ThisIsCommonSense.org

This is war. And on our shores. Thousands of American citizens murdered in cold blood. But despite our pain and suffering as a people, we are still strong. Not only militarily, but also in our love of freedom and our commitment to defend it come what may.

Some have argued that America will never be the same. In a sense that’s true: we’ll certainly never forget this savage and senseless attack. And we have much work to do to make certain it doesn’t happen again. But it’s important to be careful how we go about it.

In the wake of this unprecedented brutality, two out of three Americans say they would be willing to trade some civil liberties to get more security. But this is isn’t our real choice. Nothing about increasing our security requires abridging our civil rights. We don’t have to let the terrorists win, not in any respect. For these terrorists would like nothing better than to knock America off our foundation, our principles, the things that make us truly the greatest country the world has ever known. They hate our freedom. Let’s sustain that freedom. Let’s show the whole world: we are the same America.

The same America whose rifle shot for freedom was heard ’round the world in 1776, and is still being heard today. The same America that freed Europe from the Nazis and Asia from imperial Japan. Let it be known in the face of this terror today that we are indeed the same America the land of the free and the home of the brave.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Astronomers are jumping up and down for joy. They’re ecstatic! They’ve got solid confirmation now that there is a black hole at the center of the galaxy. Hey, great.

A black hole is a stellar object that has become so dense that nothing in its path can escape its gravitational pull. Not heat, not light, not anything. That’s why they call it a black hole … it is just a lightless abyss. And, for that reason, very hard to detect from far away. Because of all the closely packed matter you’d expect in pretty much any galactic core, astronomers have long assumed there must be such a black hole in the middle of our own Milky Way. But now they can actually detect it. A NASA satellite observatory happened to be looking in the right direction when an intense x‑ray flare erupted, the kind that would be produced when a black hole is chewing something up. As I say, the astronomers are dancing in the streets over this. Well, I’m happy for them, I guess.

But, is this really such a big deal? I mean, it’s not as if there’s never been a black hole sighting before. These guys gotta get out more. I’ve seen this phenomenon many times. Maybe not in its astronomical form but certainly in the political one. It’s called the ego of the career politician. It’s called the U.S. Capitol. It’s called Washington, D.C. What it is, is a huge and lightless void that sucks up the wallets and hopes of humble citizens, at a ravenous pace. And, there’s no hope of ever escaping. Or at least, that’s what they’d like you to think.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

What’s the best way to help a man when he’s down? Kick him? That’s what some folks in Washington seem to be saying. They say that with the economy weakening a bit lately, Bush made a big mistake giving us a few of our own bucks back. They say the only way for the government to put its financial affairs in order is to grab even more of our hard-​earned money. Kick us when we’re down.

But making it harder for productive citizens to pay the bills doesn’t help the economy. After all, working folks are what make the economy. If Washington really wants to help us, why not start by taking their hands out of our pockets?

Listen to David Williams of Citizens Against Government Waste. According to Williams, “It’s the spending, stupid!” There’s plenty of bloat in our multi-​trillion dollar federal budget that could easily be slashed and hacked, if only our so-​called leaders put their minds to it.

As the Cato Institute notes, corporate welfare alone adds up to some $87 billion in the current federal budget. All it would take to get rid of that and all the pork and all the other dubious spending is a little common sense, a lot of political willpower, and a big pair of scissors.

One of the few congressmen who gets it is Ron Paul of Texas. “There is a lot of room in a two or three trillion dollar budget to cut spending,” Paul points out. “That’s what’s best for the economy, to cut spending and taxes at the same time.”

What? Cut them both? At the same time? Now that’s a kick!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

I am not a perfect man. For example, I’m behind in my reading. I’ve got a stack of books yea high on my desk, and some of those books have pages. I can’t keep up with it.

As I say, I’m not a perfect man. But at least I try not to make other people suffer as a result of my delinquency. Not so much can be said about our lords and masters in the nation’s capital. Our congressmen also have a lot of reading to do. But they never really get around to perusing all the legislation they pass before they pass it. Not all the way through. There is just too much of it, with too many clauses and sub-​clauses. This is pretty mind-​numbing stuff.

One result is that really nasty provisions sometimes get tucked into the bills, unconstitutional assaults on our freedom which few people know about, not even most of the congressmen, until it’s way too late. An example is a federally-​mandated national database that is supposed to keep tabs of your every visit to the doctor, including what you thought was confidential conversation about your medical problems.

The mandate for this database was imposed by the 106th Congress, along with a lot of other haphazard track-​and-​spy provisions. What, you never heard of this database? Behind on your reading, huh? Well, I just found out about it myself. I am not a perfect man. And I don’t know everything about everything. But one thing I do know is that if our legislators can’t take the trouble to read the legislation before they vote for it, they shouldn’t vote for it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Some folks are rethinking our controversial drug laws. But while polls show more than a quarter of Americans now favor decriminalizing marijuana, not one of the 535 folks who represent us in Congress agrees. At least, no one has introduced meaningful legislation or come forward to champion this cause. And while initiatives in various states are legalizing marijuana for medical purposes and moving away from incarceration, federal penalties for drug offenses continue to get more and more draconian.

I don’t mean to comment here on the merits of our nation’s drug policies, or lack thereof. All I’m saying is that, yet again, we aren’t being well represented because our political system has been monopolized by career politicians. The system is stagnant because careerists are unwilling to take political risks for what they believe in.

New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson is pushing for changes in the drug laws even though he knows it is not an immediately popular stand. He tells Rolling Stone magazine that he’s living proof of the virtues of term limits: “Would I have brought this issue out if I thought I could be elected to a third term?” he asks. “I don’t know. In the first term, I talked about the failure of the Drug War and that arresting people isn’t going to work. But it wasn’t until the second term that I made a conscious decision to turn up the volume and search out some solutions.”

Quite a telling admission. And whether or not you agree with Governor Johnson on the drug issue, surely there’s something wrong when our representatives run from important issues and play it safe.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

In my view, taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to subsidize criminal behavior. Would you agree with me on that? Yet that is what’s happening.

Maybe you’ve heard how law officers get to keep some of the money they grab from drug-​trafficking suspects. No evidence or trial is required. Empowered by anti-​racketeering and other laws, they can just snag the goods at will.

But that’s not all. Social workers now have a financial incentive to kidnap children. That’s what a Massachusetts couple, Heidi and Neil Howard, found out when their first baby girl was born terminally ill. A social worker pushed her way into their home and found it in disorder. The kitchen was being remodeled, and there was a lot of tension in the air, possibly the kind of tension associated with having a terminally ill baby. Social workers told Heidi that if she didn’t sign a complaint against her husband, she could lose her two sons. Then they used that signed complaint to take her two sons.

More and more, agencies are conniving to break up families. Feminist writer Wendy McElroy says the Adoption and Safe Families Act, passed by Congress in 1997, deserves a lot of the blame. The Act awards a “finder’s fee” of up to $4,000 to agencies that adopt out a child. Of course, to adopt out a child, you first need to have a child in tow, ready to go.

Taxpayer-​funded payoffs alone won’t turn cops into robbers or child protection specialists into kidnappers. There has to be a certain lack of moral scruples also. But you know, the payoffs don’t exactly help, either.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.