On July 19, 1848, a two-day Women’s Rights Convention opened in Seneca Falls, New York.
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Seneca Falls
Paul re-caps the big stories of the week as they appear here, on Common Sense with Paul Jacob:
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Auberon Herbert
On June 18, 1838, Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert was born.
Auberon Herbert was a Liberal Member of Parliament who, after reading the writings of Herbert Spencer, became a radical individualist and author of essays such as “The Ethics of Dynamite,” “A Politician in Trouble About His Soul,” and “The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State.”
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Vannevar Bush
Mendel’s concept of the laws of genetics was lost to the world for a generation because his publication did not reach the few who were capable of grasping and extending it; and this sort of catastrophe is undoubtedly being repeated all about us, as truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential.
An Oregon case, People Not Politicians v. Secretary of State Clarno, was decided last week in favor of People Not Politicians, a group that has struggled obtaining signatures to qualify Initiative Petition 57 (IP 57) for the November 2020 ballot — while observing the governor’s stay-at-home orders.
It is hard to collect petition signatures under social distancing.
So the court is forcing the Secretary of State to give the group some leeway in advancing their redistricting measure.
This is good news for another citizen activist group, Move Oregon’s Border. Chief Petitioner Mike McCarter wants to place initiatives on county ballots in eastern, southern, and southwestern Oregon. His idea is to split off from Willamette Valley politics altogether, leaving wokester Portland — of the comedy Portlandia and antifa riots fame — in the distance.
But he does not want to form a new state. The secession is mere prelude to accession . . . to Idaho!
It has been a long time since the United States has fissioned a state, West Virginia during the Civil War being the most recent — Maine and Kentucky before that.
Great idea? Well, this goes far beyond these two western states. California is ripe for break-up, for by such a political reformation the ratio of citizens to representatives could be increased in favor of citizens.
The idea of calling the proposed new, larger State of Idaho “Greater Idaho” seems a bit much. Surely “Idaho” would do.
But the idea is politically more possible because it wouldn’t change the partisan complexion of the United States Senate, thus avoiding riling up one of the two major parties.
Other fissions, and fusions, would be much harder. Too bad. People should be able to insist on better representation. Democratically.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Francis Hutcheson
Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best ends by the best means.
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iQuisling
Sometimes you should not try a balancing act.
Last weekend, Hong Kong citizens voted in opposition primaries — conducted in defiance of China’s new “national security” law that deprives Hong Kong of the last vestiges of democracy and individual freedom that the region had been allowed to retain after Great Britain handed it over to China in 1997.
General elections will be held in September.
The primary organizers developed a voting platform called PopVote with apps for iOS and Android.
Although China condemns the elections as illegal, Google has accepted the app for Android. But Apple first voiced technical objections to the code; then, after programmers made requested changes, the company stopped responding to them at all.
“We think it is being censored by Apple,” says Edwin Chu, one of the developers.
It wouldn’t be the first time Apple has rejected apps in obedience to the Chinese government.
The Quartz website says that the firm “has long had to walk a tightrope between its commitment to user rights and placating China” because of the large market for (and production of) iStuff in that country.
Apple’s conduct may be unfavorably compared to that of companies like the one responsible for the secure messaging app Telegram. When China banned the app in 2015, founder Pavel Durov saw no point trying to get the ban reversed. He said: “It’s pretty obvious that the Chinese government’s desire for total control over its population is incompatible with our values.”
Not so incompatible with Apple’s values, apparently.
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Bolesław Prus
For human nature is strange: the less we are inclined to self-sacrifice, the more we insist on it in others.
On July 16, 1931, Ethiopia’s Emperor Haille Selassie I signed a new Constitution. Not exactly a model of limited government, the new document proved that the emperor was in keeping with the time, which was a period of weakening constitutional limits in America, Europe, and Britain. A flavor of the document can be gained by its most “rights-oriented” measures:
Art. 22. Within the limits laid down by the law, Ethiopian subjects have the right to pass freely from one place to the other.
Art. 23. No Ethiopian subject may be arrested, sentenced, or imprisoned except in pursuance of the law.
Art. 24. No Ethiopian subject may, against his will, be deprived of his right to be tried by a legally established court.
Art. 25. Except in cases provided for by law, no domiciliary searches may be made.
Art. 26. Except in cases provided by the law, no one shall have the right to violate the secrecy of the correspondence of Ethiopian subjects.
Art. 27. Except in cases of public necessity determined by the law, no one shall have the right to deprive an Ethiopian subject of any movable or landed property which he owns.
Art. 28. All Ethiopian subjects have the right to present to the Government petitions in legal form.
Art. 29. The provisions of the present chapter shall in no way limit the measures which the Emperor, by virtue of his supreme power, may take in the event of war or public misfortunes menacing the interests of the nation.
He’s the Avis Rent A Car of authoritarianism.
Russian President Vladimir V. Putin is not the most evil tyrant on the planet. That title clearly belongs to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Instead, Putin is No. 2.
So, of course, he tries harder.
Two years ago, Xi Jinping got the Chinese Communist Party to jettison his term limits without breaking a sweat. Not the slightest pretense of democracy necessary.
Two weeks ago, Putin finally caught up with Xi by winning an unnecessary and highly fraudulent national referendum designed to legitimize the constitutional jiggering that would allow him to stay in office until he would be 83 years old.
Beating Joseph Stalin for post-tsar star tsar.
So, how did Putin rig the referendum?
“Voters are being asked to approve a package of 206 constitutional amendments with a single yes-or-no answer,” explained National Public Radio. Many U.S. states have single-subject requirements for ballot measures to prevent precisely this sort of log-rolling.
Sergey Shpilkin, a well-known Russian physicist, produced statistical evidence that “as many as 22 million votes — roughly 1 in 4 — may have been cast fraudulently,” ABC News reported.
“The European Union regrets that, in the run up to this vote, campaigning both for and against was not allowed,” read a statement from the 27-nation block. With little debate and scant information, the referendum was just pretense.
So, why did Putin go through all the trouble to pretend?
Low approval ratings, a New York Times piece argued, his “lowest level since he first took power 20 years ago.” Putin needed all the help that fake democracy can provide.
Without any of those uncomfortable checks-on-power that real democracy demands.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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