The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.
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C. S. Lewis
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Thanksgiving in December
On December 18, 1777, the United States celebrated its first official Thanksgiving, marking the then-recent October victory by the Americans over General John Burgoyne [pictured, above] in the Battle of Saratoga.
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Gloating Time?
“The freak-out was something to behold,” I wrote two years ago.
Newly appointed chair of Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, had just nixed ‘net neutrality,’ and reactions from the left end of the political spectrum were overwhelmingly negative.
I, on the other hand, prophesied good times ahead. But we free-market folks were outshouted.
At least on Twitter.
Now, two years later, with something like a free market returned to Internet regulation, Casey Given at the Washington Examiner urges us not to “forget how the Left cried wolf.”
Contrary to doomsayers — whose alarm was that, sans net neutrality, we would experience “the End of the Internet as We Know It” — things are turning out pretty well. Mr. Given tells us that “since the repeal of net neutrality, more than 6 million people have gained access to the internet. Internet speeds have increased as well.”
Which shouldn’t shock. After all, the whole net neutrality mania was fear-based anti-capitalist prejudice.
“The Internet had stumbled along just fine until 2015, when President Barack Obama’s FCC put ‘net neutrality’ in place — a point Ajit Pai ably makes in his defense,” I argued two orbits ago. “Do the doom-sayers really believe that a set of regulations that had been in place just a few years was going to ‘ruin the Internet’ and unleash Big Corporations upon the world to the detriment of regular consumers and start-up service providers?”
What most net neutrality advocates wouldn’t acknowledge, at the time, was that net neutrality was supported by key telecom corporations. This should have given them a hint that net neutrality itself was the thing to be most feared: a rigged system for a few at the expense of the many.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Denis Diderot
The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.
Denis Diderot, “Refutation of Helvétius” (written 1773-76, published 1875).
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Official Recognition
On December 17, 1777, France formally recognized the United States of America.
The 17th of December, 1819, was the day Simon Bolivar declared the independence of the Republic of Gran Colombia in Angostura.
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Another Impeachable Offense?
“Do me a favor: start buying agriculture.”
That’s what President Donald J. Trump says he said to the Chinese in agreeing to Phase One of a U.S.-China trade deal.
Now, if China starts buying more American agricultural products, Trump might be aided in defeating his Democratic opponents next November.
“The biggest winners in the China trade deal announced Friday appear to be a key part of President Trump’s voter base: U.S. farmers,” Jon Healey wrote in the Los Angeles Times. “There’s nothing wrong with that, because Trump’s political interests coincide with U.S. national interests.”
But when President Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a favor, back during the now-infamous July phone call, a whole lot of people concluded that Trump’s desire to “get to the bottom” of the Bidens’ pungent possible corruption in Ukraine was not a harmony of interests between Trump and Americans.
Last week, his biggest critics on the House Judiciary Committee passed two articles of impeachment against him, alleging (1) that he abused his power in delaying the aid Congress had appropriated for Ukraine in order to push the Ukrainians to open up an investigation of Hunter Biden and Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that hired him, and (2) obstruction of Congress, for refusing to adequately respond to congressional subpoenas.
An investigation launched by Ukraine into former Vice-President Joe Biden’s son would certainly be news — bad for Biden, currently the leading Democratic rival to the president; good for Trump.
But is such an investigation warranted?
Surely Americans who voted for Trump to “drain the Swamp” would think corruption is always worth investigating.
The Swamp — along with many good Americans — disagrees.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Herbert Spencer
In judging of political good and evil, the average legislator thinks much after the manner of the mother with the spoiled child: if a course is productive of immediate benefit, that is considered sufficient justification.
Herbert Spencer, The Study of Sociology (1873; 1891), pp. 102-103.
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The Convention Parliament
On December 16, 1689, England’s Convention Parliament began, not only transferring power from one king to another, but establishing procedures and rights into the British Constitution, both of which were copied in the United States of America a century later, with the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
Some special effects in this week’s podcast:
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Charles Mackay
Dissatisfaction with his lot seems to be the characteristic of man in all ages and climates. So far, however, from being an evil, as at first might be supposed, it has been the great civiliser of our race; and has tended, more than any thing else, to raise us above the condition of the brutes.
Charles Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1852).