Those who would wish to excite and keep awake your jealousy and distrust are your truest friends; while they who speak peace to you when there is no peace — who would lull you into security, and wish you to repose blind confidence in your future governors — are your most dangerous enemies; jealousy and distrust are the guardian angels who watch over liberty — security and confidence are the forerunners of slavery.
Several years ago, Despina Antypa and her husband worked at a leading newspaper in Athens.
Then came the economic crisis.
The bad news was “just a whisper” at first. But when friends began losing work, she had the foresight and discipline to plan a new career. One unrestricted by language or country — just in case they ever had to leave Greece. She chose pastry, taking classes every weekday for two years, practicing techniques on weekends.
Sure enough, in 2011 the couple lost their own jobs. Despina threw herself into the task of confecting a signature delicacy good enough to sell; some 3,000 trials and errors (“mostly errors”) later, she was satisfied.
Then came the work of developing a website, packaging, selling.
Orders poured in. The labors were paying off. Except that—
The business was killed in its crib by bureaucrats.
The Greek government demanded a lot, including
The arbitrary burdens proved too great. In 2013, her husband got a job offer that meant moving to Brussels. They jumped at the chance. There they forged the new life they could have forged in Greece — had they been allowed to.
It seems that the road to recovery is not helped by hobbling the runners.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
On July 10, 1832, U.S. President Andrew Jackson vetoed a bill to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States, in effect ending formal central banking in the United States until the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913. There were many, many regulations placed upon banking, however, and rumors of free banking in America have been severely exaggerated.
The rapid rise of interest in and use of “virtual currencies” like Bitcoin has been astounding. It probably won’t surprise you to learn what the established masters of the worlds’ monies say: Bitcoin is disruptive!
Heavens.
Bogdan Ulm, writing on Bitcoin Trader, noticed the concern in Ireland: 
“Virtual and digital currencies can challenge the sovereignty of states,” says Gareth Murphy, senior Central Bank of Ireland official. At a recent digital money conference in Dublin, he mentioned that rivals are interfering with a bank’s ability to sway the price of credit for the entire economy. Murphy warned that there might be considerable threat to the finances of a country if increasingly more transactions for services and goods fade away from the tax system due to the use of crypto currencies such as Bitcoin.
Now, it’s worth mentioning that there are many economists — from a long tradition — who have denied the necessity of anyone acquiring the ability to “sway the price of credit for the entire economy.”
Separate bids and offers for credit (loaning money with interest) can be seen as signals of competing evaluations in the economy. There are tremendous forces pushing interest rates to align, and when they do (or don’t), their alignment (or lack thereof) sends important additional information to market participants about both the present and the future.
But when anyone (say, a central bank) presumes to corral all interest rates into a “coherent plan,” much of the useful meaning of signals gets lost, or jumbled, and the economy gets (inadvertently?) programmed for boom and bust.
So, when I hear that modern digital currencies could prevent central banks from “doing their business,” I wonder if, perhaps, this is not a good thing.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
We have no right to expect that our rulers will be more wise, more virtuous, or more perfect than those of other nations have been.…
Reid Wilson, at the Washington Post, regales us with seven U.S. senatorial races where Libertarian Party candidates could swing elections, and thus control of the Senate. Last weekend at Townhall, I exhorted readers to work for transpartisan reforms “like term limits . . . and other measures aimed at greater representation, [such as] establishing ranked choice voting.”
The two articles are not unrelated.
Conservatives and libertarians are often united in wanting to replace progressive Democrats with small-government contenders. But they are not united in how to do this. Many libertarians balk at voting for hardline social conservative candidates like Rick Santorum and middle-of-the-road statists like John McCain.
So the Libertarian Party runs candidates that have in recent elections gained traction with voters — enough to pull independent voters away from Republicans and sometimes enabling Democrats to win.
Republican entreaties to libertarians (“you’re killing us out here!”) appear to be no more effective than libertarian entreaties to Republicans (“want our support? try taking your limited government stances seriously!”).
What to do? Republican partisans should support Instant Runoff Voting, which would
This would allow for better expression of voter preference, solving the “wasted vote” problem and ceasing to make the “best the enemy of the good.”
Alternately, Republicans could continue their course, trying to limit ballot access, thereby alienating more of the electorate and ensuring that Libertarian votes can’t also be Republican votes.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
When the tempest rages, when the thunders roar, and the lightnings blaze around us it is then that the truly brave man stands firm at his post.
Tourist guides in our nation’s capital now get to talk through what they’re walking through.
DC circuit Judge Janice Brown rules that Washington, DC, wrongly burdens First Amendment rights when it prohibits talking “about points of interest or the history of the city while escorting or guiding a person who paid you to do so — that is, unless you pay the government $200 and pass a 100-question multiple-choice exam.” Until her ruling, the city could jail guides for 90 days and/or fine you up to $300 for daring to walk and talk professionally without going through the hoops of regulation and licensing.
Chastising slovenly argumentation in other courts, Brown observes that the record is “wholly devoid of evidence” supporting bans on the speech of tour guides Tonia Edwards and Bill Main, the stand-up persons who challenged the requirements.
The suit’s prospects may have been enhanced by the freedom-of-speech angle. But although the importance of the First Amendment cannot be overstated, violating it is only one of many ways that governments infringe on our right to engage in peaceful productive activity. The assaults seem endless. Too many people are too unwilling to mind their own business, too eager to interfere with yours. So we must be eternally vigilant.
By “we” I largely mean — with respect to this case and thousands like it — the folks at Institute for Justice, who came to the aid of Edwards and Main, and who incessantly champion the rights of people seeking only to peaceably earn their bread.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.
July 6 serves better as a “Today in Tyranny” marker than anything positive, at least when you consider these events:
1415 – Jan Hus was burned at the stake.
1535 – Sir Thomas More was executed for treason against King Henry VIII of England.
1887 – David Kalakaua, monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, was forced at gunpoint by Americans to sign the Bayonet Constitution giving Americans more power in Hawaii while stripping Hawaiian citizens of their rights.
1939 – The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany were closed.