Category: Common Sense

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Common Sense general freedom

The Price of Liberty

Happy Independence Day!

Though I understand if you are not feeling all that exultant, today.

Last week’s Supreme Court decision allowing the unconstitutional 2,700-page monstrosity known as Obamacare to stand was, well, bracing. We can soberly see how far our great country has fallen from the Republic our Founders envisioned. And how long and hard the battle will be to restore our country.

Let’s face it: We’re headed in the wrong direction. Unless we change course, our children and grandchildren will never know the freedom and opportunity and security that we have known. Can we accept such a fate? Can we live with it? Can we even bear to go to our graves with it?

On this day 236 years ago, not only did the United States of America break away from the monarchical and mercantilist British Empire, but we did so with a Declaration of Independence that spoke to “a candid world,” firing up the hearts and minds of people everywhere.

The Declaration served, in its day, as the most eloquent expression of the equality and dignity of each individual human being . . . of our inviolate right to freedom. It continues to do so today.

Freedom fighters worldwide have long been inspired by the simple words of our Founders . . . speaking truth to power:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

It falls to us, today, to restore some semblance of this precious freedom.

The enemies of freedom are powerful and entrenched — but remember, they were at the founding, too.

Of course, today’s situation has a somewhat different complexion. The public employee unions (basically, the government itself) are now the biggest spending and most powerful special interests in our politics. Crony phony-capitalists (Solyndra and many more) join them to feed at the federal trough, gorging on our tax dollars, wallowing in the borrowed money that threatens collapse and catastrophe. They push ever more power into the hands of politicians and their special-interest clients.

Though whopping majorities of citizens favor balanced budgets, limited government, and common-sense checks on power — term limits and the right to initiative, referendum and recall — our so-called representatives ignore the will of the people. Their spending and debt and nanny-statism know no bounds. They sue to overturn our votes and fashion a maze of unconstitutional rules to block our political participation.

Today’s warning isn’t “the redcoats are coming!” it’s “the turncoats are in charge!”

We can’t count on politicians or judges to save us. We can only count on each other.

Benjamin Franklin said, “We must hang together or we shall surely all hang separately.”

This Common Sense program, in the spirit of Tom Paine’s famous pamphlet that inspired our revolution, is my effort to educate, to excite citizens to action, to entertain at times, and to unite us in our common cause.

From highlighting today’s grassroots freedom-fighters to lambasting the mindless nanny-state busybodies in high places, Common Sense is a daily shot heard ’round the world.

We don’t often ask for your financial support, but we can only continue with your support. Make a monthly pledge of $17.76 to Citizens in Charge. Or make a one-time gift today for $25 — or $100! — or whatever you can afford to give.

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it,” Paine wrote to “the inhabitants of America.”

My goal in these commentaries is to add punch and verve to the movement, vanquishing fatigue so we can fight on.

Freedom is worth it. The only way to beat the odds is to fight.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

P.S. Just as in Paine’s day, and in his words, “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

P.P.S. Thank YOU for stepping up today and helping keep this program alive and kicking. Your monthly pledge of $17.76 or a one-time gift of $100, $50, $25 or $15 keeps us passing the ammunition. Please contribute. Why not do it now?

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Common Sense Today

Joan of Arc relieves Orleans, Dachau liberated, LA riots

On April 29, 1429, Joan of Arc entered the eastern gate of the city of Orleans to relieve French forces badly in need of supplies and more soldiers. Barely a week later, on May 8, the English siege of Orleans was broken by the French.

On April 29, 1945, the U.S. Seventh Army’s 45th Infantry Division liberated Dachau, the first concentration camp established by Germany’s Nazi regime, just five weeks after Hitler became chancellor in 1933.

