Irish-English medievalist, theologian, and novelist Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29, 1898. Among his best known works are Out of the Silent Planet, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, and the “Narnia” fantasies for children. His novelistic retelling of the Psyche myth, Till We Have Faces, and political essays such as “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment” and The Abolition of Man, will almost certainly stand the test of time.
Paul hopes for you, in your escapades and escapes, moves towards freedom.
In 1894, on November 28, economics journalist Henry Hazlitt was born. Halitt went on to write Economics in One Lesson, Time Will Run Back, and several books criticizing Keynesianism. He was the main proponent of the work of Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek in America during the 1940s and 1950s.
Exactly one year earlier, women voted in a national election for the first time . . . in New Zealand. On the same date in 1917, the Estonian Provincial Assembly declared itself the sovereign power of Estonia. November 28 also marks the independence of Mauritania from France (1960), and East Timor from Portugal.
It is a mark of insincerity of purpose to spend one’s time in looking for the sacred Emperor in the low-class tea shops.
And the children sing: “you can’t always get what you want.”
It’s a Rolling Stone song, and its album version does actually feature a children’s chorus (over adult singers).
I mention it not because I’ve just listened to the non-choral version put up in April by the famous rock group, a special pandemic recording. Though I just did. And perhaps it’s on my mind because the song was used by Donald Trump on his way to the White House, and at the present moment it sure doesn’t look like he’s going to get a second term.
“No, you can’t always get what you want want./ But if you try sometime, you just might find/ You get what you need.”
A silver lining for Trump voters?
No. It just came to mind when I learned that employees at Penguin broke down in tears when they learned that the huge publishing company was going to publish Jordan Peterson’s follow-up to his 2018 best-seller, 12 Rules for Life.
There was weeping, and it wasn’t for joy.
You see, the young people in the company said that Peterson is “an icon of hate speech and transphobia.” Oh, and he’s also “an icon of white supremacy,” and the lamenter admitted that “regardless of the content of his book, I’m not proud to work for a company that publishes him.”
It is really hard to sympathize. A major publishing company in an open society must be expected to publish a wide variety of material. So, buck up, as Peterson likes to say. Unless you own the place, you can’t always publish what you want.
More importantly, note that word: icon. That’s an image that stands for something by looking like that something.
How does Peterson look like a white supremacist or transphobe?
By imputation. By ignoring his arguments. And by treating his fans as wholly other and as a unified mass.
Who can be hated and denied ever getting what they want.
But such desired censorship is certainly not what we need.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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November 27, 1295, the first elected representatives from Lancashire were called to Westminster by King Edward I to attend what later became known as “The Model Parliament.”
On the same date in 1895, Alfred Nobel (pictured) signed his last will and testament, thereby establishing the Nobel Prizes.
We’re not earning any money by ‘saving.’ The government is manipulating the economy for nobody’s good but its own. Republicans and Democrats both do this; probably Democrats do it for worse purposes than Republicans.
R.W. Bradford, “Why Don’t Americans Save?” Liberty (June 2005), pp. 23–25. In this essay, Bradford proposed a new statistical measure of economic life, the True Yield on Savings (TYS), with which he calculated, several years before the financial crisis of the late aughts, that, at that time, “you lose money when you save.”
But it’s about time that we all learned what’s going on. Call it a lesson in economic reality.
I hope that the still-anonymous North Korean refugee who jumped a three-meter high, barbed-wire fence a few weeks ago — details are just now emerging — has paused to thank himself for his daring and initiative.
Now is a good time to do it. Thanksgiving is an American holiday, but we’re happy to let others around the world borrow it for their own thanks-giving purposes.
On November 3, a former 110-pound, North Korean gymnast leapt over a ten-foot fence in the demilitarized zone to reach South Korea.
The man has confirmed his story to the extent of proving his ability to leap tall barriers in a single bound in front of South Korean officials. He says he wants to defect.
I wish we knew more about him. But until I hear different, I’m going to assume that he is not a double agent. Just a guy who dislikes being oppressed and who wants a better life.
Every time a person leaps from totalitarianism to freedom, we should all be thankful. Here is someone who made it! This, despite pandemic-incited lockdowns that have made it even harder to escape North Korea. His feat shows others stuck behind country-wide prison walls that escape is still possible, even if few can do it the same way.
It also inspires those of us already on this side of the fence to keep working to preserve and expand the freedom, so often jeopardized, that we still enjoy.
Thank you, sir.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
November 26, 1792, saw the birth of Sarah Moore Grimké, American abolitionist and feminist. She was the elder sister of the equally famed Angelina Emily Grimké Weld.