Category: Common Sense

Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

Nullification begins with the axiomatic point that a federal law that violates the Constitution is no law at all. It is void and of no effect. Nullification simply pushes this uncontroversial point a step further: if a law is unconstitutional and therefore void and of no effect, it is up to the states, the parties to the federal compact, to declare it so and refuse to enforce it. It would be foolish and vain to wait for the federal government or a branch thereof to condemn its own laws. Nullification provides a shield between the people of a state and an unconstitutional law from the federal government.

Thomas E. Woods, Jr., Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century (Regnery, 2010), p. 3.

Funny how that happened…

capitalism, progressivism, progressive, politics, child labor, 8 hour work day, living wage, achievements, accomplishment, meme, illustration

Funny how none of the progressive “achievements”happened before capitalism made them possible.

Click below for high resolution version of the image:

Tags 8 hour work day, accomplisment, achievements, capitalism, child labor, living wage, politics, progressive, progressivism

Common Sense

They Don’t Need No Stinkin’ White Men?

Post author By CS Admin
Post date December 26, 2016
1 Comment on They Don’t Need No Stinkin’ White Men?

horse before the cart, strategy, Democrats, Clinton, backwards, voters, white, Trump

All informed, concerned adults should vote.

If they want to.

Yes, I am all for ballot access, and suggestions that we must minimize the vote in any election elicit a shiver: calls for voter participation reduction give me the creeps.

But that does not mean that every push for increased voter participation is a good idea.

In the case of a recent Nation think piece on how progressives can win future elections, it may indicate a severe misunderstanding of reality, a sort of cart-before-the-horse senselessness.

Steve Phillips has developed an “Organizing Strategy” that, his title informs us, would “Revive the Democratic Party” without depending on that dreaded category of citizens, “White Voters.”

Now before you jump to the conclusion that he is merely another trendy, leftist anti-racist racist, a person who has discovered the sheer joy of being able to heap scorn on the one group left in the modern world to which it is socially acceptable to deride, hate, and discriminate against, please note: his his plan to ignore white voters avoids the lesson Democrats most need to learn.

Hillary Clinton lost, Phillips correctly observes, because many, many minority voters who had previously voted for Barack Obama did not go to the polls for her. From this he extrapolates a need to seek out these voters. Democrats don’t need more white voters to win.

True enough. But he never once considers the obvious reason for Mrs. Clinton’s failure. She was a horrible candidate. Horrid. The worst.

From minority points of view, too: which is why so many blacks and Hispanics voted for Trump, in record numbers*.

Democrats, want to win? Stop promoting awful candidates.

And you could try better ideas, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Well, that would be the Trumpian way to put the fact that the President-elect did better with minorities than did, uh, Romney.

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Tags backwards, Clinton, Democrats, horse before the cart, strategy, Trump, voters, white

Common Sense

Effrontery Propaganda?

fake news, congress, ministry of truth, censorship, illustration

Buried within another, more innocuous-sounding piece of legislation*, the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act passed the U.S. Senate last week. Introduced in March, the corresponding House bill is still in committee.

Designed to “counter foreign disinformation and propaganda,” especially but not limited to Russia’s, the law, if enacted, would set up what amounts to the ultimate fact-checking outfit. But since, in politics, Nietzsche’s Law of Hermeneutics** holds — “there are no facts, only interpretations” — what it really would be is an anti-propaganda propaganda house, described by critics as a “Ministry of Truth.”

From Senate sponsors Rob Portman (R‑OH) and Chris Murphy (D‑CT), however, it sounds a lot more noble. It seeks to develop “a whole-of-government strategy for countering foreign propaganda and disinformation” as well as “leverage expertise from outside government to create more adaptive and responsive U.S. strategy options.”***

You can see why government insiders would be concerned. After all, information (mis- and dis- and even correct) travels fast these days.

That is the way of memes — “mind viruses,” popularly called**** — in this age of the Internet.

One related meme is the phrase “effrontery propaganda,” repeated in Internet postings, which characterizes the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act’s mission as that of developing and disseminating “‘fact-based narratives” to counter effrontery propaganda.”

