Category: Common Sense

Duck/Rabbit, Maiden/Crone, and Taxes

Post author By CS Admin
Post date October 13, 2016
3 Comments on Duck/Rabbit, Maiden/Crone, and Taxes

Revolution! Must we?

Can’t we reform at a reasonable pace?

Well, whether we change slowly or quickly, change must occur. Today’s in-place policies are not stable.

But a better future itself must be stable. Or else it will not be better.

And a key to successful change is change in the hearts and minds of the people. The vast majority, East and West, need to shift mental gears and shift their ideological paradigms. (That is the term most famously used by Thomas Kuhn.)

Take yesterday’s story. I first heard about it from proponents of Oregon’s big business excise tax hike. They were saying that Oregon had the lowest business taxes in the union, and took that as a cue to raise taxes. I looked at it as a great political success, and one that had contributed mightily to Oregon’s remarkable economic resilience in these trying economic times.

The difference between the Higher Taxes reaction (which views low taxes as an opportunity only to raise them, and the consequences mainly as who gets the tax funds) and my reaction (which concentrates on the consequences of the expropriation, and looks to a longer period of time to gauge results) is a paradigm shift. To go from one to the other (preferably from the pro-tax to the low tax position) requires a shift in vision.

It is like what happens when you refocus on the Duck/Rabbit image, or the Maiden/Crone. Give a person some time. Be patient. And hint that a shift in perspective is warranted to see both.

And that we might gain something from a paradigm shift.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags ideological, paradigm, paradigm shift, shift, tax, tax policy, Thomas Kuhn

Accountability Common Sense general freedom ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies political challengers responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

America After November

activism, politics, elections, initiatives, president, Trump, Clinton, meme, illustration

Yesterday, I bemoaned the disaster that is this year’s presidential race. But big whup. As the LifeLock commercial rightly asks, “Why monitor a problem if you don’t fix it?”

Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will be the next president. That means we have our work cut out for us. And we can’t wait for the 2020 presidential race to fix the problem. We must immediately assert citizen power to create an effective check on government-gone-wild.

So, what to do?

First, let’s admit that fixing Washington isn’t easy. We must fight the Feds through national organizations, of course, but we actually gain greater leverage by working closer to home — at local and state levels.

We need to elect mayors, governors, legislators and councilmembers in 2017 and 2018, men and women who will fight for free markets and against cronyism. And stand up to the federal government.

And where we have the power of ballot initiatives and recall, let’s use it.

By Inauguration Day, we can be changing the conversation in most of the top 25 media markets. How? By petitioning the right issues onto the ballot. By April and May, voters in those cities and counties can directly enact those reforms. Next November, Ohio and Washington state voters can weigh in with ballot initiatives.

Sadly, tragically, it’s too late to stop campaign 2016’s tornado from doing damage. The next disaster of an administration is on its way. But we can create a competing agenda to the Hillary Clinton or the Donald Trump agenda.

A pro-liberty agenda. Starting now.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Original (cc) photo by Niklas Hellerstedt on Flickr

Tags activism, Clinton, elections, illustration, initiatives, meme, politics, president, Trump

Common Sense general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies political challengers responsibility too much government

United We Disagree

Ben Franklin, Donald Trump, disagreement, anger, fighting, politics

This election year? Anger and angst permeate the electorate.

We are united only in frustration. Which leads to some mutual distrust.

Not good.

Neither the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, nor the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, will receive my vote. But that doesn’t mean I don’t respect people who will vote for one or the other.

My father, whom I respected more than anyone else — and who passed away months ago — was a big Trump enthusiast. Not that he liked Trump’s demeanor; he didn’t. But he believed Trump was the only person who would shake up a completely corrupt Washington.

Some friends and loved ones simply have different political views or a different perspective on Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton.

“We’ve got the fate of the U.S. in our hands,” wrote a longtime Common Sense email subscriber yesterday, irritated that I was treating Trump’s “sins” as on par with Hillary’s corruption. He asked to cancel his subscription.

What could I say? Well, that’s exactly what I said: “Sorry to see you go.” And I urged that we not “part ways.”

All’s well that ends well: He emailed back and “re-enlisted.” Not only did that make my day, but he illuminated the biggest danger in this crazy election: allowing ourselves to become divided.

Those of us who understand the gift of liberty, who demand honest government and free markets, must hang together or, as Ben Franklin quipped, “we will all hang separately.”

Disagree and debate, of course — but as friends and neighbors and fellow patriots we must realize that no matter who becomes the next president, the future of freedom in America will depend on us working together to hold them to account.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags anger, Ben Franklin, disagreement, Donald Trump, fighting, politics

Common Sense

Simon Newcomb

Every one who has taken the trouble to inquire into the actual state of society a few centuries ago knows that the condition of the laborer was about this: He lived in a hovel with hardly any thing which we would call a window, with the fire (if he ever had any) in the middle of the building, or perhaps in a chimney-piece at one end. This hovel he occupied in common with the pigs and poultry. His staple article of food was a kind of black bread which a negro of to-day would hardly offer his dog, with a few vegetables from the neighboring garden. The clothing of himself and wife was coarse, scanty, and dirty almost in the same proportion.

Simon Newcomb, Principles of Political Economy (1886), p. 514.