[R]acism is the product of tribalism and ignorance and both are falling victim to communications and world-around literacy.
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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
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?
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Warren G. Harding, 1920
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.
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Supreme Oxymorons
With the Supreme Court’s decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has achieved its first milestone: The repudiation of logic, the Orwellian assertion that A both is and is not A.
The reform package, popularly known as Obamacare, requires that individuals buy medical insurance. If you fail to do so, the law imposes a fine.
The zillion page legislation refers to this financial penalty 18 times. It never refers to a tax.
Its principal booster, President Obama, repeatedly insisted it wasn’t a tax. And as Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent, “We have no doubt that Congress knew precisely what it was doing when it rejected an earlier version of this legislation that imposed a tax instead of a requirement-with-penalty.”
But Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush-nominee, joined the four liberal justices to declare that what was not a tax, when proposed and passed, now is a tax — so that it could be declared constitutional under Congress’s taxing power. Roberts explains:
Congress did not intend the payment to be treated as a “tax” for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act. The Affordable Care Act describes the payment as a “penalty,” not a “tax.” That label cannot control whether the payment is a tax for purposes of the Constitution, but it does determine the application of the Anti-Injunction Act.
Only were Obamacare not a tax could it be litigated at this time under the Anti-Injunction Act. Accordingly, the majority says it is not a tax. But it can only be ruled constitutional if it is a tax. So, the High Court calls it a tax and not a tax at the same time.
The dissent called this “remarkable.” Stronger words spring to mind.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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The Stockton Bust
Stockton, California, had seen a flurry of new home projects right up till the mortgage market crash. But, boy, did that come to a screeching halt. The crash led to foreclosures, which led to lower revenues from property taxes for the city. And though the city tried some spending cuts, they haven’t been enough. The Stockton City Council just voted, six to one, to seek federal bankruptcy protection.
Reasons for the bankruptcy, however, are not confined to reduced revenues. Add “soaring pension costs” and “contractual obligations” to the list of disaster factors.
And it’s pensions and medical insurance that make up the elephant’s share of “contractually obligated” must-pays. We’ll see if official bankruptcy will allow the city to get out from under that mess. The Chapter 9 plan includes dropping medical benefits for currently fully-covered retirees.
Who’s to blame? Politicians who negotiate really cushy deals for their (our) employees. The contracts obligate future taxpayers to pay out huge pensions for future retirees, rather than being funded (through insurance and investment) at the time of salary disbursement. The problem is that politicians love to make promises others must keep. Specifically, in this case, they contract defined benefit pensions not defined contribution pensions.
It makes no sense to do this, of course. It encourages irresponsibility, and is (to use a buzzword that should be used often against its usual purveyors) unsustainable. As proven by the Stockton bankruptcy.
Stockton is, so far, the largest American city to go belly up. We can expect further such busts, since the cause of Stockton’s problems — under-funded pensions coupled with full-coverage, gold-plated, lifelong health insurance for government retirees — remain endemic throughout the country.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Abraham Lincoln
Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life.
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Abraham Lincoln
This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.
During the months of primaries and caucuses, the popularity of Ron Paul was a fear expressed amongst both neoconservative and “mainstream” Republican insiders in hushed tones, rarely ever surfacing, but instead roiling under politics’ prudential lid. Now that Mitt Romney has sealed the nomination with enough delegates from the primary states, GOP insiders are trying to solidify their position.
Instead of magnanimously bringing Ron Paul’s supporters into the party to court them for the next four years, they seem to be doing their darnedest to keep them out. Take Romney’s gubernatorial state, Massachusetts.
The GOP machine, there, has required that the Ron Paul nominees to the Tampa convention sign an affidavit to support Mitt. This is something new. Just for Ron Paul delegates. And of course some
libertarian-leaning delegates balked at the notion of signing legal affidavits pledging what they had committed verbally at the caucuses where they were elected. Many later submitted them, but not until after the deadline.
As a result, the committee disqualified them, winnowing the number of Liberty delegates and alternates to the convention from 35 to 19. . . .
Not surprisingly, the duly elected delegates “feel cheated.”
A spokesman for the Massachusetts Republican Party would not say why the affidavits were required of delegates this year, and the chairman of the Allocations Committee would not agree to an interview. Instead, the chairman offered an e-mailed statement saying that the Romney campaign, through its representative on his committee, had the right to reject delegates for “just cause.”
When I prophesy negative consequences of a Mitt Romney presidency, this sort of thing lingers in my mind. What is the GOP afraid of? Actual limits on government?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
On June 26, 1997, the Supreme Court of the United States rules that the Communications Decenty Act violates the First Amendment. Six years later, to the date, the Supreme Court rules that gender-based sodomy las are unconstitutional. Exactly six more years later, the Supreme Court decides, in District of Columbia v. Heller, that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitutional protects an individual right to bear arms, at least in the District of Columbia, which is directly supervised by Congress.