Common Sense with Paul Jacob

Javier Milei

I would like to leave a message for all businesspeople here and for those who are not here in person but are following from around the world. Do not be intimidated, either by the political caste or by parasites who live off the state. Do not surrender to a political class that only wants to stay in power and retain its privileges.

You are social benefactors. You are heroes. You’re the creators of the most extraordinary period of prosperity we’ve ever seen. Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral. If you make money, it’s because you offer a better product at a better price, thereby contributing to general well-being.

Do not surrender to the advance of the state. The state is not the solution. The state is the problem itself.
Argentinian President Javier Milei, at the recent World Economic Forum at Davos, as quoted by Tom Woods on X, January 17, 2024.

Today

Montesquieu

On January 18, 1689, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, French satirist and philosopher, was born.

His treatise The Spirit of the Laws was a major influence upon America’s founding generation. He is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, which is implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. He did more than any other author to secure the place of the word despotism in the political lexicon.

In 1811, former U.S. President Thomas Jefferson translated and published Destutt de Tracy’s Commentary and Review of Montesquieu’s ‘Spirit of Laws,’ a very popular review of republican principles — which helps demonstrate how important these French writers were to the American form of government.

Montesquieu died on February 10, 1755.

Comic-Book Isms

equity, equality, communism, egalitarianism, nanny state

“This is crazy,” says Reardon Sullivan, former chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Party.

He means the way Montgomery County has been selling vendor space at a comics convention, MoComCon, being held January 20. The county is charging vendors in a way that has nothing to do with what is being sold but that county officials call “inclusive” (having learned that this adjective transmutes any evil).

If you belong to a favored group, you get a special rate. Nonindigenous straight white males pay $275 per table or, with electricity, $325. But if you’re a woman or favored minority, the price per table is $225 or $250.

Sullivan says that as a black person who grew up in Montgomery County, he finds it “truly insulting to say that a seller who’s black or BIPOC is disadvantaged. All we ever want is a level playing field.” (“BIPOC” is kitchen-sink code for “black, indigenous, and people of color.”)

Sullivan has the right spirit but errs in suggesting that the only thing members of currently favored groups (“we”) want is a level playing field.

One can hope that this is true of most members of these groups.

But if white guilt or white male guilt were the only impetus propelling affirmative action and other forms of race-based or sex-based preferential treatment — if, like Sullivan, all intended beneficiaries regarded such policies as condescending, destructive lunacy — these policies would be dead and buried by now.

As they should be.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Gouverneur Morris

In adopting a republican form of government, I not only took it as a man does his wife, for better or for worse, but what a few men do with their wives, I took it knowing all of its bad qualities. Neither ingratitude, therefore, nor slander can disappoint expectation nor excite surprise. If, in arduous circumstances, the voice of my country should call for my services, and I have the well founded belief, that they can be useful, they shall certainly be rendered; but I hope that no such circumstances will arise and in the mean time, ‘pleas’d let me trifle away.
Gouverneur Morris to John Dickinson (May 23, 1803).

Today

George Stigler

On January 17, 1937, Chicago School economist George Stigler was born. Stigler won a Nobel Memorial Prize for his work. His autobiography is entitled Memoirs of an Unregulated Economist.

crime and punishment election law general freedom

Free to Petition

Georgia, voting, elections, verification, eligibility

In December 2020, True the Vote helped Georgians to file elector challenges “based on data showing over 364,000 voters appeared to be ineligible to vote due to change in residency.”

Section 21-2-230 of Georgia Code Title 21 states that any elector “of the county or municipality may challenge the right of any other elector of the county or municipality, whose name appears on the list of electors, to vote in an election.”

Nevertheless, Fair Fight Action, the group founded by Stacey Abrams, sued True the Vote for allegedly intimidating voters.

That suit has now been thrown out.

In a 145-page ruling, Judge Steve Jones questioned aspects of TTV’s strategy. But he concluded that “there is no evidence that Defendants’ actions caused (or attempted to cause) any voter to be intimidated, coerced, or threatened in voting.”

According to True the Vote attorney Jake Evans, the decision “establishes that eligibility challenges under Section 230 are a proper method to ensure voter rolls are accurate.”

In a formal statement, True the Vote said that the court has “affirmed that citizens have the right to lawfully petition their government in support of election integrity without fear of persecution or prosecution.”

Critics of the decision bemoan the encouragement that it will give to organizations seeking to expose voter fraud. And the problem is . . . ?

It’s not as if filing a challenge under 230 guarantees success; a board of registrars must still determine whether the challenge is valid. Besides, fighting actual ballot fraud is not an attack upon democracy, but a shoring up.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Jason Whitlock

When you become accustomed to preferential treatment, equal treatment feels like oppression.
Jason Whitlock on the Megyn Kelly Show (January 12, 2024).

Today

Religious Freedom

On January 16, 1786, Virginia enacted the Statute for Religious Freedom authored by Thomas Jefferson.

general freedom international affairs

Dangerous Neighbor

“Are you a journalist?” asked the woman in an overflow crowd of thousands, who, like me, couldn’t fit into the packed stadium for a Democratic Progressive Party rally on the eve of Taiwan’s election.

“Or do you just love Taiwan?”

With a broad smile, I told her: “I love Taiwan.”

This, my second trip to the beautiful island nation, was as inspiring as my first, in 2019.

Two other women in the crowd explained they flew in from Italy to cast their ballots — believing the future of Taiwan depended on their vote. Which, of course, it did.

Most poignant was my conversation with a couple who had escaped the Chinazi clampdown in Hong Kong. After discussing how those 2019 protests helped “wake up the world,” I snapped a selfie with them.

Then, five minutes later, they came back to ask me not to post their picture on social media without blacking out their faces. You see, they have relatives still in Hong Kong who might face harassment or worse from the Chinazis, if they were outed.

“Enjoy the freedom of Taiwan today,” a Taiwanese man had offered earlier in the day at the Kaohsiung Museum of History. “It may be gone tomorrow [Election Day].” He feared a KMT victory would usher in a government far too willing to cozy up to the Chinese regime.

On Saturday, however, DDP presidential candidate Lai Ching-te won a clear victory. His triumph was declared by the gaslighting Butchers of Beijing to be an “extreme danger.”

But it is obvious to all that the nation of Taiwan is a danger to no one . . . and Communist Party-ruled China is a danger to everyone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* One doesn’t need to look to Asia to see the threat from China. Chinese dissidents in the U.S. and Canada are routinely harassed and threatened, which our governments seem unable to do much about. And the website we’ve launched — StopTheChinazis.org — has numerous writers but only two have chosen to use their real names. Why? Fear of reprisals from the CCP against Americans here in America.

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Thought

Earl Warren

I believe the preservation of our civil liberties to be the most fundamental and important of all our governmental problems, because it always has been with us and always will be with us and if we ever permit those liberties to be destroyed, there will be nothing left in our system worthy of preservation.
Earl Warren, as quoted in Lawyers Guild Review, Vol. 13-14 (1953), p. 47.