Paul Jacob considers how Authority reacts to Protest, east, west . . . and north:
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Alexander Pope
’Tis the first virtue, vices to abhor;
Alexander Pope, Imitations of Horace (1733–1738).
And the first wisdom, to be fool no more.
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Cold War Ends
On December 3, 1989, the leaders of the two world superpowers, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, declared an end to the Cold War, at a summit in Malta. A little over two years later not only had the Cold War ended, the Soviet Union was itself dissolved.
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William Hazlitt
We are all of us more or less the slaves of opinion.
William Hazlitt, ”On Court-Influence,” in Political Essays: with Sketches of Public Characters (1819).
The big news? Daylight Saving Time may soon be history. “The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the Sleep Research Society and other medical groups have advocated for ending the practice, calling for the adoption of a permanent standard time that would not involve shifting forward each spring and falling back each autumn.”
That’s an important organizational voice for getting rid of Congress’s current jury-rigging scheme for commerce and recreation in America.
It has costs. Imposed on us. On our sleep patterns.
But the passage quoted from CNN was not the news angle that the “Cable News Network” story, by Jacqueline Howard, emphasized.
The deleterious effects of lurching back and forth twice a year is not what CNN headlined. The fact (and commonsense conjecture) that these bi-annual shifts are bad for us? Not as interesting as that it could all be racist.
The title of Howard’s piece is “Daylight Saving Time sheds light on lack of sleep’s disproportionate impact in communities of color.”
The key piece of information? “Growing evidence shows that lack of sleep and sleep disorders, such as obstructive sleep apnea, remain more prevalent in Black, Asian, and Hispanic or Latino communities, and these inequities can have long-term detrimental implications for physical health, even raising the risk of certain chronic diseases.”
If true, this is a political reason to get the Social Engineering Class to finally balk at the pseudo-Saving chronometer-jiggering laws.
But what does that say about said class? (A class not limited to, but somehow paradigmatically represented by, Democrats?) That they don’t care about the harm they do unless it can be shown to accrue predominantly to racial minorities?
There’s something sick here, oddly racist.
But we can accept this nonsense for the win, if it helps stop our ritual springing forward and falling back.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Monroe Doctrine
On December 2, 1823, U.S. President James Monroe delivered a speech establishing American neutrality in future European conflicts. The policy became known as the Monroe Doctrine.
Though a much-discussed principle of American foreign policy, it was undermined by the Spanish-American War and proved a dead letter as the U. S. entered World War I.
Apple Inc. has a good side and a bad side.
A strong work ethic, oodles of innovativeness, much neat technology.
But a taste for censorship and a willingness to abet the censorious efforts of China’s totalitarians.
One manifestation of Apple’s contempt for unfettered discourse? Its apparent threat to kick the Twitter app off the iOS platform now that Twitter is run by someone friendlier to freedom of speech than the previous management.
Obnoxious though this would be, it’s not half as horrible as knowingly facilitating Chinazi repression. Yet Apple has recently crippled the iPhone AirDrop feature that protestors in China have used to share files like videos of the surging protests against the government’s insane zero-COVID mega-lockdown policies.
Because of a new iOS update, iPhone users in China — and only in China — can now only send files to persons not on their contact list for just ten minutes, hampering the ability of protesters and others to evade Chinese government censorship.
The company’s officers read the news. If Apple really didn’t intend to do this, all it has to do is roll out another update pronto to restore full AirDrop functionality.
Reclaim the Net notes, however, that Apple has often helped the Chinese Communist Party conduct its censorship: for one thing, by removing thousands of apps from its Chinese store at their behest. The deleted apps include VPN apps that helped users evade China’s wide-ranging and determined censorship of the Internet.
Think Different, Apple, not in lockstep with tyrants.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Alexander Pope
Never gallop Pegasus to death.
Alexander Pope, Imitations of Horace (1733–1738), Epistle I, Book I, line 14.
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The “Stolen Election”
On December 1, 1824, with neither John Quincy Adams nor Andrew Jackson receiving a majority of votes in the Electoral College, the United States House of Representatives was given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The House selected Adams. Jackson and his supporters felt deeply aggrieved, and immediately set about preparing for the next election, which Jackson won handily. Jacksonian supporters referred to the election of 1824 as “the Stolen Election,” in no small part because Jackson had received more popular votes.
Early this year, Canadian truckers rebelled against the Canadian government’s tyrannical response to the pandemic by protesting en masse — in their trucks.
The truckers objected to being forced to accept experimental non-vaccines in order to go back and forth across the Canada-U.S. border.
The Canadian government could have instantly solved the problem by rescinding the nonsensical travel ban and letting truckers truck freely.
Instead, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau deployed a dormant triple-the-tyranny measure called the Emergencies Act to make the truckers regret that they had ever dared lift a pinky in protest against the assault on their lives and livelihoods. The insanity included imposing freezes on their bank accounts and suspending their vehicle insurance.
Now Trudeau’s actions are being investigated in the Canadian parliament.
And guess what’s come to light? You’ll get a kick out of this if you’re one of my United States readers: Trudeau was urged to do something about those darn truckers by none other than the Biden administration.
February 10: the director of the U.S. National Economic Council spoke to Canadian officials.
Same day: U.S. Transportation Boss Pete Buttigieg asked the Canadian Transportation Boss about Canada’s plan to cure the protests.
February 11: President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau spoke.
Don’t worry, Trudeau told Biden. He had a plan to end the protests. Somehow I doubt that Biden said “Fine, so long as it’s not about stomping the truckers even harder.”
Three days later, Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act.
Correlation ain’t causation, but a schedule of influence indicates . . . almost . . . a conspiracy.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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