Take a step back, and view the news media as entertainment, of a particular sort. John Stossel sorts out the sort.
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Lithuanian independence, Feb 9
On February 9, 1991, voters in Lithuania voted for independence from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, confirming the declaration of the popularly elected Sąjūdis eleven months before.
Mens sana in corpore sano.
“You should pray for a sound mind in a sound body.”
The most obvious problem with government-run schools is that, well, politicians are in charge.
Two Arizona solons have written bills to require high schoolers to pledge their loyalty and allegiance to the Constitution in order to graduate. You’ve probably heard about at least one of these bills, since it affixes a “so help me God” phrase at the end, and that would pose a problem for atheists . . . and for those pious folks who don’t believe in swearing by the God they believe in.
While most of the media coverage has focused on that tacked-on “so help me God” aspect, both measures seem “tacked on” to me: Tacked on to the end of a high school career. Pretend you are a student. You’ve worked hard, or at least hard enough to graduate. Much of your future employment depends on your diploma. And now some politician is going to require that you recite a loyalty oath to the federal (not state) government?
Sounds like something more appropriate to a Communist dictatorship.
Stranger yet is the bill, proposed but not moved forward, further north:
Coeur d’Alene Sen. John Goedde, chairman of the Idaho Senate’s Education Committee, introduced legislation Tuesday to require every Idaho high school student to read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and pass a test on it to graduate from high school.
Before one hyperventilates, it’s worth noting that the good Sen. Goedde did this to “send a message,” so to speak, to the State Board of Education because of his unhappiness with their recent moves lowering graduation requirements and canceling evaluations of principals.
Well, I guess there’s method to his madness. And besides, there are worse books.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
According to the late economist James Buchanan, there exist three basic categories of government functions: protective, productive, and redistributive.
The protective functions are most basic. As inscribed in the Declaration of Independence, we are to be protected by government not in a scattershot way, but by having our rights delineated and defended. Think courts and the military.
The redistributive functions make up the bulk of the federal government, today . . . according to a recent Heritage Foundation chart, “More than 70 Percent of Federal Programs Goes to Dependence Programs.” Most of these, like Social Security and Medicare, were not originally contemplated as tasks for the federal union, and are flagrant violations of the Constitution.
But some “productive” (business-like) functions were placed into the Constitution, the most famous being the authorization to create a postal service.
Though no longer an official wing of the U.S. Government, the Postal Service is still hamstrung by congressional micro-management, as the shrinking mail biz busies itself trying to erase red ink.
The current notion is to drop Saturday delivery of all but packages. The enterprise hopes to save billions on this reform, alone, and was able to initiate the service cut without Congress’s approval by gambling on what some are calling a legal loophole.
Perhaps as politically dangerous is the ongoing attempt to get rid of post offices in smaller communities, replacing them with “Village Post Offices” that private enterprise would run.
It’s worth noting that though the Constitution allows for mail delivery and a few other “productive” services, these aren’t very productive — at least, they tend to operate in the red. Besides, what is authorized by the Constitution doesn’t mean required by the Constitution.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of reason is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.
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Home to Gnomes
Oakland, California, serves as home to over a third of a million human inhabitants, but the city has made room for a very different denizen, the gnome.
The gnomes began appearing to observant pedestrians as painted figures on pieces of wood screwed onto utility poles. At ground level.
The gnomes were charming, and appeared in a wide variety of garb, juxtaposed with similarly styled (and painted) colorful mushrooms and other accoutrements and furniture of gnomedom.
The anonymous artist who painted the gnomes did it for fun, as a gift for his neighbors. Only a few people noticed at first. It was Oakland’s best-kept secret:
About 2,300 gnomes with pointy hats and white beards now live in Oakland. One resembles Santa Claus in a monk’s robe. Others wave or appear to be doing a little disco dance.
Yet until late last month, they had pretty much managed to keep their presence on the down low. Even Pacific Gas & Electric, whose poles are gnome homes, was unaware of their existence.
But when the officials found out, they promised to remove the gnomes. Their very existence, you see, might encourage others to likewise affix near-permanent painted figures, and soon gnomes would not only proliferate, but be joined by djinn, leprechauns, imps . . . and perversities.
When the charmed folk of Oakland found out, though, they rallied. They liked the gnomes. The artist came out of the closet, so to speak, but not to make a name for himself — he didn’t provide his name (though it’s an open secret) — for he didn’t want the gnomes to be about him, but about themselves.
And the people won. Public pressure moved PG&E, and the gnomes are safe. For the time being, anyway.
A charming story, reminding us that the character of a place can arise up in humble ways, and without an Arts Council grant, much less a Bureau of Gnomes.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.
A lot of big money in the Republican Party is now actively being marshaled to make sure that Tea Party efforts come to naught.
The latest endeavor bills itself the Conservative Victory Project, and has been written up in the New York Times, which relates the group’s intent: “to counter other organizations that have helped defeat establishment Republican candidates over the last two election cycles.”
You see, campaigns to unseat staid, big-government “conservative” Republican incumbents have not gone unnoticed amongst the Old Guard of the GOP. And these folks are worried about the quality of the gravy their gravy train returns. So they seek to shore up the “winners”:
“There is a broad concern about having blown a significant number of races because the wrong candidates were selected,” said Steven J. Law, the president of American Crossroads, the “super PAC” creating the new project. “We don’t view ourselves as being in the incumbent protection business, but we want to pick the most conservative candidate who can win.”
Law is, of course, thinking of several Tea Party candidates in the last election who blew it, Big Time. You know the ones: the candidates who talked weirdly of rape.
But it’s not just Tea Party Republicans who shoot themselves in the proverbial foot, or place foot in mouth. Mainstream “conservatives” blow it, too, as Grover Norquist pointed out in the Times article. “People are imagining a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Grover.
I worry that “the real problem” Law and his cronies (such as Karl Rove) are fighting is the specter of a successful Tea Party contingent, with Rand Paul at its lead. Real change is awfully frightening to the whip hands on the gravy train.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Ugly in New York
Part of New York State’s emotionally motivated, hastily concocted new gun control law requires persons owning ugly-looking guns—semi-automatic rifles—to register them with the government.
Officials may protest that they don’t intend to go rounding up the ugly-looking guns. They may also insist that the new law makes it harder for a newsroom to publicize the names and addresses of gun owners (as the Journal News of White Plains, New York recently did).
But a registry that exists is a registry that can be accessed, and abused, despite any official’s alleged good intentions. Many advocates of gun control, including the Senate’s chief sponsor of a new assault weapons ban, admit that if they had their druthers, they’d outlaw all privately held guns. How would the registry be used then?
Many New York owners of ugly guns are up in arms, so to speak. Why? Because they don’t see themselves as criminal suspects properly tracked for exercising constitutional rights. There are good reasons why good people might refuse to voluntarily add their names and addresses to a list of targets.
Brian Olesen, president of one of New York State’s largest gun dealers, says he’s heard “from hundreds of people that they’re prepared to defy the law, and that number will be magnified by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, when the registration deadline comes.”
It’s not just some guns that look ugly. Turning peaceful people into criminals by a mere act of legislation is ugly in the extreme.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.