If we cannot by reason, by influence, by example, by strenuous effort, and by personal sacrifice, mend the bad places of civilization, we certainly cannot do it by force. Force is the very weakest and most treacherous of all human implements. The history of force is the history of the continuous crumbling away of every institution that has rested upon it.
Auberon Herbert, The Ethics of Dynamite (1894).
“Juneteenth” (a portmanteau of June and nineteenth) also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day and Emancipation Day, is a holiday celebrating the emancipation of those held as chattel slaves in the United States. Originating in Galveston, Texas, it has been celebrated annually on June 19 throughout the United States, and on June 17, 2021, it was made into an official national holiday when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law. It is commemorated on the anniversary date of the June 19, 1865, announcement of General Order No. 3 by Union Army general Gordon Granger, proclaiming freedom from slavery in Texas.
In June, 1941, Czech economist and politician Václav Klaus was born on the 19th (he died in 2011); other June 19 births include Salman Rushdie in 1947, Kathleen Turner in 1954, and Laura Ingraham in 1964.
Some disagreement about Joe Biden’s latest, and agreement on much else:
The wise man looks into space and does not regard the small as too little, nor the great as too big, for he knows that, there is no limit to dimensions.
Zhuangzi, or Master Zhuang, often known in the west as Chuang Tzu, in 莊子/秋水.
On June 18, 1838, Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert was born.
Auberon Herbert was a Liberal Member of Parliament who, after reading the writings of Herbert Spencer, became a radical individualist, authoring essays such as “The Ethics of Dynamite,” “A Politician in Trouble About His Soul,” and “The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State.” He termed his version of the political philosophy of liberty “voluntaryism.”
But who is listening? As Paul notes in his latest podcast, the people who need to hear the smartest advice aren’t listening.
Recently we have been reversing our traditions; but it is not yet too late to step back from the mire and the slough that lie in front of us. As yet we have only soiled our ankles, where other nations have waded deep. We inherit splendid traditions of voluntaryism, which hardly any other nation has inherited; and it is to voluntaryism, the inspiring genius of the English character, that we must look in the future, as we did in the past, for escape from all difficulties.
Auberon Herbert, The Ethics of Dynamite (1894).
The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor on June 17, 1885.
On the same day in 1930, progressive Republican President Herbert Hoover — eager to please agricultural states, and confident that protectionism would yield greater wealth — signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. The Great Depression deepened, ratcheting up as each provision of the bill took effect.
Three years later, investment author and two-time Libertarian Party presidential candidate Harry Browne was born
On June 17, 1944, Iceland declared independence from Denmark.
On this day in 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a “War on Drugs,” which steadily decreased civil liberty and the rule of law in America.
Exactly one year later, five men were arrested for attempted burglary on the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., igniting the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to the resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon more than two years later.
That’s what happened to Robert Reeves, a Detroit auto mechanic and construction worker. In 2019, Wayne County confiscated his Camaro after police saw him visit a site that supposedly contained stolen equipment. The police did not formally accuse him of the alleged theft or try to convict him of it.
Nevertheless, the county wanted Reeves to pay $900 to retrieve his car.
Instead, Reeves went to court to end what Institute for Justice, which has been representing him, calls a “seizure-and-ransom policy.”
Soon the county was accusing Reeves of made-up felonies of receiving stolen property and telling the court that he had no right to challenge its forfeiture policy while being accused of these felonies.
Reeves challenged the county’s dishonest challenge, and the court dismissed the charges for lack of evidence. Two weeks later, though, the county did the exact same thing, making the same fake charges and asking the same judge to dismiss the same case on the same grounds. The judge again refused.
Now, years later, Reeves is suing Wayne County for the way it further violated his rights when he challenged its initial violation of his rights.
Although this again makes Reeves a target, “Robert will not be silenced,” says IJ attorney Christian Lansinger, and the Institute will continue to hold accountable governments that seize the vehicles of individuals without evidence of wrongdoing.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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It is the story-teller’s task to elicit sympathy and a measure of understanding for those who lie outside the boundaries of State approval.
Graham Greene, upon receiving the Shakespeare Prize awarded by the University of Hamburg, Germany (1969).