On October 26, 1774, the first Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Exactly one year later, King George III of Great Britain went before Parliament to declare the American colonies in rebellion. And one year later yet, to the day, in 1776, septuagenerian Benjamin Franklin (pictured, above) departed from America for France, seeking financial support for the American Revolution.
Maybe issues don’t matter so much now, though: more talked-about is Trump’s stunt scooping fries at McDonald’s, which got Democrats so upset (to their detriment), or Kamala Harris’s bizarre quip at a rally where two young men shouted “Jesus Is Lord!” and “Christ Is King!” as they were being thrown out. The Veep’s response that they were at the wrong rally was construed by many to suggest that her supporters aren’t Christians.
Nevertheless, The Epoch Times is right to emphasize policy. It’s a big subject, so let’s just compare the candidates on “The Economy.”
Donald Trump “Pledges to reduce inflation by increasing American energy production, cutting wasteful government spending, and preventing illegal immigration,” and “Seeks to lower commodity prices by ending global wars.” Are these “good for the economy”? Probably; mostly. But distant from the heart of inflation.
Worse, Trump allegedly “‘Strongly’ feels presidents ‘should have at least a say’ in the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decisions.” The Fed is indeed key, but the only way to reduce inflation immediately is through the kind of policies presidents tend to hate — for example, the deflation that Fed Chairman Paul Volcker performed on Jimmy Carter’s economy that helped get Reagan elected.
Kamala Harris sticks to progressive standards, proposing “a federal ban on corporate price gouging on food and groceries to tackle inflation,” which would backfire into a major economic debacle, complete with shortages and calls for rationing and worse. It fits in nicely with another typical progressive plank, calling for “raising the minimum wage,” which would lead to less employment partly through increased robotization of businesses now employing the workers affected, the low-skilled (the ones Trump calls “great”).
Looking over their substantive policies, it’s easy to see why “culture war” issues prevail.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.
Voltaire, Candide (1759).
On October 25, 1806, German philosopher Max Stirner was born. Stirner was known for his radical individualism, which under the name of “egoism” became culturally chic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, a major work that was famously attacked by Karl Marx, he translated into German Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (from its original English) and J.-B. Say’s A Treatise on Political Economy (from its original French).
Der Einzige und sein Eigentum has been translated into English as The Ego and Its Own and The Ego and His Own.
“Max Stirner” is a nom de plume, his birth name being Johann Kaspar Schmidt. He died in 1856, and his biography by John Henry Mackay, Max Stirner — sein Leben und sein Werk, was published in German in 1898 (enlarged 1910, 1914), and finally translated into English in 2005.
The only image we have of him was sketched by Karl Marx’s comrade, benefactor and abuse-buddy, Friedrich Engels. The portrait above has been adapted from that drawing.
Florida is suing the feds because the Sunshine State needs the cooperation of the federal government to check the status of certain persons on its voter rolls.
Florida is bound by law to maintain accurate registration rolls. The federal government is bound by law to cooperate with requests from state and local governments for the information required to fully assess whether a person on the rolls has the right to vote and to be registered to vote.
But when Florida asked Citizenship and Immigration Services for just this kind of information, the USCIS balked.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is suing Virginia to prevent that state from cleaning up its own voter rolls.
Virginia Governor Youngkin castigates the federal action as “an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law signed by Democrat Tim Kaine to remove noncitizens from voter rolls — a process that starts with someone declaring themselves a noncitizen and then registering to vote.”
Power Line plausibly suggests that what’s happening here is that the politicized, misnamed Justice Department regards the votes of noncitizens as most likely to be votes for Democratic candidates. So why not discard established law and established procedures if this would help tilt elections in favor of Democrats?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.
W. E. B. Du Bois, John Brown: A Biography (1909): “The Legacy of John Brown.”