April 17 marks the 1937 birth of Ronald Hamowy, Canadian historian, who first came to international prominence for his writings in the short-lived New Individualist Review. Hamowy died in 2012.
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Ronald Hamowy
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Video: Against Socialism
A spirited British debate, starring Daniel Hannan, MEP:
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H. L. Mencken
Under Socialism the efficient man would have a price upon his head.
H. L. Mencken, in Robert Rives La Monte and Mencken, Men versus The Man (1910).
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Letter from Birmingham Jail
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., penned his Letter from Birmingham Jail while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama, for protesting segregation, on April 16, 1963.
Usually, April 15 is the deadline date, in these United States, to file taxes or apply for an extension. This year it is April 18.
Why? Many of us think of the Fifteenth of April as Tax Day. It seems strange and arbitrary when it is jiggered with. And kind of annoying.
But a postponement of taxes could be a postponement we might all appreciate as a tiny (ever so slight) reprieve.
So, again, why this year’s three-day extra leeway?
First off, it is regularly postponed when the day falls on a Saturday or Sunday.
Could it be that the “Nothing Gets Done on Friday” Rule has been acknowledged by the fine folks at the Internal Revenue Service?
No.
People in Maine and Massachusetts celebrate Patriots Day on April 18, so their tax day is set another day later, April 19.
Which begs the question. Why the 18th in the first place?
Well, because of Emancipation Day, usually celebrated in Washington, DC, on April 16.
Because the 16th settles on a Saturday this year, and because the day is a traditional day off for federal workers, the holiday shifts a day in advance, to this Friday, the 15th. So, Emancipation Day — commemorating the signing of the Emancipation Act by President Abraham Lincoln — trumps Tax Filing Day.
Apt, since it might seem cruel to Americans to have Tax Day, marking the subservience of a whole population to its government, fall on something called Emancipation Day.
After all, consider: holding them on the same day? Hmmm. Might get people thinking.
Bigwigs in DC don’t want that.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Galileo Galilei
In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
Galileo Galilei, as quoted in Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men (1859) by François Arago.
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Bergen-Belsen Liberated
On April 15, 1945, the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated.
You may have missed it. I wasn’t so lucky. This past Tuesday was “Equal Pay Day.”
“[T]he typical woman who works full-time earns 79-cents for every dollar that a typical man makes,” President Barack Obama said, repeating what we have already been told ad nauseum about the “wage gap” between men and women.
The “detailed calculation” used to determine this “gender wage gap”?
“Experts” simply added up all the money earned by all the men and all the women (subcategoried) and then divided by the number of men and women, respectively. No accounting for
- the actual jobs performed,
- hours worked,
- education,
- risk,
- work history
. . . or any other factor.
Using this statistic make sense if all people — brain surgeons and taxi drivers alike, having worked every day for the last 40 years or re-entering the workforce after decades away — should earn the exact same amount.
Communism.
It is already illegal to pay a woman less than a man for the same work. Yet, on the WhiteHouse.gov page entitled, “This Is Why Today is Equal Pay Day,” the prez says “we must rid our society of the injustice that is pay discrimination.” The website insists that, Obama “has made equal pay a top priority.”
Then, why does a pay gap exist between the men and women working for Mr. Obama? According to the Washington Post, “The White House has not narrowed the gap between the average pay of male and female employees since President Obama’s first year in office . . .”
The good news? Equal Pay Day is over.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Common Sense Needs Your Help!
Also, please consider showing your appreciation by dropping something in our tip jar (this link will take you to the Citizens in Charge donation page… and your contribution will go to the support of the Common Sense website). Maintaining this site takes time and money.
Your help in spreading the message of common sense and liberty is very much appreciated!
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Thomas Jefferson
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?
Thomas Jefferson, First Innaugural Address, March 4, 1801.
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Americanisms
On April 14, 1775, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, the first American organization committed to the abolition of slavery, was formed in Philadelphia.
On April 14, 1818, Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language, one of the first lexicons to include distinctly American words. The dictionary, which took him more than two decades to complete, introduced more than 10,000 “Americanisms.”
On April 14, 1988, representatives of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, the United States, and Pakistan signed an agreement calling for the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. In exchange for an end to the disputed Soviet occupation, the United States agreed to end its arms support for the Afghan anti-Soviet factions, and Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed not to interfere in each other’s affairs.