When Alexander the Great visited the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: ‘Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.’ It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.
I am persuaded that the rights of woman, like the rights of slaves, need only be examined to be understood and asserted.
Black Friday’s mass anti-WalMart protests focused on how poorly WalMart treats its employees. Or so run the allegations. A typical sign said “Living Wage NOW.”
But it was a funny sort of labor-relations protest. There were marchers. And there was media coverage. Lots.
What there wasn’t a lot of, though? Walk-out WalMart employees. A few hundred showed up, nationwide, says OUR WalMart, the protesting organization; WalMart itself puts the walkout number at about 50.
That’s out of 1.4 million workers overall.
The whole spectacle seems so strange. It’s not the workers protesting wage and conditions, really, but those who don’t work there. The protestors demand higher wages for WalMart employees. But from what I can tell, actual employees feel rather lucky to have their jobs.
Could we be witnessing a new form of unionizing? Outside agitators working to get in? That is, could the protestors be trying to force up wages so that they could replace current WalMart workers?
For many of the most vocal WalMart critics, that seems unlikely. They hate WalMart. One gets the idea, from following their typical spiels, that what they are really up to is hurting the company.
And, if the folks at Reason magazine are right, raising prices. What many object to is the fact that WalMart has succeeded precisely because it has decreased prices to consumers.
In olden days, the common presumption was that cheaper prices were what we wanted from business: more goods for less, thus providing betterment to vastly increasing numbers of people.
On the professional left, such eternal verities no longer seem to apply.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Had Adam tenderly reproved his wife, and endeavored to lead her to repentance instead of sharing in her guilt, I should be much more ready to accord to man that superiority which he claims; but as the facts stand disclosed by the sacred historian, it appears to me that to say the least, there was as much weakness exhibited by Adam as by Eve. They both fell from innocence, and consequently from happiness, but not from equality.
The freedom spoken of by the Founding Fathers, enshrined in American state papers, advocated by abolitionists, and practiced by millions of hard-working Americans, is not the freedom that has now been achieved, and is now being promoted in Washington, D.C., or Europe, for that matter. Here is Anthony Daniels to help define this “new” freedom:
Anthony Daniels, “The Ultimate Freedom, Choice Without Consequences”, PFS 2012 from Property & Freedom Society on Vimeo.
The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.
On Wednesday, President Obama issued a pardon. To a turkey.
Every president since Harry Truman has been given a live bird for Thanksgiving by the National Turkey Federation. No, it apparently doesn’t violate any sort of gift ban, nor should it — sure seems harmless enough to me on that score.
Over the years, several presidents declined to feast on the birds they were given. Then, in more recent times, presidents have made a big media production out of officially pardoning the turkeys (who then reportedly live out their days on George Washington’s estate at Mount Vernon).
So, what’s the problem?
For a photo-op, Mr. Obama — just like Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton before him — saves the gift bird’s life, only to have another unpublicized turkey killed and then devoured behind closed doors.
Neither a vegan or a vegetarian, I certainly don’t begrudge him for eating the meat. I did likewise. What offends is the spectacle of someone seeking to pardon his turkey and eat it, too.
You can’t dismiss this as “mere symbolism,” for the fake pardon symbolizes more than Washington insiders can comprehend. In our nation’s capital, politicians
One famous turkey lives, thanks to the powerful public kindness of our potentate; another, unknown (no doubt “middle-class”) bird dies for the benefit of that same boss.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.
On November 23, 1644, “Areopagitica: A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England,” was published, and became a classic anti-censorship tract.
Skyscrapers inspire.
Sometimes they inspire shudders.
I am an admirer of such neo-Babels, and you can’t find a better Schelling point for New York than the Empire State Building. Civilization’s highest erections symbolize something good about humanity.
And yet, I wonder about the latest Chinese engineering effort, Sky City, to be built in Changsha in record time, 90 days.
It’s supposed to house over 31,000 people, contain hotels and restaurants and schools and shops, too, and tower up 163 floors to a height of 2,749 feet.
How could such a thing be so quickly constructed, and still be safe?
Cheating.
Well, not really. It’s prefab. Much of the work has already been done. Building it will be a job of putting pre-fabricated pieces together. The company responsible for the effort has had some success on prefab buildings before, and . . .
The whole thing still sounds a tad hubristic. I wish the builders (and inhabitants) the best, but, even if it succeeds, there’s an ominous aspect to the whole project, if economist Mark Thornton’s theory about new-building skyscrapers has any truth to it. Tall buildings are built when people are optimistic. People are most optimistic during booms. Booms — at least inflationary booms — yield to busts, and many of the major economic depressions have been marked by unfinished or just-finished record-book skyscraper projects.
Does Sky City signal a Chinese bust coming soon?
It may. For the story of our time might be this: China is to America, now, what America was to Great Britain in the 1920s and ’30s. Similar monetary policies and bailouts.
And the loaning nation doesn’t get off free. At least, we didn’t in the decade in which the Empire State Building was finished.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.