Category: Common Sense

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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.

Categories
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.

Categories
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. 

Categories
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.

Categories
Common Sense insider corruption political challengers

Vote Absurdly If You Wish

Today is Election Day, with primaries or runoffs in 12 states. Let’s hope at least a few incumbents fall, from both parties.

Most Americans would cheer that. But we’ll then hear TV talking heads and pundits in the press tell us how crazily we’ve voted.

In 1994, ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings condescendingly reported that “The voters had a temper tantrum last week.… Parenting and governing don’t have to be dirty words: the nation can’t be run by an angry two-year-old.”

Were our choice so limited, I’d say give the two-​year olds a shot.

Jennings’s snooty attitude has been echoed again and again this year. Mike Allen, Politico’s chief political writer, said after Utah’s Senator Bennett flamed out in a GOP convention, “There was no reason for his state to turn on him. Nobody delivers for Utah the way he does.”

Allen went on to rant about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s unpopularity in his home state: “Voters are not thinking … the idea of Nevada kicking out Harry Reid is absurd! He’s the #1 senator: #1 out of 100. Nobody delivers for Nevada like Harry Reid.”

Apparently, Mr. Allen knows best. Utah and Nevada voters? Fools, the lot of them — for not liking all the presents their big-​shot politicians delivered for them.

Common sense, on the other hand, has it that anyone who votes to please the Washington press corps is truly crazy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.