Category: Common Sense

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that wanting to do the right thing isn’t enough. We also have to think about consequences. If things turn out badly, we can’t save the day by saying at least our intentions were good. Good intentions are not enough.

This is a lesson our political leaders have yet to absorb. They are often full of “good intentions.” So full of it that the minor matter of the consequences often gets lost in the fog. Recently we observed the 10th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, or ADA, which introduced lots of laws about how we must make things easier for people with disabilities, and how we can all be sued if we do the wrong thing.

Sounds good. But lawyer Julie Hofius, who uses a wheelchair, says that ADA has more hurt than helped her. Why? Well, for one thing, firms are worried about lawsuits. If ADA weren’t there, a prospective employer would be able to openly ask questions during a job interview about how the disability might affect her capacity to do the job. And Ms. Hofius would then be able to give intelligent, responsive answers. But under ADA, employers are actually prohibited from asking such questions.

So it’s easier to take the path of least resistance, go through the motions, satisfy the legalities involved, and ultimately give the job to somebody else. Somebody who isn’t perceived as a “lawsuit on wheels,” as Julie puts it. Oh, our congressmen wanted to help. The president wanted to help. They didn’t, not really. But their intentions were the best.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

The anti-telephone brigade wants Congress to stop you from using your cell phone while driving. And Congress is listening.

So far, most of the action has been local. So far, few of the many bills that have been introduced in cities and states have become law. But now a House subcommittee is looking into this. There’s a real danger here. If Congress is willing to tell you how much water your toilet can flush, they’re not going to stop at outlawing phone calls. Maybe you’re thinking that the real danger is talking on the phone? That some drivers have even gotten in accidents while talking on the cell phone?

Hmm. I wonder what else might distract you while you’re driving your car. According to an analysis of 26,000 traffic accidents conducted by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, events outside the car were involved in about 20 percent of accidents. Other top factors include eating and drinking in the car (19 percent), adjusting your radio or cassette player (11.4 percent), and distractions caused by other occupants (9.4 percent). Cell phone usage contributed to 1.5 percent of accidents. Adjusting the climate controls was a factor in 1.2 percent.

So what will we ban first? Sipping soda in the car? Talking to a passenger? Turning on the air-conditioning? The fact is, all these things can be done while still driving responsibly. I have an idea. Why don’t we have rules of the road that people have to follow? Drivers could be ticketed if they break them. And if they break them and have an accident, we could hold them responsible for that accident.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The good news, if you are inclined to view it that way, is that the government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is still functioning. If you didn’t know that was ever in doubt, you’ve missed one of our modern society’s latest brouhahas.

You see, Republican Governor Jane Swift recently became the first governor in U.S. history to give birth while in office. (Twin girls by the way.) Swift swiftly became a target. Political hacks combined their experience in partisan attack politics with their know-it-all busy body attitude concerning our personal lives. The amusing result was Democrats attacking a woman for holding a job and being a mother at the same time . . . and Republicans defending her.

Governor Swift’s past behavior has no doubt emboldened critics. Years ago, after her first daughter was born she was fined for an ethics violation for using aides as babysitters. Still, when Democrats recently threatened legal action against her attempt to hold certain executive meetings by conference call, the public sensed it was just more vicious partisanship and rallied around her.

Behind all the hyper-concern about the governor’s absence is an idea that is . . . well, laughable: the idea that Massachusetts or any state for that matter cannot endure the temporary loss, or even diminished attention, of the governor, as if all of our lives depend on the constant manipulation of our society by the wizards in government. Governor Swift said of the criticism, “Unlike most of my adult life, two and a half weeks ago I stopped worrying about politics.” And Massachusetts has survived. Perhaps we can get other politicians to try it.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

You can never be too safe, right? Well, that all depends.

Perhaps you’ve heard about the case of Gail Atwater, recently decided by the Supreme Court. Atwater was driving along when one of her kids’ toys flew out the window. She turned the car around to find it. Neither she nor her kids had their seat belts fastened. The kids had undone their seatbelts so they could look around more easily for the toy.

