Common Sense with Paul Jacob

Beware of FCC agents bearing gifts. There might be a hidden price tag. The Federal Communications Commission is conducting a test of free speech. This is only a test.

For the first time in over three decades, TV and radio broadcasters are going to be allowed to either criticize or endorse political candidates without being forced to provide so-called “equal time” to opponents. Geez, it might be nice to know the editorial opinions behind the news we get. But for 60 days only, though. Then the 5 dictators on the FCC board will collect a lot of report cards and see how we all did with our freedom. And they will decide whether we should be allowed to have a little more free speech or maybe a little less. Can’t just let us exercise our First Amendment rights and be done with. No, that would be too easy.

During the 60 days the FCC wants broadcasters to fill out all kinds of forms documenting the effects of the gag removal. Free speakers will have to keep a record of how many complaints they received during the 60-day period, how much editorializing they did, etc., etc. Broadcasters worry that they will be under pressure to cater to FCC expectations during the 60-day period if they hope to have the ban lifted permanently. And what kind of freedom to speak is that? Let’s hope that all ends well for our right to free speech. Let’s hope we pass the test. But this is not the kind of exam that should ever be given in a free society.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Recently I talked about how one of our Founding Fathers, James Madison, diagnosed the problem of special interests long before they became the kind of headache they are today. Madison knew how the sugar lobby would behave before there was a sugar lobby. We say special interest. Madison’s word was faction.

There are two ways to try to control “the violence of faction,” Madison explained. One is to limit the causes of faction. But you can’t stop people from having different opinions and interests and we must never stop people from expressing or acting upon those opinions and interests. Sadly, that’s what some proposals for Campaign Finance Reform threaten to do. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, said Madison. You can’t save freedom by destroying freedom.

So instead of trying to limit the causes of special interests, we should try to limit the effects. Madison thought the Republican principles enshrined in the Constitution would go far to “secure the public good and private rights” against the dangerous effects of faction. He was right. But he didn’t realize how strong a faction politicians themselves would become, thanks to their virtually limitless hold on power.

The Founding Fathers thought about making term limits a part of the Constitution, but few people desired a political career back then. So in the end they decided it wasn’t necessary. Big mistake, as Jefferson realized at the time. Not one that’s too late to correct, though.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Is it a good thing to keep your promises especially solemn, official, public promises about very important things? Theodore Roosevelt, our 26th President, thought so. His example is a lesson for the politicians of today.

Before Franklin Roosevelt came along in 1932, all American presidents had followed George Washington’s lead to serve only two terms. After two terms as President, Washington believed it important to turn power over to another citizen. Teddy Roosevelt, in his autobiography, recalled that during the 1904 presidential campaign his opponents had criticized his, “supposed personal ambition and intention to use the office of President to perpetuate myself in power.” So once he was elected he made the following promise to help unite the country: “The wise custom which limits the President to two terms regards the substance and not the form, and under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or accept another nomination.”

Teddy enjoyed being President and came to regret his commitment to step down after one term. But as 1908 rolled around, he followed through and stepped down from office. Like the vast majority of today’s self-limiters, he kept his word. He demonstrated integrity. He proved the cynics wrong. Teddy wanted to stay president but, even more, he wanted to be a man of honor. That’s a lesson for all ages.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Hey, I thought Chad was a country in Africa. But thanks to the razor-close presidential election, now I know what a chad really is: that little circle or square of paper that may or may not fall out of a ballot when a voter punches it.

With the presidential race so close, every chad that floated to the floor in Florida was the subject of intense scrutiny, debate, and national angst. The races weren’t so close in those 67 House districts where congressional incumbents had no challengers this year. And indeed, most incumbents had no problem snagging reelection, thanks to the overwhelming taxpayer-funded advantages of incumbency.

Incumbents won 98.5 percent of the time. It’s a shame. Elections should be competitive. They should involve real choices and chances. Is there any way to achieve greater competition? How about term limits? At the end of your three terms in the House or two in the Senate, you step down and give other citizens a chance to govern. Just like eleven congressmen did this year, voluntarily.

What happened in Florida is an ironic reversal of the all-too-common scenario of our democracy: electoral contests leeched of all competitiveness, so lopsided it’s hardly worth bothering to count the ballots, let alone the chads.

The good thing about term limits is that they will help make every chad count on a regular basis, not just every couple hundred years.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

America is a place where if you work hard enough anything you can dream can happen. Well, thanks in part to term limits.

Take the story of Phillip Brutus. Many years ago this Haitian immigrant was a part-time janitor at a law firm. While emptying the trash one day, he overheard the senior partner quizzing junior lawyers on Latin legal terms. When the junior lawyers were stumped, Brutus spoke up with the correct answer. In that room full of raised eyebrows and jaws dropped wide open, he decided to become a lawyer.

After years of poverty and sacrifice, Brutus earned his law degree and opened up a practice. Then he dreamed of serving his community in the state legislature. In Florida, incumbency effectively blocked new people. Most incumbent legislators didn’t face any competition at all.

Phillip’s challenge of a powerful incumbent went the way of virtually all such challenges: he lost. Then Florida’s term limits law took effect and all that changed. Suddenly there were more candidates running then you could shake a stick at. Brutus sought an open seat where there was no entrenched incumbent and he won becoming the first Haitian-American elected to Florida’s Legislature.

