Common Sense with Paul Jacob

After reading a New York Times article, I’ll stay off South Africa’s roads. Bizarrely tough driving exams are only one reason.

Test-takers give demerits for not looking in rear mirrors every seven seconds, or for coasting back one inch when stopped at a stop sign. And the drivers’ licensing bureau is so complicated that the words “Byzantine” and “Kafka” come to mind . . . to the horror of Byzantium and Franz.

In a follow-up piece, Ryan Hagen expands upon the lesson: “So South Africa must have the safest roads in the world, right? Well, no. The fatality rate per mile is five times higher than that of the United States, and rising fast.”

Why? Lots of people don’t bother getting a license at all. And the requirements, being about as undemocratic and illiberal as one could fear to find this side of totalitarianism, goad the people into near-open revolt; disrespect for the law being generally increased by its nonsensical rigor.

Lots of government programs similarly over-reach. If you demand too much of people, they will come to expect less of themselves. They’ll simply ignore the rules. Ignore the advice. Go outlaw.

The lesson applies to much of what government does, almost everything. We need minimal reasonable requirements in society, yes: Do no murder; don’t steal. Good ideas. Good rules.

But nitpick on every little element of imagined perfection?

Doomed to fail.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Happy New Year! As we begin this campaign year of 2008, the Federal Election Commission lacks a quorum. It can’t make decisions regarding violations of federal campaign laws. The FEC will also lack the ability to send out matching fund checks to those presidential candidates who still play the matching funds game.

That’s actually good, since most federal campaign laws are blatant abridgments of our freedom of speech in the first place.Also good may be the mess itself. It’s a sign of the bankruptcy of the whole system of federal regulation of politics.

How big is the mess? As big as the parties can make it. Democrats won’t confirm the latest Republican nominee for the FEC . . . and Republicans follow suit, refusing to confirm the Democrats’ nominees. Stalemate.

The underlying problem is the unduly partisan nature of the FEC. The commissioners are appointed by their party affiliation. This means an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, who can essentially block enforcement against their party.

But if you aren’t a Republican or a Democrat, say you’re an independent or a Libertarian or a Green, then the FEC certainly isn’t set up to equally protect your political rights. Its very make-up violates the 14th Amendment’s requirement of equal protection under the law.

Partisan politics ought not shut down the FEC. Our Constitution should.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

It was the battle of 2006 and could be the battle of 2008.

In this corner, Senator Tom Coburn, inveterate foe of porkbarrel spending and other rampant congressional abuses. In the other, shameless porkbarreller par excellence Senator Ted Stevens.

In the American Spectator, Stephen Moore reports on an altercation between the two Republicans. Happened right after the election. It seems Stevens slithered over to Coburn and whined, “Well, Tom, I hope you’re satisfied for helping us lose the election.” In reply Coburn pointedly pointed out the obvious: “No, Ted, you lost us the election.”

Stevens, so stuck inside Beltway corruption that he can’t see his own faults for what they are, takes no blame for the GOP’s ‘06 electoral debacle. Rather, he holds criticism of his kind of bad behavior, by those who witnessed it — including insiders like Tom Coburn — as the problem.

For Stevens, engaging in logrolling and runaway trough-sloppery are okay. But complaining about it . . . that’s unforgivable! Members of the political club just don’t do that to each other, dontcha know.

Well, Coburn doesn’t know. He probably figures that unless staying in power is considered an end in itself, you obviously have to address the very problems you’re seeking to correct.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

It was the battle of 2006 and could be the battle of 2008.

In this corner, Senator Tom Coburn, inveterate foe of porkbarrel spending and other rampant congressional abuses. In the other, shameless porkbarreller par excellence Senator Ted Stevens.

In the American Spectator, Stephen Moore reports on an altercation between the two Republicans. Happened right after the election. It seems Stevens slithered over to Coburn and whined, “Well, Tom, I hope you’re satisfied for helping us lose the election.” In reply Coburn pointedly pointed out the obvious: “No, Ted, you lost us the election.”

