The operation of burning it was perhaps as odious as that of writing it. . . . If the book was dangerous, it should have been refuted. To burn a book of argument is to say: ‘We do not have enough wit to reply to it.’
François-Marie Arouet, self-styled as Voltaire, referring to the burning of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Du contrat social in Geneva, in his undated pamphlet, Idées républicaines (Republican ideas).
On October 7, 1691, the charter for the Province of Massachusetts Bay was issued.
Also on a seventh day of the tenth month, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which closed Indigenous lands in North America north and west of the Alleghenies to white settlements.
On October 7, 1792, George Mason — “The Father of the Bill of Rights” — died. He had drafted the Virginia Declaration of Rights in 1776, and, at the time of the drafting and ratification of the Constitution, had insisted on the addition of articles to solidify state’s and individual rights within the new order.
George Mason (pictured) has been honored in numerous ways, including by the United States Postal Service with an 18¢ Great Americans series postage stamp; a bas-relief in the Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives as one of 23 honoring great lawmakers; and with an annual award named for him presented to a person who has made significant, lasting contribution to the practice of journalism in the Commonwealth, awarded by the Society of Professional Journalists, Virginia Pro Chapter.
On October 7, 2003, California Governor Gray Davis was recalled and Arnold Schwarzenegger voted into Davis’s previous gubernatorial spot.
Some of my best friends are anarchists. But theirs is a curious anarchism, for unlike the caricatures of anarchists of old, who — theorizing that since, in their minds, all states are illegitimate, they had free rein to shoot, bomb and monkey wrench the State and its supporters — my anarchist friends are friendly and non-violent.
They know they cannot achieve the kind of peaceful, stateless-but-lawful society they want with destruction.
Today’s best-known anarchists, however, aren’t like my friends. They are “Antifa,” and believe in initiating force. Together with Black Lives Matter, these “anarchists” upped the level of chaos to fever pitch during the months leading up to last November’s presidential election.
And they haven’t exactly stopped.
What do they hope to accomplish?
Well, don’t ask the FBI.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn’t keep track of them.
Spencer Brown, writing at Townhall, explains: “In a congressional hearing last week titled ‘Confronting Violent White Supremacy (Part VI): Examining the Biden Administration’s Counterterrorism Strategy,’ FBI Assistant Director of Counterterrorism Timothy Langan said that the Bureau doesn’t consider Antifa to be an ‘organization,’ and as such does not have specific information on the group’s activities.”
This is how the FBI and the left in general can say that the biggest domestic terrorist threat is “right-wing extremism.”
The idea is, apparently, if you don’t look at the data — even define it out of existence — you cannot report on it!
Why would the FBI join Democrats in averting their eyes from anarchist (as well as Marxist and racist) violence?
Perhaps the de facto policy at play here is anarcho-tyranny, where the government lets violent crime run rampant. Why? So government actors can leverage chaos and public anxiety to increase government size and scope.
Do politicians and functionaries use Antifa “anarchists” to increase their power?
Never let a crisis go to waste.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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What private property does is connect effort to reward, creating an incentive for people to produce for more. Then, if there’s a free market, people will trade their surpluses to others for the things they lack. Mutual exchange for mutual benefit makes the community richer.
October 6 is the traditional date commemorating the martyrdom of William Tyndale, in 1536. Tyndale translated the New Testament and much of the Old into the English of his day, and in the process added more new words into the English language than any other single wordsmith, with the possible exception of Shakespeare. He also laid the ground for the later, and more famous, King James (“Authorized”) Edition of the Bible.
Among his memorable coinages and turns of phrase coined as translations from Hebrew and Greek into English include
“Twitter is now censoring obituaries.”
That was the tweet of Sean Davis (@seanmdav) summing up (perhaps just a tad hyperbolically) the latest social media attempt at what might best be called “official spin.”
Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) asked “Who @Twitter thought it was okay to say an OBITUARY is misleading?” But Mr. Domenech tweeted without any exaggeration.
The obituary in question appeared in The Oregonian. The basic information that so vexed Twitter? It appeared in the first paragraph of a grieving family’s sad marking of the death of Jessica Berg Wilson, who “passed away unexpectedly Sept. 7, 2021 from COVID-19 Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia (VITT) surrounded by her loving family. Jessica was an exceptionally healthy and vibrant 37-year-old young mother with no underlying health conditions.”
FoxNews summarizes the social media giant’s warning on Kelly Bee’s (@ke11ybender) original tweet as follows: “Twitter labeled the tweet ‘misleading,’ and provided information on ‘why health officials consider COVID-19 vaccines safe for most people.’”
How gratuitous. Jessica Berg Wilson is not “most people.”
She was one person.
The malady in question, Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia, has to do with clotting in the body’s smaller blood vessels. The “Vaccine-induced” in the obituary is very pointed, and probably only a theory, as they say, but it doesn’t look like a bad theory: at least one doctor has identified micro-clotting as a problem that the mRNA vaccines can cause.
News of these cases has been suppressed, apparently in the cause of universal vaccination. Twitter dutifully adds its weight.
Adjudicating medical claims is none of Twitter’s business. Social media companies are ruining their own industry. Ask why.
Demand answers.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Subversion is an activity which is a two-way traffic. You cannot subvert an enemy which does not want to be subverted.
Soviet defector (KGB propaganda expert; former Novosti Press journalist)Yuri Bezmenov, lecturing as Tomas David Schuman.
On October 5, 1910, the Portuguese monarchy was overthrown and a republic declared.
Congressman Jim Banks is rebuking Microsoft for censoring its LinkedIn account holders who criticize the Chinese government.
This includes users in the United States.
“LinkedIn is pressuring U.S. citizens to remove posts critical of China’s dictatorship because, apparently, ‘regional laws’ compel them to do Xi’s bidding,” Banks tells the Washington Examiner. “That’s a lie. LinkedIn is simply selling out America’s values and national security in order to boost its bottom line.”
The congressman has written to the company, which connects job seekers to job providers.
He demands answers about how LinkedIn cooperates with Chinese censorship.
His allies include Carl Szabo, VP of a trade group called NetChoice. Szabo says that American tech firms “should actively push back on such [censorship] demands. China suppressing the profiles of American users should not be happening.”
Microsoft has a history of aiding and abetting the Chinese Communist Party, Chinazi Party for short.
Although Google withdrew its search engine from China in 2010 rather than (continue to) help China censor search results, the Bing search engine currently operates in China. And you can’t be a search engine in China without helping the CCP to censor.
Microsoft has even provided facial recognition resources used to track the Uyghurs, a Muslim population that the Chinese government has subjected to mass incarceration and torture.
A few years ago Microsoft apparently retreated on that facial-recognition front. But it shouldn’t be doing anything to help the Chinazi government to censor and repress.
Nobody should.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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The last person to trust with power is someone who is dying to have it. The best person to wield power is someone who is reluctant to do so, but who will do it for a while as a civic duty. That is why term limits should make it impossible to have a whole career in politics.