“One cannot live for ever by ignoring the price of coffins.”
Ernest Bramah, Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat
Categories
Ernest Bramah
In Tuesday night’s debate, Democrats put all their egos in one ideological basket: progressivism. Even Jim Webb managed to sound progressive . . . until he identified his prime personal enemy — the man he shot in wartime.
Bernie Sanders once again insisted on lecturing Americans on what it means to be a “democratic socialist.” Martin O’Malley relentlessly pursued an impossible dream, 100 percent carbon-free electric production by 2050 — far enough off to avoid any possible accountability. And Hillary Clinton said that, sure, she’s a progressive, “a progressive who likes to get things done!”
But what has she “got done,” ever?
It was her secrecy regarding the initial health care reforms back in her husband’s first term that helped spark the firestorm of opposition that led to the Revolution of ’94, and to the triangulating successes of the master of manipulative compromise, Bill Clinton. His was not a “progressive era,” though Democrats still use the 1990s as proof that their (“our”) policies “work.”
With exception of Bernie on gun control and Hillary on foreign policy and spying (Snowden gave out secrets to the enemy: traitor; she gave out who-knows-what via her insecure email server: blankout), the spend-spend-spend mantra of progressivism, mixed with “fair taxes” (higher tax rates) on the top 1 percent, was not challenged on the stage.
How far would they go to close ranks? Bernie sided with her regarding “your damned e-mails.” That’s so ideological as to eschew any consideration of character or loyalty or trust.
Quite a revolution . . . in the party.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Categories
Hillary’s Accomplishments
“I’m a progressive who likes to get things done.”
—Hillary Clinton
Click the image below for a high resolution version:
Categories
William Penn
“Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.”
William Penn
The prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize has been tarnished by some more-than-dubious awards, in our time . . . Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama, most obviously.
Same goes for the Bank of Sweden’s knock-off “Memorial” prize for economics.
But, according to David R. Henderson, this week’s Nobel nod to Scottish-born Angus Deaton, for his “analysis of consumption, poverty and welfare,” is “a fine pick.”
Deaton is, writes Henderson, “an important chronicler of the market’s abilities to create wealth and improve society.”
While it is all the rage, these days, to complain about increasing inequality, Deaton has been instrumental in showing that wealth, health and welfare have increased as poverty, worldwide, has decreased.
And this has been largely the result of markets. Not big government programs.
Deaton, Henderson tells us, “believes that the approximately $5 trillion given by governments of rich countries to poor countries over the past 50 years has undercut good governance by making poor countries’ leaders less accountable to their own citizens.”
ABC News seconds Henderson’s account:
In his 2013 book, The Great Escape, Deaton expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of international aid programs in addressing poverty. . . . China and India have lifted tens of millions of people out of poverty despite receiving relatively little aid money. Yet at the same time, poverty has remained entrenched in many African countries that have received substantial sums.
Peter G. Klein, at mises.org, identifies a deeper insight by the latest Nobel economist: “aggregate measures of consumption and inequality conceal important differences among individuals.” This explains why Deaton came to his other (controversial) conclusions: he never took his eye off the real player in market life, the individual.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Categories
Albert Jay Nock
The practical reason for freedom is that freedom seems to be the only condition under which any kind of substantial moral fiber can be developed — we have tried law, compulsion and authoritarianism of various kinds, and the result is nothing to be proud of.
Albert Jay Nock, “On Doing the Right Thing,” The American Mercury (1925).
Tonight, the Democratic Party holds its first presidential debate of this cycle. Finally! It’s one of only six total throughout the entire campaign for the party nomination.
And all the other debates will be on weekends, with much lower TV viewership.
What does it suggest when a political party wants to minimize rather than maximize the degree to which the public gets to see its candidates and hear the party’s message?
“[I]t seems infelicitous,” writes The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, “for Democrats to be embroiled in a very public fight in which party leaders are increasingly being accused of limiting the exposure of the candidates to voters.”
Is Supreme Democratic Party Commander Debbie Wasserman Schultz afraid that familiarity will breed contempt?
As party chair, Wasserman Schultz unilaterally decreed that debates shall be limited to just six. She also warned that “candidates will be uninvited to any debates if they accept invitation to any debates outside the 6-debate schedule.” (Meanwhile, Republicans are holding nine presidential debates, but likewise, dictatorially, blocking participation in additional debates.)
Wasserman Schultz, facing protests and heckling, claims her only aim is to prevent the debate schedule from getting “out of control.”
Or out of her control, perhaps?
Presidential candidate and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley called it a “rigged process,” asking, “What national or party interest does this decree serve?”
The limited debate schedule serves as a huge advantage for frontrunner Hillary Clinton by limiting the breakout opportunities of her opponents.
But, at least tonight, all the world’s a stage.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
By ignorance and cupidity, a secret war, fermenting in the bosom of every state, has separated citizen from citizen; and the same society has divided itself into oppressors and oppressed, into masters and slaves; by these, the heads of a nation, sometimes insolent and audacious, have forged its chains within its own bowels; and mercenary avarice has founded political despotism.
C. -F. Volney, The Ruins, or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires (1793; first English-language edition, 1802)
Liberty is achieved, when it is achieved, at a price. Vigilance.
And this isn’t just an inspiring political message. It’s practical advice for extraordinary circumstances.
What’s the best thing to do if you meet a mass murderer on a rampage, or a terrorist on his mission? It may not be to merely call 911. As one counterterrorism consultant puts it, “We are conditioned to dial 911 and wait, but, in the case of an active shooter, that does not work.”
This conflict expert, Alon Stivi, went on to explain that “[m]ost casualties occur within the first ten or fifteen minutes, and police response usually is too late.”
And speaking of 911, remember that on 9/11/2001, the most successful anti-terrorist effort was by the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93.
That was heroism. It cost them their lives, but they accomplished something in that they saved lives, too.
Some people don’t like bringing this up for fear of, well, hurting some feelings. But Ari Armstrong has an answer for this:
If we avoid serious discussions about self-defense and survival tactics in cases of intended mass murder out of fear that such discussions are somehow insensitive to victims of past attacks, all we accomplish is to ensure that more people will be murdered in possible future attacks.
There is a reason we should keep ourselves fit, and alert. Who knows when we may be called upon, by circumstance, to defend not only ourselves and our loved ones, but our way of life?
Sure, this “call” is made by the unjust. But we, the just, should answer anyway.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Categories
Ernest Bramah
“Before hastening to secure a possible reward of five taels by dragging an unobservant person away from a falling building, examine well his features lest you find, when too late, that it is one to whom you are indebted for double that amount.”
Ernest Bramah, The Wallet of Kai Lung