Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.
Samuel Adams, Statement of the Rights of the Colonists, etc. (1772).
Nothing gets done in Washington?
Tell that to Kentucky Senator and presidential hopeful Rand Paul. Last night, he single-handily “repealed” Section 215 of the Patriot Act, ending the federal government’s mass collection of our phone records.
At least, for the next few days.
On the floor of the Senate, Paul blocked the USA Freedom Act, a “compromise” bill passed by the House. It would’ve required private telecoms to keep the data, allowing the government to query that data with a warrant.
“I’m supportive of the part that ends the bulk collection by the government,” said Paul. “My concern is that we might be exchanging bulk collection by the government [with] bulk collection by the phone companies.”
In a Time magazine op-ed, he argued, “We should not be debating modifying an illegal program. We should simply end this illegal program.”
Also last week, the Tea Party Patriots joined the ACLU in agreeing with Paul’s position: the USA Freedom Act doesn’t go far enough . . . to protect our civil rights.
Others warn we aren’t safe without maximum snooping and info-scooping by government:
Yet, there’s not a single case where this bulk phone data helped capture a terrorist or stop an attack.
Sen. Paul believes “we can still catch terrorists using the Constitution.”
On June 1, 1792, Kentucky was admitted as the 15th state of the United States. Four years later, Tennessee became the 16th state.
“I would rather be beaten and be a man than to be elected and be a little puppy dog. I have always supported measures and principles and not men. I have acted fearless and independent and I never will regret my course. I would rather be politically buried than to be hypocritically immortalized.”
David Crockett, after his electoral defeat in 1830, as quoted in David Crockett: The Man and the Legend (1994), by James Atkins Shackford, p. 133.
Update on the Dr. Bosworth case, at Townhall.com. Click on over, then come back here for more information.
From the steps of the capitol in Pierre, South Dakota….
For more information: Bosworth Case May Chill; PDF of the report presented.
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders made a splash last week with an off-the-cuff comment. “You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country.”
The candidate whose initials are “B. S.” doesn’t call himself a Socialist for nothing.
The Democratic-caucusing “Independent” Senator from Vermont was expressing a tired old sentiment. See his error? (Raise your hand if you know.)
To make any connection between “feeding the hungry” and cutting back on competitive products one would have to believe there is a fixed stock of wealth, and that we waste it on different brands and whole varieties of antiperspirants and sports shoes.
But there is no such fixed supply.
Supplies are concocted to meet consumer values, wants, and getting rid of competitive products means that some values are not being met . . . and that some folks are not being employed at the rates they could be with more diversity of commodities.
The best way to “feed the hungry” is for the hungry to feed themselves, by being productive — if children, then being fed by productive parents. And to do that, folks need to find their market niche. Which might very well entail another deodorant or shoe.
There is a realm where one person gains at the expense of someone else: redistributive government. If Sen. Sanders wants government to give more money to feed hungry people, he should consider cutting back on some other government expenditure.
Why didn’t B. S. suggest that? Perhaps more than feeding the hungry, he’s interested in feeding government, and his own pride in his own b.s. ideology.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.”
Private school choice is “in,” writes Patrick Wolf. “Far from being rare and untested, private school choice policies are an integral part of the fabric of American education policy.”
Now, these “new ideas” really upset some folks. I’m not one of them. School choice is greater freedom.
Freedom works.
Public schooling, on the other hand, is based on very different principles — and principals. It’s no wonder that a system based on compulsion (taxes, attendance, etc.) tends to have so much trouble performing well: it’s not the forced sector of the economy that booms.
Enter school choice. As long as kids must be forced to “attend” a school, I (as a parent) would rather decide which school, for both my sake and my children’s. And if I’m paying taxes, and other kids are getting tax moneys for their education, vouchers are more fair.
Wolf, writing in The Daily Signal, offers evidence that these eminently sensible policies lead to great results. “In Washington, D.C., use of an Opportunity Scholarship increased the likelihood of a student graduating by 71 percent.” Research into the effects of Milwaukee’s program show it “significantly increased the rates of high school graduation, college enrollment and persistence in college for the low-income students. . . .”
Researchers at Brookings Institution and Harvard found similar results for New York City’s “privately funded K-12 scholarship program.”
In his 1859 philosophical polemic, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argued that parents have a duty to educate their children — and society an interest in seeing these duties met. But that doesn’t entail setting up government schools.
It’s time to catch up with Mill’s 1859 wisdom.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“Knowledge is the conformity of the object and the intellect.”