“Policy” is the negation of politics; policy is by definition something concocted by some form of elite, which presumes it knows better than others how their affairs are to be conducted. By participating in policy debates the very best one can achieve is to limit the damage, since the very premise is inimical to the idea of people managing their own affairs.
David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology (2004).
On what we would now render as November 21, 1620, Plymouth Colony settlers signed the Mayflower Compact. In the Old Style calendar, the date was November Eleventh.
Bring in the dough. Efficiently.
“Saudi Crown Prince Pledges $1 Trillion Investment in US During Meeting with Trump,” an article at The Epoch Times tells us. The Saudi potentate is boosting, the story runs, an “investment partnership with the United States from $600 billion,” and the prince in question, Mohammed bin Salman — his reputation previously sullied by the part he played in the gruesome assassination of a journalist — explains that the “investments will focus on what he described as ‘real opportunities’ in areas such as artificial intelligence and magnets.”
The article notes that the “Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a Nov. 17 post on X that the crown prince, widely known as MBS, would meet Trump ‘to discuss bilateral relations, ways to strengthen them across various fields, and issues of mutual interest.’”
Now, that latter discussion of diplomatic issues appears normal. That is, what we expect two heads of state to do when conferring.
But all this talk of extra investment? Micromanaging foreign investment within the United States?
That’s never been the recipe for republican governance and can so easily and quickly devolve into plutocratic socialism-for-the-rich. There’s no shouting “limited government” about what Trump boasts of regarding “the deals” he makes for the U.S.
For “us.”
But it does fit what many had hoped he would be: a businessman taking charge of the corporation that is the unitary “United States.” A fix-it man for the federal Leviathan.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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What the feminists want of me is something they haven’t examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness. What they would really like me to say is, ‘Ha, sisters, I stand with you side by side in your struggle toward the golden dawn where all those beastly men are no more.’ Do they really want people to make oversimplified statements about men and women? In fact, they do. I’ve come with great regret to this conclusion.
Doris Lessing, in Lesley Hazelton, “Doris Lessing on Feminism, Communism and ‘Space Fiction,’” New York Times (July 25, 1982).
On November 20, 1789, the state of New Jersey led the way to establishing the Bill of Rights by being the first U.S. state to ratify the document.
Actually, the state ratified on that date Article One of the original twelve, which has yet to be fully ratified as a constitutional amendment, and Articles Three through Twelve, which became the ten articles of the Bill of Rights. On May 7, 1992, the state ratified Article Two, which became the Twenty-seventh Amendment to the Constitution.
And China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats constantly reflect this fact.
Earlier this month, during a parliamentary session, Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was pressed by an opposition lawmaker on scenarios that could trigger the clause in Japan’s constitution concerning “survival-threatening situations,” thus allowing collective self-defense. Takaichi explicitly stated that Chinese military action against Taiwan — such as a naval blockade, invasion, or interference with U.S. forces — could qualify.
No “strategic ambiguity” there!
But as scandalous as Takaichi’s answers were to the Communist Party in China, it was the response of Xue Jian, consul general of the People’s Republic of China, in Osaka, Japan, that raised more than eyebrows: “I have no choice but to cut off that filthy head that barged in without hesitation — are you ready?” This was followed by a red emoji, an angry icon.
It has since been deleted.
Last Friday, lawmakers from both Takaichi’s party and Komeito (a centrist, socially conservative party) demanded Xue’s immediate recall; a petition with more than 50,000 signatures circulated online.
But Takaichi herself is under pressure to apologize.
I agree with the Scribbler’s take over at StopTheCCP.org: “It would be disappointing if instead of ‘muddling through,’ the Japanese government as led by its new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, submitted to China’s malicious demands and formally retracted her very reasonable statement about Taiwan.”
The only apologies should come from the CCP’s Osaka Decapitator.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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We live in a world of incredible suffering. This brief paradise in the West since the end of the last war, which is about to end, has educated two generations into thinking we live in some sort of Shangri-La. As usual we — that is, the human race — are in for a hard time. But that is our history. When have we not had a hard time?
Doris Lessing, in Lesley Hazelton, “Doris Lessing on Feminism, Communism and ‘Space Fiction,’” New York Times (July 25, 1982).
On November 19, 2021, President Joe Biden temporarily transferred his powers and duties to Vice President Kamala Harris before undergoing a colonoscopy, making her acting president from 10:10 a.m. until 11:35 a.m. This was the first time a woman held the powers and duties of the president of the United States.
Biden had a benign but pre-cancerous polyp removed from his colon during that procedure.
That’s what President Trump posted on Truth Social back during the shutdown, adding, “WE are in power, and if we did what we should be doing, it would IMMEDIATELY end this ridiculous, Country destroying ‘SHUT DOWN.’”
This was prior to Democrats, off-year election over, suddenly deciding to agree to the same deal to reopen the government that Republicans had been offering for weeks.
The 60-vote supermajority the United States Senate needs to end debate and vote on legislation is a small-r republican measure, not a small-d democratic one. Reasonable people can disagree over its merits, certainly, but I like the greater consensus it requires.
What I don’t like is that the party in control of the Senate can at any time change the filibuster rule in any way it wishes, including ending it altogether.
Rules shouldn’t be this easy to junk.
Make the Senate filibuster not just a rule, but constitutional law.
Another major matter of constitutional change is sorely needed. The stability and independence of one of the three branches of the federal government, the U.S. Supreme Court, hangs by a thread.
The number of justices, now nine, is nowhere set in the Constitution.
Congress and the White House, when held by the same political party — even short of 60 votes in the Senate, because they could simply end the filibuster — could immediately add ten new justices.
Or 20.
And then confirm all the president’s picks.
All something Democrats mused about doing years ago: packing the High Court with many new justices to magically engineer a new Democratic Party majority on the SCOTUS.
The number of justices, like the Senate’s super-majoritarian filibuster, aren’t written in stone.
But should be.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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We have not triumphed over a doctrine when we have shown its chimerical nature.
Gustave Le Bon, Psychologie du Socialisme (1896), translated as The Psychology of Socialism (1899). Passage offered here last week, but this sentence stood out. Worthy of emphasis.