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Today

June 8, 1972

On June 8, 1972, a 9-year-old girl heard a soldier scream — a warning to run — and a few seconds later she saw the village temple her family had sought refuge in engulfed in flames. It was napalm. American and North Vietnamese forces, fighting over the village, sent her running screaming, her clothes burned off, her skin melting.

A photographer snapped a shot of her grave distress, and it became one of the most unforgettable photographs of the Vietnam War.

There’s something like a happy ending to the story. The girl did not die. The photographer took her to a hospital, and insisted she be treated. Her face had never been affected by the burns, which covered 30 percent of her body, and her skin slowly healed. Phan Thi Kim Phuc, the mother of two children, recently visited with the photographer, Nick Ut, who had saved her life.

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initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Trick and Treats

After more than a year of big labor throwing industrial-size kitchen sinks at Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s Republican governor became the first of the three governors in U.S. history to face recall and retain the office.

Walker more than survived; he prevailed, beating his Democratic rival by seven percentage points, 53 to 46. In a light blue state, it was a thorough thwacking of the public employee unions, the biggest, bluest special interest.

According to exit polls, Walker even won better than a third of union households.

The man had kept his word not to raise taxes. Further, ending collective bargaining for most government employee unions, along with other reforms, saved lots of money for state and local governments and school districts. This, it turns out, prevented public sector layoffs and helped secure future health and pension benefits.

Walker’s success will be repeated elsewhere.

Hey, already happened! On Tuesday, in San Diego and San Jose, California, voters overwhelmingly passed measures to get a handle on out-of-control public employee pension costs. These measures were, of course, fiercely opposed by government unions.

As cities are cutting programs to pay pension benefits for retirees, a post on the Calpensions blog explains, “Public pension amounts in California are based on what unions are able to obtain through collective bargaining, not what is needed for a reasonable retirement.”

Among Tuesday’s many treats, there was one really rotten trick. California’s Prop 28 passed, weakening the state’s legislative term limits. Most voters, misled by the official ballot summary, thought the measure would result in tougher term limits.

Can’t wait until the next election, which falls nearer Halloween. Hope for more treats than tricks.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Thought

Edmund Burke, 1775

In this character of the Americans, a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole: and as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious, restive, and untractable, whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English colonies probably than in any other people of the earth. . . .

Categories
Today

June 7, 1776

The first official move towards secession from the British Empire occurs on June 7, 1776, when Richard Henry Lee presents a resolution to the Continental Congress, which is seconded by John Adams.

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Today

June 6

In 1883, Andy Jackson becomes the first U.S. president to ride on a train.

Also on June 6, in 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds a federal law banning marijuana. Justice Clarence Thomas’s dissent on this case becomes an instant classic

Categories
Thought

Anders Chydenius, The National Gain (1765)

[E]very individual spontaneously tries to find the place and the trade in which he can best increase National gain, if laws do not prevent him from doing so.

Every man seeks his own gain. This inclination is so natural and necessary that all Communities in the world are founded upon it. Otherwise Laws, punishments and rewards would not exist and mankind would soon perish altogether. The work that has the greatest value is always best paid, and what is best paid is most sought after.

As long as I can produce 6 Daler worth of goods a day in one trade, I do not willingly change to another that brings in 4. In the former case the Nation’s gain and mine was one-third more than in the latter.

It is thus undoubtedly a loss to the Nation when somebody is forced or is encouraged by public rewards to work in a trade other than the one in which he earns the highest profit; for this does not happen without such inducements, just as a merchant does not sell his Wares for less than what is offered him.

If he whose work someone has been forced to do gains as much as the worker has lost, it is not National gain; but if he gains more, only the difference is the gain of the Nation, but obtained through the oppression of its citizens.

Categories
ideological culture too much government

Divided by Government

Politics used to be less socially divisive.

That’s the gist of a new study by the Pew Research Center, as explained by Dan Balz at the Washington Post. By “almost every measure,” Pew claims to have found that the gaps between Republicans and Democrats “have increased over the past 2 years, and in some cases now seem to represent almost unbridgeable divisions.”Divided America

Americans may bemoan partisan gridlock in Washington, but they need only look at the report to understand the root of the problem. Polarization in Washington is not just politicians behaving badly. It reflects what is happening around the country. Partisanship has grown dramatically and shows no sign of abating. . . .

Not exactly shocking news, eh? Over what are we divided? Balz states the obvious: “Some of the most significant differences . . . were on core issues of the 2012 campaign: the role and scope of government and the social safety net.”

Why more division now than in the past?

Because in the past government was smaller. As more and more people become sated with the level of government we have, they start objecting to increases in its size and scope. There have always been folks who want more government. Now their number effectively dwindles. In the “good old days,” there was a “consensus” — a larger percentage — for more government.

Well, we got that “more government.” And fewer and fewer folks like what they see.

Unlike when I was a kid, today the protest against government growth has the teeth of large numbers. So of course “mainstream” discourse has become divisive. It will remain so until the numbers of pro-government-growth-at-all-costs folks dwindle into insignificance.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Thought

Margaret Thatcher

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.

Categories
Today

June 5

Harriett Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” begins its ten-month serialization in the National Era, an abolitionist publication, on this date in 1851.

Also on June 5, Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith is born (1723); British economist John Maynard Kenes was also born on this date (1883), June 5 deaths include American authors Stephen Crane (1900), author of “The Red Badge of Courage,” and O. Henry, America’s most influential short story writer, ten years later.

Categories
political challengers

Send in the Clones

As scientists spend grant money attempting to bring into modern times the extinct Woolly Mammoth, conscientious citizens should be concerned about a more pressing matter: cloning our few good leaders before they go extinct. Ron Paul in particular.

The mammoth is a hard thing to clone: DNA breaks down over time.

Leadership requires candidates of good character combined with the right ideas.

The ideas are the DNA. Ron Paul’s have been nicely identified by Nassim Taleb as “The Big Four”: opposition to (1) deficits and metastatic government, (2) Federal Reserve flirting with hyperinflation, (3) self-feeding militarism, and (4) bailouts that undermine economic resilience (“what is fragile should break early and not too late”).Ron Paul's Revolution

Such notions have been available to Americans since the Founding.

But folks with the right character?

That’s more difficult, because each of us is embedded in the institutions we grow up in, and accepting those institutions is natural. This isn’t a problem for leadership to maintain the current system. It is, however, a bit of a snag for producing leaders to help greatly alter the system. The rewards for bucking the system are less immediate than for supporting it.

Ron Paul has been running for the presidency largely to promote real, substantial change. His son, Rand Paul, has taken his ideas and added some successful and politic twists.

There are other, younger leaders emerging in the Ron Paul mode. A few are discussed in the current book, Ron Paul’s Revolution, by Brian Doherty.

But consider: Maybe we don’t want to “send in the clones” — maybe you want to take up the mission. Don’t dismiss the idea out of hand.

Or laugh in a friend’s face if he or she indicates interest, a calling.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.