Common Sense with Paul Jacob

Should we be scaring people to death?

The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a fatwa against low levels of mercury in pregnant women. They say that children of women with 5.8 parts per billion of mercury in their blood are “at some increased risk of adverse health effects.” But they present no evidence of this increased risk.

According to a recent EPA report, about eight percent of American women of childbearing age have this level of mercury. But 5.8 parts per billion is 10 times less than the threshold considered safe in the scientific literature.

If such announcements had no impact we could laugh them off as bureaucratic busywork. But politicians use them to push new regulations. Yet the few outbreaks of mercury poisoning on record involve massive dumping, not some kind of diffuse emissions.

Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, notes that “we don’t even know how much [industrially issued mercury] gets taken up by humans. [N]o one has ever bothered to see if the mercury in Americans largely resembles the mercury, in its chemical signature, that comes out of power plants. Nor has anyone ever asked if the patterns of mercury elevation in landlocked fish . . . looks like the pattern of mercury fallout from the nation’s matrix of power plants.”

So, no real proof of a problem. Just regulators and politicians eager to show how much they care . . . no matter who they may hurt and scare in the process.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Shooting gun makers in the back may be falling out of fashion.

If somebody shoots somebody else with a gun, you’d think if you were going to sue anybody, you’d sue the shooter. Not people who make or sell guns for a living. Unless we’re also going to start suing baseball bat manufacturers whenever anyone gets bashed with a baseball bat.

Yet over the last several years we have been hearing about lawsuit after lawsuit against firearms manufacturers, as if they were complicit in crimes they knew nothing about. Fortunately, many courts have dismissed the lawsuits as transparent attempts by gun-control advocates to win by lawsuit what they can’t win by law.

Some lawmakers have banned these frivolous lawsuits. For example, in Georgia. The U.S. House has also passed a ban on such suits, and the Senate may follow suit.

Some of the folks pushing these lawsuits have decided to throw in the towel. Recently the Cincinnati City Council voted unanimously to drop its own lawsuit, which sought to make gun makers pay for the costs of responding to crimes in which guns are used. I guess they’re reserving their right to bring the lawsuit again if the ban in Congress doesn’t pass.

Of course, if you sell a gun to somebody you know is planning to commit a crime with it, there you have knowledge and complicity. But you can’t punish vendors every time something they sell is put to evil use. Such a principle of liability has nothing to do with holding people responsible. It’s more of a license to kill.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

President Abraham Lincoln warned us: “If our American society and United States Government are overthrown, it will come from the voracious desire for office, this wriggle to live without toil, work and labor from which I am not free myself.”

Are state legislators in Ohio now working to prove honest Abe right? Or are politicians innocently attempting to improve state government operations? Or, perhaps it’s not legislators at all; maybe it’s a ghost at work here.

What am I talking about? A bill winding its way through the Ohio Legislature in this time of budget crunches was amended to spend $1.8 million dollars adding new seats to various state commissions. The skinny is that legislators were looking to provide themselves with a few cushy places to land before being term-limited out of office. What better than serving on a state commission at top-dollar!

The chief of staff for House Republicans says “simply not true.” Of course, I would much rather talk with the legislator that wrote the provision. But the sponsor of the idea may well have been a ghost: no legislator will own up to it.

The effort that was being attempted by legislators, or perhaps by some evil spirit, is scuttled for now, pulled from the bill much less mysteriously than it was tucked into it. Speaker Larry Householder says it was “just causing too much hell.”

Yeah, we know what you mean. Abe Lincoln talked about it. Thank goodness for term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Let’s hope it’s not just tilting at windmills.

The National Taxpayers Union has just has just launched a national ad campaign to focus America’s attention on union violence. NTU believes that if corporate fraud is bad, then certainly beating people up for crossing a picket line is also bad. Why criticize one and ignore the other?

According to one of NTU’s ads, “Too many job actions include harassment, assaults, and even worse. In Ohio this spring, one union member was charged with plotting to launch explosives into a workplace.”

NTU tells the viewer to “tell Congress that union violence against hard-working Americans must stop. Tell them to pass the Freedom From Union Violence Act. Because that’s the only way the thugs who commit these crimes will get the message.”

Do we really need congressional action to counter violence that is already against the law? Maybe.

Authorities have too often turned a blind eye to union-led, union-bred violence. As if punching somebody in the nose in the name of the working man is somehow more forgivable than punching somebody in the nose because they looked at you the wrong way. The same union leaders wagging their fingers at fraudulent CEOs need to speak out at least as strongly against union violence.

Will the National Taxpayers Union succeed in their idealistic campaign against beating people up? I have to hope. It’s not the kind of thing anybody should have to put up with. And if enough people come to understand the problem, maybe we won’t have to.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

It’s always a good sign when the people in power enact reasonable limits on that power, all by themselves. It shows that they have respect for voters and democracy.

That seems to the attitude in Rhode Island, where Representative William J. Murphy, a member of the Rhode Island House who is about to become Speaker, is working with four other leaders to limit the terms of legislative leaders. And they don’t want to do it by gentleman’s agreement or easily rescinded statute, either. They want a constitutional amendment.

Murphy says he does not want to serve the same decade-long stint as Speaker that his predecessor served. He believes that eight consecutive years as House Speaker or Senate President should be the limit. His goal is to “help restore the confidence of the people of Rhode Island in the legislature and its leadership.”

Rhode Islanders have been critical of apparent abuse among legislative leaders in recent years which included an attempt to cover up allegations of abuse of power by a previous speaker.

Murphy says, “My most important priority as speaker will be to remove that siege and restore the confidence of the people of Rhode Island in the General Assembly and in its leaders. If I cannot accomplish that goal, I will consider my time as speaker of the House a failure.

