Common Sense with Paul Jacob

I am all for transparency in government. That’s why I may have expressed some skepticism, in the past, over how the Federal Reserve operates.

Alan Greenspan, former and most famous Fed chairman, was especially . . . opaque. He spoke as if he were trying not to communicate.

He could be clear, though. He said that, if he had his druthers, he would dissolve the Fed and go back to the gold standard.

But his prognostications and explanations of economic movement and Fed policy were more like something out of the Journal of German Metaphysics rather than designed to be understood by citizens and their representatives.

Now, maybe we should be amused by how Greenspan played his tough job, as Obfuscator in Chief. There’s this idea of expectations in economics, which says that if the people know what’s going to happen with money, they’ll discount the policy, and render much of its intentions without effect.

Greenspan obfuscated for a reason.

Now we learn that his PhD thesis is unavailable, kept in a locked vault. In a new book, Deception and Abuse at the Fed, author Robert Auerbach argues that this secret thesis is “symbolic of a career marked by prevarication, cover-ups and a general aversion to making the Fed more publicly accountable.” That’s how an article in Barron’s explained it, anyway. I think I’m siding with Auerbach.

But also with Greenspan. You know, the Greenspan who preferred the “transparency” of the gold standard. Or some kind of standard.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Banned! First alcohol prohibition, then other drugs. Now candy.

Yes, candy is now banned on many school campuses. Why? Refined sugar is so bad for you it’s wicked.

I’m sure you know many of the major bad guys here. Twinkies. Ho Hos. Nestle’s Crunch. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Maybe you consumed some of these unsavory savories yourself in your youth. They’re not fruit and vegetables, that’s for sure.

In California the ban on intra-curricular sugar is legislative and statewide.

So, that’s that, right? No candy ever winds its way into a Golden-State kid’s lunch pail or backpack. Right?

Uh, not quite. There’s a black market. Valiant pint-sized entrepreneurs are sneaking the nefariously edible junk food onto school grounds despite the risks. According to Jim Nason, principal of Hook Junior High School, some of these rule-breakers “are walking around campus with upwards of $40 in their pockets. . . .” Forty bucks? That’s almost as high as the national debt.

It’s not just California. Sugar trafficking stretches from one coast to the other. In New Haven, Connecticut, eighth-grader and honors student Michael Sheridan was suspended for a day for buying a bag of Skittles. And banned from an honors student dinner. And not allowed to be class vice-president any more.

Seems the public schools are always panicking over something. Now, it’s sugar. When will they panic over poor education?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Everybody who wants a car that gets 100 miles per gallon, raise your hand.

Me too.

The Progressive Automotive X Prize is an international competition that will award ten million dollars to the first team to produce and market an affordable 100-mile-per-gallon car.

Many groovy possibilities are in the works. One prototype would be powered by compressed air. Another is an all-electric automobile slim as a motorcycle. Another runs on gas fumes.

I like the contest even though I dislike some of the ideas of some people who also like the contest. Modern “green” activists — as opposed to blue or yellow — too often pursue their goals by trying to block human exploitation of nature that they disagree with. They often treat property rights as an annoying impediment.

Free markets are vibrant because they provide so many ways for producers to reach us with goods we are willing to pay for. We are willing to pay for something when we’re persuaded it would be of value to us. So, it’s great when economic entrepreneurs test new products in the marketplace. Not so great it when political entrepreneurs try to impose new products on us by force. Or try to stop us from using viable alternatives.

Frankly, I’d go for a decent-priced car that gets 100 miles a gallon even if politicians and environmentalists weren’t trying to tax oil and gas out of existence.

That’s just — well, this is — Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Ever hear of outside funding, outside influence, so forth?

It can happen when somebody across the street drops by to share ideas with you. It’s pretty horrible, because somebody who was external to your location comes over and maybe has an impact on you. Which should be illegal.

Do I sound sardonic?

I have my reasons: Two other citizen activists and I are being victimized by this sort of anti-outsider attitude. In our case, as practiced by the political establishment of Oklahoma. Trying to jail us for failing to predict how they would re-interpret their own rules prohibiting so-called “non-resident” petition circulators. For the sordid details, visit freepauljacob.com .

But a recent story from Russia shows how tyrannical the anti-outsider prejudice becomes when taken to its logical (or illogical) conclusion.

President Vladimir Putin’s hand-picked successor, a previously unknown functionary, just won a meaningless political election in Russia. And now Putin is complaining about foreign funding of Russian political activists — whose activities are regularly censored and impeded by Putin’s own government, most conspicuously so during the recent non-election.

The plight of would-be practitioners of Russian democracy underscores the dangers of bans on “outside” influence. For influence, read “support for democratic rights” and “dialogue.”

Let’s hope Putin’s not taking his cue from Oklahoma. Or vice versa.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

How much more proof do we need that an attack on First Amendment rights is an attack on First Amendment rights? I’m talking about campaign finance regulations and particularly the latest addendum, McCain-Feingold.

It’s precisely the kind of speech most crucial to the preservation of a free society — political speech — which is repressed by the likes of McCain-Feingold.

