Common Sense with Paul Jacob

national politics & policies too much government

I Know Savings

I don’t personally know Lance Armstrong, the cyclist who won the Tour de France seven times, including after beating cancer.

I don’t know if Armstrong tricked folks for all those years he was competing, finding some ingenious way to pass more than 500 drug tests even while doping, as witnesses tell the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

I don’t know what to make of the USADA’s doping charges, but, as for the agency’s motivations, a federal judge wrote that, “USADA’s conduct raises serious questions about whether its real interest in charging Armstrong is to combat doping, or if it is acting according to less noble motives.”

And I don’t know whether Armstrong chose to drop his challenge to the USADA charges against him because after years of fighting the agency, as he wrote, “enough is enough,” or, as USADA contends, there was ample “evidence” that “Armstrong used . . . and administered doping products.”

But there is something I know. I know where we can cut some federal spending.

On the Opposing Views blog, Tim Dockery points out that USADA “receives almost 70 percent of its funding from the federal grants” and “is a government program masquerading as a non-profit organization. This non-profit status allows it to investigate and prosecute athletes without affording them the constitutional and due process protections required of other federal agencies.”

Why is the federal government paying to police sport? In a way that undermines our standard of justice? When we’re already 16 trillion in debt and butting in costs money?

Yes, “enough is enough.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags doping, Lance Armstrong, USADA

Thought

Ludwig von Mises, 1949

A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.

national politics & policies political challengers

The Punisher Vote

As bad weather and thousands of good Republicans descend upon Florida, it’s worth keeping perspective: The best (and perhaps only) reason to vote for Mitt Romney is the same as the best/only reason Americans had to vote for Barack Obama in 2008: to punish the party previously in power.

The excesses of united Republican government in the mid-oughts, and the sheer irresponsibility and insider bias in the lame duck Bush years, as the GOP president panicked and turned Wall Street into the largest welfare queen class in America, required punishment.

Americans wanted a change. So they voted, understandably, for the man who promised change.

But what did they get?

Bush had pushed in a new welfare “entitlement” program; so did Obama and the Democrats. Bush had pushed bailouts for the wealthy and the protected; so did Obama and the Democrats. Bush had pushed war and occupation and “nation building”; so did Obama and the Democrats. Bush had presided over deficits and a rising debt; so did Obama and the Democrats.

Turnabout being not merely fair play, but the will of the pendulum to swing back, it seems like voting against Obama is what is in order. It seems almost ineluctable.

But, uh, there’s a problem. Is Romney electable?

Both major parties tend to throw up lackluster candidates when the opposition has an incumbent in the White House. Take three examples: Walter Mondale, Bob Dole, and John Kerry, paragons of pointlessness.

But, this time, a pointless challenger has history endow him with a point: Obama and the Democrats deserve to be punished.

Not much of a platform? True. But it’s something.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags barack obama, election 2012, Mitt Romney

Thought

Ludwig von Mises, 1947

The only certain fact about Russian affairs under the Soviet regime with regard to which all people agree is: that the standard of living of the Russian masses is much lower than … the paragon of capitalism, the United States of America. If we were to regard the Soviet regime as an experiment, we would have to say that the experiment has clearly demonstrated the superiority of capitalism and the inferiority of socialism.

Thought

Ludwig von Mises, 1922

Socialism is the watchword and the catchword of our day. The socialist idea dominates the modem spirit. The masses approve of it. It expresses the thoughts and feelings of all; it has set its seal upon our time. When history comes to tell our story it will write above the chapter “The Epoch of Socialism.”
As yet, it is true, Socialism has not created a society which can be said to represent its ideal. But for more than a generation the policies of civilized nations have been directed towards nothing less than a gradual realization of Socialism.

links

Townhall: Dog Days of the Republic?

Post author By Redactor
Post date August 26, 2012
No Comments on Townhall: Dog Days of the Republic?

This week, over at Townhall, a state-of-our-freedoms address . . . before the conventions, before the elections. Wander over to Townhall.com, then make a beeline back here to check the sources:

How “richly subsidized”? See “On our nickel,” from 2004
Do union bosses threaten politicians? Yes.
A “well-documented” war: See “The Inexplicable War on Lemonade Stands,” at Forbes
Yes, there is a “National Lemonade Freedom Day”
For more on Martha Boneta, see my “Pitchfork Rebellion”
For more on Dana Crow-Smith, see my “Permit Needed”
Do you know the wage in San Jose? See the new study by the California Public Policy Foundation
The important study showing Illinois spending on pensions vs. services as such, by the Illinois Policy Foundation

Oh, and for a more famous use of the title allusion, you might try W. H. Auden.

Thought

Ludwig von Mises

The capitalist system of production is an economic democracy in which every penny gives a right to vote. The consumers are the sovereign people. The capitalists, the entrepreneurs, and the farmers are the people’s mandatories. If they do not obey, if they fail to produce, at the lowest possible cost, what the consumers are asking for, they lose their office. Their task is service to the consumer. Profit and loss are the instruments by means of which the consumers keep a tight rein on all business activities.

video

Video: The Facebook Japester Who Almost Vanished

Post author By Redactor
Post date August 25, 2012
No Comments on Video: The Facebook Japester Who Almost Vanished

Charged with no crime, but imprisoned anyway:

“Like the movie Minority Report.” In this case, though, it was Thomas Szasz who saw this coming.

Tags Brandon Raub, Thomas Szasz

property rights too much government

Pitchfork Rebellion

What if they threw a rebellion and everybody came?

Anything you do these days can get you in trouble with regulators, from serving water without the proper liquor license to (I kid you not) throwing a birthday party without the proper happiness-making license.

But being harassed for doing peaceful things with your own property isn’t about whether you’ve obtained the many licenses “required” to do them. It’s about whether you’ve caught the attention of some vindictive and cortex-deficient bureaucrat.

When Martha Boneta hosted a birthday party for a friend’s daughter on her Virginia farm, she forgot to get a birthday-party-for-little-girls permit; the county noticed; the county threatened fines. Zoning Adminstrator Kimberly Johnson went further, though, ordering Boneta to stop selling produce grown on her land.

Boneta finds it “rather odd” she’s being singled out, when so many Virginia farmers do likewise. Actually, she’d obtained a permit to sell produce, but since then the county’s regulations have grown more complicated. (Bureaucrats can grow things too!)

Supportive local farmers conducted a “pitchfork protest” outside the Board of Zoning Appeals. Alas, Boneta lost her appeal, but will pursue the case with the farmers’ help and that of the Institute for Justice. The travesty has also caught the attention of a local Tea Party group. Indeed, several of the “pitchfork farmers” are also members of the Tea Party chapter in Northern Virginia.

I didn’t obtain a permit to wish them all Good Luck, but I wish it anyway.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.