Dangerous, right? Sure. Anyway, Gail Atwater got pulled over, got arrested, got handcuffed, got dragged into the police station. She pled no-contest and paid the hundred-dollar fine. The officer was “just being safe” here, right? After all, anyone who fails to wear a seatbelt deserves to be traumatized, just to make sure she gets the message. Otherwise she might turn into a dangerous axe-murderer. Right? Well, who knows why the police officer acted as he did. Nobody claims that Atwater was violent or in any way abusive toward the officer. But the issue here is not one officer’s bad judgment, but whether that judgment can be allowed to stand as permissible procedure by legislators, by the police themselves, by the courts.

Atwater felt that her Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure had been violated. She sued. And now the court of last resort, the Supreme Court has ruled, 5-4, that although the officer may have acted with lousy judgment, he acted within his appropriate discretion.

So the same thing could happen to you the next time you violate some minor traffic rule. Feel safer now?

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

Remember how TV’s classic rumpled detective, Lieutenant Columbo, is always saying to hapless murder suspects “Oh just one more thing!”? He’s never really that absentminded. All the forgetful fumbling is just a way to trip up the suspect and get at the truth.

What’s all this got to do with the Congressional Record? Hey, glad you asked. Well, it’s always “one more thing” there, too. Except the goal is not to uncover the truth, but to bury it. The record is not a real record at all. For more than a century ever since its birth in its present form in 1873 the Congressional Record has borne only a scant resemblance to the actual events in the House and Senate.

While it is supposed to be the verbatim transcript of congressional doings, congressmen are free to “extend” their remarks at will, prior to publication. And that’s a very liberal understanding of the word “extend.” As historian Daniel Boorstin notes in his book The Image, “Despite occasional feeble protests, our Record has remained a gargantuan miscellany in which actual proceedings are buried beneath undelivered speeches, and mountains of the unread and unreadable.” This kind of legislative page-packing does a disservice to historians and to the voters. Sure, we have C-SPAN now.

So if you want to find out what really happened on a particular day there’s probably a box of videotapes in some closet somewhere that you could try to dredge up. Most of us don’t have the time for that. And yet we’d sure like to know what those rascals are really up to.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

The other day my oldest daughter and I watched “The Diary of Anne Frank” on television, the story of the Dutch girl who hid from the Nazis, but was finally caught, imprisoned and murdered like so many millions more.

As much as I wish it weren’t necessary, I want my kids to know about the Holocaust. To know especially that it can happen again. Indeed, totalitarian horrors have since been perpetrated by tyrants across the globe. Understanding the very real potential for man’s inhumanity to man especially when given the awful power of modern governments is the best way to prevent new holocausts.

Days later, as if to drive home the point that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, news broke about the Taliban regime in Afghanistan forcing Hindus to wear a noticeable label on their clothing to mark them as non-Muslims. This dictatorship is doing precisely what the Nazis did to Jews. Well, let’s not get carried away there are no death camps. But why take any step down that road? And guess who is providing millions of dollars in critical aid for this tyrannical regime? You’re ahead of me, I know. That’s right you and me the American taxpayers. The Bush Administration just mailed them a check for $43 million.

Our government insists that the UN impose sanctions on Afghanistan for not turning over Osama bin Laden, and yet we’re now financing the Taliban’s campaign of terror against the country’s opium farmers. Question: Would our government fund the Nazis if the Nazis agreed to advance the drug war? Are we so blind?

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

Got a notebook handy? Here’s a neat way to make money if you’re a local government. First, charge people for breaking the law. Second, make it next to impossible to avoid breaking that law. That’s what’s happening with traffic lights around the country.

Used to be that the yellow light the one that means “slow down unless you’re already crossing the intersection anyway” lasted for about five seconds. But in 1985 that began to change, with the span of the yellow light often being snipped to just 3 seconds or so. This trend accelerated as cameras began to be used more and more often to catch naughty drivers. These cameras are posted at intersections and snap instant mug shots of any driver who happens to cross a red light. The driver is then fined automatically.

