The governments hated the peace party even more than each other, since their existence now depended on war.
Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men (1930).
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Olaf Stapledon
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Tell & Shaw
On November 18, 1307, legend has it, William Tell shot a crossbow bolt to pierce an apple, toppling it off his son’s head. He was forced to do this by the local Austrian authority, whose hat — hung on a pole in the Altdorf town square — Tell had refused to bow to when entering the village. Tell endures as a Swiss folk hero, and provides the subject of a famous opera by Rossini — the music of which is associated with, in many ears, Bugs Bunny and the Lone Ranger.
In 1926, on this date, George Bernard Shaw formally refused to accept the money for his Nobel Prize for Literature, saying, “I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.”
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The Bums’ Rush
Californians have long been talking about cleaning up San Francisco from the waste laid to the city by its well-compensated bums along with coddled criminals, entitled inebriates, and the happy homeless.
And then last week it happened. The city got cleaned up and scrubbed down. Darn quick.
All it took was the arrival of the President.
Of China.
Xi Jinping touched down just days ago for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, at which our own Somnambulant-in-Chief also teetered around, so the clean-up crews worked overtime to make a good impression.
There’s been a lot of speculation about it all. Couldn’t those who have been creating this filthy and dangerous environment on the streets of San Fran have been dealt with (and not pampered) a long time ago?
Many have remarked: so it’s Xi whom San Francisco Democrats really look up to? Not their own citizens? Everyday San Franciscans don’t matter? Only The Eastern King of Genocidal Totalitarianism?
“Is the president embarrassed,” a reporter asked National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Monday, “that an American city needs to go through a total makeover to be presentable for his out-of-town guests?”
No real answer.
But what did the city do, exactly?
Moved the homeless out of the way, first.
And then the streets were hosed off, the graffiti sanded or painted over.
Arguably, corralling the homeless from sector to sector of the city would be one way to disincentivize squatting, as would arresting and trying street-dwellers for public drug use and excretion — for some things must be kept private, not engaged in helter-skelter.
Things like defecating.
Sexual intercourse.
Shooting up.
Years ago, no one had to explain this to anyone.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Edward Bernays
Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.
Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928).
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Confederation & Congress
On November 17, 1777, the Articles of Confederation were submitted to the states for ratification.
On that date in 1800, the United States Congress held its first session in Washington, D.C.
When people talk about “limits to free speech,” do they know what they’re talking about?
“Is there a limit, in your opinion,” an audience panel member on Fox’s The Faulkner Focus asked former U.N. Ambassador and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, “to free speech?”
The questioner explained that “we all know you can’t go into an airport and shout ‘bomb,’ and yet, right now, you can chant, on college campuses, to ‘kill all the Jews. . . .’” She demanded to know what the limits are.
Freedom of speech is a term of art for the speech that liberty allows; speech involving actual crime — in planning — has always been (and should now be) illegal.
But don’t demand limits to free speech. Instead enforce the limits of free speech. There is a logic to the notion.
How did presidential candidate Nikki Haley respond?
She said we never want to give up on free speech, but “the difference is when you are pushing violence.” Then Haley went to a more mainstream set of arguments blaming current ideological turmoil on misinformation online. Her response: End anonymity on the Internet.
This struck many critics as rather extreme. In a “partial” walk-back, yesterday, Haley told CNBC, “I don’t mind anonymous American people having free speech; what I don’t like is anonymous Russians and Chinese and Iranians having free speech.”
But of course if all are not required to register to speak, name attached, then there is no way to catch the non-Americans.
As inheritors of a political and legal system that was achieved, in no small part, by pseudonymous speech — think Cato and Publius and the Federal Farmer — I suggest another kind of limit: caution.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Jacques Ellul
Propaganda does not aim to elevate man, but to make him serve.
Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (1962).
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John Bright
On November 16, 1532, Francisco Pizarro and his men captured Inca Emperor Atahualpa at the Battle of Cajamarca.
In 1811 on this date, John Bright (pictured above), English academic and politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was born. Bright (d. 1889), famously worked with Richard Cobden against the Corn Laws (repealed in 1846) as well as for the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty of 1860, which ushered in freer trade and closer interdependence between Britain and France.
One problem with American politics? Far too many decisions get made by the federal government.
Not only is the Washington Leviathan removed geographically from most citizens, it’s also completely devoid of the direct democratic checks available to voters in most American cities and roughly half of U.S. states: initiative, referendum, and recall.
At the state and local level, we can often respond directly to unpopular government actions with a ballot measure or a recall campaign. And these local efforts can at times impact our national government — even international policies.
That’s what happened last Tuesday in Green Township in Mecosta County, Michigan, when voters recalled their entire township board — sending all five remaining board members packing after a sixth member had already resigned.
Back in April, spurred on by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s cheerleading, Michigan lawmakers approved $175 million in “taxpayer incentives” [read: subsidies] to help Gotion Inc. “build a $2.4 billion electric vehicle battery plant.”
Public uproar was not merely over the subsidy but also because the company’s parent company, Gotion High Tech, is based in China.
“We don’t want it here. It’s dangerous. We’re zoned agricultural, and they’re trying to re-zone our property,” said resident Lori Brock. “There’s nothing that’s been truthful about this.”
When it became clear that, in addition to state legislators not listening, local officials showed more interest in making a deal than being transparent with citizens, Brock filed a petition to recall the board.
And the rest is hist . . . well, not so fast. Township officials continue to say the deal is done. To which Brock pledges, “We’re moving forward with lawsuits against Gotion.”
Because voters were able to express themselves, there is hope.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Edward Bernays
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928), p. 10.