first paragraph!

Who is this Curly fellow, you ask? Haugland’s a successful small businessman in Bismarck, North Dakota, and a member of the Republican National Committee. He’s also a no-nonsense member of the party’s Rules Committee.

Long before Trump was an issue in the party (or even “in” the party), Mr. Haugland was urging Republican leaders to do something anathema to Washington-types: follow the rules.

“The rule says, specifically,” Curly told CNBC, “that it’s a vote of the delegates at the convention to determine if there’s a majority, not a primary vote. . . . The media has created a perception that the voters will decide the nomination. Political parties choose their nominee, not the general public.”

The entire electorate chooses the president, of course, but it seems fair enough that parties choose their own nominee. They might be wise to do it through primaries including the broader public or through state conventions reserved to party members or any number of ways. But however done, it should be by the rules.

And without taxpayer money.

Delegates have been free to vote their conscience throughout the history of the GOP, from just prior to the Civil War, when Lincoln gained the nomination at a contested 1860 convention, until today. It’s been a rule. The only exception was in 1976, when President Ford’s campaign worked to change the rule, binding delegates to block Ronald Reagan’s insurgent candidacy. Coincidentally, the leader of that ’76 effort was Paul Manafort, who today is running Trump’s convention effort.

Curly Haugland’s beef isn’t with Trump, but with the media and the RNC leadership, for not telling folks the truth.

No telling if GOP delegates will vote their conscience in Cleveland, but thank you, Mr. Haugland, for speaking truth to power. Republican delegates may be listening.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

P.S. If you missed the first two commentaries in this series, here they are:
Fat Lady Score – It’s a time for choosing.
Listen to Whom? – People in political parties have rights, too.

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Curly Haugland, voting, Republican, democracy, Donald Trump, illustration

 

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Categories
Accountability general freedom national politics & policies political challengers

Listen to Whom?

political parties, elections, party, Republican, Democrat, corruption, illustration

It’s a time for choosing, I concluded yesterday, for Republican voters — between the so-called “establishment” Republicans endorsing Donald Trump’s candidacy and those, such as House Speaker Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, and both President Bushes, who have declined to endorse.

Sen. John McCain’s admonition that, “You have to listen to people that have chosen the nominee of our Republican Party,” raises the imperative question: Who gets to choose?

Moreover, who should choose?

I’m a big fan of democracy — not pure democracy as a form of government, of course, but voting as a wonderful mechanism for people to control their government, and therefore, to protect our rights, our republic.

Yet, the Republican and Democratic Parties are private associations of citizens. We have a right to vote on who serves in public office, but not a right to decide who is nominated by a political party to which we do not belong.

“Without borders,” Mr. Trump has argued, “we don’t have a country.” To which a Republican friend recently added, “Without borders, we don’t have a party.”

People in political parties, as in any association, have rights, including who they nominate and how. Parties should be independent, not government-controlled.

Nor should political parties be advantaged in law, or their primaries and national conventions subsidized by taxpayers, as they are now.

Trump has railed that the GOP nomination process is rigged. Like most public-private partnerships, it is! But not the way you might think . . . as I’ll delve into tomorrow.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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political parties, elections, party, Republican, Democrat, corruption, illustration

 

Common Sense Needs Your Help!

Please consider showing your appreciation by dropping something in our tip jar  (this link will take you to the Citizens in Charge donation page… and your contribution will go to the support of the Common Sense website). Maintaining this site takes time and money.

Your help in spreading the message of common sense and liberty is very much appreciated!