Categories
ideological culture media and media people

Greetings, Gridlock

“If you think you have seen gridlock, just wait and watch Goldwater’s final victory.” That’s how Mark Mardell, the North American editor of BBC News, snarkily concluded his column bemoaning Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock’s resounding defeat of 36-year incumbent U.S. Senator Dick Lugar in Tuesday’s Republican Primary.

Goldwater?Barry Goldwater

Noting that when Ronald Reagan captured the White House in 1980, George Will quipped, “It took 16 years to count the votes, and Goldwater won,” Mardell added that with Mourdock’s victory, “Goldwater has now won his campaign to purge his party of moderates; it has just taken him 48 years longer than he had hoped.”

Indeed, Goldwater helped define conservatism as favoring less government, and his 1964 presidential campaign led to a more pro-free market GOP. But Mardell’s implication is that those who want less government are inherently unreasonable, always and everywhere the cause of dreaded “gridlock” in Washington, while those who favor ever bigger government are just being reasonable.

Barry Goldwater, in his 1964 conservative presidential campaign, proclaimed, “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

“Bipartisanship has brought us to the brink of bankruptcy,” Republican Senate nominee Mourdock said during his campaign. “We don’t need bipartisanship, we need application of principle.”

Being serious and committed to restoring fiscal sanity to Washington is no vice.

And even the dread gridlock would be a welcome change over out-of-control spending and debt.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Today

Marley dies, Ellsberg charges dropped, Dali born

On May 11, 1981, Bob Marley, the soul and international face of reggae music, died of cancer in a Miami, Florida, hospital. He was only 36 years old.

On May 11, 1973, charges against Daniel Ellsberg for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times are dismissed, citing government misconduct.

On May 11, 1904, Salvador Dalí, the surrealistic Spanish painter, was born.

Categories
Thought

Salvador Dalí, born on this day in 1904

“I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.”

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Thought

Bono, the lead singer of U2, born on this day in 1960

“To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.”

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Today

Wilkes criticizes King, Tea Act, Ft. Ticonderoga captured, First woman for prez, Churchill, England bombed

On May 10, 1768, John Wilkes was imprisoned for writing an article for The North Briton severely criticizing King George III. This action provokes rioting in London.

On May 10, 1773, the Parliament of Great Britain passed the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade. Resistance to the act led to the Boston Tea Party.

On May 10, 1775, a small Colonial militia led by Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold captured Fort Ticonderoga from the British.

On May 10, 1872, Victoria Woodhull became the first woman nominated for President of the United States. As the nominee of the Equal Rights Party she received no electoral votes. The first woman to receive an electoral vote came 100 years later, when Tonie Nathan, the vice-presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, received a single vote from Virginia.

On May 10, 1940, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, while the first German bombs of World War II were dropped on England at Chilham and Petham, in Kent, and Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Businesses Rate Governments

What do small businesses worry about the most? I mean, besides serving their customers?

Regulation — licensing in particular.

At least when rating government, owners of small businesses surveyed by Thumbtack.com indicated that “licensing requirements were nearly twice as important as tax rates in determining their state or city government’s overall business-friendliness.”Thumbtack.com's state ratings in terms of small business concerns.

Yes, taxes are a burden. But regulations and licensing can be amazingly arcane and costly in many communities. Their burdens often kick in before you’ve made a dime, and, despite that, they can sneak up on you, with the heavy weight of bureaucracy descending like the proverbial brick ton.

Thumbtack’s page allows you to see how your state rates. Idaho and Texas come out on top, and my state, Virginia, is surprisingly good. “Blue states” (horrible term: sorry) tend to come out much worse. California gets a big fat F, scoring abysmally low in most categories.

No surprise: The most politically unrepresentative state in the union over-regulates!

Distrust the survey? Just talk to the owner of a small business — you’ll likely get corroboration. Tim Sutinen, a businessman from southwest Washington State, noted in his campaign for state office a few years ago that there were only a handful of licensed occupations in the Evergreen State during the economic downturn in the early ’80s. Now, a few decades later, there’s over a thousand occupations you need a license to work in.

No wonder the recovery stalls.

That’s not progress.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Today

Pill approved, secret bombing of Cambodia disclosed, Nixon impeachment begins

On May 9, 1960, the FDA approved the world’s first commercially produced birth-control bill, Enovid-10, made by the Searle Company of Chicago, Illinois.

On May 9, 1969, New York Times military correspondent William Beecher wrote a dispatch carried on the paper’s front page, “Raids in Cambodia by U.S. Unprotested,” which accurately described the secret B-52 bombing raids in Cambodia. During the next two years, many National Security Council staff members and reporters had their telephones wiretapped by the FBI in an effort to find out who leaked the information.

On May 9, 1974, the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opened impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon. Months later, the committee voted to impeach Nixon on three counts.

Categories
Thought

Francis Hopkinson on War (signer of the Declaration of Independence, who died on this date in 1791)

“Sometimes it is to regain by the sword what had been unjustly taken from the rightful possessor: Sometimes to prevent impending dangers, which cannot be avoided by other means: But, for the most part, it is undertaken to gratify the ambition of a prince, who wishes to subject to his arbitrary will a people whom God created free, and to gain an uncontrolled dominion over their rights and property.”

Categories
incumbents political challengers

Inside Outside Upside Down

Voters in yesterday’s Indiana Republican Primary made history. U.S. Senator Richard Lugar became only the second senator in history with 36 years or more of incumbency to be defeated in his own party’s primary.

It wasn’t close, either — State Treasurer Richard Mourdock trounced Lugar, winning three of every five votes.

During the race, Sen. Lugar’s residency problem became clear: he hadn’t actually lived in Indiana since 1976. Voters tend to dislike the same person wielding power for four decades and only visiting, now and then, the people he represents.Richard Mourdock/Richard Lugar

Nor did it help being tagged “President Obama’s favorite Republican.”

But more substantial issues also mattered. Lugar voted for the TARP bailout. He opposed full Second Amendment rights. He voted to raise taxes and jack up the debt ceiling even further.

That’s what the so-called “outside groups” like the Club for Growth told voters in their ads.

An article in the Indianapolis Star, “Outside money flows in to state’s U.S. Senate race,” informed readers that $4 million was spent by political groups not controlled by the candidates, and that 70 percent backed challenger Mourdock. But Lugar, the powerful incumbent, was still able to raise enough “inside money” to outspend Mourdock by nearly two to one — running nasty attack ads against the challenger.

Without the independent groups and PACs, Lugar’s insider funding and incumbent edge would have been a whopping four to one.

The ability of more voices to speak out helped make the challenger competitive against the incumbent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Thought

Russell Means

“’Indian policy’ has now been brought down upon the American people, and the American people are the new Indians of the 21st Century.”