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Common Sense

Best to you and yours

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Common Sense general freedom

Precious Gifts

There’s a quiet on Christmas morning … after Santa has come and gone … and the kids are still sound asleep … sugar plum fairies dancing to their gentle snoring.

A moment to stop and think.

I hope they’ll like their presents; they always do. There’s so much love my wife and I want to share, to give to them.

Of course, the biggest gifts are never under the tree. The most important being a stable home, with love, and the freedom for children to grow into themselves.

My parents gave me that … along with the bicycles and baseball gloves and some really good books. I’ve tried to be the same kind of parent.

Another incredible endowment I’ve enjoyed is to be born in a country “conceived in liberty.” A place where individual citizens are the sovereigns, creating government to be a servant and not a master. Land of the free.

What a gift!

But Tom Paine told us that, “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly, ’tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”

Freedom is under siege. And, therefore, we who love freedom, grateful for our historic luck, must come together to protect our “expensive” gift.

Some may get discouraged after setbacks, but none of us got involved in politics because we like “the game” and figured we’d pile up a shelf of trophies. We’re engaged because we must be and we seek victories because, as Churchill once put it, “without victory, there is no survival.”

In 1776, on this very day, General George Washington and his soldiers of the American Revolution crossed the Delaware River to score a surprise military victory against the British at Trenton, New Jersey.

Thank goodness, for these brave patriots and their muskets. Three Americans gave their lives in the battle. To secure our liberty.

Today, the Gift has been handed to us. Not to play with on Christmas morning and forget about, not to let get broken without our fixing it, but to protect and defend and cherish.

My commentary strives to illuminate, at times amuse and, most of all, to motivate toward action, bringing citizens together. Citizens in Charge protects the initiative process — the best weapon citizens have to cut taxes, term-​limit politicians, stop the drug war, protect property rights, and place limits on government. The Liberty Initiative Fund partners with leaders across the nation putting measures on the ballot to protect freedom and hold government accountable.

Thanks for your gifts to these efforts and to the many other important ones. We aim to protect the precious gift of freedom.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!


Christmas, 2018, Paul Jacob, liberty

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Common Sense

Townhall: Taking the Crime Out of Crime

Turnstile-​hopping just went legit — or nearly so — in DC Metro. For reasons, we kid you not, of race. Read this weekend’s column for details and perspective. Then come back here for more bizarre details from the nation’s bizarro capital.

This column is an expansion of Friday’s Common Sense.

Image courtesy of Adam , Creative Commons license.

Categories
Common Sense

Hate Crime Stats Explained in Detail

Matt Christiansen peers underneath the “negligent, maybe even maliciously deceptive” mainstream press accounts of the most recent FBI hate crime report. What is there? Well, the facts are very different from what journalists are saying:

Categories
Common Sense

Townhall: Don’t Let Politicians Hit the Mute Button

This weekend at Townhall​.com — how to vote to protect one’s state from the meddling hands of insiders and politicians.

Click on over to Townhall. Then come back here for more reading:

This column will appear on this site on voting day.

Paul Jacob

Categories
Common Sense

Sucker-​Punching the People

Sneaky. Low-​down. Poltroons.

Click on over to Townhall for this weekend’s highlights reel on how politicians do it, how they sucker-​punch the people.

Then come back here for the raw footage:

Arkansas

El Dorado News-​Times: Arkansas Supreme Court disqualifies term limits proposal

KARK: Mike Huckabee Talks Capitol Corruption, Term Limits

Arkansas Times: Ethics rules? Legislators hate them

Governing: Fed Up by Corruption, Arkansas Voters Could Revisit Term Limits

Townhall (Paul Jacob): The Deceivers

Common Sense with Paul Jacob: The Natural State of Politicians

Memphis

Common Sense with Paul Jacob: Memphis Politicians Cheating Voters

Daily Memphian: Not No, But Hell No

Commerical Appeal: Why not write city ballot questions in plain English?

IVN: Jennifer Lawrence Warns Memphis Voters, “You’re About to be Blindsided by Your Own Government”

Common Sense with Paul Jacob: Graceless Memphis Politicians

Nashville

Common Sense with Paul Jacob: Nashville’s Trojan Horse

Common Sense (video): Note on Nashville (at Global Forum)


Paul Jacob’s weekly columns debut most Sundays on Townhall​.com, and are archived on ThisIsCommonSense​.com on Tuesdays.