When incumbents can no longer monopolize our politics, voters get real choices and anything can happen. Our economy has long been open to those who work hardest and best serve their customers. Shouldn’t our political process work this way, too? With term limits it does.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Whose side are you on? That seems to have been mighty important in all the wrangling over who’ll be the next president. It’s taking quite a while to figure out who that will be, but it’s the work of a moment to see there are serious problems in our politics. The sense of legitimacy that serves to unite Americans of differing views just isn’t there.

A big part of the reason is that partisanship is playing a large and corrosive role from administrative officials to court justices. How many Republicans feel comfortable about the election boards in overwhelmingly Democratic Florida counties making decisions about the intent of voters ala dimpled or pregnant chads? And who can blame Democrats for suspecting that the Republican Secretary of State might perceive her discretion through a partisan lens?

For years Americans have supported term limits feeling that over time career politicians tend to put their political party and their personal careers ahead of their public duties. Madison, chief architect of the Constitution, warned against factions, his term for groups that pursue their special interests at the expense of the common interest.

Rep. Steve Largent of Oklahoma is an NFL Hall-of-Famer who has term-limited himself in Congress. He says, “. . . I wasn’t elected to represent just the Republican or Democratic teams . . . the team that we’re all on is the American team.” Let’s end the partisan stranglehold on our government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Attention, America. Attention. The long battle is almost over. The Department of Agriculture has proposed to grant American farmers the all-important right to create smaller holes in Swiss cheese. They’ve bowed to pressure from groups like the Wisconsin Cheese Makers, which argued that the eye-size requirements for Swiss cheese are “out of step with the demands of the consumer and the marketer.”

Fans of Swiss cheese are wild with joy. Mary Smith, veteran cheese-eater of Kalamazoo, Michigan says, “I’m tired of all those huge holes. Why the regulators have taken so long to permit smaller Swiss-cheese holes is beyond me. Of course, I don’t want the holes to be too small. Well . . . I guess they know what they’re doing.” Hey, thank you so much, Mary, for your input. That was very valuable. And thank goodness our leaders don’t leave the fate of devoted eaters of cheese to the brutal free market.

Without the regulators in Washington, who knows what size the holes in Swiss cheese would be? Some might be too large for the cheese altogether. And some might be so small you could hardly see them! It’s all too scary to contemplate. One thing’s certain: It must take years of experience for our bureaucrats and career politicians to master the intricacies of cheese regulation.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Ah, those Founding Fathers! Ya gotta love ’em. They were brave men and wise, and their wisdom stands the test of time.

Consider, for example, the Federalist Papers, editorials written early in our history to explain the new American constitution to the public. Consider in particular the famous Federalist Paper Number Ten, about the problem of faction. What James Madison called a faction is what we today call a “special interest.” But let me quote Madison: “By a faction,” says Madison, “I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

You can see the beauty of this definition. Madison’s concept excludes any politically active groups that are fighting for the interests or rights of all of us. But it covers all groups, whether “actuated by passion or interest,” who just want to grab something for themselves at the expense of everyone else, for instance a subsidy or a price support or a regulation against a competitor. Madison’s definition also includes folks you wouldn’t think at first to regard as a special interest: like power-grabbing career politicians, whose factional propensities we would do well to recognize and combat. As usual, good work James.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

What would you expect politicians who claim to be reformers to say about a lobbyist making a $25,000 loan to a politician who then signs on to legislation promoted by the lobbyist? Well, apparently it depends a lot on whether the politician in question is a member of your party or the other party. Welcome to Washington.

The case involves six-term incumbent Congressman Jim Moran and now-defeated congressional candidate Terry Lierman, a drug company lobbyist. Both are Democrats and thus while Republicans are calling for investigations and resignations; Democrats are saying it’s all no big deal. That two men, one in Congress and the other seeking the office, could really be so clueless as to not notice that this type of transaction walks and quacks like a bribe is a sad commentary on the political talent we get to choose from.

Now Republicans are right to investigate this. But why have they given their own Republican Rep. Bud Schuster a free pass? Schuster’s dealings with a lobbyist have violated House rules but resulted in nothing more than a weak slap on the wrist. We can’t know what motivated the very inappropriate financial deal between Moran and Lierman, who are certainly innocent until proven guilty. But as for the double standard of career politicians who believe in one set of laws for you and another for them and their buddies . . . well, let’s just say: guilty as charged.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Remember Jesse Ventura? Sure you do. A movie star and former wrestler, Ventura captured the governor’s seat in Minnesota a couple years back by giving a body slam to politics as usual. Lord knows I don’t agree with all the man’s opinions, nor all his policies neither. But I do like the fact that he is neither intimidated by the usual checklist of political pieties nor afraid to do battle with the powers that be. But those are strikes against Jesse, says Jonah Goldberg, in a recent issue of National Review.

Goldberg says Ventura is a “demagogue” who doesn’t see that, “the faults of the major parties stem from the fact that they are too democratic and too weak, not the reverse. . . . Untethered to any institution, Ventura is free to rant about the corruption of the cleanest political system in American history. . . .”

A demagogue, as you know, is an empty-headed fellow, usually a former wrestler, who rouses the rabble by a lot of deceptive rhetorical bluster. I give Ventura more credit than that. I think he says what he believes. Nor can I agree that thumbing your nose at today’s political establishment is tantamount to original sin. After the last several years of virtually non-stop scandal and corruption at the highest levels of office, I’m sorry, but anyone who thinks the political system is a hymn to integrity needs to pull his head out of the sand. But maybe Goldberg’s piece is really a slick parody of just that Ostrich-like attitude.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.