On August 21, 1831, Nat Turner led slaves and freed black Americans in a rebellion that was quickly suppressed.
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Nat Turner
Paul focuses on the realpolitik and deeper lack of meaning in a popular statement of America First sentiment.
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Brion McClanahan
We fear those in power who think and act least like us and therefore scrutinize their every decision.
Brion McClanahan, Nine Presidents Who Screwed Up America and Four Who Tried to Save Her (2016), introduction. Image from a recent podcast video.
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Estonia & Ron Paul
On August 20, 1991, Estonia issued a decision to re-establish independence on the basis of historical continuity of the Baltic country’s pre-World War II statehood, sloughing off Soviet rule since 1940.
On August 20, 1935, Ron Paul was born. Paul is now famous for his heroic congressional record, his several presidential campaigns, and for books such as End the Fed and Liberty Defined.
Paul focuses on the implications of a policy statement:
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Montesquieu
The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748).
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Patriotism & Protest & Ousting
On August 19, 1919, Afghanistan gained full independence from Great Britain. The British attempts to maintain an imperial presence in this region elicited an earlier, infamous essay in protest by English sociologist and anti-imperialist Herbert Spencer (pictured), “Patriotism” (Facts and Comments, 1902).
On this day in 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was placed under house arrest, a crucial event leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
In 1999, a mass rally of Serbians demanded the resignation of Slobodon Milosevic.
Another day, another indictment of former President Trump. This one, out of Georgia, would criminalize election challenges.
Jonathan Turley observes that in this fourth indictment, “every call, speech, and tweet appears a criminal step in the conspiracy. District Attorney Fani Willis appears to have elected to charge everything and everyone and let God sort them out.”
This is the kitchen-sink, banana-republic approach to “justice.” Facts? Plausibility? Irrelevant when the would-be one-party regime has a target in view.
In masterful understatement or point-missing, Turley writes that the “greatest challenge for Georgia is to offer a discernible limiting principle on when challenges in close elections are permissible and when they are criminal.”
But how can it ever be criminal simply to challenge election results or call for a recount or plead for further investigation of the flimsiest of allegations, even via imperfect phone call?
The “limiting principle” operative here is obvious. Is the challenger on our side or the other side? Our side, the challenge is legal. Other side, it’s illegal, prosecutable. This is Willis’s “principle.”
Per Turley, it’s important for campaigns to seek judicial review of an election “without fear of prosecution.” Yes, important. But from the perspective of those who want to prevent other-side campaigns from seeking recourse when an election is close or seems pockmarked by fraud, what’s important is making sure other-side campaigns do fully feel this fear.
The bad guys already understand what’s at stake, what Mr. Turley is so carefully explaining as if they are perhaps only a little confused.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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John Tyler
Patronage is the sword and cannon by which war may be made on the liberty of the human race.
John Tyler, speech in Congress (February 24, 1834) against the policies of President Andrew Jackson. Seven and a half years later, as president of the United States, Tyler would veto a revival of the national bank, opposition to which was one of Jackson’s most memorable policies.
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Nineteenth on the Eighteenth
On August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women’s suffrage.