Category: Common Sense

How does the marketplace of ideas — and how do people who generally support free speech — react to the advancement of free-​market ideas?

Well, the new Milton Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago has sure kicked up a fuss. That is, a whole bunch of anti-​free-​marketers have kicked up a fuss about it.

More than a hundred University of Chicago professors have signed a letter to the university president complaining that the pro-​market approach of the Milton Friedman Institute has not been adequately vetted. By them. By the foes of free markets. They are “disturbed,” they write, by the school’s support for the institute.

Oh, theirs is no simple case. They express no worries about academic freedom. They admit that the work of the institute “will not have a chilling effect” on other inquiry at the university. But they claim it will make the public more likely to “perceive” that the Chicago faculty “lacks intellectual and ideological diversity.” And they insist that the growth of global markets is not as beneficial as Milton Friedman’s followers make it out to be.

This last claim tips the hand of these professors. I am sure they were irked by Professor Friedman’s long tenure at the University of Chicago and his vast influence there. Now they can take out their revenge by preventing others from exploring his ideas.

Their fear and loathing makes me like the Milton Friedman Institute already.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The Los Angeles Times reports there will be far fewer initiatives on the ballot to excite and entice Republican voters this November.

Why? The Times suggests one big reason is that Yours Truly hasn’t worked on initiatives this year.

True, I’ve been involved in many initiatives in years past. Likewise, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s politically-​motivated prosecution of Rick Carpenter, Susan Johnson and me, for helping a 2005 petition drive, is distracting. (The whole story is at freepauljacob​.com.)

But the Times story is off in several respects.

First, use of the initiative goes up and down without much regard to my personal involvement.

Second, I’m not a partisan Republican. The issues I’ve worked for — term limits, tax and spending limits, property rights — have never been very popular with politicians of either party.

Unlike partisans, I don’t use initiatives to mobilize voters for a candidate or party. Instead, I like such measures because they allow citizens to actually set policy.

Sadly, though, the Times is onto something. There has been a concerted campaign by the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center and other groups to block conservative or libertarian ideas from the ballot. They’ve even hired “blockers” to harass citizens engaged in the democratic process.

And the Oklahoma prosecution has created a chill. Not a single initiative has qualified there. A recent editorial in the Oklahoman called this November’s ballot “blander than dry toast.”

Some people like it that way. I don’t.

This is Common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

In 1991 I had a choice. To best work for term limits, I needed to move close to the nation’s capital. But where? Maryland or Virginia or the District of Columbia? I chose Virginia.

Nowadays I regularly travel through all three jurisdictions, though Maryland makes me nervous.

Prince George’s County police recently barged into the Berwyn Heights mayor’s home and shot his two dogs dead. Turns out their little home invasion was illegal — they lacked a no-​knock search warrant, or any real case.

Weeks before this, a man arrested for the alleged homicide of a policeman was murdered in jail. Police working there refuse to cooperate in the investigation. Now we learn that many guards at the jail have criminal records and have committed crimes at the jail.

The Prince George’s County police have a long, sordid history. But you may be thinking, why lump in the whole state?

Well, the ACLU recently obtained documents showing that for 14 months in 2005 and 2006, Maryland state police spied on anti-​death penalty and anti-​war activists, with no probable cause of any crime. Names of political activists were entered into law enforcement databases as suspected terrorists or drug traffickers.

No wonder when the Washington Post held a contest to pick a new slogan for the state, the winner was: “Maryland — wait, we can explain.”

Hmmm. But how exactly do you explain a police state?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Should I go into the prediction biz? A friend and loyal reader thinks I already consult a crystal ball.

He was impressed with my Townhall​.com column prediction that gas prices would fall. Though not quite a prediction, I did advise, in my July 6th column, that folks shouldn’t panic, that the price of gas would likely fall, significantly, and soon. Five days later, crude oil hit an all-​time high and the average price of gas at the pump followed, to a high of $4.11 a gallon national average.

And then, as if on cue, the price of crude fell roughly 20 percent. The pump price has dipped back below $4 a gallon and is still falling.

Of course, not all of my, er, prognostications are as rosy. Weeks ago I told you about animal rights extremists torching a van at UCLA. With the violent nature of such groups, I said people are going to get hurt.

Well, the violence has sure escalated. UC-​Santa Cruz Professor David Feldheim’s house was firebombed as he, his wife and two young children slept. Thankfully, they were able to escape the burning home with relatively minor injuries.

Jerry Vlasak, a North American Animal Liberation spokesman, defended the attack, saying, “Perpetrators must be stopped using whatever means necessary, and the use of force is a morally righteous tactic.…”

I don’t need a crystal ball to see that these groups are the very opposite of righteous.

It only takes Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Career politicians and ideological allies have been waging an ever-​more vicious war on citizen initiative rights.

Some of the sordid details are reported in political journalist John Fund’s Wall Street Journal article, “The Far Left’s War on Direct Democracy.”

The tactics used to assail statewide petition drives range from “restrictive laws to outright thuggery.”

The restrictions involve anything from slashing the time allowed for collecting signatures to massively increasing the cost of running a ballot campaign.

The thuggery also takes many forms. Often, so-​called “blockers” are recruited to harass circulators and prospective signers.

Seeking to imprison people for ten years for promoting an initiative, based on zero evidence of wrongdoing, also counts as thuggery, I think. That’s what the Oklahoma attorney general is trying to do to Rick Carpenter,  Susan Johnson, and Yours Truly. Fund notes the hypocrisy of indicting us for allegedly hiring “out of state” petitioners, when state officials couldn’t care less about how “out of state” the blockers are.

Visit freepauljacob​.com for more details about our case.

The groups using the most vicious tactics to undermine the process tend to be far left-​wing. Their pet causes tend to be much less popular than reforms like term limits, capping state spending, and the like. If they have to destroy democracy to get their way, that’s fine with them.

But we don’t have to let them get away with it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.