The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.
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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.
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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”).
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.
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F.A. Hayek, 1956
[T]he most important change which extensive government control produces is a psychological change, an alteration of the character of the people. This is necessarily a slow affair, a process which extends not over a few years but perhaps one or two generations. The important point is that the political ideals of a people and its attitude toward authority are as much the effect as the cause of the political institutions under which it lives. This means that . . . even a strong tradition of political liberty is no safeguard if the danger is precisely that new institutions and policies will gradually undermine and destroy that spirit.
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June 4, 1896
Henry Ford puts his first “quadricycle” through a test run on June 4, 1896. Ford would go on to transform transportation by applying the principles of the assembly line to automobile production, which would transform American life . . . and the world.
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A Tale of Two States
Tuesday is Election Day for Wisconsin’s gubernatorial recall, pitting Republican Gov. Scott Walker against Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in a rematch of their 2010 contest, won by Walker. Polls show Walker leading, and likely to become the first “recalled” governor to ultimately defeat his recall and retain his office.
In fact, after all the massive protests and the recall campaign, Walker’s popularity has increased.
Why?
Mr. Walker has done what he said he would. He hasn’t raised taxes. He staked out his position on ending collective bargaining for most public employees as well as requiring them to pay something toward healthcare and pension benefits, and, against a flurry of opposition, stuck to his guns.
Now the Badger State’s unemployment rate is down below the national average and economic prospects are up.
For a very different story, look south, to Illinois.
Gov. Patrick Quinn supports initiative, referendum and recall, but gets demerits for his response to the current economic difficulties. In 2010, Illinois raised the state income tax by 66 percent. But the $7 billion in extra revenue has done little to solve the state’s chief budget woe — Illinois was $8 billion in the hole when the income tax was hiked, and somehow faces that same $8 billion shortfall today.
So, just a week ago, lawmakers slapped a $1-per-pack tax on cigarettes.
If a state could tax itself out of trouble, Illinois would be a near paradise today.
Walker took on the government employee unions; Quinn took on the taxpayers. That’s why Wisconsin — including their embattled governor — is on the upswing and Illinois is not.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Herbert Spencer, The Data of Ethics
The essential trait in the moral consciousness, is the control of some feeling or feelings by some other feeling or feelings.
Born on this date in 1821, Edward Livingston Youmans, American science writer and editor. In 1871 he started publication of the International Scientific Series of then-modern classics of scientific literature (published simultaneously first in New York, London, Paris, and Leipzig, later also in St. Petersburg and Milan), and the next year started the magazine Popular Science Monthly. In these and other venues he promoted the work of British philosopher Herbert Spencer, instigating Spencer to write the popular “The Study of Sociology,” and arranging publication of all of Spencer’s books with D. Appleton & Co., as well as many other international authors – with royalties on the sales (which in Spencer’s case reached 132,000 copies by 1890) going to the authors, despite the lack of an international copyright.
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Townhall: Socialism by the Dose
Today at Townhall.com, an analysis of Jon Stewart’s defense of his “socialism.”
Links that may interest you, where all “big questions” get addressed. Well, a few big questions, anyway:
- “You’re all a bunch of socialists!” – Ludwig von Mises storms out of a Mont Pelerin gathering
- Ailes on Stewart – Stewart on Ailes (Daily Show link No. 1)
- Stewart defends his brand of socialism (Daily Show link No. 2)
- Ludwig von Mises’ classic Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis – one of the great classics of social theory and politics
- Ludwig von Mises’ Interventionism: An Economic Analysis – recovered from an earlier book published in the German language
- “Social Security Beyond Retirement Age” – Common Sense by Paul Jacob – on Paul Krugman’s swindle cover-up
- “The late great Social Security swindle” – a column originally appearing on Townhall.com – about the BIG QUESTION Jon Stewart wittily avoids talking about
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June 2, Intolerable Acts
On June 2, 1774, the Quartering Acts were passed by British Parliament, part of a package of punitive acts devised as a response to colonial unrest. The acts did not have the desired effect; they did not quell resistence. Instead, they became known as the “Intolerable Acts,” and helped fuel the fires of secession, leading to the American Revolution.
Also on June 2: The Sack of Rome begins, and the Vandals bequeath their name to hooligans of the future (455 AD); President Grover Cleveland marries his ward, Frances Folsom, while in office (1886); the Bhutan Broadcasting Service brings TV to the Himalayan kingdom (1999).