“We will freedom for freedom’s sake, in and through particular circumstances. And in thus willing freedom, we discover that it depends entirely upon the freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon our own.”
Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism,
1946
Congo-Brazzaville’s president, Denis Sassou Nguesso, is quite the statesman.
He’s actually done what many an illustrious American pol with an obsession about “campaign finance” would merely like to do, but cannot (that darn First Amendment!): prohibited all talk about politics prior to the next election.
Indeed, the government has shut down the Internet and cellular SMS services, simply to prevent undue influence prior to the upcoming votes. Democracy requires a veil of ignorance, we’re told, and Nguesso’s taken that august philosophical scheme to its logical conclusion: no information running through the information superhighway of the modern age . . . at gunpoint.
And like many a long-term American insider, he’s balking at term limits, too. He has served his legally limited two terms. So he and his fellow statesmen put a referendum onto the upcoming ballot to overthrow them.
Just so he can serve longer.
Think of the sacrifice! He really must be looking out for his earnest and ardent supporters.
But he didn’t stop there. To fulfill his mandate, and continue in office, he has to entreat the people to overturn Congo’s mandated retirement age. At 71, he’s now too old to legally run, even if he were a first-termer.
Trifecta! — a pol so insistent at continuing his life of never-ending public service that he fights against ageism, term limits, and the corrupting influence of free speech!
I’m sure he has many, many secret sympathizers in our Congress, and in the legislatures of our several states.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“They said, ‘We’re going to build this, and you can’t stop us.’ The bristles went up on the back of a lot of people’s heads, and we thought, ‘Hey, let’s just see what we can do.’”
Dan Coffey, Kansas City Star, October 12, 2015
Don’t worry comrades!
Click here for a high resolution version of the image (suitable for sharing and using as a screensaver):
Vice-President Joe Biden announced, yesterday, that he will not run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, ending many weeks of speculation.
The Veep’s exit from a race he never entered benefits Mrs. Clinton, who in those same polls has a larger lead head-to-head against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Much of “Middle-Class” Joe’s speech was the usual laundry list of progressive pie-in-the-sky, money-can-too-buy-us-love shibboleths:
Still, Joe voiced something other candidates fail to emphasize:
[W]e have to end the divisive partisan politics that is ripping this country apart. . . . I don’t think we should look at Republicans as our enemies. They are our opposition. They’re not our enemies. And for the sake of the country, we have to work together.
That hasn’t been Hillary Clinton’s approach, having compared conservative Republicans to terrorist groups. Plus, to the question “Which enemy that you made during your political career are you most proud of?” she answered, “Republicans.”
“Four more years of this kind of pitched battle may be more than this country can take,” Joe Biden added.
I guess Joe’s not for Hillary.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“Reason, like the Sun, is Common to All; And ’t is for want of examining all by the same Light and Measure, that we are not all of the same Mind: For all have it to that End, though all do not use it So.”
William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude, #169
Washington Post scribe Dana Milbank is panicked about the “chaos on Capitol Hill.”
He hyperventilated, in a recent column, concerning the difficulty Republicans are having in choosing a new Speaker of the House, after the announced resignation of current Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), then the sudden withdrawal from the race by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), and now the reluctance of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) to seek the post.
We’re informed of the speaker’s importance — “second in line to the presidency” and “key to national security and domestic tranquility” — as if Milbank, alone, has access to a Constitution.
Yet, is it really “chaos” or continued gridlock that’s bothering our company-town columnist?
If it were, Milbank wouldn’t focus his attacks solely on conservative Republicans for their unwillingness to “compromise” (read: surrender). Both Democrats and so-called establishment Republicans seem equally adamantine.
According to Milbank, these conservative “hardliners” and “zealots” constitute “a rough crowd” who employ “thuggish tactics.” Why, they have “hijacked the chamber”!
How so?
They had the audacity to not always vote lockstep with Speaker Boehner; they balked at supporting the Speakership for Rep. McCarthy; and (heavens!), they even dared communicate their viewpoint to voters in McCarthy’s home district.
Could free political speech still be allowed by law?
Milbank reviles the “efforts by conservative groups to depose [McCarthy] before he ever took the throne.”
Depose? Throne?
Milbank even laments that Eric Cantor “would have been speaker today” had only voters in his district not voted for somebody else. Pesky voters!
Methinks Mr. Milbank has been lounging around the halls of power a tad too long.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“We started off a group of interested citizens that didn’t like the way things were going, particularly the way taxpayer money was being spent in Kansas City. Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it.”
Dan Coffey, Kansas City Star, October 12, 2015
Mayor Sly James loves his city: Kansas City, Missouri.
He dreams of a shining new airport on a hill, a land of milk and honey with a new, luxurious, taxpayer-financed downtown hotel. He envisions it as a harmonious hub in which the thrill of . . . waiting for a richly subsidized streetcar is ubiquitous.
Yet, at every turn, a group of pesky citizens, Citizens for Responsible Government, has dashed the mayor’s dreams.
How?
“This is democracy at work,” claims Dan Coffey, serving as the group’s spokesperson.
For his part, the mayor offers, “I respect the people’s right to voice their opinion, but . . . I’m going to fight for this hotel deal.”
A man of principle!
Mayor Sly has taken to calling Coffey’s group CAVE — “Citizens Against Virtually Everything.” Coffey only notes that the mayor has left out a letter: the acronym should be CAVES — “Citizens Against Virtually Everything Stupid.”
“We started off a group of interested citizens that didn’t like the way things were going, particularly the way taxpayer money was being spent in Kansas City,” Coffey recently told the Kansas City Star. “Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it.”
Coffey’s group has changed that dynamic . . . using direct democracy.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Social Security, like similar systems in Europe, is on a trajectory to insolvency, which could lead to a sovereign debt crisis.
The reason for the crisis? Social Security has always been a pay-as-we-go system, dependent on many workers paying in to a system that sends their contributions to a smaller number of retirees. When the number of retirees expands above the ability of workers to cover at established rates, the system goes broke. Meanwhile, all the system’s budget overages from the beginning to the present date have not been saved and invested. Congress has been taking the overages and spending them, putting IOUs in a notebook.
It is a serious problem.
Or, it isn’t! That is, not if you believe The Nation, which states in a recent article that this is all the result of a legally mandated “bogus” accounting conceit. The Congressional Budget Office, you see,
assumes that Social Security and Medicare Part A will draw on the general fund of the US Treasury to cover benefit shortfalls following the depletion of their trust funds, which at the current rate will occur in 2034.
That would obviously lead to an exploding debt, but it’s a scenario prohibited by law.
The Nation’s somewhat confused author suggests the dire warnings are wrong because “Congress could preemptively pass laws to avert the situation before the deadline; it could take the approach favored by progressives and increase revenue to the programs by lifting the payroll tax cap, or alternatively raise the retirement age and lower benefits.”
Well, yes. But until a fix happens, the doomsday warning stands.
Why does he think we make the warning?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
