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Today

French Revolution

On November 1, 1790, Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France, predicting that the French Revolution would end in disaster. Though many have disputed his premises and reasoning, few dispute his prophecy, which proved spot on.

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government transparency national politics & policies

Gnashing of Teeth

Congressman Tim Burchett (R‑Tenn) “doesn’t trust the Pentagon; never have.” But he does put some hope in a Trump presidency. 

“I’m convinced that if he’s elected, there’ll be disclosure.”

He’s not talking about about JFK assassination disclosure — not his bailiwick.

He’s talking about UFOs — or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, as they are now called.

Burchett thinks Trump will be our Disclosure President.

UFO enthusiasts shouldn’t get their hopes up. Trump is not the first president to have been touted as a UFO truth-teller. 

Jimmy Carter infamously admitted that he saw a UFO once, and had hoped to bring transparency to the Pentagon on the subject. The lore about how this fizzled is … odd. 

William Jefferson Clinton went in to office hoping to get to the bottom of two mysteries, UFOs and the JFK assassination. He admitted he got nowhere. 

Hillary Clinton promised to disclose as much as she could about UFOs to the American people — her right-​hand man was John Podesta, a well-​known UFO disclosure advocate — just so long as the information did not jeopardize national security.

A big proviso, that.

Anyway, Hillary didn’t get elected, and the hoped-​for disclosure … started anyway. A workaround spearheaded by Luis Elizondo, a Deep State man from way back, put UFOs back in the headlines in 2017, and we’ve been talking about them ever since.

But Elizondo’s intel background screams “psy-​op” to some people, and it crosses most folks’ minds that the slow disclosure we’re witnessing now is not entirely on the up-​and-​up. Actual disclosure would lead, Burchett says, “to much gnashing of teeth.” But he believes that Trump has learned something. 

“He gets it now.”

Well, we don’t. Hand over the information.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Thought

Karl Popper

There are many difficulties impeding the rapid spread of reasonableness. One of the main difficulties is that it always takes two to make a discussion reasonable. Each of the parties must be ready to learn from the other. You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers shooting you to being convinced by you.

Karl Popper, “Utopia and Violence,” address to Institut des Arts in Brussels, Belgium (1947); later published The Hibbert Journal 46 (1948), and in Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963).
Categories
Today

Hallowe’en

As if to perform a Day of the Dead act, Josef Stalin’s body was removed from Lenin’s Tomb on October 31, 1961.

Ireland, Canada, United Kingdom, United States and other nations celebrate Halloween on October 31. 

The word Halloween or Hallowe’en dates to about 1745 and is of Christian origin, meaning “hallowed evening” or “holy evening.” It comes from a Scottish term for All Hallows’ Eve (the evening before All Hallows’ Day). In Scots, the word “eve” is “even,” and this is contracted to “e’en” or “een.” Over time, (All) Hallow(s) E(v)en shortened into Halloween.

It is one of those darker-​themed celebrations, often conjuring up images of death and horror. Randall Carlson notes that this autumnal celebration is ancient and global, and speculates that it originates in ancient comet approaches that had terrifying and deadly results on the surface of the planet.

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crime and punishment education and schooling national politics & policies

Forever Be Changed

I’ve discussed Kamala Harris’s support, as district attorney and attorney general in California, for an abusive law enabling the arrest of parents if their children miss “too much” time at school, how the law has been deployed against parents like Cheree Peoples, whose daughter has sickle cell anemia.

I’ve quoted Harris’s words.

Now I will quote more of them. But let’s also listen to those words and observe her demeanor and tone, how Kamala Harris gloats about her use of power.

“As a prosecutor … I have a huge stick. So I decided I was gonna start prosecuting parents for truancy.… ‘If you don’t go to school, Kamala’s gonna put you and me in jail.’ [laughs] … I said [to prosecutors] ‘when you go over there, look really mean.’

“I learned that with the swipe of my pen, I could charge someone with the lowest-​level offense. That person could be arrested, they could lose time from work and their family, maybe lose their job. They’d have to come out of their own pocket to help hire a lawyer.… Weeks later, I could dismiss the charges. But their life would forever be changed.”

Video of Harris saying such things is part of a political attack ad about why men needn’t be prejudiced against female candidates in order to oppose giving Kamala Harris power over everyone in the country.

In the waning days of the campaign, we could do worse than to share this evidence, her own candid, joyous testimony about herself.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Thought

Isabel Paterson

But when the good people do know, as they certainly do, that three million persons (at the least estimate) were starved to death in one year by the methods they approve, why do they still fraternize with the murderers and support the measures? Because they have been told that the lingering death of the three millions might ultimately benefit a greater number. The argument applies equally well to cannibalism.

Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine, 1943, p. 250.