Stevens, so stuck inside Beltway corruption that he can’t see his own faults for what they are, takes no blame for the GOP’s ‘06 electoral debacle. Rather, he holds criticism of his kind of bad behavior, by those who witnessed it — including insiders like Tom Coburn — as the problem.

For Stevens, engaging in logrolling and runaway trough-sloppery are okay. But complaining about it . . . that’s unforgivable! Members of the political club just don’t do that to each other, dontcha know.

Well, Coburn doesn’t know. He probably figures that unless staying in power is considered an end in itself, you obviously have to address the very problems you’re seeking to correct.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

This isn’t just another story about zero-common-sense policies in the schools. It’s about how families can show zero tolerance for these policies by taking matters into their own hands.

Brandon and his girlfriend Andra attended the Caney Creek High School in Conroe, Texas. They are both asthmatic and they both use inhalers. The exact same inhaler. Well, one day Andra forgot to bring hers and she had an asthma attack. Now, Brandon could have told her, “I’m sorry, but as far as I know, the strange minutiae of zero-tolerance school policy may prevent me from letting you use my inhaler to alleviate your suffering.” Or he could have just let Andra use his inhaler. He let her use the inhaler, of course. “It made a big difference,” says Andra. “It did save my life.”

Next thing you know, bam, Brandon is arrested and kicked out of school for “delivering a dangerous drug.” It’s a three-day suspension pending the school’s decision on what to do next. And what they do next is decide to expel him. Sadly, these stories are a dime a dozen these days.

But I like the happy ending for this one. Brandon’s expulsion, or semi-expulsion, is not permanent. He can return to school next year. But that’s not the happy ending I’m talking about. Brandon says, “I’m expelled till after Christmas and I can come back after Christmas, but I won’t.” Instead he and Andra have decided to go the homeschooling route. They’ll do their learning at home. They’ve already learned one lesson here, that’s for sure.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

The FBI is supposed to protect us from terrorists. Or so I thought. They aren’t supposed to have terrorists on the payroll, are they? And they aren’t supposed to let those guys kill innocent people. They aren’t supposed to cover it up when they do kill innocent people, are they? Nor are they supposed to knowingly allow an innocent person to mistakenly take the rap for a murder, serving for decades in prison. But that is what our FBI did.

The Washington Post reports: “A House committee concluded yesterday that the FBI shielded from prosecution known killers and other criminals whom it used as informants to investigate organized crime in New England.” And no one is being held accountable. In a statement, the FBI recognized “misconduct by a few FBI employees,” but went on to “recognize the importance of human source information . . .” In other words: “Aw shucks, we’re real sorry and all that Americans were murdered, but what can you expect? We have to have our intelligence sources; to make an omelet you have to break some eggs.”

We’re talking about double-digit homicides by paid informants to the FBI. With an innocent man serving 30 years in prison for one of the crimes. And FBI officials not only knew about it, but tried to cover it up.

There is no substitute for citizen control of government. Without more meaningful checks on raw and often secret political power, that power may not only fail to protect us from terrorists, that power can become terrorism.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

Truth is the first casualty of war. In the war against initiative and referendum, we’ve heard an awful lot that, well, just ain’t so.

Leon Panetta tells us that California is, quote, “increasingly paralyzed by initiatives.” David Broder writes that politicians “have little room to maneuver.” Laura Tyson says California is “ungovernable” and claims initiatives dictate 70 percent of state spending. And The Economist babbles that while “Empowering the people sounds nice in theory; in practice, it makes it very hard for Sacramento politicians to balance the budget and take care of other state business.” Sounds terrifying except for those pesky facts.

Professor John Matsusaka of the University of Southern California did a study. Turns out that voter initiatives do not control 70 percent of California’s state budget. Actually, about 2 percent of California spending is dictated by voter initiatives. Granted, a 1988 initiative requires a minimum level of state education spending.