Insiders in government and major media do see as “effrontery” the memes that so strongly captured our imaginations in 2016. But is it fakery that really bothers them? Or mere effectiveness?

In any case, effrontery is precisely the right word for any centralized, government-run propaganda outfit.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Titled a “report”!

** This being about propaganda, I hone my philosophical chops and chutzpah by dubbing the infamous F. A. Nietzsche saying as a “law.” On the order of Murphy’s and Parkinson’s so-called laws. Why not? Maybe it’ll catch on.

*** Specifically, the Senate version of the bill would expand “the authority, resources, and mandate of the Global Engagement Center” — an existing institution — to handle state actors (Russia, Russia, Russia, and China) as well as “help train local journalists” and seek to influence (and fund) NGOs and think tanks.

**** Richard Dawkins, in The Selfish Gene (1976; 40th Anniversary Edition, 2016), proposed a new science, memetics. Which has since been developed. See The Meme Machine, for example, by Susan Blackmore (Oxford University Press, 1999).

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Tags censorship, Congress, fake news, illustration, ministry of truth

Common Sense folly ideological culture porkbarrel politics

A Futility Triptych

wind, turbine, boondoggle, wind power, climate

Port Angeles is a quaint town on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, in Washington State. It now sports three state-of-the-art wind turbines. Which were purchased with more than just generating electricity in mind.

“They were also meant to educate folks about wind power,” City Councilwoman Sissi Bruch said recently.

And the activists, politicians and bureaucrats responsible for the $107,516 purchase achieved that, surely. Just not the way they intended.

You see, based on current Bonneville Power Administration rates, the turbines — described by Paul Gottlieb of the local Peninsula Daily News as “windmill-like” — are expected to “produce $1.50 a month in savings.”

The city council members express regret about that, and admit these monuments to enviro-consciousness are a boondoggle. But they insist: they never expected the generated electricity to pay back the investment. From what I can tell, the generated electricity won’t even pay back their maintenance cost, though Mr. Gottfried did not clarify that in his Daily News report, mainly because the maintenance costs are as of yet unknown.

Further, as a result of Port Angeles’s wet, salty-air environment — they are located in a park by the Strait — they are not expected to last past 25 years.

But it gets worse! They are not even running yet. They await Underwriter Laboratories inspection and approval. They stand motionless.

Monuments to the futility of wind power.

OK, the futility of wind power in most locations.

The turbines do look cool. I like their vertical design. I merely suggest one alteration (for efficiency of message): the blades should be shaped as dollar signs.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags boondoggle, climate, turbine, wind, wind power

Common Sense

The Kettering Hope

Kettering, Ohio, reforms, initiatives, illustration

Maybe President-Elect Donald Trump can whip Washington into shape. We can hope. And help. Especially on congressional term limits.

But remember: local political fiefdoms can oppress as harshly as the Feds. So … who is whipping your town into shape?

Well, welcome to Kettering, Ohio.

Just months ago, Kettering’s powers-that-be placed a new charter amendment on the ballot to weaken term limits. And one citizen, Ron Alban, wasn’t amused. He and two other longtime residents formed Citizens for a Better Kettering (CBK), but not merely to fight the attack on term limits. They also petitioned five new reforms onto the city ballot.

I met this busy activist back in January, while he was working to place an ethics reform measure on the Ohio ballot — before being blocked by the state ballot board. In 2012, Ron had organized a petition drive to put a pay cut and council term limits on Kettering’s ballot. Both passed.

Ron’s CBK measures were: to protect citizen input at council meetings; to require greater transparency on city salaries; to hold elections for council vacancies; to strengthen citizens’ ability to enforce charter provisions; and banning the city council from proposing future charter amendments dealing with term limits, council pay and the citizen ballot initiative process.

On Tuesday, the anti-term limits charter amendment failed.

And all five reform amendments passed overwhelmingly.

Alban and CBK aren’t as media savvy as Mr. Trump, or as wealthy. But their incredible success is a bright beacon of hope.

Most cities in this country have a petition process whereby thoughtful, hardworking citizens can change their local world. Most of us can do what Citizens for a Better Kettering just did.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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