Categories
Thought

Herbert Spencer

Not the equality of men, but the equality of their claims to make the best of themselves within the limits mutually produced, has all along been my principle. . . .
The equality alleged [in Social Statics] is not among men themselves, but among their claims to equally-limited spheres for the exercise of their faculties: an utterly different proposition.

Herbert Spencer, in a letter to W. H. Hudson, a former assistant, rejecting his consent to Hudson dedicating his book on Jean-Jacques Rousseau to him (January 7, 1903). The book went on to be published as Rousseau and Naturalism in Life and Thought (1903), dedicated to Dr. Frederick James Furnivall. Spencer went on to say, in that letter, that the “equality” he had alleged in his first book, Social Statics (1851), “is not among men themselves, but among their claims to equally-limited spheres for the exercise of their faculties: an utterly different proposition. [T. H.] Huxley confused the two and spread the confusion, and I am anxious that it should not be further spread.”
Categories
Today

Giants

On June 22, 1633, astronomer Galileo Galilei recanted his belief in heliocentrism, the idea that the Earth revolves around the sun. He didn’t do this based on scientific research, but under pressure from the Holy Office in Rome.

Three hundred forty-five years later, to the date, American astronomer James W. Christy discovered Charon (pictured above), a moon for what was then called “the ninth planet,” Pluto. This put Christy in an august company of satellite discoverers, including Galileo, who had discovered four of Jupiter’s moons in 1610.

When Pluto was later “demoted” to “dwarf planet” status, in 2006, no one was put under house arrest for objecting, or for not changing his or her mind, as had Galileo been centuries before.

The ratio in sizes between Charon and Pluto make the pair, effectively, a “double dwarf planet.”

Categories
defense & war general freedom international affairs

Xi Excuses, Demands, Assaults

South China Sea, threat

The good news — to hear Xi Jinping, chief Butcher of Beijing, tell it — is that Mr. Xi will “not take the bait.”

You see, China’s authoritarian leader complained (in a conversation last year with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen) that the U.S. had been “goading” him, trying “to trick” his Chinese Communist Party (CCP) into a military invasion of Taiwan. 

How difficult it must be for this totalitarian titan to restrain himself from launching a murderous assault against a neighboring country . . . and all triggered because the bad ole USA talks to the ROC (Republic of China/Taiwan) and provides the weapons it needs to defend itself. 

One constantly reads that China claims Taiwan as its own province, of course, though the actual history behind that assertion tells a much different story. 

History regardless, Taiwan today ought to belong to today’s Taiwanese.

But it is another Chinese “claim” that may first lead to a full-fledged world war: Xi and Company demand virtually an entire ocean, the 90 percent of the South China Sea captured within their nine-dash-net. 

Now, back in 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, an international tribunal at The Hague, heard a case brought by the Philippines, in which it ruled that China lacked any reasonable basis for its nine-dash-line demands.

Last week, reported VOA News, “China announced its coast guard will be empowered to investigate and detain for up to 60 days ‘foreigners who endanger China’s national security and interests’ in the disputed waters.”

Yesterday, Foreign Policy informed us that China is “sharply increasing its violent attacks against Philippine vessels and sailors in disputed waters off the Philippine coast,” and that on “Monday, China Coast Guard ships intercepted Philippine vessels attempting to resupply their own sailors grounded on a shoal inside the Philippines’s own exclusive economic zone (EEZ), barely 100 miles off the western coast of the archipelago.

“The Philippine Armed Forces chief of staff likened the Chinese assault” — perpetrated by “ax- and knife-wielding Chinese crewmen” — to “a pirate attack.”

China has a long rap sheet in its treatment of the Philippines, and with everyone in the region save for North Korea. 

War rages in Europe. And the Middle East. Now the world’s worst regime, the CCP, inches ever closer to World War III.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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St. George Tucker

Civil rights, as we may remember, are reducible to three primary heads; the right of personal security; the right of personal liberty; and the right of private property. In a state of slavery, the two last are wholly abolished, the person of the slave being at the absolute disposal of his master; and property, what he is incapable, in that state, either of acquiring, or holding, in his own use. Hence, it will appear how perfectly irreconcilable a state of slavery is to the principles of a democracy, which form the basis and foundation of our government.

St. George Tucker, A Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it, in the State of Virginia (1796).
Categories
Today

Grandfather clauses

On June 21, 1915, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an Oklahoma law denying the right to vote to some citizens. In Guinn v. United States, the Supreme Court found “grandfather clauses” in effect in several formerly slave states to be little more than sneaky ways of allowing illiterate white folks to vote while disallowing illiterate black folks.

