“The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.”
Voltaire, “Sixième discours: sur la nature de l’homme,” Sept Discours en Vers sur l’Homme (1738)
Common Sense generally steers clear of the abortion issue. Arguably, for “common sense” reasons.
I’ve always been pro-life, but I’ve also been skeptical of government’s ability to improve the situation, to save unborn lives via the criminal justice system.
No law forces women to have abortions; it’s voluntary. I’ve long hoped that ultrasounds and other technological advances will change hearts and minds, nudging couples to choose to abort less often, making abortion even more rare than when it was illegal. I gladly note that the number of abortions has fallen 12 percent since 2010.
Certainly, I’ve prioritized my political action in a different direction: affecting greater representation, better government, via citizen-initiated checks on power.
Yet, the recent videos showing doctors and other Planned Parenthood personnel chatting about the sale of fetal body parts implicates a lot more than just abortion. For starters, the footage triggered my gag reflex, and then my sense of justice for the unborn, and sense of decency in the treatment of their remains.
And what about justice and compassion for people deeply offended (myself among them) at being forced to fork over $528.4 million tax dollars each year to an organization performing the most abortions?
Let’s be pro-choice and abort the taxpayer subsidy to Planned Parenthood.
Those who continue to approve of Planned Parenthood’s work would remain free to support it. Personally. Voluntarily. Likewise, if you revile the organization, you should also be free to not fund it.
Isn’t such respect for each others’ heartfelt beliefs also just common sense?
I think so. I’m Paul Jacob.
Categories
William Graham Sumner
“If I want to be free from any other man’s dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control.”
William Graham Sumner, “The Forgotten Man” (1883)
“Thank you, Seattle, for being one of the most progressive cities in the United States of America,” socialist-cum-Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders shouted to the large crowd in the City of Goodwill.
Seconds later, two women with a local Black Lives Matter group jumped the stage, threatening to shut down the event. Quickly, they were rewarded for their extortion-by-tantrum. Sen. Sanders and company relinquished the microphone, podium and stage.
The kidnapped crowd booed the violation, only to be screamed at by Marissa Johnson, one of the protesters, as “a bunch of screaming white racists,” who practice “white supremacist liberalism.”
“I was going to tell Bernie how racist this city is, filled with its progressives, but you did it for me,” Johnson added.
Angry audience members yelled, “How dare you?!” and “How dare she call me a racist.”
“You guys are full of bull-$@%# with your ‘black lives matter,’” she chided, acknowledging that the event had already recognized the anniversary of Michael Brown’s shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.
What a fascinating marriage of outrage and entitlement!
And yet . . . real grievances abound.
“Welcome to Seattle,” Johnson told Bernie, “where our Seattle Police Department has been under federal consent decree for the past three years, and yet has been riddled by use of force, racial profiling, and scandals throughout the year.”
Sen. Sanders doesn’t even stand up for his own speech rights, much less ours. Apparently fearing the loudmouths, he proved unwilling to confront them or address their complaints.
Sanders and his “progressive” Democrat comrades (governing cities like Baltimore and Seattle) must take responsibility for the results of their policies, and admit that the black voices shouting against racism are shouting at them.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“Man is free at the instant he wants to be.”
Voltaire, Brutus, Act II, scene I (1730).
Something happened in Grand Rapids. There was a political campaign, complete with contribution reports; a complaint was filed; a determination was made and fines were even imposed — which have been called “kind of steep.” But what comes shining through is not the hooray-for-us message, “the system works.” Far from it. Read about it on Townhall. Come back here for more information:
- MLive: “Fine ‘kind of steep,’ says Grand Rapids campaign finance treasurer who made error”
- Complaint: Tillman v. Protect Your Vote GR
- Complaint: Tillman v. Grand rapids Area Chamber of Commerce Ballot Committee
- MLive: “Alleged breach of election law called ‘serious violation of the public trust”
- MLive: “Campaign finance complaints: Michigan investigates Grand Rapids term limits election”
- MLive: “Term limits pass in Grand Rapids: Mayor, 4 commissioners suddenly lame ducks”
- MLiv” “2 women bankrolling Grand Rapids term-limits campaign”
- MLive: “Term limits in Grand Rapids: Chamber, union group oppose”
- Protect Your Vote GR
- Common Sense: “Grand Rapids Grand Alliance”
- Liberty Initiative Fund: “Grand Rapids Battle Over term Limits”
It’s a rap:
Does it matter that the chair of the Democratic National Committee doesn’t know if her party is socialist?
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews was grilling Debbie Wasserman-Schultz on the meaning of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s popularity within the Democratic Party. Mrs. Wasserman-Schultz responded by boasting that the Democrats “really are a Big Tent Party.” Then Matthews veered out her comfort zone of horse-race politics and self-congratulatory posturing.
“What is the difference between a Democrat and a Socialist?” he asked.
Mrs. W-S chuckled. Uncomfortably.
“I used to think there was a big difference,” Matthews went on. “What do you think it is?” Mrs. W-S evaded, blathering on how it is that the difference between Democrats and Republicans is what will really count in the upcoming election.
Karl Dickey, at the Examiner, holds that Democrats, today, are socialists: “one only needs to look at the Democratic Party’s platform to understand that it is a socialistic political party.”
Meanwhile, Juan Williams, discussing the issue on Fox News’s The Five, argues that there is a big difference between Democrats and socialists: Dems just like regulation and redistributing wealth; socialists want to nationalize industry and run everything through a central bureau.
And that is the definition that anti-socialist economists Yves Guyot and Ludwig von Mises settled on. Technically, Williams is right.
But the fact that the head of the Democratic Party waffled on the distinction says more about the party than a definitive answer would have.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Categories
Edmund Burke
“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”
With 25 of 40 council seats turning over, “term limit advocates are enthusiastic about the influx of new folks and ideas,” explains Tennessean columnist Frank Daniels III, “but many council members are worried about the loss of knowledge and institutional memory.”
More precisely, “many council members” fret that the city cannot afford the loss of their “knowledge.” Politicians so want to kill such thinking that on today’s Nashville ballot is not one, but two measures to weaken the “eight is enough” council limit. Amendment 1 weakens the limits by 50 percent — from two terms, eight years to three terms, twelve years.
Amendment 2 weakens term limits just like Amendment 1 does. But Amendment 2 also reduces the size of the metro council from 40 representatives to 27. Reducing the number of “politicians” has some popular support, but what’s needed is closer representation. Which means more representatives, not fewer.
Nevertheless, when Amendment 2’s proponent, Councilwoman Emily Evans, was asked why the reduction in the council was combined with weakening term limits, she replied, “You have to give the voters something.”
The perennial argument against term limits asserts that lobbyists, special interests and the bureaucracy will have greater “institutional memory” and, therefore, take advantage of council members.
Talk about hollow! The group pushing Amendment 2 just released their campaign finance report. Their largest donor is the Service Employees International Union, representing city workers — followed by lobbyist after lobbyist, after developer, after payday loan company CEO, and a horde of politicians.
The open secret of our age: lobbyists hate term limits, voters love ’em.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
P.S. And if you live in Nashville, don’t forget to vote today, yet again, to keep the citizen-initiated, voter-enacted, three times voter re-affirmed term limits against the latest ballot schemes of politicians and their cronies
