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folly general freedom government transparency national politics & policies too much government

Safety, Savings and Symbolism

NSA Hydra

How can the U. S. save $2.5 billion a year, reduce the federal workforce by 4,000 hires, and engage in a symbolic act of undoubted patriotism, all at the same time?

Get rid of the Department of Homeland Security.

Matt A. Mayer, a former DHS employee who claims to have “written more on DHS than just about anyone,” writes in Reason that dismantling DHS would increase co-ordination and decrease inefficiencies.

Since DHS was put in place, in 2003, to increase governmental co-ordination in the face of terrorist threats, Mayer’s charge that it serves the opposite cause should . . . give us pause.

Establishing the DHS didn’t get rid of turf wars. Why would it? It increased the turf rather than merely reroute chains of communication and command. All other agencies still exist. Extra turf exacerbates co-ordination difficulty.

And then there’s what state and local law enforcement faces: “the multi-headed hydra.” The federal operation remains fragmented, which “only ensures that key items will fall through the cracks between these departments, whose personnel spend far too much time fighting each other for primacy than they should. Our enemies couldn’t ask for a more fertile environment within which to attack us.”

I added the italics, for emphasis.

Ever since Jimmy Carter ran for the presidency on consolidating bureaucratic departments in the nation’s capital, but delivered, instead, new departments, the “logic” of adding new bureaucracies onto old has proven to be the “easy answer” for insiders. But a transparent failure, for everyone else.

So, start over. Get rid of the inefficient monster.

And take heart: republics don’t have “homelands”; empires do. Let’s stop playing the wrong game.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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NSA Hydra

 

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Thought

Ambrose Bierce

Conservative, n.
A statesman enamored of existing evils, as opposed to a Liberal, who wants to replace them with others.
Cynic, n.
A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic’s eyes to improve his vision.
Egotist, n.
A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
Idiot, n.
A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot’s activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but “pervades and regulates the whole.” He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.
Mayonnaise, n.
One of the sauces that serve the French in place of a state religion.
Once, adj.
Enough.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)

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Common Sense

Bribing a Legislature

Eyman

Just when big government boosters in the Evergreen State thought it was safe to raise taxes, Tim Eyman and the group Voters Want More Choices have returned to the streets with Initiative 1366.

When his previous and similar effort, I-1325, fizzled last year, opponents were ecstatic, celebrating Eyman’s perceived obsolescence. Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connolly wrote a year ago that, “the promoter may finally have exhausted his 15 years of fame.”

Eyman appeared down and out. Enemies rejoiced. And yet, a year later — just weeks before the deadline to turn in petition signatures to put issues on this November’s ballot — it appears Eyman’s latest initiative will easily qualify.

So now opponents squawk about all the money he has raised, and are back to hilarious and hyperbolic hyperventilating:

  • Tim Eyman “belongs in a trash bin”;
  • “I want Tim Eyman to die in a f—ing fire”;
  • I-1366 is a “destructive, hostage-taking initiative” and “”

If this be blackmail, make the most of it: “This measure would decrease the sales tax rate unless the legislature refers to voters a constitutional amendment requiring two-thirds legislative approval or voter approval to raise taxes, and legislative approval for fee increases.”

You see, the court will not allow the people to set a two-thirds vote mandate on the legislature. But the people can cut the sales tax. So I-1366 would cut the sales tax by a penny . . . unless legislators do the right thing and give the people a vote on a constitutional amendment to establish the two-thirds legislative vote or a vote of the people to raise taxes.

Clever. That is how you deal with rogue insiders.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Eyman

 

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Thought

Henrik Ibsen

“You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.”

Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People (1882), Dr. Stockmann, Act V

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Common Sense

Not Just Fiddling in Ferguson

Body Cam Initiative

The Missouri General Assembly adjourned its 2015 legislative session about a month ago, “having passed,” The Washington Post reported, “virtually none of the changes activists sought in the aftermath of the shooting of Michael Brown.”

“Nothing has changed,” acknowledged State Rep. Clem Smith.

The Post story concluded, “Advocates plan to use the results of a state commission on Ferguson, expected to wrap up its work in the coming months, to engage lawmakers during the summer and work with them on pre-filing bills for the next session.”

Wait . . . until next year?

Denise Lieberman, a senior attorney for the Advancement Project and co-chair of the Don’t Shoot Coalition, conceded that, “Long-term policy change takes time.”

Hmmm, experience tells me “time” isn’t always a friend to reform. Political change can happen incrementally, of course, but more often it rushes forth when people have both had enough and decide to take the initiative.

Ahem — I’m talking about the ballot initiative.

No waiting.

This afternoon, a committee of seven Ferguson, Missouri, citizens, led by Nick Kasoff, will file a ballot measure to require on-duty Ferguson police to wear body cameras. The charter amendment also mandates greater transparency for criminal justice information, while providing privacy protections.

Liberty Initiative Fund, where I work as president, is proud to have provided the Ferguson group with model language. We’ll also work with Kasoff on gathering the roughly 2,500 signatures of Ferguson voters on petitions required to place the issue on the ballot and win early next year.

You don’t have to wait, either. Liberty Initiative Fund helps people across the country take the initiative.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Body Cam Initiative

 

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Thought

Volney

“As self-love, impetuous and improvident, is ever urging man against his equal, and consequently tends to dissolve society, the art of legislation and the merit of administrators consists in attempering the conflict of individual cupidities, in maintaining an equilibrium of powers, and securing to every one his happiness, in order that, in the shock of society against society, all the members may have a common interest in the preservation and defence of the public welfare.”

C. F. Volney, The Ruins, or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires (1793; first English-language edition, 1802)

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Thought

Henrik Ibsen

“A forest bird never wants a cage.”

Henrik Ibsen, The Master Builder (1892), Hilda, Act III.

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First Amendment rights general freedom

Reason Requires Freedom

Reason and Freedom

For two weeks, Reason magazine was stopped by court order from talking about two government actions.

It started with online comments.

Everyone who samples the Internet knows that although some un-moderated remarks are judicious and thoughtful, others are intemperate and un-thoughtful. Freedom of speech subsumes the latter just as much as the former — unless and until a published comment can be honestly construed as a genuine threat of violence, as opposed to mere venting.

Reason was first hit with a subpoena that “demanded the records of six people who left hyperbolic comments at the website about the federal judge who oversaw the controversial conviction of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.”

The subpoena is itself debatable, the Supreme Court having recently noted that context is relevant to determining whether an online “threat” is a genuine one.

Not debatable? The gag order that soon followed, prohibiting discussion of both the subpoena and the gag order after Reason notified the affected commenters so that they would have a chance to defend their right to anonymity.

Reporting at the magazine’s “Hit and Run” blog, Reason editors Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch explain why the prior restraint represented by the order is unconstitutional and a bad idea.

For Reason, the situation was unprecedented; but similarly wrongful gag orders have become commonplace.

If we lose freedom of speech in this country, it won’t be all at once but bit by ugly bit.

This episode? One of the ugly bits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Reason and Freedom

 

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Thought

Auberon Herbert

Is the majority morally supreme, or are there moral rights and moral laws, independent of both majority and minority, to which, if the world is to be restful and happy, majority and minority must alike bow?

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Townhall: Democracy Makes a Comeback

This weekend, your Common Sense advocate catches up the good folks at Townhall.com with the latest clever initiative on the West Coast to give citizens what they need to restrain government growth. Click on over. Come back for the background reading: