On October 15, 1894, Alfred Dreyfus (1859 – 1935) was arrested for spying: The Dreyfus Affair began. And thus began a scandal that brought anti-Semitism into the cultural center.
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The Dreyfus Affair
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John Kenneth Galbraith
When people put their ballots in the boxes, they are, by that act, inoculated against the feeling that the government is not theirs. They then accept, in some measure, that its errors are their errors, its aberrations their aberrations, that any revolt will be against them. It’s a remarkably shrewd and rather conservative arrangement when one thinks of it.
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Age of Uncertainty (1977), p. 330.
“I’m against human rights violations around the world,” declared Mark Cuban, owner of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Dallas Mavericks, joining Megyn Kelly for her Apple podcast.
“Including the ones in China?” Kelly posed ever-so impolitely.
“China is not the only country with human rights violations,” Cuban prevaricated. Adding that, “Any human rights violations anywhere are wrong.”
Then Kelly dropped the bombshell: “Why would the NBA take $500 million dollars-plus from a country that is engaging in ethnic cleansing?”
“So basically,” the NBA owner fumed, “you’re saying nobody should do business with China ever?”
Perhaps not entertaining Chinazis is the right course — especially if doing so leads to kowtowing to Chinese government demands that their genocide be met with your well-compensated silence.
“They are a customer of ours . . .” he continued. “I’m okay with doing business with China. And so we have to pick our battles. I wish we could solve all the world’s problems. But we can’t.”
In addition to the PR problems brought by cuddling up to China, Kelly also asked whether prominently placing “Black Lives Matter” on the league’s courts had contributed to an “unprecedented viewership collapse” for the just-finished NBA Finals.
“Each game has broken another all-time low,” wrote Bobby Burack for Outkick.com. “With a marquee match-up between the Lakers and the Heat and the league’s biggest draw in LeBron James, a drop of almost 60% is inexcusable.”
“Your audience is fleeing,” Kelly noted. “They object to the politicization of their game.”
Cuban demurred, but as Election Day approaches, I bet it has occurred to him more than once that Americans have already used their television remotes to cast some powerful votes.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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William Penn
On October 14, 1644, Willliam Penn was born. An English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania (the English North American colony and future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania), he was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful treaties with the Lenape Indians. Penn died in 1718.
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Karl Kraus
I have done nothing more than show that there is a distinction between an urn and a chamber pot and that it is this distinction above all that provides culture with elbow room. The others, those who fail to make this distinction, are divided into those who use the urn as chamber pot and those who use the chamber pot as urn.
Karl Kraus, as quoted in Thomas Szasz, Karl Kraus and the Soul Doctors (1977).
Expect a tsunami of lawsuits against state and local governments. The lockdowns, mask mandates, and other putative ‘mitigation efforts’ to combat the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 demand a deluge.
The latest is Burfitt v. Newsom, filed in Kern County’s Superior Court of the State of California.
“The legal complaint,” explains Matthew Vadum in The Epoch Times, “seeks declaratory and injunctive relief for the constitutional violations it alleges have been committed by [Governor Gavin] Newsom and his officials, stating that the ‘lockdown was originally supposed to be only a temporary emergency measure. However, nearly seven months later it appears that, absent judicial intervention, there will never be a “reopening” to normal, pre-COVID activity, despite incontestable facts — including California’s own data . . . showing that the lockdown is no longer warranted and is causing far more harm than good.’”
The plaintiff is Father Trevor Burfitt, who simply seeks to carry on the established rites of the Roman Catholic Church.
Though churchgoers and other observant religious people are increasingly defiant, politicians are generally following New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s lead. Cuomo says* his edicts apply regardless of religious affiliation: “the community must agree to the rules. If you do not agree to enforce the rules, then we will close the institutions down.”
But Cuomo’s “must” is actually iffy:
- The states of emergency do not pass the smell test, as the medical infrastructure the lockdowns initially were touted to defend are actually under scant stress.
- The basic right at issue here is beyond ecumenical, it is the freedom to peaceably assemble, which too many governors have attacked, though
- they have indeed been hardest on religious gatherings, despite being lenient with big box retailers, liquor stores and marijuana dispensaries and completely tolerant of ‘mostly peaceful protests.’
The biggest If, though, is what would happen were the litigation to fail.
Citizen political action must join the litigation wave.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Mark Tapscott quotes Cuomo’s bracing statement in The Epoch Times, “Silicon Valley Pastor Fights $220,000 in Fines by California Officials for Holding Church Services.”
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Albert Jay Nock
On October 13, 1870, American social critic and education theorist Albert Jay Nock was born. Nock was the author of a number of books, including Jefferson, the Man and Our Enemy, The State, but was probably most famous for his intellectual autobiography, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, which was widely read and admired amongst conservatives in the 1950s and ’60s.
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Jonathan Swift
For, in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery: but in fact, eleven men well armed will certainly subdue one single man in his shirt.
Jonathan Swift, The Drapier’s Letters, letter iv (October 13, 1724).
Shirt on Zazzle.com.
Hold on! What scheme am I talking about?
Joe Biden hasn’t said that he agrees with other Democrats (including former Democratic presidential candidates) who propose that the U.S. Congress act to dramatically expand the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices.
Joe Biden hasn’t said that at all.
In his first and so-far-only debate with President Trump he refused to say, because if he did then that would become the issue.
“The issue is the American people should speak,” he said, and then turned to the camera. “You should go out and vote. . . . Vote and let your senators know how strongly you feel. Vote now. Make sure you in fact let people know.”
Know what, precisely? To vote to allow a Democratic administration to seize control of the Court, overcoming any constitutional objections to his (or her) socialist schemes?
But then Biden turned against the voters, when asked on Friday, whether voters deserve to know where he stands on court-packing: “No, they don’t deserve” to know. “I’m not going to play his [Trump’s] game. . . .”
So, officially, we “don’t know” whether Biden supports packing the High Court the way FDR tried in 1937.
Do voters deserve better from Biden?
They do not!
O, those voters — always demanding to know positions and agendas and things. Playing right into the hands of the opposition.
Come on, man! Ya gotta vote for the guy to know what’s in him.
I know what’s on your mind. You’re asking, “Are you saying that Joe Biden’s coy covertness toward the imposition of one-party authoritarian government exemplifies a crude disdain for voters’ legitimate desire to know what their vote will get them and is even more disqualifying than his stealth court-packing scheme?”
Please. Don’t put words in my mouth.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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The New World
On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas, thinking he had reached India.
Exactly two hundred years later, a letter from Massachusetts Governor William Phips ended the Salem Witch Trials.
On this date in 1892, the Pledge of Allegiance was first recited by students in many U.S. public schools, as part of a celebration marking the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage.
The Pledge had been composed that year by Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist minister, and was first published in Youth’s Companion magazine, the issue dated September 8, 1892. The recital was accompanied with a salute to the flag known as the Bellamy salute. During World War II, the salute was replaced with a hand-over-heart gesture because the original form (described in detail by Bellamy) involved stretching the arm out towards the flag in a manner that resembled the later Nazi salute. The original form of the Pledge was somewhat less involved than later versions:
I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
In October an editorial addition occurred, the word “to” prefixing “the republic.”