Is a secret still a secret if everyone knows it?
George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings (1996); character Tyrion Lannister to Lord Varys, Master of Whisperers.
Categories
U. S. Military Zones
February 19, 1942, was a sad day for constitutional rights, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt signing Executive Order 9066, authorizing the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas of the country as military zones. These zones were used to incarcerate Japanese Americans in internment camps.
On her European junket, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.-D) elicited chuckles over her comments on the arrest of Nicolás Maduro by means of a military incursion, mistakenly identifying Venezuela as “below the Equator.” The country lies entirely north of the dividing line between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
Was this her “Aleppo moment”?
Hardly. Darlings of the major parties get away with faux pas that minor party challengers cannot escape. (Remember in 2016, when Governor Gary Johnson, running as a Libertarian, spaced out on the Syrian city then in the news?)
Besides, AOC said (or didn’t say) worse.
Asked about China, she yammered interminably, very understanding of the “ascending global power . . . acting in its own self-interest” but not once mentioning the authoritarian, anti-democratic and generally tyrannical-exploitative nature of communist rule there.
Instead, Ocasio-Cortez castigated the United States for not “investing in science and technology” enough. A very left-Democrat thing to do, going on to characterize “privatized research” as not helping a country maintain global power status.
China does the internal improvements thing oh-so-much-better than the U.S., she insinuates.
But “would and should the U.S. actually commit U.S. troops,” she was asked, “to defend Taiwan if China were to move?”
AOC stammered for 20 seconds. All that public investment in alternative energy is supposed to, somehow, prevent China from trying to nab Taiwan!
The U.S. should “make sure that we are moving,” she concluded, “to avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise.”
Can we retreat that quickly? It has arisen.
On the world stage, our Bronx savant is in her own very special hemisphere.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with ChatGPT
See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts
Categories
Ali bin Abi Talib
Your friends are three and your enemies are three. Your friends are: your friend, your friend’s friend and your enemy’s enemy. And your enemies are: your enemy, your friend’s enemy and your enemy’s friend.
Ali bin Abi Talib (علي بن أبي طالب), Letter 31: “Advice to one of his sons after returning from the Battle of Siffin” (likely composed soon after July 657 of the current era, when the battle took place.
Categories
White Rose
On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl, a brother and sister, were arrested at the University of Munich for secretly (or not so secretly) putting out leaflets calling on Germans to revolt against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime.
In the previous year Hans had founded a group of students, who called themselves “The White Rose.” The group wrote and distributed six leaflets aimed at educated Germans. The leaflets made their way across Germany and to several other occupied countries. The Allies later dropped them all over the Third Reich.
People should be free to talk to each other about whatever they want as long as they’re not thereby conspiring to rob and murder and so forth. They should even be able to give advice.
Including legal advice.
New York State disagrees.
The Institute for Justice is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to let the non-lawyer volunteers of a company called Upsolve keep giving advice to people facing lawsuits to collect debt.
As IJ explains, New York State is trying to “protect people from hearing advice from volunteers” who have relevant training. The point is that the First Amendment “doesn’t allow the government to outlaw discussion of entire topics . . . by requiring speakers to first obtain an expensive, time-consuming license.” (That Upsolve’s advisors have relevant training is relevant but also superfluous. Even untrained talkers have the right to talk, obviously.)
In 2022, a federal district court agreed with the plaintiff that its volunteers have a First Amendment right to speak and let Upsolve operate as litigation continued. Then a court of appeals ruled against Upsolve. Now IJ and Upsolve hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will step in and put an end to the nonsense.
We know what this is about: politicians catering to lawyers who don’t want less expensive sources of legal advice out there competing for customers.
It’s certainly not about protecting those who would have one fewer resource to turn to were this one taken away.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with Nano Banana
See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts
Categories
Marshall McLuhan
Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity.
Marshall McLuhan, Take Today: The Executive as Dropout (1972), p. 92.
Categories
Jefferson vs. Burr
On February 17, 1801, a tie in the Electoral College between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr was resolved when Jefferson was elected President and Burr Vice President by the House of Representatives.
In 2009, President Obama and the EPA decided that the will-o’-the-wisp of fine-tuning the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere fell under the agency’s purview. They introduced a not-so-thin wedge to pry open a vast new province of regulatory oppression.
Obama had sought congressional legislation, but Congress had balked.
So he proceeded without any new laws; or rather, as so often happens, told an agency to issue new laws. (According to one explanation of the difference between laws and regulations, regulations are rules to implement laws. This doesn’t cover the case of regulations or “findings” that are tantamount to new laws although no elected representatives passed them.)
“Health” was at stake, the tyrants declared.
The flourishing of industrial civilization, and thus of human beings, are also matters of health. But no matter.
One consequence of the EPA’s newfound authority was the issuance of other dire “rules,” like the Biden-era mandate that most American-made vehicles be electric by 2032.
Now things may change.
Bigly.
President Trump has ordered the EPA to un-find its 2009 “finding” that it has blanket authority to regulate human emission of greenhouse gases.
The change will be challenged in court.
The Trump administration doubtless expects — perhaps even wants — the litigation. A favorable Supreme Court ruling would block the EPA from re-finding its finding during future administrations. Then legislation — actual, congressional — would be the only way to reimpose the craziness.
A circumstance in which the people might have a say.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with Nano Banana
See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts
Categories
Miranda July
Common sense and the truth should feel authorless, writ by time itself.
Miranda July, “The Shared Patio,” in Zoetrope All-Story (Winter 2005).