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folly general freedom national politics & policies

Memorial Day Questions

Veterans and the political class, Obama, military, collage, photomontage, http://cognitivebiasparade.prosite.com/, Paul Jacob, political, politics, blood

What do we owe to those who fight and give, as President Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg, “their last full measure of devotion”?

More, surely, than appreciative applause for the troops on airplanes and at professional sporting events . . . with their high-priced, taxpayer-paid military promotions.

First, vets are entitled to contracted-for medical care, as I addressed in greater detail at Townhall.com yesterday — not a Veterans Administration that systematically denies them needed diagnoses and treatments.

Second, wiser strategic decisions going forward. Vets deserve, and we all need, more (not fewer) questions of presidential candidates, such as the hypothetical inquiry of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Iraq, and the hypothetical Libya question Sen. Rand Paul suggests should be posed to Mrs. Clinton.

Bring on the if-you-knew-then questions!

But wait, what about a non-hypothetical: Are we today at war against the Islamic State?

We really should know . . . I mean, on Memorial Day and all.

President Barack Obama claims he has the constitutional power to engage militarily against the Islamic State under Congress’s 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). A number of legal scholars vehemently disagree. Which may be why, back in February, Obama asked for a new, anti-ISIS AUMF. Congressional Republicans balked, complaining the president’s proposed AUMF isn’t strong enough.

Of course, nothing prevents congressional Republicans from passing a stronger version.

Or better yet, demand that President Obama keep American boys and girls out of harm’s way in the always-messy Middle East.

The murderous leaders of the Islamic State may wish to be at war with us, but we don’t have to humor them. Let Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Iran defend themselves and their territories from this gang of cutthroats.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Veterans and the political class

 

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Thought

John Calvin

“There are people who are known to be very liberal, yet they never give without scolding or pride or even insolence.”

John Calvin, De Vita Hominis Christiani, 1550.

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Today

Burckhardt Born

May 25, 1818, the Swiss historian and academic Jacob Burckhardt was born. Burckhardt’s best known work is The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), but is remembered here as the author of Reflections on History (1905).

Erratum: In our daily email, we erroneously gave May 25 as the date for William of Okham’s fleeing the papal city of Avignon. That event, and John Calvin’s banishment years later, both occurred on May 26 of their respective years. We are sorry for the error.

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links

Townhall: What We Owe Our Troops

Tomorrow is Memorial Day. It’s not just another day off work. Don’t just mouth patriotism. Make the most of it.

Click on over to Townhall.com. Then come back here for more reading:

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video

VIdeo: Regulating Halloween Costumes

Jerry Brown has no need to be in your shower, or all up in your business on your lawn.

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Accountability crime and punishment

Judge by the Results

Drug war results

The law exists to ensure responsibility. When someone does wrong, the police and courts are here to correct for the lapses and crimes.

That’s how law “holds us responsible” for our actions.

The War on Drugs is fought, it has been argued, because recreational drug use makes people irresponsible. So police and courts must punish, etc., etc.

But Theory must be judged not on intent, but on results.

Which are too often atrocious.

When I wrote about Bounkham “Bou-Bou” Phonesavanh before — a toddler horribly maimed and almost killed by an incendiary during a completely fruitless drug raid on a home full of innocents — I identified the War on Drugs as the root problem: “Waging that war permits endless ‘botched raids’ like the one that almost killed Bou Bou,” I wrote last February. “So long as such invasions remain a standard means of trying to catch dealers with their stash — indeed, so long as the War on Drugs is being waged at all — innocent persons will always be needlessly at risk. . . .”

Now that the trial is over and the family has been rewarded not quite a million bucks in recompense, we can see, clearly, what’s wrong here.

Irresponsibility.

The police who did the foul deed? Unrepentant in court, offering bizarre excuses. What the police assailants claimed, the Pro Libertate blog summarized, “is that while he was sleeping, Baby Bou-Bou ambushed them.” An overstatement? Perhaps — but very slight.

Meanwhile, who pays? The taxpayers. Not the guilty cops.

If we continue to allow this “war” we will continue getting unaccountable policing and the tragedies that necessarily result.

