On October 4, 2004, SpaceShipOne became the first private craft to fly into space, thereby winning the Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight.
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SpaceShipOne
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Robert Heinlein
You can’t believe what a lovely planet we have until you see her from outside.
Robert A. Heinlein, Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958)
Americans are used to being betrayed by their political representation.
This long series of infidelities has led to the current predicament, where the Republican and Democratic parties present us with the opposite of what most Americans want.
Why this vexing stalemate?
History.
The current Democratic President, Mr. Obama, gained both notoriety and trust for his stance against war. Rank-and-file Democrats rejoiced. The Bush Wars were over!
Nope. Obama grew into his role as war president.
Like his predecessor.
Under his watch, the U.S. expanded regime change to Libya, stretched the Afghanistan incursion into our longest war, and now sends more troops into Iraq. (Sans their boots.)
The peacenik manqué has discovered his talent for killing foreigners. His supporters, in consequence, “cling to” his other paltry achievements: a weak, ephemeral recovery; the imperiled, perilous Obamacare.
And a long series of lectures.
No wonder Democrats are demoralized enough to vote for hawkish Hillary Clinton, the least qualified presidential candidate in American history.
But wait, Obama hath ballyhooed: she is “the most qualified”!
Why “least”?
Because FBI Director James Comey just admitted* that any underling of his that had behaved as recklessly as she had with national security would be “disciplined” and “in big trouble.”
Instead, Americans may wind up hiring her . . . for Commander in Chief!
Republicans, on the other hand, have enthusiastically kicked at that “small government” football so many times, only to witness their “leaders” yank it away. Have they now given up? Donald Trump has no interest in limiting government; he talks of new spending programs.
With a “choice that isn’t” in these two losers, no wonder “we don’t win anymore.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
*Comey’s exact words, in July, were “They might get fired, they might lose their clearance” — expertly hedging with those mights — “There would be some discipline.” Though he could find no evidence of intent to commit a criminal act, Comey did judge Mrs. Clinton “extremely careless” and “negligent.”
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C. F. W. Jacobs
It is of less important in youth what a man learns than how he learns it.
C. F. W. Jacobs, Vermischte Schriften, iii, § 27, p. 254 — as quoted by John Fiske, Darwinism and Other Essays (1879).
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Birthday Boys
On October 3, 1919, James M. Buchanan was born. Buchanan would go on to an illustrious career in economics, developing the theory of “Public Choice,” and receiving the 1986 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work. His books include Cost and Choice, The Calculus of Consent (with Gordon Tullock), and The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan. Some of his most interesting research was into the realm of constitutional theory and practice.
In 1925, on this date, Gore Vidal was born. Vidal would go on to become one of the leading post-WWII liberal essayists as well as a major novelist and screenwriter. His most famous novels include Burr, 1876, and Lincoln, part of his American history series; his collection of essays, The United States, was one of his many bestsellers.
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Bernie’s Principled Recommendation
Bernie Sanders, man of principle, translated:
Sure Gary has taken a stand against endless war, the drug war, our insane justice system, overcrowded prisons, police militarization, police abuse of civil rights, corporate cronyism, government surveillance…
…but he’s not offering any free stuff, so you’d better vote for Hillary!
Here’s what will continue under Hillary:
More war
More drug war
More police militarization
More rampant police abuse of civil rights
More overcrowded prisons
More government surveillance
More corporate cronyism
More national debt
More taxes to pay for all of this madness.
How do we know they will continue? Because she has helped to create and promote policies that have given us all of these things in the past.
There was a time when a liberal would have been appalled by these prospects. Now these are casually dismissed as acceptable as long as they get to have their progressive agenda… and she’s not even a consistent progressive!
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Townhall: Show-Me Human Rights
“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” At Townhall.com, Paul Jacob talks about today’s vigilant. Click on over.
- Missouri First: “Judge’s Ruling Against Missouri Ethics Commission Is Victory For Grass-roots Activists!”
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Lobbyists, legislators aim to quash political activist’s free speech”
- Freedom Center of Missouri
- Center for Competitive Politics: Calzone v. Missouri Ethics Commission
- Common Sense: “Undefeated,” by Paul Jacob
- Human Rights Foundation: San Francisco Freedom Forum
- TED: “My Escape from North Korea,” by Hyeonseo Lee
- YouTube: “I Am a Ukrainian,” by Yulia Marushevska
- YouTube: “The Repression behind Rwanda’s Polished Image,” by Anjan Sundaram
- TED: “My True Story,” by Zineb El Rhazoui
- Washington Post: “Here’s what Cuba really needs, Mr. Obama,” by Rosa María Payá
- Common Sense: Crybaby, by Paul Jacob
On October 2, 1789, George Washington sent the proposed Constitutional amendments (the United States Bill of Rights) to the States for ratification.
On the same date in 1919, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffered a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed, preventing him from reacting to the economic downturn following the Great War in a Progressive fashion, making his response de facto laissez faire. One insider, and skeptic of Progressive hubris, cattily referred to Wilson’s incapacitation as “a stroke of luck.”
His successor in office, President Warren G. Harding, would go on to massively cut spending as well as taxes, and take on regulation as well. He also released Woodrow Wilson’s domestic war prisoners — ranging from journalists, ordinary folk to Eugene V. Debs — who had dissented from Wilson’s involvement in the war.
The Depression of the early 1920s, though as deep as the early 1930s’, proved remarkably brief, thanks to Harding . . . and Wilson’s “stroke of luck.”
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Robert A. Heinlein
I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don’t think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can’t save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain!
Robert A. Heinlein, Guest of Honor Speech at the 29th World Science Fiction Convention, Seattle, Washington (1961)
No one knows more about how the major parties prevent competition than Richard Winger, the editor of Ballot Access News. Early on, in this interview, he relays an interesting fact: America did not have government-printed ballots until 1889.