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.
Categories
Categories
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.
Categories
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
Categories
Video: Internationally Known Whistle-blower
A satellite link-up allows Edward Snowden to appear before a New Zealand conference. And receive a standing ovation. And deliver a message.
http://youtu.be/PWAZ8fr4MUE
Categories
Nov 15 Articles of Confederation
On November 15, 1777, the Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation — after 16 months of deliberation.
Categories
Will Brits Outlaw Speech?
Actually, the proposal is not to outlaw speech. Just some speech.
Which? “Extreme.”
That is, speech that conveys ideas too fundamentally orthogonal to authorized ideas, or that too brusquely nettles sanctioned sensibilities.
Who’s the censor? Some minor shire functionary? No, it is Theresa May, Home Secretary, who is proposing the “extremism disruption orders.”
Ms. May complains that at present, British officials “will only go after you if you are an extremist that directly supports violence.” (It’s not a bug, it’s a feature, Madam Home Secretary.) Under her plan, if you’re an “extremist” served with an EDO (Extremist Disruption Order), you must obtain an official go-ahead, in advance, for anything you wish to publish in any public forum.
Would pen names also be banned? Then what?
Even the most strenuous society-wide efforts to regulate speech don’t stop people from speaking. They still shop, give directions, exhort children, argue about soccer. The most severely repressive regimes permit plenty of public communication along approved channels on approved topics. People learn what not to say or think to skip a trip to the gulag for re-education. But the freedom to say anything you want if only the censors let you means that you have no government-respected right to say anything.
The British proposal may go nowhere. Like comparable assaults on either side of the Atlantic, if enacted it may be only partially or briefly effective. But all such efforts are baleful in their immediate consequences.
And they pave the way to worse.
As illustrated by May’s gall in advancing her “anti-extremist” program.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Photo courtesy of Stephen Mcleod, under Creative Commons License; altered.
Categories
P. J. O’Rourke
When a government controls both the economic power of individuals and the coercive power of the state … This violates a fundamental rule of happy living: Never let the people with all the money and the people with all the guns be the same people.
Categories
nov 14 czech
On November 14, 1918, Czechoslovakia became a republic. Born on the same date in 1947, American writer P.J. O’Rourke.
Categories
World Kindness day, November 13
November 13 is World Kindness Day, which has been celebrated in various countries since 1998. It is not an official celebratory day of the U.S.A., nor of the United Nations. But individuals are free to be kind this day . . . or any day, for that matter.
Categories
Keep Targeting the IRS
We’re still unraveling the IRS’s prolific crimes.
I mean, those pertaining to its ideological targeting of conservative applicants for non-profit status.
I’m satisfied that the various individuals and organizations suing the IRS or publishing commentaries on this still-unfolding scandal (Day 552 now) will keep on keepin’ on. I’m a little worried, though, about Congress.
Granting that congressional investigators have been reasonably if imperfectly diligent, my hope is that they’ll prove even tougher in the coming session.
Some chairman must step down soon because of the GOP’s term limits on committee chairs; these include Darrell Issa of the Oversight and Reform Committee. TaxProf Blog’s Paul Caron, scandal tracker par excellence, says Issa’s successor should be one who “has done as much as anyone to shine a light on IRS abuse of the President’s philosophical opponents, both in hearings and behind the scenes.”
The man he means is Representative Jim Jordan. Long before we ever heard of pivotal IRS malefactor Lois Lerner, Jordan had been “seeking answers from the IRS’s tax-exempt organizations chief on political targeting allegations.”
Indeed, Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer for victims of the IRS, believes that without Jordan there would have been no Treasury investigation to get the ball rolling “and no public admission that, indeed, conservative groups were being subjected to unprecedented scrutiny and mistreatment.” (Plus, see the congressman’s recent press release lamenting a dismissal of charges against the IRS.)
I’m convinced; let’s have Jordan. And let’s pursue this investigation to the bitter end.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.