Category: Common Sense

re: Solutions

Today’s the traditional day for New Year’s “Resolutions,” but instead of resolutions, how about some solutions?

Sure, Thomas Sowell has sagely reminded: there are no solutions in social life, only trade-offs.

But, utopian perfection aside, let’s agree that some changes would be better than others, and, let us resolve to solve some nagging problems — or at least trade up. And since the really nagging problems are political …

For Republicans: this could be the year to give up on government as society’s chief moral agent, empowered to regulate everybody’s medicine cabinets and bloodstreams. End the failed War on Drugs, with legalizing marijuana the simplest first step. Vice will continue, as it always has. But it’s another kind of vice to think that force, policing and imprisoning folks, will “solve” the problem. Much less even reduce the availability of drugs.

For Democrats: this could be the year to give up on government as micromanager of markets — and people’s marketplace choices. Face it: folks will make decisions that liberals don’t like. They’ll eat at McDonalds and buy large sodas — and the wrong stocks. And guns! But adding to the mass of regulations doesn’t make consumers choose better, it makes stuff more expensive and business less open to competition. Indeed, almost all the regulations designed to help “the little guy” backfire, helping big business by hobbling their upstart competitors.

Our leaders, at present, cannot even balance budgets. They are addicted to debt. To pretend we must have more and more government to prevent our addictions or save us from personal debt is ludicrous.

Can we resolve to stop pretending that bigger government is always the solution?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016, big government, debt, New Year, New Year's Day

Common Sense

Henry David Thoreau

“It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too.”

Henry David Thoreau, “Resistance to Civil Government,” Aesthetic Papers, 1849 (republished in a variety of titles, including On the Duty of Civil Disobedience).

Common Sense

Henry Hazlitt

On November 28, 1893, women voted in a national election for the first time … in New Zealand. On the same date in 1917, the Estonian Provincial Assembly declared itself the sovereign power of Estonia. November 28 also marks the independence of Mauritania from France (1960), and East Timor from Portugal.

In 1894, on November 28, economics journalist Henry Hazlitt was born. Hazlitt went on to write Economics in One Lesson, Time Will Run Back, and many other books, including several criticizing Keynesianism. He was the main proponent of the work of Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek in America during the 1940s and 1950s.

Common Sense free trade & free markets general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall U.S. Constitution

Compatriots, We — For Liberty!

Post author By CS Admin
Post date November 26, 2015
No Comments on Compatriots, We — For Liberty!

Thank you. It’s Thanksgiving, a good day to say so.

What a great idea for a holiday — a thoroughly American one, unpretentious and unspoiled. Centered on family and friends, the day may be the most important of the year, something we all share, in no small part because it is when we count (and publicly acknowledge) our blessings.

First on the list?

The blessing of liberty, of course. The freedom to work and produce and to keep the fruits of your labor. In order to put food on the table (a LOT of GOOD food.)

And, because man does not live by bread alone, to do it your way, independently, by the sweat of your own brow and the work of your wits — not as any man’s slave, nor riding anyone’s back … including the taxpayer.

Thanksgiving thus serves to celebrate that quintessential American Dream: standing on one’s own two feet … with friends, family, and freedom.

I have a further reason to thank you, though, other than this date on the calendar.

And no, it’s not simply for reading Common Sense and allowing me to bring you heaping helpings of honest outrage, and resolve, stories of perseverance, commitment to principle, tales of “doing something about it,” offering a bit of humor, hopefully providing some good information and argumentative ammunition, a perspective on smart grassroots politics in this state or that, a lens on corrupt politicians and their latest schemes in a city or town all the way across the country.

I’m thanking you for something even more important.

Don’t get me wrong. Common Sense is important. I love riffing on the latest insanity, or success — especially presenting stories that can spur copy-cat campaigns, initiatives, legal actions and, in a word, ACTION.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.

You and I: we’re the folks taking responsibility for the future of freedom. We’re committed to doing the hard work of political reform.

Right?

It ain’t easy. We need to support each other, learn from one another, and work together — even when we are many miles apart. We have to build a smarter, more united pro-liberty community.

That’s why I write Common Sense.

To communicate with you … and other important individuals. All of us hanging together — and not “hanging separately,” as old Ben Franklin once quipped — because our efforts are absolutely essential to protecting the values of freedom, responsibility and independence.

Friend, we pay our dues (and more) — for otherwise your children and grandchildren, and mine, will face a world without what we hold so dear.

I started Liberty Initiative Fund to help citizen activists place tax limits, term limits, criminal justice reforms, and other pro-liberty and anti-crony measures on state and local ballots. I also serve as president of Citizens in Charge Foundation, which protects our crucial ability to use the citizen initiative and referendum process to hold government accountable.

Thankfully, Citizens in Charge Foundation financially supports Common Sense, allowing my compatriots to make tax-deductible contributions to keep this communication network alive and kicking.

Of course, it all comes down to you. This program, this Common Sense network doesn’t exist without your caring and support.

You know, I adore the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. As I know you do, too. But words on paper don’t keep us free unless there are people, like you and me, standing up for those words.

Stand with me again today and support Common Sense by joining Team 1776.

What’s “Team 1776”? It’s a group of folks like you who believe in the values of liberty and in building a network around those values through this communication vehicle. Members of Team 1776 care enough to provide our financial foundation by making a one-time gift of $1,776. Or they donate more. Or less. Whatever they can afford to give.

Many join Team 1776 with a monthly pledge of $17.76, which doesn’t hit the checkbook so hard (less than 60-cents a day), but adds up big-time for Common Sense — especially with more people stepping up to make that commitment.

Between today and the end of the year, I need to raise $30,000 to keep the Common Sense coming. I hope you have a great Thanksgiving Day and that you’ll claim this Common Sense program as one of your blessings.

Thanks for all you do and for your consideration now.

This is Common Sense. You make it possible. I’m Paul Jacob … and mighty grateful.

P.S. Your gift to Citizens in Charge Foundation for Common Sense is fully tax-deductible and 100 percent will go to the support and expansion of this program. Be part of Team 1776 by making a contribution or a monthly pledge today. Click here to make a donation by credit card. If you prefer to mail a check, please write “Team 1776” in the memo line.

P.P.S. My rough draft of this letter was titled, “Hey Comrades — Send Money!” I chuckled. My Web guy chuckled. But “comrades” is a commie word. We’re not even socialists, right? Sociable individualists, I like to think of us. Patriotic Americans. Compatriots. The word “compatriot” means both fellow countryman and colleague. And most of my readers (though certainly not all) are Americans like me, and almost all of you are colleagues (“comrades” without the bad connotations) in an important cause, a cause that must triumph. So this may be a better way to think of us: Compatriots for Freedom! Let’s make an impact … by saving civilization.

P.P.P.S. Thanks again. Happy Turkey Day!

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