Dogs look up to you, cats look down on you. Give me a pig! He looks you in the eye and treats you as an equal.
Winston Churchill, as cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), p. 535.
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Winston Churchill
June 28 birthdays include that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher, in 1712.
On this date in 1914, 19-year-old Gavril Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and the Archduke’s wife Sophie. The Archduke had earlier missed a bomb thrown at his car, which necessitated a change in the motorcade route, which the driver forgot, which is why the car paused at the precise intersection in which Princip fired his fatal shots.
The shooting began a series of events that led to “The Great War,” now known as “World War I.”
On June 28, 1992, the Constitution of Estonia was signed into law.
Last Sunday, former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, now with her own MSNBC program, asked Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) about packing the Supreme Court.
Rep. Pelosi’s response was, shall we say, telling.
“It’s been over 150 years since we’ve had an expansion of the court,” Pelosi said. “It was in the time of Lincoln that it went up to nine. So the subject of whether that should happen is a discussion. It’s not, say, a rallying cry. But it’s a discussion.”
Ms. Psaki also asked about term limits for the justices, and Nancy eagerly endorsed the idea, insisting there “certainly should be term limits. There certainly should be and if nothing else, there should be some ethical rules that would be followed.”
Justices aren’t getting as rich as congressmen . . . but still.
“I had one justice tell me he thought the other justices were people of integrity, like a Clarence Thomas,” Pelosi went on. “I’m like, get out of here.”
This plays as comedy off the MSNBC channel, of course. Nancy Pelosi, introduced by Psaki as being in Congress for a long, long time (“first elected to the House when Roe v. Wade had been the law of the land for 14 years”) is herself a fit poster ch — er, octogenarian — for establishing legislative term limits. Highlighting the High Court’s dip in popularity, Pelosi scoffed that the 30 percent approval “seemed high.” Of course, congressional approval is ten percentage points lower, and has been consistently.
Limits to power is something that applies to others, not oneself, I guess.
With permanent leaches at the teat of the State lingering year after year in office, like Pelosi, our attitude should be, like, get out of here.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Vilfredo Pareto
Society is not homogeneous, and those who do not deliberately close their eyes have to recognize that men differ greatly from one another from the physical, moral, and intellectual viewpoints.
Vilfredo Pareto, Manual of Political Economy (1927, Ann S. Schwier, trans., 1971), p. 281.
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Martyrs & Anarchists
In 1556 on this date, the thirteen Stratford Martyrs were burned at the stake near London for their Protestant beliefs. In 1844, Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother Hyrum Smith, were killed by a mob at the Carthage, Illinois jail.
Paul von Mauser was born on June 27, 1838, and would go on to become a weapons designer. In 1869, Emma Goldman was born, to later become known as a feminist, anarchist, and early leftist opponent of Soviet Communism. In 1880, Helen Keller was born on this date — and she, too, was an anarchist “of the left.”
What is the U.S. SupremeCourt thinking by refusing even to listen to arguments about the effects of California’s AB5 law, which effectively outlaws certain kinds of freelancing and gig work, on the right to speak out and petition in California?
The case is Mobilize the Message, LLC v. Bona. Plaintiffs were challenging the constitutionality of AB5 because it bans independent contractors from doing door-to-door canvassing for candidates or initiative campaigns yet allows independent contractors to do the same kind of work if they’re doing it as newspaper carriers or salesmen.
Of course, if AB5 were completely consistent in its assault on independent contractors, that wouldn’t make it any less injurious to political work and freedom of speech. But the separate and unequal provisions of the act do mean that political workers are being forced to abide by different rules than certain nonpolitical contractors.
That’s not right, not just.
As the Institute for Free Speech puts it, “The only distinguishing feature separating the two [kinds of contractors] is the content of the speech they are paid to promote, a distinction that is presumptively unconstitutional under the First Amendment.”
Lead counsel for the plaintiffs, Alan Gura, says that the Court’s decision will “price political speech beyond the reach of many citizens.”
What’s the deal, are the justices too busy?
We’re all busy.
On the other hand, they have a job. A lot of folks in California could use one, too.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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C. S. Lewis
I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason.
Clive Staples Lewis, “Equality,” The Spectator, Vol. CLXXI (August 27, 1943).
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Julian & the Berliner
On June 26, 363, Roman Emperor Julian was killed during the retreat from the Sassanid Empire.
On this same date in 1960, Madagascar gained its independence from France; in 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech.
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Watch: How to Set Up a Dictator
It is almost as if our leaders are trying to ram tyranny down our throats:
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Friedrich von Logau
Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s translation of Friedrich von Logau, “Retribution”, Sinngedichte III, 2, 24.
Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.