The real sin of idolatry is always committed on behalf of something similar to the State.
Simone Weil, Prelude to Politics (1943).
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Simone Weil
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First Abolitionists
On April 14, 1775, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, the first American organization committed to the abolition of slavery, was formed in Philadelphia.
On April 14, 1818, Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language, one of the first lexicons to include distinctly American words. The dictionary, which took him more than two decades to compile, introduced more than 10,000 “Americanisms.”
On April 14, 1988, representatives of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, the United States, and Pakistan signed an agreement calling for the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. In exchange for an end to the disputed Soviet occupation, the United States agreed to end its arms support for the Afghan anti-Soviet factions, and Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed not to interfere in each other’s affairs.
How far will officeholders go to kill term limits?
Around the country, so-called representatives have repealed state legislative term limits enacted as statutes rather than constitutional amendments; gone to court to get term limits outlawed; and even, in one or two instances, ignored term limits on themselves until forced to step aside by judicial action.
I bet that even if voters enact a term limits law with a provision specifically prohibiting legislators from sending a question to the ballot to weaken or repeal voter-enacted term limits, such a prohibition would not stop lawmakers from proposing just such measures.
Well, it’s time for me to collect on the bet.
In the current legislative session, North Dakota State Representative Jim Kasper submitted a resolution, HCR 3019, to ask North Dakotans to weaken legislative term limits they’d passed just five months ago, last November. Kasper wants a limit of 12 consecutive years in a chamber instead of a lifetime limit of eight years.
What a shocker! He’d like to stay in power longer.
The law voters passed months ago states that the legislature “shall not have authority to propose an amendment to this constitution to alter or repeal” the term limits. This ability is instead “reserved to initiative petition of the people.”
It seems so clear.
Nevertheless, Kasper’s unconstitutional constitutional amendment barreled ahead in the North Dakota legislature until finally expiring in the senate just days ago.
Perhaps the new law should have included something about tarring and feathering lawmakers who try to ignore the ban on acting to undermine their term limits?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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John Adams
No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it.
John Adams, as quoted in Fred R. Shapiro, The Yale Book of Quotations (2006).
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Thomas Jefferson
On April 13, 1743, Thomas Jefferson was born. Author of Notes on the State of Virginia and the first draft of the United States’ Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was also a scientist, philosopher, inventor, diplomat, and American politician. He also composed music, designed buildings, and translated works from his favorite French writers, whom he had met in his diplomatic missions to Paris: Volney and de Tracy.
“I applaud the students, staff and faculty who rallied quickly to host alternative inclusive events, protest peacefully and provide one another with support at a difficult moment,” declared San Francisco State University President Lynn Mahoney on Monday.
The “difficult moment” she refers to? A talk on campus by All-American swimmer Riley Gaines, sponsored by Turning Point USA. Gaines was speaking out against “transgender women” (biological men) competing in women’s sports.
President Mahoney did finally acknowledge that the event was followed by “a disturbance,” which “unfortunately” “delayed the speaker’s departure.”
In fact, Gaines wasn’t able to leave for hours, until nearly midnight . . . when, as CNN reported, “the San Francisco Police Department sent officers to disperse the crowd.” Gaines says she was “physically assaulted,” “struck twice,” with video confirming a very threatening situation.
“We are reviewing the incident,” Mahoney assured, “and, as always, will learn from the experience.”
No arrests have been made. They should be. That’s the teachable moment we need.
SFSU’s president did acknowledge that what occurred last week was “deeply traumatic.” But she meant the event itself, which she claimed “advocated for the exclusion of trans people in athletics.”
That isn’t true. Gaines and many (if not most) folks involved in the controversy simply want collegiate sports separated by biological sex and not by gender identity.
Let’s realize that these Antifa-esque “trans activists,” the ones who threaten to beat up women, do not speak for all transgendered people — certainly not those I know and love. Their goal is clearly not harmony but the very opposite.
The solution is simple: Love for trans folks, common sense public policies, and jail for the thug attackers of free speech.
I’m Paul Jacob.
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Albert Camus
La lutte elle-même vers les sommets suffit à remplir
un cœur d’homme; il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux.
The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942).
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Armen Alchian
On April 12, 1914, American economist Armen Alchian was born. His contributions to economic theory and teaching were many and varied — his textbook, co-authored with William R. Allen, University Economics (also titled Exchange and Production), was widely considered one of the finest intermediate texts in microeconomics — but he remains perhaps best known for his work on property rights.
Alchian died in 2014, in late February, at the age of 99.
Protest is a tricky business.
Had those in power their druthers, no protest would be allowed. Had those out of power their way, all their demands would be met.
I’d say the necessary middle ground lies in the rule of law.
Did the recent Tennessee legislature’s reaction to three legislators who broke House rules follow the law?
Not according to The Washington Post, which provided the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” spin in the headline: “Tennessee House expels two Democrats in historic act of partisan retaliation.”
In the wake of the shooting at the Covenant School in late March, with its death toll of six, “activists descended on the Tennessee Capitol and demanded that lawmakers pass gun-control legislation. Republicans, with supermajorities in both chambers, refused to do so. The three lawmakers — dubbed the Tennessee Three — said they joined the protests inside the legislative chamber to speak out for Tennesseans whose voices have been ignored.”
But what they did is disrupt the proceedings of the legislature. Noisily. Angrily. Not-very-reasonably.
While it’s true that the votes to remove two of the three offending members were along partisan lines, it’s also true that all three offending members were unified by party.
But only two were removed from the legislature. Both are black, and the woman not removed is white. So of course the big issue for many became racism.
She escaped expulsion by one vote.
Was that vote racist?
Well, the two who were ousted used bullhorns within the legislative chamber. She did not.
That does seem an extra-outrageous breach of decorum.
Of course, the whole idea of legislators jumping sides to pretend they are “voiceless” protesters is itself absurd, making the issue here neither partisanship nor racism.
It’s a question of posturing and pretense.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Note: After his expulsion last week, the Nashville-Davidson Metro Council yesterday voted to return Rep. Justin Jones to the state legislature on an interim basis. A special election will be held to fill the seat in the coming months.
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Bertrand Russell
A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.
Bertrand Russell, On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism (1914).