The right to speak freely is under attack everywhere — and needs to be defended here as well as elsewhere:
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Listen: Freedom of Speech Everywhere?
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Frédéric Bastiat
Le plus pressé, ce n’est pas que l’État enseigne, mais qu’il laisse enseigner. Tous les monopoles sont détestables, mais le pire de tous, c’est le monopole de l’enseignement.
The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All monopolies are detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education.
Frédéric Bastiat, in debate with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1849–1850).
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Yves Guyot
We must not confound liberty with anarchy. Liberty is the reciprocal respect for personal rights, according to certain fixed rules known by the name of law. Anarchy is the privilege of some and the spoliation of others, according to the caprices and arbitrary will of the cunning and the violent, and the feebleness and lack of energy of the timorous.
Yves Guyot, The Tyranny of Socialism, 1894.
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Estonian Independence
On August 20, 1991, Estonia issued a decision to re-establish independence on the basis of historical continuity of the Baltic country’s pre-World War II statehood, sloughing off Soviet rule since 1940.
On August 20, 1935, Ron Paul was born. Paul is now famous for his heroic congressional record, his several presidential campaigns, and for books such as End the Fed and Liberty Defined.
By their assault on farming in the Netherlands, those who would sacrifice humanity on the altar of Mother Nature have given a big clue of how far they will go . . . to make our lives harder.
Pretty darn far.
Will Dutch farmers be forced out of business? Will others face skyrocketing food prices, hunger, even starvation?
Yet the elites say: So what? “It’s a transition.”
Livestock produce ammonia. Ammonia must be stopped. Whaddyagonnado?
We’re under assault in the U.S., too. Even if the attacks don’t always top the headlines and energy producers have yet to blockade roads en masse.
Specifically, the Legal Insurrection blog calls our attention to three new governmental obstacles to energy production:
- The federal government is pausing oil and gas leases on 2.2 million acres of Colorado land to permit more study of environmental impact.
- A federal judge is re-imposing a ban on the sale of coal on federal lands to permit more study of environmental impact.
- The federal government is stopping a pipeline to transport gas from Idaho to Wyoming to permit more study of environmental impact.
If this goes on, sooner or later people without AC or heat will be rioting against utilities and gas stations . . . as Biden and the rest pretend that high prices and low supplies are caused by evil entrepreneurial greed.
Every election day we will have another chance, sort of, to stop the insanity. Meanwhile, we can at least stop pretending that this is not happening.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Booker T. Washington
No man who continues to add something to the material, intellectual, and moral well-being of the place in which he lives is long left without proper reward.
Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery Chapter XVI: Europe.
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Patriotism & Protest & Ousting
On August 19, 1919, Afghanistan gained full independence from Great Britain. The British attempts to maintain an imperial presence in this region elicited an earlier, infamous essay in protest by English sociologist and anti-imperialist Herbert Spencer (pictured), “Patriotism” (Facts and Comments, 1902).
On this day in 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was placed under house arrest, a crucial event leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
In 1999, a mass rally of Serbians demanded the resignation of Slobodon Milosevic.
“Today, I confess, I am proud — proud of my profession.”
Sky News host Andrew Bolt was referencing the tough questions posed to Xiao Qian, China’s ambassador to Australia, following the ambassador’s speech last week to journalists at the nation’s Press Club.
After Xiao talked about “a possible opportunity to reset the relationship between our two countries,” what with a new Australian administration — and complained that media coverage of China was “mostly not positive”— the questions began.
The ambassador was asked first about the arrest, imprisonment and secret court proceedings against journalist Cheng Lei, an Australian citizen. Next, he was questioned on whether China might consider ending trade embargoes imposed after Australian officials requested an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Ambassador Xiao evaded answers on both matters.
Then came the issue of China’s threat to invade Taiwan. “I’d rather not use the word ‘invasion,’” offered Xiao, “when we talk about China and Taiwan.”
Asked if 24 million Taiwanese shouldn’t get to choose their own path, the ambassador replied, “The future of Taiwan will be decided by 1.4 billion Chinese people.”
“In fact, that’s not even true,” explained Bolt. “It is going to be determined by the Chinese dictatorship,” he added, noting the complete lack of any democracy under Chinese Communist Party rule.
Citing a recent statement by the Chinese ambassador to France that China would “re-educate” the Taiwanese after a military takeover, Ben Packham with The Australian requested a comment.
“There may be a process for the people of Taiwan to have a correct understanding of China,” Xiao acknowledged.
“Along the lines of the camps you have in Xinjiang?” Packham inquired. “That’s a re-education process isn’t it?”
“I’d rather not use the word ‘re-education,’” offered Xiao.
Words scare the genocidal totalitarians running China.
Speak up.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Denis Diderot
People stop thinking when they cease to read.
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Nineteenth
On August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women’s suffrage.
Eighty-eight years later, Pakistan’s President, Pervez Musharaf resigned under threat of impeachment.