Categories
Today

December 9th Birthdays

On December 9, 1958, the John Birch Society was founded in the United States. December 9 also marks the birthdays of

  • Poet and anti-censorship advocate John Milton (1608), author of the masterpiece of blank verse narrative, Paradise Lost (1667) and a classic prose defense of free speech and the press, Areopagitica (1644).
  • Russian prince and anarchist theoretician Peter Kropotkin (1842), author of Mutual Aid and other books and pamphlets.
  • John Malkovich (1953), who directed The Dancer Upstairs (2002) and starred in the odd eponymous film Being John Malkovich (1999).
Categories
ballot access Voting

Citizenship Not Required

voting, democracy, alien, illegal, immigrant, noncitizen

Noncitizen voting is coming to New York City.

Tomorrow, the city council is expected to approve a measure permitting more than 800,000 noncitizens to vote in city elections.

Noncitizens will need to have a green card or the right to work in the United States, and will need to have been resident in the city for at least 30 days.

Opponents include Councilman Rubén Díaz, a Democrat. He observes that the requirements for becoming a naturalized citizen and thereby earning the right to vote, which include “understanding the basics of [our history] and how our government functions,” would thus be bypassed.

Whether the granting of American citizenship to newcomers has been too lax or too cumbersome is a separate question. But if a particular noncitizen deserves to vote, he or she surely deserves citizenship. Why not start with citizenship?

Opt in. Become an American before you vote in America. This seems basic.

Which is why de-linking voting from formal citizenship conjures up two worrisome questions: 

What agenda does this serve? and What’s next?

Next steps could include extending the franchise to those who do not “have the right to work” (as is already the case in San Francisco) and extending this new right, noncitizen voting, to state and federal elections.

That many Democratic congressmen are eager to obliterate any practical distinctions between citizen and noncitizen is shown by their support for HR1, the misnamed “For the People Act,” an assault on state-level laws intended to ensure that only (living) citizens are voting (only once) in elections.

Fortunately, that federal legislation has been blocked. For now.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Christine Anderson

I’m a German, and we once asked our grandparents how they could have just stood by in silence allowing a horrific totalitarian regime to come about. Anyone could have known — all they had to do was open their eyes and take a look: the vast majority chose not to. So, what will you tell your grandchildren? Will you tell them you didn’t know? Will you tell them you were ‘just following orders’? You need to understand: it is not about breaking the ‘fourth wave’; it is about breaking people. Australia does not need a ‘no-COVID strategy.’ What Australia needs is a ‘no-oppression strategy.’

Christine Margarete Anderson, a German politician serving as an Alternative for Germany (AfD) Member of the European Parliament, “answering an SOS call” from Australians, in which she designated the southern hemisphere country as “a former free and liberal democracy that has been formed into a totalitarian regime” in the cause of a zero-infection policy over the CCP virus.

Categories
Today

Greek Monarchy Ended

On December 8, 1974, a plebiscite finalized the abolition of the monarchy in Greece. The last Greek king, Constantine II, had ceased any royal pretensions while in exile on June 1. The December referendum was something of a formality.

Categories
crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom judiciary Regulating Protest

No Longer Compelled?

Adam Germain

In October, Pastor Artur Pawlowski, who had been jailed during the pandemic for holding church services in Calgary, Alberta, was ordered as one condition of his probation to always append a statement of official government doctrine to his own public uttering of opinions about pandemic policy.

According to the October 15 ruling by Alberta Justice Adam Germain, when “exercising [their] right of free speech” to speak against lockdowns and vaccines, Artur Pawlowski, his brother Dawid, and Whistle Stop Café owner Chris Scott must also recite a disclaimer.

It reads, in part: “I am obliged to inform you that the majority of medical experts favour social distancing, mask wearing, and avoiding large crowds to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Most medical experts also support participation in a vaccination program.”

Pastor Pawlowski told Fox News that he would “not obey this court order” to self-denounce, and he likened the issuing court’s proceedings to the judicial proceedings of the Soviet Union.

“This crooked judge wants to turn me into a CBC reporter or CNN reporter, that every time that I am in public, every time I’m opening my mouth, I am to pray their mantra to the government.”

On November 25, Justice Jo’Anne Strekaf of Alberta’s Court of Appeal lifted this order compelling specific speech, which Justice Germain pretends is compatible with freedom of speech. Whether this latest ruling is permanent depends on what happens at a June 14, 2022 hearing.

Until then, at least, the creepy order has been suspended.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Robert Nozick

The opposition of wordsmith intellectuals to capitalism is a fact of social significance. They shape our ideas and images of society; they state the policy alternatives bureaucracies consider. From treatises to slogans, they give us the sentences to express ourselves. Their opposition matters, especially in a society that depends increasingly upon the explicit formulation and dissemination of information.

Robert Nozick, “Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?”
Categories
Today

Maj. Gen. Lafayette

On December 7, 1776, the Marquis de Lafayette arranged to enter the American military as a major general. On the same date in 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the United States Constitution.

The 1941 date marks, of course, “the day that will live in infamy,” when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.

Categories
The Draft

Inclusion on Compulsion

draft, registration, women

A news article over the weekend explains that certain “lawmakers” are “leading the effort to allow all Americans ages 18 to 25 to be included for registration with the Selective Service System.”

To “allow”? And “to be included”? 

The allowance and inclusion mean “at gunpoint” . . . by force of law: the expansion of compulsory draft registration to women, in addition to men, does not mean that lifelong dreams could finally come true. After all, military jobs are already open to women who want to serve . . . voluntarily.

Young men have long been required to register for a military draft upon punishment of prison for refusal . . . even though President Reagan, who enforced the law post-Vietnam, acknowledged “The draft or draft registration destroys the very values our society is committed to defending.”*

After praising “the brave women who have volunteered to serve our country,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) argues that “volunteering for military service is not the same as being forced into it, and no woman should be compelled to do so.”

He’s right there. 

But neither should men be so compelled. 

And Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) have introduced an amendment to the NDAA that would end draft registration completely for “all Americans.”

“The real question now,” as Jeff Jacoby wrote incisively in The Boston Globe, “is whether anyone should still be required to sign up for the draft.”

The answer is easy: No.

The All-Volunteer Force has been a huge success. Free Americans have and will defend our freedom. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* I know about those precious values as well as about the penalty — 37 years ago today the FBI showed up at my door. And not for coffee. For my refusal to sign a draft form, I spent more than five months in a Federal Correctional Institution (and yet still go around in error from time to time).

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Thought

Russell Brand

There’s an obvious pushback about being told what to think. Twitter temporarily afforded the option of, well, ‘just let the people decide.’ That’s what democracy is. That’s why democracy is not real, and never was. Because real democracy means stuff might happen that you don’t like. What they mean when they say democracy is ‘our democracy.’ What they mean by ‘the outcome of the people’ — the ‘outcome of our people.’ What they mean by ‘freedom of speech’ — ‘freedom for our speech.’

Comedian Russell Brand, “Hang On… ‘A Tool for Democracy’ or a Tool of THE ESTABLISHMENT,” discussing “Jack Dorsey has resigned as CEO of Twitter – the platform that was intended as a tool for democracy but became the opposite” and a Matt Taibbi article on Substack.

Categories
Today

13th & Paul Jacob

On December 6, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, banning slavery in all states and territories.

One-hundred-and-nineteen years later, to the day, in 1984, Paul Jacob (of ThisIsCommonSense.org, LibertyiFund.org, and the Citizens in Charge Foundation) was arrested by the FBI for his refusal to register with Selective Service System (the draft people). The Government was probably not attempting to make a commemorative point about involuntary servitude.