Well, it seems that local governments have figured out that the fewer seconds the yellow light is allowed to shine, the more likely it is that people will run the red light. Which in turn increases the number of automatic fines you can collect. So over the years, more and more municipalities have been truncating the yellow light cycle. Critics claim they are doing so intentionally, to boost revenue. The additional revenue can run into the millions. And that sure helps fund municipal budgets.

Just one problem: Making intersections more dangerous in order to get more revenue defeats the whole purpose of traffic rules. Governments shouldn’t be rigging things so drivers run red lights, just so the bureaucrats can avoid red ink.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

I believe in term limits. Term limits increase electoral competition and curb entrenched political power.

To some people, though, this means I must also be opposed to the political process itself. It’s like saying that if you oppose the disease that’s infecting a human body, you must also oppose the human body. That’s just silly.

I’m against political corruption, but I’m not against politics. I’m against political monopolies, but I am not against politicians. I’m against sacrificing the general good to the demands of special interests, but I’m not against special interests. I’m not even against lobbyists.

Let me be clear. These days, lobbying too often means trying to grab more and ever more from the public kitty at the expense of one’s fellow citizens. That’s wrong. But that’s not the only form lobbying takes. Not by a long shot.

There are lobbyists on all sides of every political issue. We have environmentalists versus foresters, neighborhoods versus zoning boards, those who would increase our taxes and those who would cut them. Usually one side has a better argument than the other. But all sides lobby to make their case. And as a matter of fact, we’re all lobbyists, just as soon as we write to the paper or to our congressman giving our side of an issue.

Lobbying means trying to influence the political process through persuasion. Trying to persuade your representative is the most basic form. But even talking to a neighbor about the upcoming election counts as lobbying. You can’t have a vibrant democracy without an awful lot of lobbying.

We’re all lobbyists. Or we should be.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

If you want to help somebody lose weight, what do you do? Give them a big box of chocolates and order them to reduce their calorie intake?

No? Well, it doesn’t make sense to me either, but it makes sense to the government. You see, first the Congress keeps giving everybody more candy. Then somebody like Mitchell E. Daniels, director of the Office of Management and Budget says, “Hey, I want you to come up with a diet plan.” Daniels is asking federal agencies to develop a so-called “work analysis” as part of, quote, “the initial phase of implementing the president’s initiative to have agencies restructure their workforces to streamline organizations.”

Whatever. I mean, it’s a good idea. But the hard part is not finding places to cut fat. The people who work in these agencies know where the fat is. But they like that fat. They enjoy that fat. It’s candy. In fact, if the fiscal year is coming to a close and an agency hasn’t yet spent all the candy in the budget, the bureaucrats will work overtime to spend it all before it’s “too late.”

For private companies, there is a benefit to cutting costs. They earn more profit that way. For government agencies, by contrast, there is a benefit to spending more and ever more, because they don’t have to foot the bill.

It is wrong. But what’s the answer? Sure, go ahead and ask agencies to come up with a 5-year diet plan. Then, in addition, put them on a diet. Give them less candy. No matter how they scream.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Thank you Congressman Dick Armey of Texas for battling the Big Brotherism of the federal government. You know, that organization you’ve worked for these past 17 years.

Mr. Armey has criticized the National Park Service’s use of surveillance cameras to ticket speeders. He wrote to the Interior Department, “I am concerned that this may be seen as a step toward a Big Brother surveillance state, where the government monitors the comings and goings of its citizens.”

There’s only one problem with Armey’s position: He voted to put those cameras right where they are. Yes he did. He voted for that very legislation.

Of course, he doesn’t remember that because like most congressmen he didn’t read the bill. If he had read the bill, surely his “philosophical objections” would have caused him to reject it.

This is Washington’s dirty little secret. It’s called the ignorance defense and it’s quite popular on Capitol Hill. These “experts” don’t have a clue what they are even voting on. They have all that wonderful experience they keep telling us about . . . but it doesn’t matter how much experience you have if you don’t even read the legislation.

And who does? Ask YOUR congressman if he’s read every word of every bill he has ever cast a vote on. This will test his honesty, too, because he hasn’t.

If our congressmen don’t read the bills they vote on, who does? And who’s running the government? Boy, these are tough questions . . . maybe our experienced congressmen can tell us the answers. But don’t bet on it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.