Young Ms. Julie Borowski confronts a popular (and quite maddeningly ill-mannered) popular slogan — at least on campuses and in the blogosphere, “Check your privilege”:
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Freedom battles tyranny across the globe, with the right to speak out politically essential for freedom to prevail.
A decision handed down this week by U.S. District Judge Rudolph T. Randa, in a case brought by Eric O’Keefe and Wisconsin Club for Growth, inspires much hope to protect speech and prevent tyranny here in America.
O’Keefe, the group and “all or nearly all right-of-center groups and individuals in Wisconsin who engaged in issue advocacy from 2010 to the present” were targeted by the Milwaukee County District Attorney and others in a bizarre, secretive politically-motivated criminal investigation. Armed agents raided homes at dawn, seizing computers, mailing lists, files, etc.
O’Keefe and conservative state leaders were then slapped with subpoenas (demanding all their documents) and a gag order. This effectively silenced them from talking about the investigation. Under the circumstances, these groups found themselves unable to raise funds or engage in political activity since.
The thrust of the case against them was the mere assertion that spending on TV ads about collective bargaining or other issues was campaign spending for Governor Scott Walker. Judge Randa found no evidence of express advocacy for Walker and, therefore, no lawful basis for the outrageous persecution.
“The plaintiffs have been shut out of the political process merely by association with conservative politicians,” his decision read, adding a warning that, historically, “attempts to purify the public square lead to places like the Guillotine and the Gulag.”
O’Keefe’s Wisconsin Club for Growth spends what some call “dark money” — donors are not disclosed — but the judge explained that our constitutional system cherishes and protects the free discussion of political ideas by groups like O’Keefe’s as possibly “the best way . . . to address problems of political corruption.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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John Brown born
On May 9, 1800, abolitionist revolutionary (and, technically, terrorist) John Brown was born. In 1883 on this date Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset was born.
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José Ortega y Gasset
All modern art begins to appear comprehensible and in a way great when it is interpreted as an attempt to instill youthfulness into an ancient world.
We want safe foods and drugs. But should we want the Food and Drug Administration? Or more regulation from it?
We can use third-party investigations of the nature and effects of pharmaceuticals; but a government agency doing the investigating sure has its drawbacks. The bureaucracy’s coercive regulations and costly mandates should certainly not trump individual judgments about whether one may use a drug.
The FDA exists, however, and its massive presence in modern medicine isn’t going away any time soon. Luckily, some of its decisions are better than others. And now that it has authorized sale of the painkiller Zohydro ER, we can say it made the right call here.
The rightness of the decision is highlighted rather than contradicted by mounting political pressure to reverse it.
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat, and U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, a Republican, are among those demanding that Zohydro be outlawed. Their main complaint seems to be that the drug’s very effectiveness makes it more addictive, and more prone to abuse, than other painkillers. Officeholders from 29 states have chimed in to demand a ban.
I don’t know the ratio of benefits to risks in taking this drug. I know that if I’m writhing in pain, and other painkillers can’t do much to alleviate it, but Zohydro ER can, I want the freedom to decide for myself whether the benefits are worth the risks.
We have the right to make such decisions about our own lives.
In the meantime, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg deserves credit for resisting political demands that the agency rescind its approval.
My prescription for her? Don’t back down.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Estonian blow-up, Hayek’s birthday
On May 8, 1899, Austrian-English economist and philosopher Friedrich August von Hayek was born. He signed the bulk of his books written in the English language as “F.A. Hayek,” and is best known for “The Road to Serfdom,” “The Constitution of Liberty,” “The Fatal Conceit,” and many essays, several of them which are widely cited, including “Individualism, True and False” and “The Use of Knowledge in Society.”
Years earlier, on the same date in 1873, English philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill died. Now best known for “On Liberty” and “Utilitarianism,” Mill’s letters were edited into book form by Hayek.
On May 8, 1946, two Estonian school girls (Aili Jõgi and Ageeda Paavel) blew up the Soviet memorial which stood in front of the Bronze Soldier in Tallinn.
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José Ortega y Gasset
Life is fired at us point blank.
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27th Amendment, Germany surrenders
On May 7, 1992, Michigan ratified a 203-year-old proposed amendment to the United States Constitution making the 27th Amendment law. The amendment had been written by James Madison and was part of the original twelve amendments that became the ten amendments making up the Bill of Rights. It bars the U.S. Congress from giving itself a pay raise until after the next election, so that voters have a chance to decide whether those voting for the raise will be in Congress to receive it.
On May 7, 1945, German officials signed an unconditional surrender to the Allies at Reims, France.
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José Ortega y Gasset
The metaphor is perhaps one of man’s most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him. All our other faculties keep us within the realm of the real, of what is already there. The most we can do is to combine things or to break them up. The metaphor alone furnishes an escape; between the real things, it lets emerge imaginary reefs, a crop of floating islands.
Sick and tired of “too much money” in politics? Worried the average citizen’s voice is being drowned out?
Thirty-six Democratic U.S. Senators have just the thing: a re-write of the First Amendment.
They’ve co-sponsored a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Senate Joint Resolution 19.
“We would give the power back to the Congress,” says chief sponsor Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM).
Wait. That’s amending reality. Congress never had any such power. The instructions in the Constitution are quite clear: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press …”
These 36 solons reverse course with the wording
… Congress shall have power to regulate the raising and spending of money and in-kind equivalents with respect to Federal elections, including through setting limits on —
- the amount of contributions to candidates for nomination for election to, or for election to, Federal office; and
- the amount of funds that may be spent by, in support of, or in opposition to such candidates.
Our brand new constitution would not contain a single word of restraint. Instead, powerful congressional incumbents would wield complete and total control over all money to be raised or spent by their competitors.
And note: they already enjoy a tremendous name recognition advantage over their challengers. What happens when incumbents limit campaign spending too low for challengers to compete?
Its negation of rights is so sweeping that the amendment actually states, “Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress the power to abridge the freedom of the press.”
No worries for the New York Times, then. But just how much of the First Amendment do the rest of us get to keep?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.