On April 29, 1992, three days of rioting erupted after four Los Angeles police officers — videotaped beating Rodney King with Billy clubs, after a high-speed car chase and subsequent confrontation — were acquitted of wrongdoing. Rioters in south-central Los Angeles blocked freeway traffic and beat motorists, damaged and looted downtown stores and buildings, and set more than 100 fires. On May 1, President George Bush ordered military troops and riot-trained federal officers to LA and by the end of the next day the city was under control. In three days of disorder, 55 people were killed, almost 2,000 injured, 7,000 people were arrested, and nearly $1 billion in property damage reported, including the burnings of nearly 4,000 buildings. Rodney King had been released without charges after his arrest. The four police officers, acquitted of state charges on this day, were later prosecuted under federal law for violating Rodney King’s constitutional rights. Two officers were convicted, and sentenced to 2½ years in prison, and two were acquitted of the federal charges.

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Common Sense

Democracy Sans Factions?

It’s worth remembering, as Democrats proceed with programs that have failed in the past and as Republican insiders strive to rig their own nomination process, that the political parties are private organizations. They are not governments.

They are groups of people working to gain control over government — and that control can only ever be temporary. Let us hope.

Over many years of activism in politics I’ve supported openness in elections and ballot access, working for a variety of reforms, including the securing of the rights to initiative, referendum and recall. I’ve also contemplated a few less simple ideas, like Instant Runoff Voting and proportional representation, both designed to break (or at least ease up on) the stranglehold that the two-party system has over American democracy.

But additional reforms are worth thinking about. One, for instance, would prohibit any mention of a party name on a ballot.

Since the parties are private groups, they ought not have special access to the public ballot. All the more because the two parties are a problem in and of themselves — their perennial clamor for power perverts political discourse, unnecessarily restricting and channeling the direction of debate.

Such rules already hold sway in many county and municipal governments throughout the country. It could be instructive to study the differences in politicking and policy.

For todays’ growing ranks of independent and unaffiliated voters, perhaps the motivations in favor wouldn’t wholly be rational, but partly vengeful.

And perhaps partisans might wish to consider the reasons for that kind of anti-partisan sentiment.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense general freedom ideological culture

Happy Common Sense Day

Credit George Washington for mobilizing our military to win the Revolutionary War. It was Thomas Paine, though, who did the most to mobilize the people in support of the cause of freedom and independence from Britain. He did it with his stirring pamphlet, Common Sense.

Originally published anonymously on this very date 235 years ago, and addressed to “the Inhabitants of America,” Paine’s polemic circulated to a higher percentage of the American population than any book save the Bible.
Happy Common Sense Day
One reason for its success was Paine’s style, which was much more accessible to the common person than most political writing of that time. In fact, Common Sense was read aloud in public, allowing citizens who lacked letters to engage in the debate over separation from the British empire — some seven months before the Declaration of Independence.

Common Sense attacked both the evils of monarchy, generally, noting that “Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins . . .” and the British monarchy specifically, referring to William the Conqueror as a “French bastard landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives.”

Paine’s pamphlet cogently endorsed republican forms of future government. “Society in every state is a blessing,” he wrote, “but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one. . . .”

More than two centuries after its publication, Paine’s message still rings prophetic: “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.”

That remains true. And Paine’s mission remains ours: To resist tyranny, to “prepare an asylum for mankind.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense general freedom national politics & policies

The Same America

This episode was written immediately after the events of 9/11/01.

This is war. And on our shores. Thousands of American citizens murdered in cold blood. But despite our pain and suffering as a people, we are still strong. Not only militarily, but also in our love of freedom and our commitment to defend it come what may.

Some have argued that America will never be the same. In a sense that’s true: we’ll certainly never forget this savage and senseless attack. And we have much work to do to make certain it doesn’t happen again. But it’s important to be careful how we go about it.

In the wake of this unprecedented brutality, two out of three Americans say they would be willing to trade some civil liberties to get more security. But this is isn’t our real choice. Nothing about increasing our security requires abridging our civil rights. We don’t have to let the terrorists win, not in any respect. For these terrorists would like nothing better than to knock America off our foundation, our principles, the things that make us truly the greatest country the world has ever known. They hate our freedom. Let’s sustain that freedom. Let’s show the whole world: we are the same America.