Categories
First Amendment rights ideological culture individual achievement

Can’t Cancel J. K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling, trans, transphobia, controversy

The UK Telegraph says that “Scores of actresses turn down roles in play critical of J. K. Rowling’s gender views.”

Since we’re a family-oriented publication, I can’t divulge the name of the play, which “has already caused outrage over its explicit working title.” The title calls Rowling a word that rhymes with “bunt.”

Rowling “has become a figure of hate online among some activists, and received death threats after publicly sharing concerns about the encroachment of transgender campaigning on women’s rights.”

The play’s purpose is apparently to smear Ms. Rowling, whose beloved Harry Potter novels have so far sold zillions. One hopes that an aversion to cooperating with the smear is the main reason why scores of actresses, many of whom probably have trouble getting steady work in a very competitive industry, won’t go anywhere near the play.

Unfortunately, by June 13, the date of the Telegraph story, actors had been found for the male leads.

One of the producers, Barry Church-Woods, admits that the play has “met some kind of resistance every step of the way.” He’s been “surprised by how difficult it has been for us to recruit the female cast in particular,” even though this is a “well-paid gig . . . and the script is terrific.”

What if the producers do find enough conscienceless thespians to play all the parts, the play gets produced, and it enjoys a duly brief run and sparse attendance?

J. K. Rowling will still survive. Somehow.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Charles Sumner

Slavery is in itself an arrogant denial of human rights, and by no human reason can the power to establish such a wrong be placed among the attributes of any just sovereignty.

Senator Charles Sumner, in his “The Crime Against Kansas” speech (May 19-20, 1856).
Categories
Today

Not a Nation

On the 20th of June in 1787, at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Oliver Ellsworth moved to confine legislative powers to two distinct congressional bodies, and to strike the word “national” from the document. Edmund Randolph of Virginia had previously moved successfully to call the government the National Government of United States. Ellsworth moved that the government should continue to be called, simply, the United States of America.

The final wording eventually became “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”

The words “nation” and “national” do not occur anywhere in the Constitution as ratified by the original set of states, or as amended.

John F. Kennedy authored the Encyclopædia Britannica’s article on Ellsworth. This was Kennedy’s only contribution to the encyclopedia.

The image, above, is of a portrait of Oliver Ellsworth by Ralph Earl (1785); it is housed, perhaps with a tinge of irony, in the National Portrait Gallery.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall judiciary term limits

A Second Life for Limits

Congress, age limit, voters, democracy

Will the Supreme Court let states impose limits on the representatives and senators they send to Washington, D.C.?

Thanks to events in North Dakota, there’s a good chance this question is about to asked again. 

And get a different answer.

The first time was thirty years ago. The case: U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton.

In May 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court held, in a 5-4 decision, that states cannot impose restrictions like term limits on their congressional delegations.

But: “Nothing in the Constitution deprives the people of each State of the power to prescribe eligibility requirements for the candidates who seek to represent them in Congress,” observed Justice Clarence Thomas in his dissent. “And where the Constitution is silent, it raises no bar to action by the States or the people.”

Now 61 percent of North Dakota voters have passed a ballot measure to impose an age limit on their congressmen. The 1995 Supreme Court would have ruled it unconstitutional. The only justice serving on the high court then who is still there is Thomas.

Everybody thinks that North Dakota’s outlawing of ancient candidates will be challenged in court. In a June 17 podcast for U.S. Term Limits, its president, Philip Blumel, says that USTL would welcome such a challenge.

“Surely, U.S. Term Limits versus Thornton would be the basis” for the challenge and would thus “provide an opportunity for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit the issue.”

Moreover, a case brought in federal court won’t necessarily take years to decide, because “sometimes the [Supreme Court] expedites election-related cases.”

Fingers crossed, everybody.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

NOTE: Paul Jacob is a former president of U.S. Term Limits and continues to serve on its board of directors. Paul is currently the president of Liberty Initiative Fund, which made significant contributions to North Dakota’s age limits initiative.

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John Quincy Adams

The first steps of the slaveholder to justify by argument the peculiar institutions is to deny the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence. He denies that all men are created equal. He denies that he has inalienable rights.

John Quincy Adams, “Letter to the 12th Congressional District” (June 29, 1839).