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Today

June the 28th

June 28 birthdays include that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher, in 1712.

On this date in 1914, 19-year-old Gavril Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and the Archduke’s wife Sophie. The Archduke had earlier missed a bomb thrown at his car, which necessitated a change in the motorcade route, which the driver forgot, which is why the car paused at the precise intersection in which Princip fired his fatal shots.

The shooting began a series of events that led to “The Great War,” now known as “World War I.”

On June 28, 1992, the Constitution of Estonia was signed into law.

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audio podcast

Listen: Against Ochlocracy!

Paul doesn’t use this big word in his weekend wrap-up of the big stories this last week. But he uses the concept!

This Week in Common Sense, June 22 – 26, 2020.
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Thought

T.S. Eliot

They constantly try to escape 
From the darkness outside and within 
By dreaming of systems so perfect
  that no one will need to be good. 

Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888 – 1965), Choruses from “The Rock” (1934).

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Today

Mauser, Goldman, Keller

Paul von Mauser was born on June 27, 1838, and would go on to become a weapons designer. In 1869, Emma Goldman was born, to later become known as a feminist, anarchist, and early leftist opponent of Soviet Communism. In 1880, Helen Keller was born on this date.

Categories
subsidy too much government

Precedented Payments

CARES Act, Coronavirus, Covid,

I idly wonder who cooks up the initialisms for the big federal legislative packages (“laws”) — you know, like the recent “CARES Act” that distributed $2.3 trillion conjured out of thin air . . . and the faith and credit of a wobbly reputation. CARES stands for “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security,” and I say “idly” because I am not googling this. 

If I can resist searching for (as I am instructed to do daily) “any three numbers and ‘new cases,’” I can let others do that initialism research.

Whoever it is, though, does a pretty good job. Usually. Good P.R. But they missed the boat a bit on CARES. It should have been CORPSE, standing for “Coronavirus Overpayment, Relief, Prodigality, Stupidity and Eeeeek!” Act.

For, you see, $1.4 billion was sent to dead people.

More than a million of them.

At least we can be thankful that the IRS wants that money back.

Well, “wants” is a funny word to use for a bureaucracy. Especially since the IRS has no current plan “to notify ineligible recipients on how to return payments.” According to the General Accounting Office.

You can read about it all at Reason.

I would say it makes for fascinating reading, but it doesn’t really. This is the same-old/same-old. The Department of Kludge and Fubar, you know, which would be a better name for most government bureaus.

The Reason piece call the CARES Act “unprecedented emergency spending,” but I think we could find plenty of precedents. 

If we googled.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Thomas Jefferson

The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.

Thomas Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774).

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Today

Emperor Julian

On June 26, 363, Roman Emperor Julian was killed during the retreat from the Sassanid Empire.

On this same date in 1960, Madagascar gained its independence from France; in 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech.

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ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall international affairs

A Deafening Disquiet

Stop Fighting Start Voting, Citizens in Charge Foundation,

“We are living in a world of disquiet,” offers U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres at the beginning of a one-minute video now running on social digital platforms in the U.S. and worldwide.

The advertisement shows political strife in Hong Kong and Sri Lanka. It is the opening salvo in a campaign called “Stop Fighting Start Voting,” launched by Citizens in Charge Foundation today with support from direct democracy experts and organizations across the globe — researchers, advocates, NGOs, and academics. 

As scenes from the Hong Kong protests unfold, a woman tells a newscaster that China’s new “national security law” will “take away our freedoms . . . our rule of law.” The spot then pivots to Sri Lanka, lamenting “possible war crimes” and noting that a U.N. panel found “40,000 Tamil civilians were killed” at the end of the country’s civil war a little more than a decade ago.

“We hope to have the right to vote,” a Tamil says as the video ends.

The Stop Fighting Start Voting campaign seeks to increase awareness of unresolved conflicts, such as the struggle for basic democracy in Hong Kong or concerning a referendum for the establishment of a separate Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka. We do not advocate for or against the underlying issues in these often bitter disputes, but advance the use of direct democracy, voters weighing in through ballot referendums conducted under accepted international norms and procedures, to achieve a peaceful resolution.

Self-determination takes a lot of determination. So does the establishment of basic democracy with human rights. That’s why non-governmental organizations and concerned citizens must step up. 

Don’t leave the future of freedom and democracy in this world to governments alone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Today

Tenth State to ratify Constitution

Virginia became the tenth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, on June 25, 1788. Other events on the 25th of June include Custer dying at the Battle of Little Bighorn (1876); Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird debuting (1910), with the composer becoming an instant celebrity; and Civil War veterans began arriving at the Great Reunion of 1913 at Gettysburg.

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Thought

Rose Wilder Lane

When Government has a monopoly of all production and all distribution, as many Governments have, it can not permit any economic activity that competes with it. This means that it can not permit any new use of productive energy, for the new always competes with the old and destroys it. Men who build railroads destroy stage coach lines.

Rose Wilder Lane, The Discovery of Freedom: Man’s Struggle Against Authority (1943), p. 32.