The same America whose rifle shot for freedom was heard ’round the world in 1776, and is still being heard today. The same America that freed Europe from the Nazis and Asia from imperial Japan. Let it be known in the face of this terror today that we are indeed the same America, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Publication of this and previous Common Sense commentaries is only possible through the generous financial support of readers like you. Please contribute today.

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Common Sense

Is This a Great Country or What?

July 4, 2011

Some 235 years ago we made a clean break from the corrupt Old World of Europe. Fifty-six men risked it all to proclaim in the Declaration of Independence that:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . . .

That sums it up — the grand total of good government. The rest is history. Freedom prospers. A country of empowered citizens works a whole lot better than a nation of subjects following a dictator.

But the most striking lesson of history is sadly the opposite of America’s July 4, 1776, birth. So much of the world has long lived under political oppression.

This year I’ve been watching and reading about the protests and revolutions all across the Arab world, knowing that people are choosing to risk beatings and death to stand up in the streets to speak out for freedom. I’m frustrated that there is so little I can do.

And then it occurs to me: the best thing I can do, as an American, is to fight to keep our country all that it should be.

That’s no easy fight. As you know.

Our governments from Washington, DC, to Hometown, USA, are out of control.

What’s the trouble? Spending. Debt. Regular attacks on our property rights. The list runs long: Corruption. Arrogance. Nanny-statism. Those relentless assaults on any process of reform — from term limits to voter initiative, referendum and recall.

The philosophy running government for far too long now directly opposes the creed of 1776: The career politicians and the special interests believe in unlimited government, the idea that everything is permissible, anything is affordable (with your money), and nothing is sacred.

Disaster is on the horizon; the storm clouds of several coming catastrophes are dark and visible.

Politicians cannot stop the rain. Though they act as if they can.

But all hope is not lost. I have faith in you. And in Common Sense.

Our political problems are absolutely solvable. But your work and commitment to freedom is ultimately the difference maker.

And I like to think Common Sense helps. By laughing at the sad absurdities. By voicing a little righteous indignation. And by using wit . . . whenever I can find it.

But mainly Common Sense does its job by connecting the outrages of unaccountable government with the great people all across America who stand up to defend their rights and the rights of their neighbors from politics gone wild.

Common Sense helps bring folks together to put citizens in charge and ensure that government is accountable to the people.

This Common Sense program is run on a shoestring by Citizens in Charge Foundation. But even shoestrings cost money. We need to raise $52,000 to cover the program for the remainder of the year and to step up our marketing of the program.

On July 4, 1776, they pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.

This July 4, 2011, I’m asking you to pledge some of your fortune to help keep Common Sense on the air, online and in your email Inbox — and to help us reach out to new audiences.

A number of readers and listeners have made a monthly pledge of $17.76. That’s a big help. Can you make the same pledge?

Or give a one-time contribution of $176 today? If you can, please consider donating $1,776. Or $10, $25, $100 — whatever amount works for you.

The antidote to government gone wild is simple: Common Sense. Help us keep it coming.

Happy Independence Day!

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Common Sense ideological culture

Today’s Class Conflict

Today’s government workers receive not only better medical benefits and retirement packages than private employees, but significantly higher base salaries, too — as well as easier working conditions and greater job security.

I’ve talked a lot about how this has contributed to the current out-of-control spending at federal, state, and even local government levels.

But one thing I haven’t done is mention how old hat this is. Karl Marx would have raised an eyebrow in recognition of this trend, and then stifled himself. For this kind of thing was predicted by the thinkers he got his exploitation and class theories from.

Only those thinkers did not identify “capitalists” as the exploiters. They saw unlimited government as the exploiter — with net tax consumers as the class (or classes) that government exploitation sets up.

