On November 10, 1821, the First Cry of Independence in the Villa de los Santos (a small town in the interior of the country) occurred in Panama. The November 10 date has since become Panama’s “Cry of Independence Day” in the country. November is a month of independence celebrations in Panama, but the November 10 celebration marks the first signs of the struggle for separation from Spain.
A storm hits the east coast. Some homes are washed away. Others burn down. Millions lose power. Gasoline supplies are massively disrupted, even as mass transit is unusable for days.
Obviously, post-Hurricane Sandy, emergency measures are called for. It’s crucial, for instance, that the disrupted and reduced supplies of gasoline be gotten into the tanks of vehicles as inefficiently as possible, and by causing motorists to waste as much of their precious time as possible. Who but rational and well-informed persons could disagree?
To achieve this goal, rationing and laws against “price gouging” — in New Jersey, defined as adding more than ten percent to prices under normal conditions of supply and demand — come to the rescue! So Governor Chris Christie assures gas station owners that his government will “impose the strictest penalties on profiteers who . . . seek to capitalize on the misfortune of others in the midst of a crisis. . . .”
After all, what’s the alternative?
Well, it’s this: Let fuel prices rise to the height required to induce motorists who least urgently demand gas to give way to those who most urgently demand it. This would
What do you call this strategy? Getting out of the way. Or laissez faire — but there’s nothing foreign about it. It used to be the American way.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
What is the use of being elected or reelected, unless you stand for something?
On November 9, 1998, capital punishment in the United Kingdom, previously abolished for murder, was completely abolished for all remaining capital offences.
Though the people support the government; the government should not support the people.
If your candidate or issue didn’t win on Tuesday, then, sure, Western civilization is completely finished, kaput. No doubt.
But still, let’s look at the bright side.
At least the presidential election provided a $2.5 billion stimulus to the economy, without raising anyone’s taxes (yet) or borrowing a nickel from China. And what a fabulous circus to, well, take our minds off the nasty state of our economy and our politics.
Or maybe not so much.
But consider: For all the corruption in our country’s politics, aren’t you glad you don’t live and work in Russia, where near-superman President Vladamir Putin is the Big Kahuna? Putin just sacked his defense minister. The cause for the minister’s dismissal? Corruption! So, everyone is wondering: what was the real cause for the firing?
Now, that’s a culture of corruption.
Forget politics. Just be thankful you’re not Alex Ocasio hunkered down in his New York City apartment waiting for a nor’easter to clobber his community as the too-soon second whammy following Hurricane Sandy. During Sandy, Ocasio and his neighbors stopped a group of looters after they broke down the door. “They tried to say they were rescue workers,” he told the Washington Post, “then took off.”
Now he won’t leave for higher ground, putting a sign on his door: “Have Gun. Will shoot U.”
In a crisis, I think I’d rather have Mr. Ocasio for a neighbor than FEMA for a savior.
So, what’s the political sunny side to Election 2012? Is there any?
Sure. Executive term limits.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
A lot of people, Democratic and Republican, have been saying that yesterday’s election was “the most important in our lifetime.” It wasn’t — and wouldn’t have been had the presidential race gone the other way.
But as it is, the outcome was hardly shocking. An incumbent got re-elected. Wow.
The Senate solidified its Democratic position; the House remained solidly Republican. America after Election Day looks almost exactly the same as America before.
So, why so little change?
Blame it on “hope.”
Face it: in electoral politics, fantasy sells. Mainstream politicians love to promote The Dream. Not the American Dream, which is about hard work and honest dealing, but the Changeling Dream, about getting something for nothing. Or getting ahead at others’ expense. At present, this Dream rests upon spending more than government takes in forever and ever, believing that somehow there are no disastrous consequences to the resulting accumulation of debt.
Democratic politicians may be better able to describe their lavish dreams for all that government can do, but Republican office-holders sure seem to hang out on that same street in Dreamland.
Now they’ve just about all been re-elected to go back and hang out for another term.
What can we do? Hope they change their spots?
No. That’s too passive. “Cast your whole vote,” Henry David Thoreau wrote, “not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.”
How? In 2013 and 2014, citizens can petition to put important issues on state and local ballots. We change the terms of political debate; we gain the upper hand — and put common sense back into government.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.
The most interesting presidential election in U.S. history may have been the fourth, wherein Thomas Jefferson won. Sort of. How Jefferson got to be president may be relevant in this election, which is now so close that some wonder what would happen if there were an Electoral College stalemate, 269 votes for Romney and 269 for Obama. (Remember, it’s the electors who count, not the popular vote.)
In 1800, because of a constitutional glitch, Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr got the same number of electors, and the whole issue went to the House, which the Federalists still controlled, and it took a lot of negotiations and in-fighting to put Jefferson in office as the president.
The 12th Amendment settled the VP glitch, and cooked up a solution to the possibility of an Electoral College tie, as well. It’s never been used.
If, this Tuesday, the distribution of the popular vote forces the Electoral College into stalemate, the 12th Amendment would kick in, and the House would vote in a peculiar fashion (one vote per state), to select the President — Romney, considering the complexion of that body. Then the Senate would select the Vice President — Biden, considering the complexion of that body.
A wild finish, but it could get even wilder. In 1972, an elector jumped ship, voting for the Libertarian Party’s John Hospers/Tonie Nathan ticket (making Nathan the first woman to receive an electoral vote). Even against state laws forbidding it, a similar jump for Libertarian Gary Johnson or the Green Party’s Jill Stein — or Ron Paul — might complicate further. Or simplify.
Happy voting.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.