“To-day is the parent of to-morrow. The present casts its shadow far into the future. That is the law of life, individual and social. Revolution that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society. The means used to prepare the future become its cornerstone.”
Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment in Russia 1925.
A sign of these sorry times for professional journalism: Time magazine runs a dishonest smear against Charles Koch, completely twisting the billionaire’s remarks at a recent meeting of major donors in Orange County, California.
“Charles Koch Says US Can Bomb Its Way to $100,000 Salaries,” screamed the headline. The sub-heading added, “Building bombs and using them is one way to growth, the billionaire suggests to allies.”
What did Mr. Koch actually tell the assembled crowd of major donors?
“I think we can have growth rates in excess of 4 percent. When I’m talking about growth rates,” explained Koch, “I’m not talking about that GDP, which counts poison gas the same as it counts penicillin. What a monstrous measure this is. If we make more bombs, the GDP goes up — particularly if we explode them.”
In other words, while Time’s headline portrayed Koch as a warmonger, the billionaire businessman wasn’t suggesting this country “Bomb Its Way” anywhere. Certainly not “to growth.” In fact, Koch was making the opposite point: true economic growth can’t come from producing or using “poison gas” or other munitions.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had found this article’s headline to be a flat-out concocted falsehood; Time soon changed the headline.
Yet, even the re-written headline was sort of a slap: “Charles Koch Mocks Common Measure of Prosperity.” Only after reading the sub-head — “Calls ‘monstrous’ the notion that GDP values bombs as much as medicine” — was it clear that Koch was making a very common sense point.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“Macbeth’s self-justifications were feeble – and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare’s evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1973.
Money can’t buy me love. So, the $10,000 first prize in the Second Annual Great Communicators Tournament doesn’t matter to me at all. Nor does the $5,000 second prize entice me, and certainly not the $2,500 for third place.
You, however, may be fond of money.
And if you can effectively communicate the freedom message, this contest is well worth joining. But the deadline — THIS FRIDAY, August 7 — is fast approaching.
The tournament’s “goal is to identify . . . and promote individuals who can effectively and persuasively discuss and defend the free market and the founding principles.”
It’s the brainchild of the folks at Think Freely Media — the good souls who sponsor this Common Sense program. They know that liberty advocates must take the moral high-ground in making the case for freedom, and not merely argue by empirical analysis.
The competition is easy to enter. No later than midnight this Friday provide a 1-3 minute video of yourself addressing one of several issues listed on the contest website.
“Videos should be . . . clear and concise, make sure . . . that you use moral, not material, arguments,” contestants are informed. “We’re looking for solid arguments and messages, not flashy production value.”
Your video will be posted, so a combination of public voting and deliberations by the Think Freely staff and judges will identify twelve semi-finalists. These twelve will then compete in person for the top prizes at the State Policy Network’s Annual Meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in September.
Why not see just how talented a communicator you are? And perhaps get even better . . . at growing liberty.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul McCart . . . er, Paul Jacob.
A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1973
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The stabbing event at a Thursday “Gay Pride” march in Jerusalem reveals an element of the much-talked-about “clash of civilizations” not often discussed any longer. But it used to dominate the conversation.
Why? It was not a Muslim jihadist who stabbed six people and ultimately killed one of them, a 16-year-old girl (she died in the hospital this weekend).
It was an Orthodox Jew.
That is, the man arrested at the event, identified as Yishai Schlissel, certainly looked Orthodox, when I saw him on TV, briefly, in an early report. The BBC now refers to him an “ultra-Orthodox Jew” (“ultra” theirs; emphasis, mine). He had previously carried out a similar attack in 2005.
“Israel’s government would have ‘zero tolerance’ for Jewish extremists, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a security cabinet meeting on Sunday,” according to a BBC report.
What suspect Schlissel shares with other terrorists is not merely a rock-hard belief that certain other people are sinful and corrupt, etc. He somehow also believes that he may assume the role of judge and executioner . . . of people he only knows by their differences.
This is beyond “ultra.” Schlissel repudiates not only the rule of law (since he acts outside it), but a basic idea that has grown in Western civilization — from roots found in his own religion.
Liberty.
The essence of liberty? Leaving peaceful people you disagree with alone.
It is more than possible for the religiously orthodox to get along with the un-orthodox. We can all get along if we respect each others’ rights, regardless of our differences.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“Witness the tragic condition of Russia. The methods of State centralization have paralysed individual initiative and effort; the tyranny of the dictatorship has cowed the people into slavish submission and all but extinguished the fires of liberty; organized terrorism has depraved and brutalized the masses and stifled every idealistic aspiration; institutionalized murder has cheapened human life, and all sense of the dignity of man and the value of life has been eliminated; coercion at every step has made effort bitter, labour a punishment, has turned the whole of existence into a scheme of mutual deceit, and has revived the lowest and most brutal instincts of man. A sorry heritage to begin a new life of freedom and brotherhood.”
Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment in Russia 1923.
Bostonians win big in the Olympics. How? By not hosting them. Click on over to Townhall.com, then come back here for a few more events. Don’t worry — low hurdles. Just a little reading:
“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1973.
Regulation of the Internet as a public utility is atavistic and foolish: