Category: Common Sense
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!
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(simplified and organized)
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.
- Washington Post: D.C. Council decriminalizes Metro fare evasion
- Washington Times: Metro derailed by culture of complacence, incompetence, lack of diversity
- Washington Post: A woman who alleged harassment at Metro was fired. Now, there’s an internal inquiry into its handling of the case.
- Wikipedia: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
- Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (website)
- Lexology: D.C. Court Certifies Three Classes In Race Discrimination Class Action Involving Criminal Background
- The American Public Transportation Association:Who Rides Public Transportation?
This column is an expansion of Friday’s Common Sense.
Image courtesy of Adam , Creative Commons license.
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:
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:
- Ballotpedia: 2018 Ballot Measures
- Wall Street Journal: When Local Lawmakers Won’t Take No for an Answer
- Common Sense: Lie, Cheat AND Steal
- Common Sense: Memphis Politicians Cheating Voters
- UVA: Does Law Matter? Theory and Evidence from Single Subject Adjudication
This column will appear on this site on voting day.
Paul Jacob
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.