However, education spending is well in excess of this minimum level, so the voter mandate has not even kicked in. Professor Matsusaka notes that “The conclusion that voter initiatives have not caused the California budget crisis squares with other research on the effect of direct democracy nationwide. . . . [T]he initiative process is a scapegoat for the inability of elected officials to manage the competing demands for public funds in a period of declining revenue.” What a shocker, eh?

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

I guess when you’re a pundit you can expect to be bopped over the head once in a while. In a recent column for Townhall.com I talked about the TV licensing system in Britain and other European countries. It is an Orwellian set-up that involves harassing people about whether they have a TV if they’re not paying an annual licensing fee.

An Irish critic wrote to say, “Your article was ‘spot on’; it just did not go far enough in describing the problem.” I don’t mind this kind of criticism because I can always blame my friends at Townhall.com for not letting me write 10,000 words each week instead of the lousy 1,000 or so they let me scribble.

My correspondent says that the TV scheme is “an eloquent metaphor for the system of universal health care that is found over here.” He notes that supposedly “free” health care is of course paid for with high taxes, with the added bonus that sick people too frequently shuffle off this mortal coil before they have a chance to see a specialist. They can try to pay more out of their own pockets. But he says, “Even then . . . tests that would be performed within a day or two in the U.S. can takes months to organise. Diseases that have a high survivability rate in the U.S. are often terminal here for that very reason.”

In other words, when you take away the market incentives for quick and reliable service, you also take away the quick and the reliable. My Irish friend is right. Well, that’s my time.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

I guess these days breast-feeding is a crusade. Don’t get me wrong. As a matter of political philosophy, I’m neither for nor against breast-feeding. All I am saying is that it is not immoral per se to use baby formula to nourish your baby.

This seems to me a decision you might want to leave to the parents. Maybe even let the mom have the deciding vote. But this isn’t how the nanny state looks at these things. When I came across an article mentioning that in Norway it’s now illegal to advertise baby formula I thought it was shocking enough. But on the other hand I thought, Yeah, yeah, that’s just the kind of thing a nanny state would do.

Dennis Prager knows emotions come into play on this issue. He says that whenever he brings it up on his radio show, listeners berate him for even suggesting that baby formula might be okay. But he observes, “Virtually my entire generation of baby boomers was bottle-fed. Yet we are the healthiest generation in human history.”

Well, this subject can be debated on the basis of competing scientific studies, intuition, and just plain old common sense. Right here, right now, I’m not making any claim about the relative merits of breast-feeding versus baby formula. All I’m saying is, if mom wants to use baby formula instead of breast-feeding her baby, you better darn well let her use the baby formula. Moms must be catered to in every way. Especially recently-pregnant moms. Take it from a husband and father.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

Let’s move on. Let’s get past this term limits thing and just keep in power the all-knowing oligarchs we have now. Such seems to be the message of one weary Oregon editorial writer. The piece is headlined “Term Limits Again?” That exasperated sigh with which the writer mutters the word “again” pertains to the fact that Oregonians had their term limits law ripped out from under them. It was thrown out by the courts. Yet, dagnabbit, “hard-core supporters” still want the term limits! Still believe in competitive democracy! What’s wrong with those victims of judicial banditry anyway?

The editorial writer misses all the allegedly wonderful experience term limits kicked out the door. He also blames the state’s budget problems on term limits. Even though they didn’t start taking effect in Oregon until 1998. Of course, wannabe perpetual rulers in Oregon were too worried about getting rid of term limits to deal with the budget. And the wildly unpopular tax hike “solution” was presented only after legislators had safely escaped term limits.

Many of the career politicians who had been around forever before term limits are still there passing laws and taxes. In fact, the term limits law didn’t even take full effect before it was scuttled. Oregonians have had plenty of experience with Oregon’s career politicians. Tax and spend, tax and spend yes, that is the familiar litany. And that is why citizens voted to pry open the democratic process a bit and give somebody else a chance.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.