The ideas of the French Industrialist School are not well known, today. They should be. Kids should learn in school about the ideas of historian Augustin Thierry and economists Charles Comte, Charles Dunoyer, and other followers of the great J.B. Say and Thomas Jefferson’s friend and favorite economist, Destutt de Tracy.

Real class tension, today, exists not so much between “rich” and “poor” (that’s socialist diversion) but between government employees — who make up a quickly growing sector of today’s otherwise moribund labor force — and the taxpayers who fund their salaries and benefits.

We need another revolutionary shift — but not of a Marxist variety. We can do better. Less violent, more sensible. Can’t we?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense ideological culture

And the Award Goes To…

With last night’s Oscars on everybody’s noggins, I’ll hand out a few of my own awards, just to keep in the spirit of this news cycle.

Best performance by a lead actor? This last year Rep. John Boehner came out to challenge Glenn Beck as chief public weeper, and he gave a good showing. Still, the award has to go to Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama, for making us cry.

Best performance by a lead actress? I am tempted to award Hillary Clinton, for her work trying to make U.S. foreign policy seem plausible, but, really, it’s unraveling every day, and she seems too oblivious to reality to deserve accolades. So, the honor goes to Nancy Pelosi, for her role as outgoing House Speaker. She may not have done it all that well, but it was a pleasure to see her leave.

Best foreign language effort? This has got to be a tie, between the Tunisians and the Egyptians, kicking out their non-term-limited tyrants.

Best first-run, open-in-all-venues effort? That has to be the Tea Party showing last November. Breaking a long stretch of largely united governments — legislative and executive branches united under one party, first Republican and then Democrat — the Tea Party voters sent a well-deserved chill down politicians’ backs.

It’s worth noting that the Tea Party merited Independent Spirit Award attention, too. True independence of spirit is rare in big-time politics. Let’s hope it continues for another major showing next year.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ballot access Common Sense initiative, referendum, and recall

Solving a Problem

Regular readers know that I’ve had my share of troubles in Oklahoma, where a politically-motivated Attorney General abused his office years ago to threaten myself and other initiative petitioners. Thankfully, we won that battle.

Now, with a critical election nearly upon us, there’s a different problem in Oklahoma. Put another way, there’s a big opportunity.

On the ballot in just a week is State Question 750, which will make it a little less onerous for citizens to qualify initiative and referendum measures for future ballots.

Of all initiative states in the country, Oklahoma is the most difficult to put an issue on the ballot. The state mandates the highest percentage of signatures in the entire nation, while also setting the second shortest period for folks to circulate petitions, a mere 90 days.

Currently, Oklahoma determines the petition signature requirement by the office with the highest number of votes cast in the last election. This means that after every presidential election the signature requirement shoots up by as much as 40 percent!

Which, in turn, shoves aside the possibility for voters to reform government and hold it accountable.

State Question 750 would, instead, set the petition requirement to match the totals to the votes on gubernatorial elections. This would remove the roller-coaster fluctuations after each election. More importantly, it would significantly lower the signature requirement — by about 40 percent.

But there is a rather serious problem. SQ 750 is slightly behind in the polls — with a surprisingly large number of voters undecided.

Why?

Well, I’m convinced it’s because the ballot title for SQ 750 is plodding and abstruse, while also offering a negative spin.

Can you guess who wrote it?

The cockamamie title was prepared by none other than Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson. Yes, Edmondson’s the same politician who tried to throw me (and two other innocent activists) in jail on trumped up charges that, later, he was forced to dismiss and expunge.

When AG Edmondson launched his political witch-hunt against those of us who seek limits on government spending, we fought back. As that battle began, a friend urged me to set out some goals. Here are the five goals I set out three years ago and where we stand on each one:

1. Win our legal case.

  • We won. All charges were dismissed and our indictment expunged from the record.

2. Make Mr. Edmonson a private citizen after the next election.

  • Edmonson was defeated in the Democratic primary back in July.

