Common Sense with Paul Jacob

Frédéric Passy

“If there are still men behind the times whose ideal is force, men like Moltke, who think that war is good in itself as a useful stimulant, without which the world would become sickly, — these men see their numbers decreasing, and are no longer in a majority.”

Frédéric Passy, from a speech promoted widely in its day (late 19th century) by The Peace and Arbitration Society. “Moltke” likely refers to Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, German Field Marshall (1800 – 1891) who, for thirty years, served as chief of staff of the Prussian Army.

Thieves Caught, Return Loot

Post author By CS Admin
Post date May 18, 2015
4 Comments on Thieves Caught, Return Loot

Lyndon McLellan, a convenience store owner, was robbed. The marauders took $107,000 of his honestly earned money.

We don’t need the police to find out who did it (and no, the police themselves are not the culprit, not this time). The IRS took the money, suspecting that he “structured” his bank deposits to avoid reporting requirements. McLellan’s niece, responsible for making deposits, had followed a teller’s (bad) advice to deposit the money in such a way as to avoid paperwork. The IRS noticed the “too small” deposits and looted the account despite having no indication that the funds were ill-gotten.

“It took me 13 years to save that much money,” McLellan says, “and it took fewer than 13 seconds for the government to take it away.”

This, even though the IRS had recently promised not to summarily nab account contents solely for alleged “structuring.”

At first, the government offered to settle with McLellan by returning one half the money, their standard (and outrageous) offer in such cases. But neither McLellan nor the Institute for Justice — the champions of property rights helping him with the case — accepted the government’s “deal.”

Last week, the IRS dropped the case and agreed to return their booty. But only the principal. No interest, no attorney fees (for McLellan’s first lawyer), none of the $19,000 McLellan paid an accountant to prove his innocence.

IJ will continue to litigate. We can hope that the IRS will continue to lose.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Tags IRS, tax, tax policy, theft

Thought

Thomas Kyd

“Oh eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears;
Oh life, no life, but lively form of death;
Oh world, no world, but mass of public wrongs,
Confused and filled with murder and misdeeds.”

Thomas Kyd, “The Spanish Tragedy” (1592)

links term limits

Townhall: Democracy by Pretense

Post author By Redactor
Post date May 17, 2015
No Comments on Townhall: Democracy by Pretense

Insiders continue to chafe at the restraints imposed upon them by outsiders — that is, citizens. But citizens who keep their eyes on the prize can keep republican government democratic. Sometimes the outsiders just cave. Click on over to this weekend‘s Townhall column. And come back here for more information.

Columbus Dispatch: Battle brewing in Ohio over extension of term limits
Cleveland Plain Dealer: Political action group formed to fight any attempt to change Ohio’s legislative term limits
Ohio Constitutional Modernization Commission
U.S. Term Limits
Highland County Press: U.S. Term Limits launches campaign to defend Ohio’s term limits 
Columbus Dispatch: “Ohio is better off with term limits for state lawmakers,” by Maurice Thompson
Cincinnati Enquirer: “Term limits work. Period.” by Rep. Tom Brinkman
Toledo Blade: Ohio legislators’ term-limit proposal stirs debate

ERRATUM: The column incorrectly printed Mr. Ray Warrick’s name as “Ray Warren”; it has been corrected in the version that will be archived on this site in two days. Apologies to Mr. Warrick, and to our readers.

Oh, and did you catch last week’s Townhall column? Here it is on this site: “Minor Infraction, Felony Prosecution.”

Thought

P. J. O’Rourke

“One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it’s remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver’s license.”

P. J. O’Rourke,
Rolling Stone (November 30, 1989)

Shared ideas matter. Please pass this along to friends.

Get a high-resolution screensaver of this image. Click on the thumbnail picture below to open a large version that you can download.

video

Video: The Clinton Scandals

Post author By Redactor
Post date May 16, 2015
No Comments on Video: The Clinton Scandals

Morning Joe says that the Clinton Cash controversy is way bigger than the rather humble author of the book lets on. There is much more to uncover, and it is being uncovered.

More viewing:

Up w/Steve Kornacki on Clinton Foundation Scandal
ABC: Clinton Foundation Event with Human Rights Violators “Held in Great Secrecy”
Chris Hayes in Utter Disbelief over Clinton Cash Revelations
CNN: Clinton Foundations Current Defense Will Not Hold

crime and punishment general freedom too much government

The Right to Ignore Leviathan

Post author By CS Admin
Post date May 15, 2015
6 Comments on The Right to Ignore Leviathan

Charles Murray, author of Losing Ground and other controversial books, has a suggestion. For business people. Pillars of the community. Fine, upstanding citizens.

