In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
John Adams, as quoted in Thomas F. Shubnell, Greatest Jokes of the Century Book 22 (2008).
On April 10, 1998, the Northern Ireland peace talks ended with an historic agreement, dubbed the Belfast, or Good Friday Agreement. The accord was reached after nearly two years of talks and 30 years of conflict.
The agreement was approved by voters across the island of Ireland in two referendums held on May 22, 1998. The agreement came into force on December 2, 1999.
But again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two makes four is punished with death.
Dr. Bernard Rieux in Albert Camus’s La Peste (The Plague, 1947).
Despite being outnumbered 16 to one, forces of the Old Swiss Confederacy proved victorious over the Archduchy of Austria in the Battle of Näfels, April 9, 1388.
On this date in 1991, Georgia declared its independence from the Soviet Union.
Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.
Theodore Dalrymple, in “Our Culture, What’s Left Of It,” by Jamie Glazov, FrontPage Magazine, August 31, 2005.
On April 8, 1913, the 17th amendment to the Constitution, providing for the popular election of U.S. senators, was ratified.
Speaking on a panel on Election Systems Reform, I highlighted the rhetoric of expanding voting rights. For example, the New York City Council decided to swell those rights by giving non-citizens the vote — even while a solid majority of New Yorkers were opposed. Recently Washington, D.C.’s Council bestowed local voting rights to people in the city (and country) illegally, as well as to foreign nationals working for foreign governments at the city’s many foreign embassies.
Allowing the staff at the Chinese and Russian embassies to cast ballots is clearly an expansion of voting rights. But does it make sense?
I also pointed out that making it easier to vote by having, say, six weeks of early voting (as we do in my home state of Virginia) comes with a cost: more expensive campaigns. And anything that increases the price tag of running for office decidedly benefits incumbents.
My key message, however, was this: In a representative democracy, even if the rules and mechanics of the election process are spectacular, we still need someone to vote for, someone to actually represent us.
Making it easier or more efficient or transparent to go through the frustration and angst of our current contests between candidates Bad and Worse, both soon to be bought off, seems of limited appeal.
The change that would best overcome big money political influence and provide real representation to citizens — improving both elections and governance — is simple: a far smaller ratio of citizens to elected representatives.
Stephen Erickson, executive director of Citizens Rising, specifies “small political districts of 30,000 inhabitants or less, at all levels of government throughout the United States.” Compare that to the average of over 700,000 people in today’s congressional districts.
The audience seemed to think this “Small District Democracy” made common sense.
I’m Paul Jacob. And I think it is the very best reform we could make.
Illustration created with PicFinder.ai and DALL-E2
See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts
Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.
Theodore Dalrymple, in “Our Culture, What’s Left Of It,” by Jamie Glazov, FrontPage Magazine, August 31, 2005.
On April 7, 1933, Prohibition in the United States was repealed for beer of no more than 3.2 percent alcohol by weight — eight months before the ratification of the XXI amendment, which repealed the 18th (or Prohibition) Amendment.
The enabling legislation was the Cullen-Harrison Act, which figured the low alcohol content as the excuse to get around the 18th Amendment’s prohibition of intoxicating beverages. The act passed Congress on March 21, 1933, and was signed into law by Franklin Delano Roosevelt the next day.
The rest of us accepted the term to identify the parts of the administrative state — coupled with the military-industrial complex’s corporations — that keep big secrets and act mostly independently of our democratic-republican institutions, including those who work behind the scenes to effect policy and mold public opinion.
The Deep State is all-too-real.
Now that National Public Radio has been dubbed “state-affiliated media” by Elon Musk’s Twitter, it may be time to add a new term to our lexicon: the Wide State.
“It was unclear why Twitter made the move,” writes David Bauder of the AP. “Twitter’s owner, Elon Musk, quoted a definition of state-affiliated media in the company’s guidelines as ‘outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution.’”
When NPR objected on Twitter, Musk tweeted back: “Seems accurate.”
But, but, but, they sputter: only 1 percent of NPR’s budget is from the federal government, and the organization has a well-established editorial independence!
Well, as the power of the Deep State has shown, directorial independence does not really constitute a non-state nature.
It’s obvious that many “private” institutions do exert immense political and governmental power: corporations through regulatory capture; news media through rank partisanship; all organizations that express eagerness to (and have demonstrated repeated instances of) collaborating with partisans in power.
These constitute the Wide State.
Of which NPR is a part.
Besides, if NPR lives “only” with a single percentage-point subsidy, why not cut the umbilical cord and prove its independence?
And get Twitter to change the label.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with PicFinder.ai
See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts