Category: Common Sense

Looks like we’ve approached touchdown on another national debate over national security. The Congress seems to be resolving the issue of airport security with a “compromise” that will federalize rather than privatize. A few airports will be allowed to experiment with private security options. And, supposedly, in a few years airports that don’t like the government-provided security will have a chance to opt out.

Thing is, private airport security is what works and private airport security is what we haven’t even tried yet. Oh, you think that’s what we have now? Think again. Bob Poole of the Reason Foundation and Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute have both pointed out how dispersed responsibility for airport security has been. Higgs says the way things stand now, “local law enforcement, the airlines, the airports, and the FAA” all share the responsibility, which means none of them have it. So none of them is actually accountable. Heck, United Airlines can’t even give tasers and stun guns to its pilots without first begging for permission from the government.

Roll Call reports that we have advocates of gun control in the Congress who are getting guns and armed bodyguards now. Yet our government won’t let responsible citizens like former law enforcement officials bear arms while riding on a plane. We need to privatize airports altogether, and let private airports and airlines act to improve the security of their passengers.

I say, let them decide their own security precautions. And let them advertise like hell to the rest of us about what they’re doing better and faster than everybody else.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

Wearing gloves and masks to sort the mail…standard now for many postal workers in New Jersey, New York and Washington, DC. A nerve-wracking situation, but maybe there’s an opportunity here, too.

The United States Postal Service is a government-protected monopoly. It still exists because it’s a monopoly. Because a ten-year old kid can get arrested for taking a piece of mail across town for a quarter instead of 34 cents. Over the years, the postal service has hemorrhaged red ink. But it is protected from its own inefficiency. And now taxpayers will have to shell out even more, for all the new security requirements the bug killing equipment and so forth. The new costs could add up to $2.5 billion.

Here’s my idea: Why not let private business deliver the mail? Let’s treat first-class mail delivery like any other business. Do that, and the competing companies will brag not only that they can deliver the mail better, but also make it more secure. They’ll deploy systems like the kind of electronic mail metering, and monitoring, that UPS and other private companies use right now. And private companies would no doubt pay a little bit better attention to protecting their workers than has the Postal Service during the Anthrax contamination.

The folks at the U.S. Postal Service are doing the best they can under very trying and often unfair circumstances. Let’s make things better for us and for them just as fast as we can. Let’s deliver on postal reform. And who knows? Maybe the price of a stamp will go down instead of up.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

I’m not one of those guys always badmouthing Microsoft. Sure, I’m always badmouthing my computer. And Microsoft has a lot to do with what is going on in my computer. But if Microsoft has something to do with the glitches, it also has a lot to do with what works.

We get impatient if it takes three minutes instead of three seconds for an email to reach someone half-way around the world. Still, it’s a dang miracle, ain’t it? The law moves a little slower, but we do seem to be near a resolution of the Justice Department’s years-long anti-trust suit against Microsoft. A few states must still sign off on the deal. But it looks like there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

For those of us who view this lawsuit as the misbegotten brainchild of envious competitors, the proposed settlement is both a relief and a disappointment. A relief, because at least the company isn’t going to be chopped in half. A disappointment, because Microsoft will still be handcuffed. It will be banned from entering into exclusive contracts with PC makers, for example. And it will have to put up with a three-man regulatory tribunal that will be allowed to hunker down in Microsoft’s own offices, at Microsoft’s expense, in order to monitor Microsoft’s every move.

Who knows? With a little luck, we still might be able to turn one of the most hard-driving and successful companies in U.S. history into the functional equivalent of the post office. Not that I’m rooting for that outcome, mind you, and somehow I don’t think that would make our email go any faster.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

Okay. Here’s the scoop the U.S. Senate is on board. They have agreed to move forward with a new round of military base closings that the U.S. House has already signed onto. These will be closings of bases that the military itself regards as obsolete. Now a special panel will meet to decide which bases should be shut down. Then the Congress must vote up or down on these recommendations, which means the closings will probably go through.

This bill’s passage is thus a victory for the common good over crass special-interest politics. Still, it passed by the narrow margin of 53 votes to 47 votes. So even with national security at stake, it seems that the career politicians are still protecting their reelection prospects. Which political party you belong to seems almost irrelevant. Actually, in this case most Senate Democrats sided with the Republican President, who favors the base closings. As does his Secretary of Defense. As does the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Harry Shelton, who argued that the country “cannot afford the costs associated with carrying this excess infrastructure.”

Yet most Senate Republicans opposed the bill, apparently more worried about the immediate economic impact in their backyard than the long-run impact on national security. As Minority Leader Trent Lott put it, “The timing is not good.” Lott says that the base closings are too much to ask of local communities at a time when their boys are being called upon to defend the country. Um . . . But that is the point, right? Defending the country.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

What makes America so different from the rest of the world? Our country began with the declaration that all people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And that these rights cannot be taken away because they belong to us as a birthright not a privilege granted by government.

We’re understandably a bit perplexed by the dangers we face today. Some politicians are trotting out different schemes that in years past were shot down for good reason such as violating the Constitution. Some columnists have even proposed the use of torture against suspected terrorists.

For goodness’ sakes, that’s not exactly the American way! And President Bush now wants military tribunals for suspected terrorists, even those suspects residing in the U.S. Some of us may be tempted to think that we can both keep our freedoms and still get greater security by trampling on the freedoms of immigrants or non-citizens. But human rights belong to all human beings, not just Americans. Our recognition of that fact is this country’s reason for being. When we deny other human beings the freedoms that we ourselves claim by birthright, we necessarily undercut the basis for our own freedom. Furthermore, such moves undermine the battle to win the hearts and minds of good people throughout the world.

How we treat people really does matter. We’re the good guys. Remember? Oh, I know the pseudo-sophisticated armchair world leaders will tell us that we have to break some eggs to make omelets, but I don’t buy it. And good guys don’t finish last; we finish first.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

I’ve said before that we should take care to keep the “same America” after the 9/11 attacks that we had before the attacks. Fight back, yes but without losing our liberties.

One bad idea is to impose a national ID card. This card would have your name and address and probably thumbprint and social security number, too. Maybe even a strand of your DNA eventually. Such a card would treat people as criminal suspects just for being well, in the same country as people who really are bad guys. And the card would be linked to a new national database. This database would make it even harder to protect our privacy against identity thieves or renegade bureaucrats. And it would bring us closer to the kind of society where you always have to present your identity papers.

Given all the dangers, it’s disturbing that even some people known for supporting freedom and civil liberties have floated trial balloons about things like a national ID card for innocent people, electronic surveillance of innocent people, etc. Responding blindly to fear, some have published articles saying, “Hey, maybe this surveillance without search warrants won’t be so horrible after all,” without explaining how the liberty lost will save us from terrorism.

Back in the 1980s during a cabinet-level meeting with the President somebody in the Reagan administration proposed a national ID, too. But then policy advisor Martin Anderson said, wouldn’t it be a lot cheaper just to tattoo everybody with a number? Everybody got the point. The idea died. It should die now, too. . . . Be seeing you.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

Have you heard about the latest virus? It’s the most recent strain of a very old infection. The scientific name for it is Stupidus Bureaucratus OSHA.

OSHA is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It’s their job to make sure workers in steel plants don’t jump into vats of boiling steel and workers in offices don’t peer too closely at their monitors. Now they’re worried about postal employees, but not quite in the way you might think. So far, anthrax has killed two postal workers, and spores have been found at several facilities. It’s understandable that many workers want to take precautions, like wearing gloves and masks. But OSHA says whoa slow down there! What about proper training, people?

True story. The postal service has purchased millions of spore-filtering masks for its employees. But OSHA says, don’t dare wear them until you’ve had proper training. Proper training? I’d always thought it was a matter of stretching the rubber band and pulling the mask over your face. But even if there is a special mask-wearing protocol to follow, there’s obviously no reason for delay here.

