On Monday, March 5, 1770, a small number of British soldiers fired on a crowd of angry colonists, killing five, in what came to be known as “The Boston Massacre.” The occupation of Boston by British soldiers was fiercely opposed and a crowd gathered outside the Customs House began to pelt soldiers with snowballs and rocks. Many believe the initial shot was fired by accident, but the incident inflamed public opinion against the British.
On March 5, 1963, the Hula Hoop was patented.
“If we are going to pay for your contraceptives,” said Rush Limbaugh on air, referring to Ms. Sandra Fluke’s congressional testimony, “and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”
In my Townhall column this weekend, “’Tis a Pity He’s a Boor,” I responded with a “No, thanks.” But I did defend what I took to be the point Rush was trying to make: “The issue isn’t about contraceptives, but the right to choose . . . on your own nickel.”
The flak Rush received became an avalanche of advertiser pull-outs from his show. And an apology.
And this all points to something interesting about freedom.
Rush has freedom of speech. He would still have it if every advertiser in the world refused to touch him and he took to blogging. His freedom requires no one to support him. Free speech doesn’t force anyone to listen – or advertise.
Similarly, Ms. Fluke has freedom of association, sexually and otherwise, including her relationships with the university in question and its contracted insurance company. But such freedom doesn’t obligate her school or insurance company or other consumers (through passed-on costs) to pay for her contraceptives. We all have freedom.
The same freedom of contract that allows advertisers to drop Rush’s show also allows businesses to choose employee benefit plans, workers to choose where they will work, and insurance companies to decide what terms they will offer.
Or it should. And in the specific case of contraception coverage did, until the Obama Administration dictated otherwise.
Several nasty words ago, that’s what started this brouhaha.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”
On March 4, 1789, the first session of the U.S. Congress held under the newly ratified U.S. Constitution began in New York City. But of the 22 senators and 59 representatives from the 11 states that had ratified the document, only nine senators and 13 representatives showed up.
Go to Townhall.com this weekend to read “’Tis a Pity He’s a Boor” — and come back here for the links and references:
And did you miss last week’s Townhall column? It’s right here on Common Sense, now.
This is mesmerizing, and perhaps more than a bit unsettling:
“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet, nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.”
On March 3, 1836, Texans signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, officially breaking from Mexico to establish the Republic of Texas.
On March 3, 1863, the U.S. Congress passed the Civil War conscription act, the first wartime draft of U.S. citizens in American history. The act required registration of all males between 20 and 45 years of age. Exemptions could be purchased for $300 or by finding a substitute. Only 18 percent of those registered and drafted actually entered the Union army. The law was fiercely opposed. Protests of the draft law in New York City led to bloody riots, in which estimates of deaths range from 120 to 2,000 and 2,000 to 8,000 people injured.
On March 3, 1945, American and Filipino troops recaptured Manila in the Philippines from the Empire of Japan.
Voters in Wichita, Kansas, went to the polls, Tuesday, to smash a measure that would have forked over $2.25 million in tax rebates to a downtown hotel project. Those supporting the giveaway spent $300,000 to promote the deal, while opponents ponied up a scant $30,000 against it. The vote nevertheless strongly weighed against the big money, 62 to 38 percent.
The Wichita City Council had enacted this “economic development” deal with the hotel developers, and that would have been the end of it . . . but for some pesky Wichita taxpayers.
Kansans may lack a statewide initiative and referendum, but there is a local process, so citizens possessed a tool for effective resistance. They formed Tax Fairness for All Wichitans and, working with the Kansas chapter of Americans for Prosperity, they hit the streets to gather over 2,700 signatures to require Tuesday’s vote.
After the victory, Bob Weeks, the group’s chair, reminded fellow activists that the battle is far from over:
The Ambassador Hotel is receiving assistance from eight taxpayer-funded government programs with costs of $15.4 million up-front and several hundred thousand annually. None of these were affected by the election. Wichita city hall and its allies are ready, willing, and able to use these incentive programs in the future for other hotels and businesses.
Weeks summed up the election results this way: “The best way to create jobs is to get government out of the way. . . . That is what the voters said tonight.”
On behalf of the new Liberty Initiative Fund, I’m honored to have given two cents worth of advice to their effort. They changed public policy, saved tax dollars and threw a big monkey wrench into the machinery of crony capitalism.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
On March 2, 1807, the U.S. Congress passed an act to “prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States…from any foreign kingdom, place, or country.”