Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.
Thomas Szasz, The Second Sin (1973), “Science and Scientism,” p. 115.
On May 15, 1776, the Virginia Convention instructed its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States’ Declaration of Independence.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty and the chairman of the Racine County Republican Party filed a lawsuit alleging that Racine city officials illegally used a van to collect absentee ballots in 2022. A circuit court ruled that such mobile voting sites violate
Now, “without allowing any lower appellate courts to rule first,” the state’s supreme court will decide whether the circuit court is right about that.
The high court voted 4 to 3 to accept the case. The three justices who opposed end-running the appellate courts are conservative (read: Republican); the other four are liberal
The Democrat justices voted to take the case at the request of the Democratic National Committee, which leads a political party known to be a proponent of slapdash voting procedures, slapdashery that observers tend to agree
Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, who is part of the conservative bloc, has stated that the “liberal” justices proceeded in this way in order to help the Democrats politically. Ziegler knows her “liberal” colleagues, and I guess they must be the sort of progressives who don’t make conscientious adherence to the law in the service of election integrity a top priority.
So I think what’s about to happen is more of a foregone conclusion than it
We know how the court will decide — but wouldn’t we love a surprise ending?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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The destructive work of totalitarian machinery, whether or not this word is used, is usually supported by a special kind of primitive social philosophy. It proclaims not only that the common good of ‘society’ has priority over the interests of individuals, but that the very existence of individuals as persons is reducible to the existence of the social ‘whole’; in other words, personal existence is, in a strange sense, unreal. This is a convenient foundation for any ideology of slavery.
Leszek Kołakowski, “Totalitarianism and the Virtue of the Lie,” as quoted in Is God Happy? Selected Essays(2013), Basic Books, p. 57.
On May 14, 1787, delegates convened a Constitutional Convention, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to write a new Constitution for the United States. George Washington presided over the convention.
On the same day a century later, jurist and pamphleteer Lysander Spooner — author of several important treatises, including Trial by Jury, The Unconstitutionality of Slavery, and an infamous pamphlet entitled “No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority” — died.
This is a very different media watchdog role, where instead of calling out bad behavior, The Washington Post calls for it.
Sure, some of President Biden’s policies “clearly pander to core constituencies,” acknowledges the editorial board, adding: “The problem is that some of these policies are quite bad — even dangerous.”
For the record, the editors explain that they much prefer “the kind of pandering that is less obviously dangerous but still violates common sense
Well, on a ranking basis . . . but isn’t this all too rank?
Proselytizing for a lack of principle, the Post posits that these “means” of pandering to voters — i.e. buying their votes — are fully justified by “the end” of winning the election against former President
“The only thing worse than” Democracy [Dying] in Darkness (per the paper’s masthead) is, the editorial board
So, go ahead and delay again the Food and Drug Administration’s ban on menthol cigarettes, which, if implemented, would undoubtedly cost Mr. Biden the votes of many black men who make up the majority of that product’s customer base. Even though it is simply a trick of timing — for after the election, the Biden boys will be back to snuff out menthols.
Come’on, man! Who needs honesty, accountability, or fair media coverage when there’s an election to win?
Surprisingly, The New York Times’ executive editor Joe Kahn argues the paper should not become an “instrument of the Biden campaign,” not “stop covering those things” such as immigration and inflation “because they’re favorable to Trump,” and not “turn ourselves into Xinhua News Agency
He’s not wrong.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Our adversaries are not demons, witches, fate, or mental illness. We have no enemy whom we can fight, exorcise, or dispel by “cure.” What we do have are problems in living — whether these be biologic, economic, political, or sociopsychological.
Thomas Szasz, ”The Myth of Mental Illness” in American Psychologist, Vol. 15 (1960), p. 115.
On May 13, 1888, Brazil abolished slavery with the passage of the Lei Áurea (“Golden Law”).
On Friday, Paul Jacob provided some vivisection services to a review of Jerry Seinfeld’s stance on what the woke have done to comedy, in “The French King Flip Flap.” On May Day, in “They Don’t Get It,” Paul had dealt with the same subject, Mr. Seinfeld’s long-running beef with the woke.
But the current context — the one that led to Friday’s target, an article in The Washington Post by Brian Broome — is the new movie on Netflix, Unfrosted, directed by Seinfeld and co-written by him with Spike Feresten, Andy Robin, and Barry Marder.
Is it funny?
This is of course something everyone must judge for him- or herself. The intent is clear, a retelling of the “wars” between the breakfast cereal companies to create a new breakfast product — what has become known as a “Pop Tart” — in a zany, cartoonish fashion. It is designed as a silly movie. Mostly good clean fun. Family fare.
But a survey of critics and audiences at Rotten Tomatoes gives us an indicator to how it’s doing: Early reactions were that the movie stinks. But now that more people have seen it, we are seeing something like a “ratioed” split, with an average of critics’ responses placing it in the splatted green tomato (rotten tomato) range, at 40 percent approval, while audience scores have run higher, at 55 percent.
In recent years, the audiences have split with critics at much wider margins, on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics giving low scores for unwoke creative products, while audiences have given ultra-high scores, and vice versa.
Sometimes it’s not Wokianity at issue, but simply orthodox religion: Aronofsky’s Noah (2014), for example, which yielded a 75 percent positive for the critics and a 41 percent negative for the audience. Noah owed as much to The Book of Enoch as to Genesis.
But 2019’s Captain Marvel was indeed about the woke issue, and audiences judged the movie at a weak 45 percent, while critics placed it pretty high, at 79 percent. Even more dramatic, in the same vein, went on with Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi (2019), which critics raved about at 91 percent, but audiences yawned at 42 percent.
But the ultimate split between audiences and critics may be Amy Schumer’s 2023 Netflix stand-up special, with critics granting the comic a whopping 100 percent approval, while audiences scorned her product with jeers at a mere 18 percent. The split in appreciation was an epochal moment in the current culture wars.
Ms. Schumer plays Marjorie Post in the new Seinfeld flick.
Semper pluris feci ego
potioremque habui libertatem [multo] quam pecuniam.
I have always valued and preferred my liberty far beyond money.
Gnaeus Naevius (c. 270 – c. 201 BC), translated by W. F. H. King, Classical and Foreign Quotations, 3rd ed. (1904), no. 2388.