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Today

July 3

In New York City, July 3, 1819, the Bank of Savings is opened — the first of its kind in the country. In 1848, slaves are freed in the Danish West Indies on July 3. In 1890 on this date, Idaho becomes the 43rd state of the union. July 3 births include:

  • Leoš Janáček, Czech composer, 1854
  • Ralph Barton Perry, American philosopher, 1876
  • Alfred Korzybski, Polish linguist, 1879
  • Franz Kafka, Czech-German author of “Metamorphosis,” 1883
  • Ruth Crawford Seeger, American avant-garde composer and mother of Pete Singer, 1901
  • Dave Barry, American humorist

Happy Birthday, Dave!

Categories
Accountability national politics & policies responsibility

Get Off the Omnibus

“Not one member of the Senate will read this bill before we vote on it,” said Sen. Rand Paul, last Friday. The junior senator from Kentucky had received the 600-page monstrosity mere hours before, and yet the august solons managed to pass it by a huge majority before close-of-business.

The legislation tackled three big funding extensions — another grab-bag “omnibus” bill in all but name. Obviously a rush job, even with the short turn-around it was too late for the president to sign that weekend.

By Senate internal rules, bills are supposed to be delivered 48 hours before any vote, to give time for senators to peruse their content. “We ought to adhere to our own rules,” said Sen. Paul, who went on to note that 48 hours isn’t that much time to read and comprehend everything in a bill of such length.

Such is the chaos in the Senate, run, apparently, like a business set on course to fail.

In a perhaps quixotic attempt to re-insert some sense of responsibility in the underachieving outfit, Paul has introduced two pieces of legislation, one requiring a day’s wait for every 20 pages of a bill, before voting, another designed to prohibit bills on more than one subject.

Frankly, I’d rather require every senator who votes on a law to be present in the chamber while the law in question is read aloud.

And the “one subject rule” is the kind of thing that many states have, regulating citizen-initiated measures. What’s foisted on the people should definitely be yoked onto the Senate, which obviously needs an omnibus-load of tough “love.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Thought

R. Buckminster Fuller

Politicians are always realistically maneuvering for the next election. They are obsolete as fundamental problem-solvers.

Categories
term limits

Eroding Panamanian Limits

Foes of term limits love to repeat their favorite mantra, “We already have term limits — they’re called elections.”

This clichéd counsel urges us to ignore how term limits and other checks on government power can . . . well, check government power. Many incumbents prefer to remain effectively unchallenged when it comes to retaining, using, and abusing their power. And the advantages of incumbency can render election campaigns uncompetitive and even meaningless.Ricardo Martinelli

Political monopoly’s dangers, studiously ignored by many domestic critics of term limits, are often vividly illustrated by the latest news from abroad. Take Panama. Advocates of limited government at first applauded the election there of a successful businessman, Ricardo Martinelli, as president. Three years on, though, he’s looking like a standard-issue power-grabber.

In the Wall Street Journal, Mary O’Grady details how Martinelli is seeking to expand his power. A court-packing scheme is one of his gambits. Critics also see egregious cronyism in his political appointments. And, yes, Martinelli wants the power to immediately run again for office when his current term expires — even though Panama’s constitution prohibits consecutive presidential terms.

The Supreme Court would have to give the nod to any evading of the term limit. Hence the president’s desire to add a few buddies to the current nine-member bench.

Such is the pattern in Central America, Africa, Asia, everywhere.

Assaults on term limits tend to be part and parcel of assaults on rights and liberties. No coincidence.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Today

July 2

The Continental Congress adopts a resolution to sever ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain on July 2, 1776. The next year on this date the independent Vermont Republic abolishes slavery, fourteen years before joining the union, thereby gaining the honor of being the first U.S. territory to make slavery against the law.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau died on this date in 1778. July 2 marks the death dates of a number of major American authors:

  • Ernest Hemingway, 1961
  • Vladimir Nabokov, 1977
  • Mario Puzo, 1999
Categories
Thought

Resolution of Independence, July 2, 1776

Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances. That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation.

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Thought

R. Buckminster Fuller

[R]acism is the product of tribalism and ignorance and both are falling victim to communications and world-around literacy.

Categories
Today

July 1

Emancipation Day, or Keti Koti, in Suriname, celebrated on July 1 because, on that day in 1863, the Netherlands “cut the chains” of slavery. (It took another decade for full emancipation to occur, as there was a transition period, but the initial declaration became the celebratory day.)

In 1908, “SOS” is adopted as the international distress signal.

In 2008, allegations of election fraud spur mass rioting in Mongolia.

July 1 birthdays include Lew Rockwell’s in 1944 — Rockwell once served as an aide to Ron Paul, founded the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and is a popular blogger — and singer Debbie Harry.

In 1894 on July 1, private detective Allan Pinkerton died; two years later, author Harriet Beecher Stowe died; other July 1 deaths include:

  • Statesman John Hay, 1905
  • Composer Erik Satie, 1925
  • Omnihypergenius R. Buckminster Fuller, 1983
Categories
video

Videos: The Highest Authority on the Constitution

What allowed the majority of the Supreme Court to declare, in one breath, that the penalty for not buying medical insurance is, at the same time, both a tax and not a tax?

The word is “sophistry.”

And what to do about it?

Categories
Thought

Warren G. Harding, 1920

Harding

America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.