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Thought

Volney

Q. What is that fundamental principle?

A. It is justice, which alone comprises all the virtues of society.

Q. Why do you say that justice is the fundamental and almost only virtue of society?

A. Because it alone embraces the practice of all the actions useful to it; and because all the other virtues, under the denominations of charity, humanity, probity, love of one’s country, sincerity, generosity, simplicity of manners, and modesty, are only varied forms and diversified applications of the axiom, “Do not to another what you do not wish to be done to yourself,” which is the definition of justice.

Constantin Francois de Volney, The Law of Nature, Chapter XI: “The Social Virtues; Justice.”
Categories
Today

Suffrage

On August 26, 1920, the 19th amendment to United States Constitution took effect, giving women the right to vote in every state of the union.

Prior to the passage of this amendment, 15 states allowed women to vote. Most of them were west of the Mississippi. The territory of Wyoming was the first to extend voting rights to women in 1869.

Categories
deficits and debt folly national politics & policies

Relief Spelled S-U-B-S-I-D-Y

Joe Biden, emergency, inflation, student loans

In a bid to bail out the sinking ship of his party, President Joe Biden has decided he can go ahead and bail out Americans who are having trouble paying off their student loans.

Yesterday he announced that (quoting The Epoch Times) “his administration will spend hundreds of billions of dollars to pay off $10,000 in federal student loan debt for some borrowers,” with the Education Department giving the specifics: “individuals earning less than $125,000 a year or families earning less than $250,000 will be eligible for up to $10,000 in debt cancellation.” Pell Grant recipients in the same situation will be eligible for relief of up to twice as much.

The politic nature of the move is so obvious that . . . it isn’t getting enough attention from critics. 

Most of those alarmed at the move concentrate on the unfairness: rewarding those who have not met their obligations and thereby penalizing those who have. Defenders of student debt relief make the usual arguments about the need to help the under-privileged — by giving them more privilege (if anything’s a privilege it is to be able to take out a loan and then not pay it back).

You may be wondering how a president can authorize spending billions of dollars. Isn’t that Congress’s job? Well, the administration has found a semi-plausible excuse — from Congress: a 2003 higher education law that allows the Education Department to provide relief in response to a national emergency. 

And what is the emergency?

Pick one. Inflation, for example.

Which is spurred by overspending.

Which an extra $250 billion will merely increase.

You gotta wonder: isn’t it college graduates who cook up this stuff?

It’s ‘We the People’ who deserve not relief but a full refund.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
Thought

Charles Dunoyer

Man’s concern is not with government; he should look on government as no more than a very secondary thing — we might almost say a very minor thing. His goal is industry, labour and the production of everything needed for his happiness. In a well-ordered state, the government must only be an adjunct of production, an agency charged by the producers, who pay for it, with protecting their persons and their goods while they work. In a well-ordered state, the largest number of persons must work, and the smallest number must govern. The work of perfection would be reached if all the world worked and no one governed.

Categories
Today

John Birch

On August 25, 1945, the Cold War began (some say) when, ten days after World War II ended with the Japanese surrender, armed supporters of the Chinese Communist Party killed Baptist missionary Capt. John Birch (1918-1845).

Categories
ideological culture national politics & policies

The 7 Percenters

voting machine, term limits, democracy, voters, voting

Forget “the one percent.” I want to know about the seven percent.

Last month, the Gallup polling outfit asked Americans about our confidence level in Congress. Did we have “a great deal, quite a lot, some or very little”?

Unlike the 93 percent of us with firing brain synapses, there appeared an enigmatic seven percent, folks who actually confessed to harboring “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of faith in that cabal of corrupt careerists legislating loquaciously in our nation’s Capitol.

It takes all kinds, I guess. The shadowy, slow-witted, and ill-informed must show up in statistics somewhere, right?

Granted, only five percent of Republicans expressed that much cockeyed confidence; it was six percent a year ago. Trusting Democrats hit double-digits, with ten percent believing congressional bull, a fall from the 17 percent hornswoggled in 2021.

Gullible independents came in at the overall average — seven percent — a decrease of five percentage points from last year, when 12 percent clutched a false sense of security regarding our federal legislature.

Among a long list of American institutions, Congress roused the absolute least confidence. Odd that we feel worse about the people we elect to represent us than those we have little if any direct responsibility for or control over.

This must change.

We desperately need term limits. And the competitive elections brought by creating smaller districts where grassroots campaigns employing shoe-leather can compete with the big money and special interest power behind professional politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Volney

Preserve thyself; Instruct thyself; Moderate thyself; Live for thy fellow citizens, that they may live for thee.

Constantin Francois de Volney, The Law of Nature, last sentence.
Categories
Today

White House Burnt Down

In 1814 on this day, British forces burnt down the White House. Unlike audience reaction to the 1996 movie Independence Day (pictured), there was no widespread cheering among Americans for the building’s destruction.

One year later, the modern Constitution of the Netherlands received its empowering signatures.

August 24 birthdays include that of British anti-slavery activist William Wilberforce (1759-1833), Argentine literary genius Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), and French historian and author of a magisterial study of the rise of capitalism in Europe, Fernand Braudel (1902-1985),

The Ukraine celebrates its independence from the Soviet Union with a National Day on August 24.

On August 24, 1682, William Penn received an area of territory to add it to his colony of Pennsylvania. The area comprises, today, the state of Delaware.

Categories
Accountability Fourth Amendment rights

Unjust “Investigation”

cop, cash, asset forfeiture

Can we trust the FBI to stick to the rule of law and defend our rights?

Yesterday I more than suggested that the answer is “No.” 

Adding more fuel to this negative judgment, last week Eric Boehm at Reason told the tale of a Federal Bureau of Investigation raid upon safe deposits. 

“The FBI told a federal magistrate judge that it intended to open hundreds of safe deposit boxes seized during a March 2021 raid in order to inventory the items inside,” Boehm writes, “but new evidence shows that federal agents were plotting all along to use the operation as an opportunity to forfeit cash and other valuables.”

When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton’s response, reportedly, was “that’s where the money is!” He actually didn’t say it, but FBI personnel understand the operative principle all too well . . . regarding safety deposit boxes. 

Convictions? Hah! 

They seize property on an expected-revenue-based rationale.

Since “details regarding the planning and execution of the FBI’s raid of U.S. Private Vaults arenow out in the open,” Boehm goes on to explain, it looks like the FBI has to say bye-bye to “more than $86 million in cash as well as gold, jewelry, and other valuables from property owners who were suspected of no crimes.”

The plot’s been foiled, it appears, but will the culprits within the FBI be prosecuted?

Seems unlikely.

Truth is, the culture at the FBI has never been good. Barring defunding (which would be politically difficult) perhaps FBI agents should be restricted to just investigation, stripped of their weaponry, forced to rely on state and local lawmen — and perhaps the U.S. Marshals — to make any searches and arrests at all. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Charles Dunoyer

It is impossible for a government to levy taxes and distribute large amounts of money without by that very process creating large numbers of enemies of its authority and those jealous of its power.