On June 14, 1777, U.S. Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes as the United States Flag.
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Stars and Stripes
“When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition.”
Aristotle, Politics, Book Eight.
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Video: Hayek Essentials
You’ve heard of F. A. Hayek. Here is a helpful, brief overview of his life and work, in easy-to-digest and safe-to-share form.
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Against slavery
On June 13, 1774, Rhode Island became the first British colony in the Americas to prohibit the importation of slaves.
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Free Brazil
Kim Kataguiri — a founder and the most prominent public face of the Free Brazil Movement, which recently led millions in protest against high inflation, high taxes, and economy-crippling cronyism — is an unusual man.
First, there’s his age: 19.
Second, there’s his background — atypical but hardly unique, given the country’s substantial Japanese-Brazilian minority.
Third and most important, there’s the fact that he’s influenced by the ideas of free-market thinkers like Ludwig von Mises and Milton Friedman, ideas communicated online by Brazilian and American think tanks. In consequence, Kataguiri’s popular, social-media-conveyed critique of Dilma Rousseff’s tax-happy socialist government is openly liberal in perspective.
“Liberal,” of course, as in “having something to do with freedom and responsibility.” Classical liberal. Libertarian. Not warmed-over socialist-leaning liberal, as in America’s Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Do his free-market ideas and those of other young Free Brazil leaders mean that most Brazilians inspired by the Free Brazil Movement are just as principled? No; they may just be angry at the destruction wrought by an openly socialist government. Consistency may be the furthest thing from their minds.
But they do seem open to a new, positive alternative.
Kataguiri is perhaps overly optimistic, predicting that “in the next decade or two, most of our society will not only understand classical liberalism, but defend it too.”
But I like optimism. Especially since, whether you call it “classical liberalism,” libertarianism, or “small-government conservatism,” freedom isn’t exactly winning here on our fertile soil.
Still, I invite Kataguiri to drop by the United States when he has a chance . . . and do what he can to convert us to classical liberalism as well.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.”
Aristotle, Politics, Book Five.
In 1776, on June 12, the Fifth Virginia Convention at Williamsburg, Virginia, unanimously adopted a Declaration of Rights, several weeks prior to the adoption of the state’s constitution. George Mason, who drafted the document, stated clearly in the preamble that rights must be “the basis and foundation of Government.”
The first four planks run as follows:
I. That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
II. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.
III. That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation or community; of all the various modes and forms of government that is best, which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and that, whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.
IV. That no man, or set of men, are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community, but in consideration of public services; which, not being descendible, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator, or judge be hereditary.
Afraid that scandal-alluring Hillary Clinton may prove too flawed a presidential candidate, some Democrats are talking to billionaire and former three-term New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg about a 2016 presidential run.
Mrs. Clinton’s “slide is accelerating,” writes New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin. “A damaging new poll goes to the Achilles’ heel of her candidacy: People simply don’t trust her.”
Goodwin gushes, instead, at the “intriguing” possibility of Mr. Bloomberg.
“Wall Street wants Michael Bloomberg to run for president,” reports Business Insider, “but the billionaire isn’t budging.”
And for good reason. He can’t win.
It’s not just me saying so; it’s Michael Bloomberg himself. Last year, he told CBS Face the Nation that he’d consider running . . . “If I thought I could win.”
His honor should know, having spent more of his own money chasing public office than any person in American history.
Why did incumbent Mayor Bloomberg have to spend so much dough? He double-crossed voters on term limits. Bloomberg promised to oppose city council attempts to weaken the limits, but flipped to grab a third mayoral term for himself.
Voter anger “over his maneuver to undo the city’s term limits law,” reported The Times, became . . . well, a big problem. “To eke out a narrow re-election victory over the city’s understated comptroller, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg spent $102 million of his own money, or about $183 per vote,” explained the New York Times in 2009, “. . . making his bid for a third term the most expensive campaign in municipal history.”
A similar price tag in a presidential race stands at roughly $23 billion. That’s a lot for anyone.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Declarations
On June 11, 1776, the Continental Congress appointed John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman to draft a declaration of independence from Great Britain.
In 1963, Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, doused himself with gasoline and set himself aflame in a busy Saigon intersection as a protest against South Vietnam’s lack of religious freedom.
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David Crockett
“I gave my decisions on the principles of common justice and honesty between man and man, and relied on natural born sense, and not on law, learning to guide me; for I had never read a page in a law book in all my life.”
David Crockett, A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834), chapter 9.