Consider the treatment being accorded Citizens United, a conservative organization that produced a movie called Hillary: The Movie.

As a three-judge panel pointed out in its ruling against Citizens United, under McCain-Feingold an “electioneering communication” is any “broadcast, cable or satellite communication” that refers to a candidate for federal office within 60 days of a general election or within 30 days of a primary. Such “electioneering communications” are subject to “a host of restrictions.” Oh.

It gets worse. The U.S. Supreme Court has just declined to hear an appeal in the case. They are seven of the same nine justices who said McCain-Feingold passed constitutional muster when a challenge of it first hit their desk. But the First Amendment — which is a part of the Constitution, by the way — does not say that freedom of speech ends where campaigns begin. Obviously.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Say George Washington were alive today and trying to immigrate to our country. Should we let him in with open arms? Or deny him a green card because he participated in the American Revolution?

Have I gone nuts? No. It’s our immigration policy that’s stark raving mad!

Sure, Saman Kareem isn’t George Washington. He’s an Iraqi refuge who assisted the American military as a translator. After receiving numerous death threats (as well as glowing praise for his assistance), he was allowed to come to the U.S.

But recently he was denied permanent residence status here because of his involvement many years ago in groups seeking to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Kareem is a Kurd and apparently didn’t like Saddam’s poison gas attacks that massacred his entire family. Go figure.

But wait — I thought our USA didn’t much care for Saddam, either.

Well, one tribe in our government allows folks like Kareem entry into the country, but another tribe designates groups fighting their own governments as terrorist. No matter how evil and oppressive their governments may be.

Well, after the story about Kareem broke, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced they were putting these cases on hold to review their policies.

I hope they’ll decide George Washington was no terrorist. And likewise for the thousands of others fighting tyranny.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Are you ready to relinquish your Second Amendment rights yet?

Police in Boston and Washington, DC, have been soliciting “voluntary” compliance with gun control. The plan: go house to house searching for weapons.

Many residents are resisting.

In DC the disarmament drive is particularly gauche, since Washington’s handgun ban was recently overturned in federal court. The city has appealed the decision, now being mulled over in the U.S. Supreme Court. At the time of the lower court’s decision, DC resident Tom Palmer told MSNBC: “The fact is that the criminals don’t obey the law and they do have guns.” He noted that it’s law-abiding citizens who get disarmed by such laws.

This is the first time in 70 years that the Supreme Court is considering whether the Second Amendment’s statement that the right to keep and bear arms “shall not be infringed” means what it says. Let’s just hope the justices’ reading skills are up to par.

Boston and DC activists have been alerting citizens of their right not to let the police enter their homes without a warrant. The education effort is reasonable.

Police officers may formally ask permission to enter. But their unexpected appearance on one’s doorstep can be intimidating. People don’t always have the presence of mind to assert their rights in such a situation — rights they possess even when governments decline to recognize them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Is politics a “blood sport”? It’s not supposed to be. But Detroit’s Channel 4 reports that folks called “blockers” are harassing voters who want to sign a petition.

The petition is to recall Michigan’s Speaker of the House Andy Dillon over his massive tax increase. People are hurting in Michigan. But legislators — led by Dillon — decided taxpayers should hurt more, so that spending could grow more than three-quarters of a billion dollars.

At The New Media Journal, Warner Todd Huston writes that “blockers scream at petition signers, calling them names, and hover menacingly over them making them feel threatened and intimidated.” Rose Bogaert of the Wayne County Taxpayers Association says, “They’re literally behaving like thugs out there.”

Who are these brutes? It turns out many of them are on the state payroll. In fact, they work for none other than Speaker Dillon.

Dillon’s office claims the blockers on his staff are doing this all on their own, taking vacation time. Yeah, right. Maybe now that they’ve been caught.

Leon Drolet, the head of the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance, isn’t buying that. Instead, he’s offering $250 a pop to identify each of these thugs.

Dillon’s tax increase was a travesty. The use of state workers to violate citizens’ most basic constitutional rights is, well, serious enough that you ought to find out more at MichiganRecalls.com.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

We take the most wondrous marvels for granted. We’re annoyed when we have to reboot our computers, for example. And how come we can only do 25 things at once on this magical machine, instead of 35 things?

I admit I’m the worst. But then I think, hey, at least we don’t have to wrestle with vacuum tubes and punch cards these days.

Same with vehicular transportation. You know, we’ve come a long way from the horse and buggy. We take the many convenient features of automobiles for granted.

Like cruise control. It comes to mind because of an article I stumbled across about Ralph Teetor, a mechanical engineer who invented automatic transmission, cruise control and many other enhancements of the driving experience.

Teeter realized the need for cruise control when he fell victim to his lawyer’s herky-jerky attempts to comply with the 35 mile per hour speed limit imposed during World War II. In 1945, he patented the invention and by the late ’50s it was being offered as an option in Chrysler models.

Another thing we take for granted is our eyesight. Something Ralph Teetor lost at the age of five. But that didn’t stop him from building his own one-cylinder car at age 12. He then went on to receive a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering and make a career visualizing solutions to one tough problem after another.

That’s a story that reminds us that the world is not always blind to character and drive.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.