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Got a notebook handy? Here’s a neat way to make money if you’re a local government. First, charge people for breaking the law. Second, make it next to impossible to avoid breaking that law. That’s what’s happening with traffic lights around the country.

Used to be that the yellow light the one that means “slow down unless you’re already crossing the intersection anyway” lasted for about five seconds. But in 1985 that began to change, with the span of the yellow light often being snipped to just 3 seconds or so. This trend accelerated as cameras began to be used more and more often to catch naughty drivers. These cameras are posted at intersections and snap instant mug shots of any driver who happens to cross a red light. The driver is then fined automatically.

Well, it seems that local governments have figured out that the fewer seconds the yellow light is allowed to shine, the more likely it is that people will run the red light. Which in turn increases the number of automatic fines you can collect. So over the years, more and more municipalities have been truncating the yellow light cycle. Critics claim they are doing so intentionally, to boost revenue. The additional revenue can run into the millions. And that sure helps fund municipal budgets.

Just one problem: Making intersections more dangerous in order to get more revenue defeats the whole purpose of traffic rules. Governments shouldn’t be rigging things so drivers run red lights, just so the bureaucrats can avoid red ink.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

The other day my oldest daughter and I watched “The Diary of Anne Frank” on television, the story of the Dutch girl who hid from the Nazis, but was finally caught, imprisoned and murdered like so many millions more.

As much as I wish it weren’t necessary, I want my kids to know about the Holocaust. To know especially that it can happen again. Indeed, totalitarian horrors have since been perpetrated by tyrants across the globe. Understanding the very real potential for man’s inhumanity to man especially when given the awful power of modern governments is the best way to prevent new holocausts.

Days later, as if to drive home the point that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, news broke about the Taliban regime in Afghanistan forcing Hindus to wear a noticeable label on their clothing to mark them as non-​Muslims. This dictatorship is doing precisely what the Nazis did to Jews. Well, let’s not get carried away there are no death camps. But why take any step down that road? And guess who is providing millions of dollars in critical aid for this tyrannical regime? You’re ahead of me, I know. That’s right you and me the American taxpayers. The Bush Administration just mailed them a check for $43 million.

Our government insists that the UN impose sanctions on Afghanistan for not turning over Osama bin Laden, and yet we’re now financing the Taliban’s campaign of terror against the country’s opium farmers. Question: Would our government fund the Nazis if the Nazis agreed to advance the drug war? Are we so blind?

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

Remember how TV’s classic rumpled detective, Lieutenant Columbo, is always saying to hapless murder suspects “Oh just one more thing!”? He’s never really that absentminded. All the forgetful fumbling is just a way to trip up the suspect and get at the truth.

What’s all this got to do with the Congressional Record? Hey, glad you asked. Well, it’s always “one more thing” there, too. Except the goal is not to uncover the truth, but to bury it. The record is not a real record at all. For more than a century ever since its birth in its present form in 1873 the Congressional Record has borne only a scant resemblance to the actual events in the House and Senate.

While it is supposed to be the verbatim transcript of congressional doings, congressmen are free to “extend” their remarks at will, prior to publication. And that’s a very liberal understanding of the word “extend.” As historian Daniel Boorstin notes in his book The Image, “Despite occasional feeble protests, our Record has remained a gargantuan miscellany in which actual proceedings are buried beneath undelivered speeches, and mountains of the unread and unreadable.” This kind of legislative page-​packing does a disservice to historians and to the voters. Sure, we have C‑SPAN now.

So if you want to find out what really happened on a particular day there’s probably a box of videotapes in some closet somewhere that you could try to dredge up. Most of us don’t have the time for that. And yet we’d sure like to know what those rascals are really up to.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

You can never be too safe, right? Well, that all depends.

Perhaps you’ve heard about the case of Gail Atwater, recently decided by the Supreme Court. Atwater was driving along when one of her kids’ toys flew out the window. She turned the car around to find it. Neither she nor her kids had their seat belts fastened. The kids had undone their seatbelts so they could look around more easily for the toy.

Dangerous, right? Sure. Anyway, Gail Atwater got pulled over, got arrested, got handcuffed, got dragged into the police station. She pled no-​contest and paid the hundred-​dollar fine. The officer was “just being safe” here, right? After all, anyone who fails to wear a seatbelt deserves to be traumatized, just to make sure she gets the message. Otherwise she might turn into a dangerous axe-​murderer. Right? Well, who knows why the police officer acted as he did. Nobody claims that Atwater was violent or in any way abusive toward the officer. But the issue here is not one officer’s bad judgment, but whether that judgment can be allowed to stand as permissible procedure by legislators, by the police themselves, by the courts.

Atwater felt that her Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure had been violated. She sued. And now the court of last resort, the Supreme Court has ruled, 5 – 4, that although the officer may have acted with lousy judgment, he acted within his appropriate discretion.

So the same thing could happen to you the next time you violate some minor traffic rule. Feel safer now?

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

One of the little-​known facts about congressmen who voluntarily limit their terms in office is that most of them keep their word. Even state and local political leaders who usually don’t have a national spotlight shining on them also voluntarily limit their terms and also keep their word.

Yes, it’s been known to happen. And we’ve just found another. His name is Brent Steele, and he’s an Indiana representative who has announced that he won’t seek a fifth term. Why? Because in 1994, term limits was a major theme of his campaign. He advocated them, and now he’s going to live by them.

Steele didn’t succeed in bringing term limits to the whole Indiana legislature. But he knows one way he can make term limits a reality. As Steele puts it, “I was for [term limits] then and after eight years [in the legislature], I’m even more convinced I was right. People get too concerned with politics and not policy. It’s a pretty polluted process, and the only way I see changes is term limits. I believe people should get out every so often and let the process begin fresh.”

Steele, who has achieved the rank of House minority whip, says he has accomplished many of his goals as a legislator, though he is disappointed that the budget process is still ridden with favoritism and pork. But he’s ready to let somebody else tilt at that particular windmill.

“I served the right amount of time, in my mind,” he says. “I rose in leadership. I didn’t leave anything on the table.” Good for you, Brent Steele.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.