Not all dogs, certainly, or just any dog. None were harmed in the making of this podcast. This is a metaphor about major media, not fulfilling its watchdog role.
But there is a lot of hope this week around:
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Arthur Schopenhauer
Rascals are always sociable — more’s the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others’ company.
Arthur Schopenhauer, Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit (On The Wisdom of Life: Aphorisms), Vol. 1, Ch. 5, § 9.
On August 12, 1898, the Hawaiian flag was lowered from ʻIolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the flag of the United States to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawaii to the United States.
He plied his trade without shame. Through the years, he was again and again officially rebuked for his conduct. He went ahead full throttle anyway, laughing in the face of danger.
Once, enforcers even tossed him in jail for a night to deter him from his dastardly deeds, deeds that were so galling and offensive to . . . well, to competitors in the same business who had decades of regulatory tyranny on their side.
On the Liberty website, Bruce Ramsey recalls the story. Born Michael Patrick Shanks, Mike officially changed his name to Mike the Mover.
Why? For the advertising value.
Maybe also the annoyance value.
His job was helping people move. Illegal, because the state of Washington doled out a strictly limited number of professional licenses. And for half a century it was virtually impossible to get one.
“Mike had started in 1981 with one truck,” says Ramsey. “When he painted his name on his trucks his competitors noticed him and complained. In 1987 the state cited him. In 1992 it hit him with a cease-and-desist order. In 1993 it slapped him with a court injunction. . . . He ignored them all. [State] enforcers wrote 89 tickets, each a gross misdemeanor, for operating without a license.”
Where Mike the Mover led, others followed. Finally, the regulators eased up and began licensing many more people to move for a living.
Not Mike the Mover. When he was finally offered a license, “I told them to shove it.”
Thanks, Mike.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Adam Smith
To hurt in any degree the interest of any one order of citizens, for no other purpose but to promote that of some other, is evidently contrary to that justice and equality of treatment which the sovereign owes to all the different orders of his subjects.
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776).
On August 11, 1972, the last of American ground combat troops exited South Vietnam.
In November 2021, at taxpayer-funded Clovis Community College, the group Young Americans for Freedom requested permission to post flyers. College officials assented.
The flyers attacked socialism. Uh oh. This was a grave violation of the alleged inalienable right of socialist students on the campus to never be exposed to disagreement with their views.
Some of the aggrieved students complained. We are offended, they told the school.
Administrators furrowed their brows and quickly determined that the school could not permit such offensive speech.
Suddenly censored, the YAF students who had posted the flyers went to court, represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). They quickly won a district court victory that has now been affirmed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
According to the court’s ruling, “The district court did not abuse its discretion when it concluded that [the students] were likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the ‘inappropriate or offens[ive] language or themes’ provision was facially overbroad.”
This means that the case can continue.
Clovis YAF Chair Juliette Colunga hopes that in response to the ruling, Clovis will finally decide “to explicitly protect the constitutional rights of its students to speak freely.”
The school has tried to forestall further litigation to require it to set forth an unambiguous policy protecting freedom of speech by conceding that the students may post the anti-socialist flyers.
That’s not enough for FIRE, though, which is proceeding with the litigation.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Ludwig von Mises
If we wish to gain insight into the essence of nationality, we must proceed not from the nation but from the individual. We must ask ourselves what the national aspect of the individual person is and what determines his belonging to a particular nation.
Ludwig von Mises, Nation, State and Economy (1919; 1983, Leland B. Yeager, trans.), p. 34.
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Independence
On August 10, 1809, Ecuadorians attempted independence from Spain with the Declaration of Independence of Quito, but failed with the execution of all the conspirators a few days less than a year later.
Independence was finally achieved in 1822.
Alabama recently passed a law to prohibit public agencies from disclosing information “that identifies a person as a member, supporter, or donor of a 501(c) nonprofit organization . . . except as required by law.”
SB59 is comprehensive, stating that “notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary,” no public agency may compel disclosure of such information or itself publicly release such information.
The initial delimitation “except as required by law” seems ambiguous. But SB59 goes on to specify that exceptions would pertain to things like the requirements of a “lawful warrant” or a “lawful request for discovery of personal information in litigation.”
Passage is a big deal because, until now, agencies in the state had been permitted to collect and disclose such information.
Many nonprofits are political or ideological in character, promoting causes that are controversial. When this is so, who especially appreciates unfettered access to donors’ names and addresses? Obviously, opponents of the cause who would like to target donors with propaganda or even actively harass them.
On the national level, recognition of the problem is represented by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2021 ruling in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta. The court threw out a California requirement that nonprofits in the state had to divulge the names and addresses of their biggest donors to the attorney general. The Foundation plausibly argued that the requirement would deter people from contributing.
Several other states have also enacted SB59-style legislation. The number we need is 50.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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