“Term limits for the principal leader of each chamber is one of several legislative reform initiatives that I will be proposing.”

Great start on a great idea. Next, how about term-limiting all the members of the Rhode Island Legislature?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Hey, have you heard about the latest discovery? It seems that chemists have discovered a whole new element.

Well, reports about this discovery have actually been floating around the Internet for a few years now, but it’s new to me anyway. A major research institution known as MRI has discovered the heaviest element yet. They’re calling it Governmentium. I

n addition to the protons, Governmentium is composed of one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 11 assistant deputy neutrons, for a total atomic mass of 312. All these particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Governmentium is inert but easily detected, since it slows down every reaction it comes into contact with. Governmentium does not decay, but instead undergoes periodic reorganization in which some of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, the mass of Governmentium actually increases over time. That’s because during each reorganization, some morons become neutrons, forming isodopes. This propensity to promote morons leads some scientists to speculate that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain saturation point.

This saturation point is referred to as “Critical Morass.” You can’t make this stuff up. Or at least, I can’t. As I say, I got it off the Internet. The author is anonymous.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

There’s a shakeup happening in the Michigan Senate.

House members had already felt the impact of term limits in 1998, when 64 members became ineligible to serve again. Now it is the Senate’s turn. In the coming session, 27 new members are taking seats in the 38-member state Senate; the House will see 50 new members.

But the Detroit News says it isn’t even happening. “The Senate is getting a transfusion of old blood from the House,” says the News . “Of the 27 freshmen to be sworn in for the 38-member Senate, 26 are current or former members of the state House just a quick stroll across the Capitol.”

Lobbyist Bill Rustem confirms that “If the goal of term limits was fresh faces, it didn’t work.”

Hey, be careful what you wish for, guys. After all, most voters would probably not object if term limits were even tougher. In any case, the claim is bogus. Thanks to the limits that went into effect in 1998, many of the House members who have now found a place in the Senate have been in the legislature for just six years, or even less.

These comparatively short legislative resumes hardly turn the Capitol into a “giant recycling bin.” And transplants from the House will have to leave at the end of two senatorial terms. So the fresh faces will keep on coming.

No matter how you slice it, term limits invigorate electoral competition and prevent encrusted old-boy networks from sending down permanent roots in either chamber.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Hey, do you like trains, do you like to watch trains, do you like to find out everything you can about trains? Are you a railroad buff, a so-called “railfan”?

Well, then you are under arrest. Well, not quite under arrest. Although some have been threatened with arrest. But you may be approached and interrogated and told don’t do it again. Even a police officer who trainspots as a hobby was given the shake-down by other police officers. They took Richard Whitenight’s notebook and grilled him about every scribble. They searched his car and took photos of it. And then he had to sign a written agreement never to return to that particular location.

Other railfans have reported similar treatment. All this started happening because of the usual vague terrorist warnings, this time about railroads. But don’t we get new alerts every few weeks about something or other being targeted? Maybe? Possibly?

A while back the word went out about apartment complexes. I don’t know about you, but when I’m thinking about moving into a place, I go there, look around, take a few notes. I could understand somebody coming up to me and saying, Hey, I don’t think I know you, can I help you? But threatening me with interrogation and arrest is something else again.

Railfans are well-known to the railroads. What we want to be on the lookout for is suspicious behavior. If we must be on the lookout, let’s look for suspicious activity that is suspicious activity. Not the kinds of things people always do . . . when they are free.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

We’re a wealthy nation and that’s a good thing. But often when we hear someone referred to as “wealthy” as in “wealthy contributor” the speaker is implies that that’s a bad thing. As if to be wealthy is more likely a consequence of corruption than of hard work and character. Not fair.

When I contribute to a political campaign, I feel good about it. Because I believe in what I’m doing. If I had built a super-profitable business, the check I write would be a heck of a lot bigger, but my motive would be the same.

Attacking people for their wealth is unfair. It also ignores a crucial factor in American history, a factor which allowed there to be an American history. We all know John Hancock as the gentleman who signed his name to The Declaration of Independence with such a flourish that King George wouldn’t possibly need his spectacles to read it.

But John Hancock’s penmanship was not what scared the Brits.

What scared them was his money. Hancock was a very wealthy man and he used his wealth to fund the American Revolution. Hancock’s generosity was such a critical resource that when the Massachusetts governor returned to England right before the war to meet with King George, one of the King’s first questions was, “What is the state of Hancock’s finances?”

The King of England heading the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world knew that no political effort could survive without money. No doubt King George would have been a big proponent of placing limits on campaign financing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

What if you went for a checkup with the doctor and just paid for it? You know, like you pay for bread and milk and such? Government regulations and health insurance oversight have infected the business of medicine. We don’t use insurance to buy bread and milk.

But when it comes to medicine, seems almost every bill we pay is the responsibility of our insurance company. The result has been skyrocketing demand for services by patients who don’t directly feel the pain of paying for individual costs. Skyrocketing regulations by third parties eager to control costs. And lots of harried doctors, virtually working second jobs as paper-pushers.

Doctors are getting fed up. Some are quitting altogether. But others are just quitting the system. Trying what Dan Rather calls a “new approach” to medicine: “boutique” medicine. These radical doctors no longer accept insurance as a method of payment. They’ll treat only those patients who pay them directly. And guess what? Turns out they can offer a reasonable service at a reasonable price.

One doctor told “CBS News” that he charges $40 for a basic checkup, and is doing very well, thank you. No more answering to a faceless third party and filling out forms all the time. He’s slashed his monthly expenses and doesn’t have to treat the patients like cattle to meet some kind of assembly-line quota.

In other words: a free market! Buyer and seller, agreeing to a mutually beneficial trade . . . all by themselves. What a wild notion. But I like it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.