“No one has ever doubted that truth and politics are on rather bad terms with each other.”
—Hannah Arendt
(in her 1967 essay, “Truth and Politics.”)
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Video: Best Case for Trump Yet?
Ladies and Gentleman, from the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio:
https://youtu.be/UTJB8AkT1dk
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Year of Our Ford
On this day in 1903, the Ford Motor Company sold its first car. Less than 30 years later, Aldous Huxley satirized Ford’s assembly line procedures in his novel Brave New World. Arguably, both the assembly line and the satire advanced freedom.
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Barack Obama
“New thinking. Unleashing growth that creates opportunity. Promoting development that lifts all people out of poverty.Supporting democracy that gives citizens their say. Advancing the security and justice that delivers peace. Respecting the human rights of all people. These are the keys to progress — not just in Africa, but around the world.”
Remarks by President Obama to the People of Africa at Mandela Hall, African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (July 28, 2015).
“The left does not own homosexuals anymore,” said Milo Yiannopoulos, to a crowd outside the Republican National Convention. And the crowd cheered.
I’ve talked about Milo before. He’s a controversial figure. So much so that Twitter just banned him for life. (That had something to do with his tweets about, of all things, the new Ghostbusters movie, and the racist tweets of his followers directed at one of its stars.)
Openly gay, he nevertheless has his priorities. “Donald Trump is best placed to end the tyranny of political correctness in this country. Many Trump supporters and Republicans have their challenges with the gay thing. But there’s a world of difference between refusing to bake a cake and opening fire” . . . at gay men and women in a nightclub.
There’s a lot to be said of Milo’s somewhat startling acceptance amongst conservative Republicans. Robby Soave deals with the important stuff at Reason.
What interests me is the basic contention: “The left does not own . . .”
The idea that people of certain races or sexual proclivities belong, naturally, to one side of the political spectrum is . . . itself racist or sexist.
The issues that divide left, right, center, today, are not primarily about race. Or sexual orientation/preference/display, etc. Balanced budgets, war, rule of law, taxation, redistribution — positions on these issues don’t adhere to people because of race or sex or what-have-you.
I wish gays and Republicans the best in coming to terms with this most obvious of truths. Let’s hope blacks, Asians, the homely and the beautiful also come to their senses. So we can all discuss politics rationally.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Zora Neale Hurston
I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to that sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world — I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.
Zora Neale Hurston, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” in The World Tomorrow (May 1928).
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Only Nine?
On July 22, 1937, the U.S. Senate voted down Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s court packing scheme.
This week, Republicans have chosen Donald Trump to be their standard-bearer. Next week, Democrats will nominate Hillary Clinton as their presidential candidate.
But the only candidate on your ballot to take the U.S. Term Limits pledge is Gary Johnson, the Libertarian. Last week, I rubbed elbows with the former two-term governor of New Mexico on a panel about term limits at FreedomFest in Las Vegas.
“I believe that if term limits were in effect that politicians would do the right thing as opposed to whatever it takes to get re-elected,” Johnson told the capacity crowd.
The U.S. Term Limits pledge is straightforward, a commitment to use the bully pulpit of the presidency to help push Congress and the states to propose and ratify the congressional term limits Americans have been voting for and demanding for quite some time.
U.S. Term Limits Executive Director Nick Tomboulides asked me what it says about our democracy that even with overwhelming public support for many decades, Congress has blocked this reform.
Noting that Congress is thoroughly despised by the public, I pointed out that only one incumbent congressman has been defeated for re-election so far this year. And that incumbent, Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), was under 23 felony indictments, including racketeering, for which he was later convicted.
I argued that term limitation “is a critical issue at the very core of governance. Are we the boss or are the politicians the boss? Today, I think we all have to be honest and admit the politicians are the boss.”
Adding, “And we have to do something about that.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Barack Obama
“Yes, in our world, old thinking can be a stubborn thing. That’s one of the reasons why we need term limits — old people think old ways.”
Remarks by President Obama to the People of Africa at Mandela Hall, African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (July 28, 2015).
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Monkey Trial Verdict
On July 21, 1925, in Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution in a public school classroom, and fined $100. 
The ambiguous legacy of the trial would continue — for decades, even to the present — to reveal the tensions inherent within a school system run by government and funded by taxpayers.