On December 5, 1933, nationwide alcohol Prohibition in the United States ended after Utah became the 36th U.S. state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75 percent of states needed to enact the amendment that overturned the 18th.
As we all know by now, woke administrators and educators, chanting “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” endeavor to induce guilt in (and otherwise punish) persons of certain races, sex, etc., for the grave sin of allegedly benefiting from “systemic” “privileges.” DEI arbiters are ever eager to promote preferential treatment that benefits members of currently favored groups as defined by unchosen physical traits.
Since December 2023, Oklahoma state law has prohibited universities from requiring anybody “to participate in . . . or receive any education . . . to the extent such education . . . grants preference based on one person’s particular race, color, sex, ethnicity or national origin over another’s.”
Nevertheless, Oklahoma University requires undergrads pursuing a degree in education to take a course preaching alleged white-person complicity in institutional racism.
We do find organizational racism in today’s world. But not quite in the way preached. It’s not hidden beneath surfaces and doesn’t have to be arbitrarily imputed. The course itself, full of topics like “Critical Whiteness in Education” and “Microaggressions in Educational Spaces,” manifests such racism.
A spokesman for the governor’s office says it’s “insane that this is a required course. It’s time to look at the accreditation entities that are pushing courses like this and bring common sense back to the classroom.”
DEI policies somewhat resemble the affirmation action policies of yesteryear. But they aspire to be much more thorough and pervasive. They are animated by a mentality of totalitarian control, a mentality loath to, let us say, course-correct.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Opulent, civilized, and industrious nations, are greater consumers than poor ones, because they are infinitely greater producers.
Jean-Baptiste Say, A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition, 1832), Book III, “On Consumption,” Chapter 1.
On December 4, 1783, at Fraunces Tavern in New York City, General George Washington formally bade his officers farewell.
The people of Chicago must hope that this continues.
But it would be better to have a mayor who doesn’t make it necessary.
Chicago’s city council recently met in a special session to consider Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposal to hike property taxes by $300 million to help balance the budget. Councilmen defeated the idea 50-0.
In pitching his plan, Johnson had said that the only alternative was major cuts to the numbers of police officers and fire fighters. There would also be fewer trash pickups, less tree trimming, more rats.
Off the table? Any reductions in public school spending.
But, as The Wall Street Journal observes, Chicago’s city budget has grown from $11 billion in 2019 to $17 billion in 2023. Meanwhile, “the Chicago Public Schools added almost 7,000 employees while CPS enrollment declined by more than 30,000 students” — as “temporary” pandemic-era jumps in spending became permanent.
Teachers-union-backed Brandon Johnson was elected in 2023 with about 52 percent of the vote; his leftist campaign platform included proposals to hike taxes.
Johnson’s main opponent, Paul Vallas, also a Democrat but of sounder policy mind, campaigned mostly on a tough-on-crime platform. But he also made clear his opposition to the “high-tax and high-regulation environment” in which many Chicago businesses find themselves.
Turnout in Chicago’s April 2023 runoff campaign was only 35 percent.
Try again, Chicago?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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There is no wish more natural than the wish to know.
Michel de Montaigne, Essais, Book III, Ch. 13 (1595).
On December 3, 1989, the leaders of the two world superpowers, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, declared an end to the Cold War, at a summit in Malta. A little over two years later not only had the Cold War ended, the Soviet Union was itself dissolved.
Back in June, after his son was found guilty on gun charges, President Biden said: “I will not pardon him.”
Now he’s saying “I believe in the justice system, but . . .”
Let’s remember the Conspiracy Theory floating around before the election.
Various cynical people, cynics I call them, declared that despite Biden’s pledge not to pardon his son, he was only waiting for the election. After the election, when the action could no longer hurt him or any Biden-substitute candidate, he would then pardon his son.
And so it has come to pass— as of last night.
I guess if you can’t get Al Capone on anything else, you get him on tax evasion. But I don’t care that much about the gun charges or the tax charges against Hunter Biden. I care about the corruption.
I care about the many millions of dollars funneled into the Biden family and the Big Guy, Joe Biden, in consequence of Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling deal-making with firms in Ukraine, Romania, and China. Millions that fell into his lap over the years only because of who his dad is. And what daddy could do — as in fire a Ukrainian prosecutor looking into Biden family corruption.
Riding high, Hunter Biden felt he could get away with anything, including massive tax evasion.
The son can, I take it, no longer be imprisoned for any of the law-breaking we know about. Or even suspect.So maybe, thus unencumbered, Hunter can now take the stand about his father’s role in all the graft and bribery.
Interestingly, Hunter’s pardon removes his ability to assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Because he can’t be incriminated, i.e. criminalized, he can be compelled to testify.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Wherever there is an enforced orthodoxy — or even two orthodoxies, as often happens — good writing stops. This was well illustrated by the Spanish civil war. To many English intellectuals the war was a deeply moving experience, but not an experience about which they could write sincerely. There were only two things that you were allowed to say, and both of them were palpable lies: as a result, the war produced acres of print but almost nothing worth reading.
George Orwell, “The Prevention of Literature,” Polemic (January 1946).
On December 2, 1823, U.S. President James Monroe delivered a speech establishing American neutrality in future European conflicts. The policy became known as the Monroe Doctrine.
Though a much-discussed principle of American foreign policy, it was undermined by the Spanish-American War and proved a dead letter as the U.S. entered World War I.