Categories
term limits too much government

Is He Serious?

Gov. Rauner

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner ran for his state’s highest office while simultaneously spearheading a wildly popular initiative — a proposed constitutional amendment to place state legislators under term limits.

Unfortunately, the amendment was blocked from voters. An appeals court ruled it outside the scope of the state’s initiative process, and the cowardly state supreme court dodged the case.

Meanwhile, Mr. Rauner’s campaign as an outsider — opposed to both Chicago and Springfield political machines — earned him the governorship.

Most politicians would cry crocodile tears for term limits and claim, aw shucks, there’s just no way to get them enacted . . . especially with the Malevolent Monarch, Mr. Michael Madigan, the state’s longest corruption-serving Speaker of the House, as term limits enemy #1.

But Rauner isn’t backing off. “Rauner has at least one non-negotiable item on his wish list for the spring legislative session,” writes Matthew Dietrich of Reboot Illinois in the Huffington Post: “passing legislative term limits.”

Rich Miller of Capitol Fax reports that “Democrats were shocked,” when an “administration official . . . more than implied that if the [term limits] constitutional amendment isn’t passed by May 31st, then the governor would not support any revenue increases to patch next fiscal year’s massive $6 billion hole.”

“Would the governor really threaten to crash the entire government over a term limits bill?” asks Miller . . . answering, “Yep.”

Goodness, Gov. Rauner is absolutely serious about enacting the reform the people of Illinois know is Step 1 in fighting the state’s rampant corruption: term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Gov. Rauner

 

Categories
Thought

F. A. Hayek

“There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. While the first is the condition of a free society, the second means as De Tocqueville describes it, ‘a new form of servitude.’”

F. A. Hayek, “Individualism: True and False” (1945), in Individualism and Economic Order

Categories
crime and punishment general freedom government transparency judiciary national politics & policies

Court Vindicates Snowden

Edward Snowden

Sometimes if you postpone something long enough, someone else will do the job.

Last week, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled the National Security Agency’s metadata collection program unlawful, I immediately saw it as a vindication of Edward Snowden and his “illegal” leaks.

It will be hard to charge the man with treason for uncovering programs that have been determined, in court, to be themselves treasonous — or at least unconstitutional.

But I was busy last week; didn’t have time to make the case.

Nicely, Noah Feldman made it for me, at Bloomberg View. “This is the most serious blow to date,” writes Feldman in his May 7 article, a blow against “the legacy of the USA Patriot Act and the surveillance overreach that followed 9/11.”

The linkage with Snowden is in no way an imposition on the story:

The first striking thing about the court’s opinion was how openly it relied on Snowden’s revelations of classified material.  The court described how the program was known — by Snowden’s leaks. It also analyzed the NSA order to Verizon, leaked by Snowden, that proved the existence of the program and revealed indirectly the legal reasoning that the government relied on to authorize the metadata collection.

More importantly, Feldman recognizes that the decision rightly breaks “the bad precedent of secret law created by the NSA.”

A republic isn’t a republic if its laws are secret.

Now, of course, it’s time for Americans to cease their procrastination. If we don’t recognize that our government is out of control, no one else’s determination will matter.

Except, perhaps, history’s.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Edward Snowden

 

Categories
Thought

F. A. Hayek

“…I very much doubt whether monetary policy has ever done anything good….”

F. A. Hayek, Cato Policy Report, from an interview conducted by James U. Blanchard III

Categories
crime and punishment responsibility too much government

J’accuse, Chisholm

Crybaby Bully

Shouldn’t we imprison anyone who dares criticize the conduct of abusive public officials?

Panic not. You haven’t slipped through a portal into another dimension.

This is still Common Sense. I’m still Paul Jacob.

Interpret the initial interrogative, above, as my sardonic paraphrase of somebody else’s sentiment — that of a power-abusing official who bemoans any chastisement of his lousy actions. Who even threatens to prosecute persons voicing such criticism.

The man is John Chisholm, a Milwaukee D.A. who intimates that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker should be investigated for blasting Chisholm’s churlish tactics against political opponents. These tactics include late-night raids motivated solely by political animus. (I’ve reported on these doings.)

Scott Walker told Iowans that “if the government can do that against people of one political persuasion, they can do it against anybody. . . . [I]t was really about people trying to intimidate people . . . [A] political witch hunt.”

Responding, Chisholm suggested, with blunderbuss subtlety, that “the Iowa criminal code, like Wisconsin’s, has provisions for intentionally making false statements intended to harm the reputation of others.”

Chisholm, you bum. You knave. You vile excrescence. Not even you dispute that your office’s raids directed against people like my colleague Eric O’Keefe occurred. Thus, you’ve no hint of a basis for a slander claim. You did the dirty deeds we’re deriding. Cheer and hug you for it, should we? (Eric has sued to block Chisholm’s secretive “John Doe” raids.)

All this does sound like the Twilight Zone. Unfortunately, it’s part of a new normal. Not one we need accept, however.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Crybaby Bully

 

Categories
Thought

F. A. Hayek

“The more the state ‘plans’ the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.”

F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Chapter 6, “Planning and the Rule of Law”

Categories
links

Townhall: Minor Infraction, Felony Prosecution

The most efficient way to maintain one’s perch in power is to knock down and scare off would-be competitors. Click on over to Townhall for the latest on the worst recent example — an ongoing abuse of power.

And be sure to come back here for more reading. Be sure to forward to your friends and family, using our social media widgets if you like. Thanks!

Categories
Today

Victoria Woodhull

On May 10, 1872, Victoria Woodhull became the first woman nominated for President of the United States.

In a landmark Supreme Court decision on May 10, 1893, the tomato was ruled a vegetable, not a fruit.

Categories
Thought

F. A. Hayek

“Many of the greatest things man has achieved are not the result of consciously directed thought, and still less the product of a deliberately coordinated effort of many individuals, but of a process in which the individual plays a part which he can never fully understand.”

F. A. Hayek, “Scientism and The Study of Society” (1944), p. 67; later published in The Counter-revolution of Science

Categories
video

Video: Free Speech vs Fascists, Cowards and Morons

“Speech is either free or it isn’t” — a provocative argument from Bill Whittle. Even if you disagree with some or all of what he says, doesn’t he have a right to say it? And shouldn’t we defend that right?