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First Amendment rights

We, the Riffraff

Virginia, First Amendment, free speech,

Suppose I disagree with you — say, on whether I have the right to bear arms. I favor, you oppose. (We’re just supposing here.)

In the heat of online argument, I call you a scoundrel or other unkind things. I am intemperate but avoid libel or threats. Should I be jailed? (Remember, we’re just supposing here. Don’t call the constables!)

You and I would say “No.” But we can’t take our freedom of intemperate speech for granted, or our freedom of any speech at all that ruffles the feathers of rulers like those currently ruling the roost in Virginia.

Our forefathers understood the danger of abusing power to squelch dissent. Hence the First Amendment’s sweeping protection of even obnoxious peaceful speech.

Yet right after launching a massive assault on our Second Amendment rights, Virginia legislators are now launching a massive assault on our First Amendment rights. House Bill 1627 would make a Class 1 felony of “Harassment by computer”: “threats and harassment,” “indecent language,” “any suggestion of an obscene nature” when directed against the governor or other Virginia potentates in state government. Possible penalties include jail time.

Who will decide when rhetoric is mean and vulgar, blunt and honest, or some jumble of all the above? Or when the bill’s ambiguous catchall provisions, if enacted, are being violated? 

Why, the only* people it’s meant to protect: those in government . . . who don’t like it when the people get angry and loud. 

This legislation does not defend you and me. The opposite of the First Amendment, it’s designed to keep us plebs — the riffraff — silent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The special protection pointedly covers only “the following officials or employees of the Commonwealth: the Governor, Governor-elect, Lieutenant Governor, Lieutenant Governor-elect, Attorney General, or Attorney General-elect, a member or employee of the General Assembly, a justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia, or a judge of the Court of Appeals of Virginia.”

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Virginia, First Amendment, free speech,

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Today

American Conscription Ends

On Jan. 27, 1973, President Richard Nixon’s Secretary of Defense, Melvin R. Laird, announced an end to the military draft in favor of a system of voluntary enlistment. Since 1973, the United States armed forces have been known as the All-Volunteer Force.

The Selective Service System, the federal agency that would administer a military draft, continues to be funded, however. Furthermore, American males continue to be forced to register for the draft.

Categories
Thought

Beaumarchais

I hasten to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to weep.

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audio podcast

The Cluster Yuck

This weekend’s podcast covers last week’s big stories and a whole lot more. Call it an abundance, a hyper-abundance. But don’t call it a cluster anything — for, all yucks aside, this is serious stuff:

This Week in Common Sense, January 20-24, 2020..
Categories
Thought

R. Buckminster Fuller

The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.

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Today

Boris!

On January 26, 1992, Boris Yeltsin announced that Russia would stop targeting United States cities with nuclear weapons.

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by Paul Jacob video

Should Paul Jacob Run for the Presidency?

…and other questions answered on this weekend’s podcast:

This Week in Common Sense, January 20-24, 2020.
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Thought

Beaumarchais

As long as I don’t write about the government, religion, politics, and other institutions, I am free to print anything.

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Today

Shays

On January 25, 1787, Shays’s Rebellion experienced its largest confrontation, outside the Springfield Armory, with four of the rebels dead, 20 wounded.

The rebellion was a key moment in United States history. Daniel Shays and his followers objected to Massachussetts’s high taxes and rampant cronyism. The revolt, which was completely suppressed, led to the adoption of the U.S. Constitution and drawing George Washington from his retirement.

Categories
general freedom

Catching Something

virus, epidemic, coronavirus,

Our civilization depends on our ability to move about and trade. 

Which is based, in part, on trust and reciprocity and mind-your-own-business. The basic ‘deal’ is ‘I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me.’

But it’s not just manners and morality. When we fear that being around others, especially strangers, could lead to catching a severe or even life-threatening illness, the normal business of commerce breaks down.

Which becomes clear, now that a new disease in China threatens to break out worldwide.

Called the ‘2019 Novel Coronavirus,’ the illness has become widespread there, leading the government to quarantine the city of Wuhan, said to be the epicenter of the contagion.

“The lockdown follows fears that the respiratory disease could become a global epidemic,” writes Isabel van Brugen in The Epoch Times, “and as the United States this week became the fifth country outside of China — and the first outside Asia — to confirm a case of infection.”

“The closures,” said the municipal government, “will continue until further announcement.”

Pestilence and war are the two major reasons for this kind of collapse in normal commerce. But contagion may be less controllable even than war, so learning the lesson Wuhan’s inhabitants are now learning is something we can eagerly import from China right now.*

The lesson? 

Have food on hand, in case a pandemic bars you from going to market for days or weeks on end.

Wuhan folk are scrambling for supplies now.

Take it as a cue to shop for staples: stock up on bottled water, beans, sterno cans, and, say — with a tip of the hat to the beset Chinese — rice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Since my first draft, two more cities have been closed to travel, and six countries outside of China have experienced cases of infection. And questions have been raised about how transparent totalitarian China will be.

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virus, epidemic, coronavirus,

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