Everyone knows about the substantive issues of concern, like federal health care, but very little is said about the process, the lack of accountability.
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“Stupid is as stupid does,” said the great American prophet, Forrest Gump.
Meanwhile, Obamacare maestro and MIT professor, the illustrious Dr. Jonathan Gruber, has declared in not one but a multitude of videos that the American people are, well, “stupid.”
You see, when the elites wielding political power lie to us, trick us, cheat us — as with Obamacare — they think that proves that “We, the People,” aka their victims, are all morons. I’m not a fan of fraud or fraudsters; I don’t think it forms the basis for a very happy, healthy society.
Still, I do get their perverted logic. Problem is that, even as far as it goes, the American people didn’t fall for the deceit at the heart of the Affordable Care Act. Poll after poll leading up to Congress passing the ACA demonstrated that most folks opposed it, disbelieving Gruber’s and Obama’s distortions.
Barely a majority of the clueless Congress even fell for the lies! All of them were Democrats.
No, stupid would do something like rake in $6 million from government contracts obtained from politicians with a direct probe into every American’s pocketbook and then call all those Americans paying his lavish tab names. Indeed, Gruber does make a cogent argument about the wisdom of purchasing his services.
Stupid also does stuff like deny even knowing that Dr. What’s-His-Name fellow . . . though previously raving, on camera, about what a wizard the stupid-slinging Prof. Gruber is.
Right, Mr. Obama, Mrs. Pelosi?
Goodness, the American people seem brilliant in comparison. But it’s a low bar.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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George Bernard Shaw
>Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
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November 19, Gettysburg, National Review
On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the ceremonial dedication of the military cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, appropriating an old phraseology for republican government — “of the people, by the people, for the people” — and giving it its most memorable usage.
On the same date in 1955, National Review published its first issue.
On the face of it, the idea that the federal government should be involved in school lunches is . . . weird.
And yet Congress and a long line of presidents have pushed the notion of federally funded and controlled lunches; recently the First Lady, Michelle Obama, made a big deal about revamping the federal school lunch program. But as Baylen Linnekin explains, “Whatever past successes [the national school lunch] program may point to, by any objective measure, the USDA’s school lunch program has since earned a failing grade.”
Instead of going through another alleged upgrade, maybe the best idea would be to, as Linnekin puts it, “Separate School Lunch and State.”
And this isn’t an oddball, contrarian proposal. As Linnekin relates, “More than 1,400 school districts have opted out of the USDA School Lunch Program since 2010.”
Linnekin tells the tale of Meghan Hellrood, a high school student in Wisconsin who leveraged Facebook to hold a one-day protest boycott of her school’s lunch. “It’s not actually giving us healthy foods,” she said.
Maybe Hellrood’s protest strategy should become the norm. Brown bag it, America. Declare your independence!
Parents can make a sack lunch. Older kids can pack their own. And as Adam Carolla, king of the podcasters, has so often opined, even the poor can afford to make their kids a bean sandwich. We can do this.
Reform of public schools might best begin with lunchtime. Locally. With parents regaining some control and responsibility.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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November 18
On November 18, 1307, William Tell shot a crossbow bolt to pierce an apple, toppling it off his son’s head. He was forced to do this by the local Austrian authority, whose hat hung on a pole in the Altdorf town square Tell had refused to bow to when entering the village. Tell is an enduring Swiss folk hero, and the subject of a famous opera by Rossini.
In 1926, George Bernard Shaw formally refused to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, “I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.”
What has Canada done for us lately, eh?
Sure, Canadians invented peanut butter and the egg carton. But hey: peanut allergies . . . and loose eggs in a grocery sack will do.
Canada also gave us the Wonderbra, Trivial Pursuits and Instant Replay. But put those all together and what have you got?
A country where it snows too much. That’s what.
But what about oil?
The U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to build the Keystone XL pipeline to bring that Canadian oil down to our Gulf Coast refineries. The Senate is set to vote on similar legislation tomorrow.
But our President sports a veto pen, and refuses to allow a bunch of peanut-butter-eating, Wonderbra-wearing Canadians to invade America with all their dirty crude.
“I have to constantly push back against this idea that somehow the Keystone Pipeline is either this massive jobs bill for the United States or is somehow lowering gas prices,” an exasperated Obama complained. “Understand what this project is. It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else.”
Well, if the 40,000-plus jobs from the pipeline’s construction are discounted . . . well, then, those jobs don’t count.
And to suggest that increasing the supply of petroleum might lower prices because of the law of supply and demand? Surely, an executive order trumps economic law.
The Daily Beast’s Jack Holmes also minimizes Keystone’s benefits, noting it amounts only to “a few billion dollars kicked the U.S. economy’s way.”
Yeah, who needs a “few billion dollars” or some construction jobs or more oil or our northern neighbors . . .
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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November 17
On November 17, 1777, the Articles of Confederation were submitted to the states for ratification.
On that date in 1800, the United States Congress held its first session in Washington, D.C.
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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.
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Townhall: Justice Vision
Helping juries decide tough cases can solve more than just that: it can prevent social discord and promote civic order and social peace. Go to Townhall and read this weekend’s Common Sense column . . . before you riot in the streets.
And come back here for a wider vision. Or at least more reading:
- Police Foundation Study: A Field Experiment on the Effect of Body-Worn Cameras on Police Use-Of-Force
- Washington Post: U.S. cities pay out millions to settle police lawsuits, by Radley Balko
- New York Times: Wearing a Badge, and a Video Camera, by Randall Stross
- MSNBC: Cities consider body cameras for cops in wake of Ferguson, by Jane C. Timm
- Washington Post editorial: Putting cameras on police officers is an idea whose time has come
- Salt Lake Tribune: Utah protesters wear bull’s-eyes, decry officer-involved shooting of Darrien Hunt, by Jessica Miller
- Townhall.com: Finding Ferguson, by Paul Jacob
- Townhall.com: First Step for Ferguson, by Paul Jacob
- Townhall.com: Looting is Good, by Paul Jacob