3. Overturn the state’s residency law.

  • The law was struck down as unconstitutional.

4. Term-limit all statewide officials — most necessarily the Attorney General. (Edmondson has been AG for the last 16 years.)

  • The term limits amendment, State Question 747, is on this November’s ballot.

5. Open up the initiative and referendum process in Oklahoma.

  • In 2009, we assisted Oklahoma activists in passing three bills through the state legislature to make the petition process more open and accessible. One of those bills is SQ 750, a constitutional amendment, which is on the ballot this November — along with term limits.

Passing SQ 750 cannot help but have some personal meaning for me. More consequential, however, is the impact its passage — or failure — will have on our campaign to protect and expand the initiative process all across this country. We cannot afford to have the strong public support for the initiative hijacked by a convoluted ballot title from a disgraced AG on his way to the political dustbin.

One thing is clear: If Oklahoma voters know what State Question 750 is all about, they will pass it — with a solid majority.

Let’s help inform them.

A serious statewide radio campaign, reaching the Oklahoma electorate in this final week, costs a very serious $68,000. This is heavy saturation for the last 7 days of the campaign.

The radio spot will help voters cut through the AG’s smokescreen and grasp the significance of a YES vote on SQ 750 by reminding folks that the initiative process makes reforms like term limits possible. You can listen to the radio spot here.

Citizens in Charge has already begun airing this radio advertisement statewide. But we desperately need to run it more frequently and on more stations if we are to reach enough voters.

To do that, we must raise another $14,000 by close of business today — or early tomorrow, at the absolute latest.

Please help at this critical moment. We can purchase an additional spot on a statewide network of stations for $750. A contribution of $100 will cover another 60-second play on an individual station in Oklahoma City or Tulsa. And in the Sooner State’s smaller markets, your gift of $25 or $50 means another audience will hear us.

Would you consider contributing $750, $250, $100, $50 or $25 of the remaining $14,000 to reach the electorate and win?

You are the freedom fighter that the forces of big, unaccountable government so badly underestimate. Thanks in advance for your consideration. Please contribute online here.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

P.S. This has been a super successful year for Citizens in Charge Foundation & Citizens in Charge, with not a single significant anti-initiative bill passing in the entire nation and with important victories in court cases brought in Colorado, Missouri, Ohio, Utah and Washington. Now, with your support, we have an opportunity to secure a major win at the ballot box in Oklahoma. Your gift will directly help put citizens in charge in Oklahoma.

P.P.S. Oklahoma doesn’t start early voting until the final weekend before Election Day, so we can still reach all the voters. I have no crystal ball, but I feel this radio ad campaign will make the difference between winning and losing.

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Common Sense

When Voting Means “Nothing”

Last week, nearly a million Missourians tramped off to the polls to choose candidates in the primary as well as decide ballot issues. One issue, Proposition C, the Healthcare Freedom Act, made history, if not the news.

Missouri became the first state to vote on a specific repudiation of a key element of the healthcare legislation, namely the federal government’s mandate forcing individuals to purchase medical insurance. Prop C passed with a whopping 71 percent of the vote. It wasn’t close — even though opponents of the measure, Missouri’s Hospital Association, outspent supporters by better than three to one.

At The Missouri Record blog, Patrick Tuohey argues that “the vote in Missouri will have powerful repercussions.” Obviously, when Missourians voted they wanted their votes to count, to matter, to mean something. But according to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, the Missouri vote meant “nothing.”

Funny, you probably didn’t hear about Gibbs’s dismissive comments. You might not have even heard about the Missouri healthcare vote. For some reason, the three dinosaur television networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, didn’t even mention the vote on the following evening’s broadcast.

The Missouri vote suggests the Democrats’ healthcare legislation is none too popular.  But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid offered, “It’s very obvious that people have a lack of understanding of our health care reform bill.”

While the people are speaking up loudly and clearly, the response of government officials in Washington is to cover up their ears.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.