No one can hate petitions worse than I, and no one has less faith in them than I. But for my champion I am willing to try any means that invades no other’s right, even though I have little hope in it.
Voltairine de Cleyre, address to the Unity Congregation, Philadelphia, appealing for petitions against the imprisonment of Moses Harman (1890).
July 30, 1419, the First Defenestration of Prague: Jan Želivský, a Hussite priest at the church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows, led his congregation on a procession through the streets of Prague to the New Town Hall, on Charles Square. While they were marching, a stone was thrown at Želivský from the window of the town hall. The mob, enraged, stormed the hall. Once inside, the group threw the judge, the burgomaster, and some thirteen members of the town council out of the window and into the street, where they were killed by the fall or dispatched by the mob.
King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, upon hearing this news, was so stunned, the legend goes, that he died soon after.
On July 30, 1619, the first representative assembly in the Americas, the House of Burgesses, convened for the first time in Jamestown, Virginia. On the same date in 1676, Nathaniel Bacon issued the “Declaration of the People of Virginia,” beginning Bacon’s Rebellion against the rule of Governor William Berkeley.
On this date in 1863, representatives of the United States and tribal leaders (including the Shoshone’s Chief Pocatello) signed the Treaty of Box Elder.
July 30 birthdays include Henry Ford (1863), Gen. Smedley Butler (1881), C. Northcote Parkinson (1909), and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947).
Vanuatuans celebrate Independence Day on July 30.
Just the all-caps was upsetting, I thought to myself.
Still, I was all ears and eyes for Johnny Harris’s “Here’s What Happens If China Invades Taiwan,” which garnered seven million views since February.
Harris was “a little bit conflicted making this video,” because he “feels very against the machismo fascination with conflict,” telling viewers that “we’re talking about people’s lives” and “entire societies being ripped about by a power struggle.”
Declaring that “China doesn’t want war,” Harris hazards that Mainland China “will probably try much less violent ways to try to force Taiwan to the negotiating table before resorting to all-out invasion.”
Masters of benevolence, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will . . . accept surrender!
Mr. Harris points out that the CCP has passed a law saying they “must” invade Taiwan if peaceful reunification is not possible. Explaining the dearth of support in Taiwan for joining their totalitarian neighbors, he notes “the interpretation of this law [is] more and more on the side of China should do this forcibly.”
Why, it’s “a legal imperative.”
And protecting “this far away island,” asserts Harris, “is something the American public broadly would not be into.” (Though, ahem, recent polling says otherwise.)
“I really hope that we are past needing to resort to this version of conflict to settle our disputes at this time in our history,” he concludes. “But I’m not totally convinced that we are yet.”
The CCP part of “we” is clearly not there.
“We can talk about it,” explains Harris. “We can find creative ways to solve this.”
My take? Don’t expect too much creativity from the CCP.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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On July 29, 1805, Alexis de Tocqueville was born. His most famous book, Democracy in America (two volumes: 1835, 1840), quickly became a classic of social and political research and analysis, and remains the most important early book about the United States of America. He is often referred to as a founder of sociology as well as a major figure in the development of classical liberalism.
Samuel Butler, Notebooks (1951).
The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.
Well, optimally, one step. Two only if necessary.
County Sheriff Bob Songer tells gun-owning constituents that if agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives come to their door wanting to inspect their guns but have no warrant, they should tell the agents to go away.
ATF agents have started to make “surprise home visits of persons who have purchased two or more firearms at one time.” The sheriff was alerted by video of such a visit to a home in Delaware.
Republican Congressman Matt Rosendale of Montana has called for an investigation into the intimidatory practice.
Although Sheriff Songer knows of no such incidents yet occurring in the Evergreen State, he wants his county to be prepared. So he also provides a second step: if the agents don’t leave when asked, the resident should call Songer. He will then “make contact with the agents. If they still refuse to leave, I will personally arrest the ATF agents for Criminal Trespass and book them into the Klickitat County Jail.”
All other sheriffs, please make the same announcement.
Songer belongs to the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association and regards protecting the constitutional rights of his constituents as part of the job.
When it comes to respect for the Constitution, there really shouldn’t be more than one type of sheriff. But if there are going to be more than one, “constitutional sheriff” is the type you want to be.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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The first formulation of “the pragmatic maxim,” by C.S. Peirce, “How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” Popular Science Monthly, v. 12 (January 1878), pp. 286-302.
Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.
July 28, 1868, is the official date for the certification of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
While social media’s partisanship and Big Brotherish thought control have been on all our minds in recent years, the current Internet controversy has a slightly different slant:
“The Disney-backed streaming service Hulu is refusing to run political ads on central themes of Democratic midterm campaigns,” writes Michael Scherer for The Washington Post, “including abortion and guns, prompting fury from the party’s candidates and leaders.”
The ads are almost innocuous. Tame stuff. So what is Hulu up to?
Suraj Patel, a Democratic candidate for Congress in New York City, protested the service’s refusal to run his ads. Then, after some back-and-forth — and editing — his ad was allowed to run: he had to replace the “climate change” with “democracy” and, The Post relates, swap “the footage of violence at the U.S. Capitol with footage of former president Donald Trump.”
This is irksome. Hardly a matter of The Truth, as “three executive directors of Democratic committees” put it, quoted at top. It shows how normal business advertising (on an unregulated entertainment service, not a normal news network) is a tricky biz, considering the unwillingness of the programmers to tick off viewers, who probably turn to Hulu for a respite from politics.
Yet, it would be better if Hulu didn’t allow any political advertising rather than some . . . and then only after editing. Who do the folks at Hulu think they are? Twitter executives? Zuckerberg?
I wonder if my Democratic friends will remind me that Hulu is a private company that can do as it wishes.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics.
One swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.