Civil disobedience.

He’s suggesting, says John Stossel, that we ignore the parts of government that don’t make any sense, all the nonsense in the big books of the regulatory state.

Murray’s done this in his latest, intriguingly titled book, By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission. Stossel discusses it on reason.com:

Murray says, correctly, that no ordinary human being — not even a team of lawyers — can ever be sure how to obey the 810 pages of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 1,024 pages of the Affordable Care Act or 2,300 pages of Dodd-Frank.

What if we all stopped trying? The government can’t put everyone in jail.

This is a provocative idea, even if not new.

Henry David Thoreau spent a night in jail for not paying the poll tax, a tax that helped pay for the Mexican war he so despised (and was right to despise). Thoreau eloquently argued for civil disobedience in such cases; Herbert Spencer did something similar, in his 1851 Social Statics, with the chapter “The Right to Ignore the State.”

It is a risky tactic, of course. Thoreau was, after all, incarcerated for that night. You could wind up spending more time in the hoosegow.

Still, it could be worth it. Civil disobedience has good effects. Stossel cites “historian Thaddeus Russell [who] reminds us that many freedoms we take for granted exist not because the government graciously granted liberties to us but because of lawbreakers.”

It’s another path for citizen-initiated reform.

And it’s Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Tags Charles Murray, civil disobedience, Dodd-Frank, law, laws, Losing Ground

Thought

Lysander Spooner

“Children learn the fundamental principles of natural law at a very early age. Thus they very early understand that one child must not, without just cause, strike or otherwise hurt, another; that one child must not assume any arbitrary control or domination over another; that one child must not, either by force, deceit, or stealth, obtain possession of anything that belongs to another; that if one child commits any of these wrongs against another, it is not only the right of the injured child to resist, and, if need be, punish the wrongdoer, and compel him to make reparation, but that it is also the right, and the moral duty, of all other children, and all other persons, to assist the injured party in defending his rights, and redressing his wrongs. These are fundamental principles of natural law, which govern the most important transactions of man with man. Yet children learn them earlier than they learn that three and three are six, or five and five ten. Their childish plays, even, could not be carried on without a constant regard to them; and it is equally impossible for persons of any age to live together in peace on any other conditions.”

Lysander Spooner, “Natural Law; or The Science of Justice” (1882)

national politics & policies porkbarrel politics too much government

That’s What They Want

The political class sings monotone, striking one note ad nauseam.

The song is “Money.”

One night an Amtrak train crashes, with fatalities; early the next morning a crowded chorus argues for amped-up spending on “infrastructure.”

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) pled to the MSNBC lens, “Is it going to take more of these crashes and deaths to wake up the members of Congress who keep wanting to slim down the budgets going into infrastructure?”

Of course, no dollar amount is high enough that, if thrown at the problem, could guarantee no future accidents. Politicians want to toss the maximum moola at it, nonetheless.

Meanwhile, Baltimore smolders — and not because the Orioles won a World Series, but rather at the hands of rioters using protests sparked by the death of a man in police custody as their cover. To many, the tragic events call not so much for justice in court, or enacting law enforcement reforms, but for more “investment” in “urban areas” to solve the persistent problem of urban poverty.

“There’s been no effort to reinvest and rebuild in these communities,” President Obama claims.

Isn’t Obama the country’s head honcho? Did he not make any effort?

That’s funny, because an analysis by the Free Beacon finds that the City of Baltimore raked in $1.8 billion from the 2009 stimulus bill alone.

Doesn’t that count?

“Today, government spends 16 times more . . . than it did when the War on Poverty started,” wrote Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield in their Heritage Foundation paper, The War on Poverty After 50 Years. “But as welfare spending soared, the decline in poverty came to a grinding halt.”

But why quibble about results?

Just send more money.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Tags Amtrak, infrastructure, spending

Thought

Lysander Spooner

“The ancient maxim makes the sum of a man’s legal duty to his fellow men to be simply this: ‘To live honestly, to hurt no one, to give to every one his due.’”

Lysander Spooner, “Natural Law; or The Science of Justice” (1882)

P. J. O’Rourke, Rolling Stone (November 30, 1989)

P. J. O’Rourke,
Rolling Stone (November 30, 1989)