In a word: irresponsibility.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Drug war results

 

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Thought

Frédéric Passy

“There are people who think the natives of Dahomey very barbarous, because, on the accession of a king, they believe it well to sail a little vessel in human blood in order to tell the fortunes of the new monarch. Now the blood of a thousand slaves is enough for the purpose, whilst in our so-called civilized countries, the great powers, for prestige, or power, or revenge, will shed the blood, not of a thousand, but of 10,000, of 500,000, of millions of persons, enough to make bloody the mightiest river of Europe or America. And yet we dare to treat as barbarians the people of Dahomey.”

Frédéric Passy, from a speech promoted widely in its day (late 19th century) by The Peace and Arbitration Society.

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ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies

Anti-Democratic Republicans?

political, politics, 2 Party Lockout, political party, politics, exclusion, elections, democracy, collage, photomontage

The Republican Party of Ohio paid lawyers $300,000 to keep a competitor off the ballot.

Typical two-party corruption. We can blame the party, yes — but also blame the system.

A “two-party system” is, mathematicians tell us, the logical result of simple plurality/winner-takes-all elections. That is, when the first candidate “past the post” wins enough votes to best any other, that candidate wins.

When you count votes like this, two parties emerge to dominate.

But to really rule the roost, those parties are incentivized to pile on . . . to make it hard for “minor-party” challengers. Ballot access becomes a nasty business.

Last year Charlie Earl ran for the governorship of Ohio as a Libertarian Party candidate. But he was blocked from the ballot. And when the Ohio LP “filed a federal lawsuit to try to force Earl’s name on the ballot,” Ohio Republican Party Chair Matt Borges testified that his party had nothing to do with the legal maneuvers involved.

As Borges put it at the time, “Anyone who’s looking for the conspiracy behind it — it’s just not there.”

Now, it turns out, the conspiracy was there. His party paid the bills.

Whether Borges was lying or not — maybe he was clueless about these shenanigans — the deed got done.

More important than whether Borges himself can be held culpable for the ballot-access conspiracy, it’s the system that encourages such anti-democratic nonsense that needs changing. First-past-the-post elections must go. There are alternatives, as my friends at FairVote.org champion.

As Ohio GOP leaders stand shame-faced with the evidence of evildoing, it’s time to press such reforms.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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2 Party Lockout

 

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Thought

Frédéric Passy

“The entire able-bodied population are preparing to massacre one another; though no one, it is true, wants to attack, and everybody protests his love of peace and determination to maintain it, yet the whole world feels that it only requires some unforeseen incident, some unpreventable accident, for the spark to fall in a flash . . . and blow all Europe sky-high.”

Frédéric Passy, February 4, 1895

Categories
general freedom national politics & policies

Promises of Murder

Thought Crimes

Senator Lindsay Graham kills me.

The hawkish Republican from South Carolina isn’t exactly standing up for limited government. His latest oration, on the presidential stump in Iowa, warned Americans far and wide that, were he sitting in the White House with his finger poised above The Button and “you’re thinking about joining al-Qaeda or ISIL [Islamic State] — anybody thinking about that? — I’m not gonna call a judge.”

Adding mucho macho-flash: “I’m gonna call a drone and we will kill you.”

Like you, it never crossed my mind to join either the Islamic State or al-Qaeda. So, a big “meh,” eh?

Neh.

The attacks on civil liberties, committed under the cover of fighting terrorism, must end. I hope that Section 215 of the ridiculously-named USA Patriot Act will expire. I also want to halt the secret, process-less, law-less, global drone-strike program.

And I don’t think I am asking too much for the next president to not regularly threaten audiences with wider, more gleeful and less accountable use of drones.

Remember, Sen. Graham said “thinking about.”

Even with the NSA tracking our every key-stroke, government could still make a mistake about what we’re thinking.

Moreover, even if you disagree with me — perhaps wanting the War on Terror to be fought with more fury — it still seems counter-productive for the wannabe POTUS: (a) to imply that Americans must be bullied out of joining the latest jihadist gang in the Middle East and (b) to suggest the Prez has the dictatorial power to summarily execute an American on the mere suspicion of a thought crime.

Graham, president? Don’t die laughing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought Crimes