Category: Update

In Argentina, they aren’t getting caught up on words. Real things are happening, substantive changes. Javier Milei is actually reducing the size of government:

Argentine President Javier Milei announced his plans to slash 70,000 government jobs in an effort to shrink government expenditure and reduce the national deficit to zero. The cuts are part of his broader strategy to achieve fiscal balance at any cost. 

Katarina Hall, “Milei To Slash 70,000 Government Jobs To Reform Argentina’s Economy,” Reason (March 28, 2024).

But it is worth noting that he has tremendous opposition. People with cushy government jobs do not want to lose their cushy government jobs:

Milei assured that he would move forward with reforms ‘in spite of the politics.’ He said that the Senate’s recent rejectionof his bills was an opportunity to expose corrupt politicians, those ‘who do not want to give up their jobs and seek to maintain their privileges.’ Looking ahead, the Argentine president said he plans to introduce 3,000 more reforms after the 2025 congressional elections.

Katarina Hall, “Milei To Slash 70,000 Government Jobs To Reform Argentina’s Economy,” Reason (March 28, 2024).

This being an election year, it is impossible to ignore the schism in America’s political culture, especially between the “two sides’” apparent presidential contenders, President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and former President Donald John Trump. What do American voters really think of them?

In “Democrats Are More Fearful and Angry If Trump Is Elected Than Republicans About Biden: Poll,” in The Epoch Times, we learn that the fear and loathing in 2024 is asymmetrical: “According to a recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, the majority of Democrats are both extremely fearful (66 percent) and very angry (60 percent) if the former president wins another term in the 2024 White House race,” Aaron Pan writes. “In contrast, 49 percent of Republicans feel very fearful, and 45 percent are angry about President Biden’s victory.”

More provocative yet is that the racial divide is less extremely asymmetrical than in the recent past, with “a recent poll by The New York Times and Siena College show[ing] that President Trump is taking the lead over President Biden from Hispanic and black voters, where Democratic candidates traditionally won in the past. Among Hispanic voters, President Trump received 46 percent support; the incumbent received 40 percent. Latino voters are estimated to account for around 15 percent of the electorate. Black voters’ support for the former president is 23 percent, while 66 percent support President Biden.”

Since the outside of your house is public, the government may video-record your house sans search warrant. “Law enforcement in Kansas recorded the front of a man’s home for 68 days straight, 15 hours a day, and obtained evidence to prove him guilty on 16 charges,” according to Jalopnik:

“Mr. Hay had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a view of the front of his house,” said the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in its decision on U.S. vs Hay. “As video cameras proliferate throughout society, regrettably, the reasonable expectation of privacy from filming is diminished.”

Maxwell Zeff, “Feds Can Film Your Front Porch for 68 Days Without a Warrant, Says Court,” Jalopnik (March 21, 2024).

Outside the jurisdiction of the Tenth Circuit, this ruling does not strictly apply. But it shows where courts are heading, no?

Yesterday, Paul Jacob explored the chief issues surrounding the fourth anniversary of “Fifteen Days to Flatten America.” He concluded by blaming mostly Fauci and Birx for the massive tyrannies and ineptitudes of the lockdowns and other measures associated with the pandemic.

While one of those names, Anthony Fauci, is more than familiar to readers of Common Sense with Paul Jacob, the other — Deborah Birx, the author of a memoir of the pandemic, Silent Invasion (2022) — is much less familiar. And it may be tempting to downplay her role.

But as a recent documentary argues, au contraire! She was key. Birx did the bulk of the damage. It was her bizarre reactions that led the federal government response.

Watch it and weep: “It Wasn’t Fauci — How the Deep State Really Played Trump”:

Yes, it is about the Deep State, but mostly about the dread Dr. Deborah Birx . . . and the perfidy of Vice President Mike Pence.

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The dangers of the War on Drugs has been a long-running theme here at Common Sense with Paul Jacob. And some times it is incumbent upon us to note that the drugs governments prohibit are often not as dangerous as proclaimed.

But no drug lacks dangers.

Indeed, for the past three years, the main Dangerous Drug theme has been a government-approved, government-subsidized, government-mandated drug, “the vax.”

With the rise of homelessness and simultaneous rise of drug de-criminalization in many states, the recreational drug issue has come back. And some people have taken the drum beat of old-timey Progressive Era drug alarmism, as reported by Jacob Sullum, Reason, “Because ‘Marijuana Is Dangerous,’ Inveterate Drug Warriors Say, ‘Legalizing It Was a Mistake’” (March 15, 2024):

Barr and Walters complain that marijuana legalization has “created the false perception that the drug is ‘safe.’” They think refuting that false perception is enough to justify a return to prohibition. Because “marijuana is dangerous,“ they say, “legalizing it was a mistake.” But the question is not whether marijuana is “safe”; it is whether marijuana’s hazards justify the use of force to stop people from consuming it. Barr and Walters fail to seriously grapple with that question even in utilitarian terms, and they completely ignore moral objections to criminalizing conduct that violates no one’s rights.

We will no doubt be talking about this issue a lot more in the months and years to come, especially if teetotaling Donald Trump returns to office.

The idea that non-citizens should vote in America’s elections has gained ground among Democrats. But, as reported here earlier — see, for instance, “Alien Nation Capital” (March 7, 2023) and “Blue Boston Democracy” (March 9, 2024) — the idea is being beaten back. Take the case of West Virginia:

A House of Delegates resolution that would create an amendment to the state Constitution ensuring only United States citizens can vote in West Virginia elections is now with the state Senate.

House Joint Resolution 21 passed on a 96-0 vote February 6. It was introduced February 7 in the state Senate and sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee before it would go to the Senate Finance Committee.

Chris Dickerson, ”Proposed amendment to add U.S. citizenship to W.Va. voting requirement passes House,” West Virginia Record (February 7, 2024).

A co-sponsor of the State Senate’s version of the bill, State Sen. Mike Stuart (R-Kanawha), is quoted making a commonsense argument: “As an American citizen, I don’t vote in other countries’ elections, and they shouldn’t vote in ours.”