Philip K. Howard is author of the book, The Death Of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America. As Howard puts it, “using [these] masks imperfectly for a while is a whole lot better than not wearing them at all.” Mr. Howard is correct. No doubt OSHA has backed down by the time you hear this. Or, at least there have been no mass arrests of untrained postal employees. But jeez, somebody inoculate those bureaucrats and fast.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

Respect is a two-way street. We mustn’t disparage the rights of anyone living in this country just because he may share superficial traits with a bad guy. If a killer quotes the Declaration of Independence or the Koran as he detonates his bomb, and you also quote the Declaration or the Koran, that doesn’t make you a suspect.  By the same token, we mustn’t disparage the rights of Americans to speak out against the massacre of 9/11, and to express moral support for their fellow Americans.

Too obvious to bother stating? Maybe. But when Aaron Petitt hung a poster on his locker at a high school in Ohio, he got suspended for being “insensitive” to foreign students. The poster showed an eagle shedding a tear over the World Trade Center. You have to wonder: who could be offended? Students in favor of the attack? Thankfully, after a lot of controversy, the school suspended Aaron’s suspension. And at a university in Florida, employees got into hot water for displaying stickers saying, “Proud to Be an American.” They were told: get rid of the stickers. At San Diego State University, Arabic-speaking student Zewdalem Kebede overheard other Arabic-speaking students expressing delight in the terrorist attacks. Kebede started arguing with them. You guessed it. The school rebuked Kebede for “abusive behavior” and warned him not to do it again. Only in America, folks!

The moral of the story? Stand up for what you believe in, even if some obtuse bureaucrat doesn’t like it.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

There’s a debate raging in Congress over whether the security personnel doing the screening and scanning at airports should be federal employees or just supervised by federal employees.

I think the folks in Congress are missing the boat. They seem to think that they can legislate a system whereby fallible human beings will always catch every terrorist. Everyone makes mistakes. What makes us think that putting the government in charge will usher in a 100 percent success rate in rooting out terrorists? Certainly not the government’s own track record. No matter who supervises whom, we cannot guarantee perfect safety. The very notion is utopian.

Just the other day, with all the heightened tension, a man accidentally carried a gun aboard a plane in his briefcase. It’ll happen again. We can’t search tens of thousands of passengers to find the needle in the haystack. To catch their flights these days, passengers have to arrive 2 or 3 hours early one big reason many are deciding not to fly at all.

Instead, airports should do better background checks of airport workers, build more secure cockpit doors, use armed sky marshals for as many flights as possible and allow armed pilots. Perhaps the biggest safety feature is free: Our new realization that as passengers we must be ready to defend ourselves. That means big trouble for any terrorist who gets past airport security.

The politicians in Washington can’t pass a law guaranteeing we’ll be safe and secure. I want real security; I’m not willing to fly Utopian Air.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

Approval ratings for our elected officials have jumped to the highest point in memory. That’s not surprising, given the shock and terror of 9/11 and the wartime conditions. But while many of our officials are serving admirably, Congress doesn’t deserve the same merit badge.

First, there’s the matter of how Senator Daschle dissed the house. When deadly anthrax threatened the capitol, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and House Speaker Denny Hastert apparently reached an agreement to close the capitol. But then the Senators changed their minds and even attacked the House as some kind of sissies. I don’t think that kind of petty backstabbing is very statesmanlike. And Congress has chosen this time when we’re a tad preoccupied to throw money at every special interest under the sun. Gone are the triple-digit surplus and the so-called Social Security surplus they’d promised never to touch. Now we’re running $50 billion in deficit. Some emergency spending is unavoidable, but not nearly as much as we’ve seen. And to top it all off, Congress is stealing yet another pay raise! Now they’ll rake in $150,000 a year.

Even as people face the uncertainty of sons and daughters in harm’s way, soaring unemployment and tough times ahead, the politicians are flocking to feather their own nests. In the face of terror, the American people have risen to the occasion. We will remain the same America that has so often been a beacon of liberty and hope to the world. But, unfortunately, the same America has the same old Congress. One thing that sure should change.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.