On October 21, 1921, President Warren G. Harding delivered the first speech by a sitting U.S. President against lynching in the deep South.
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Harding Spoke Out
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Simon Newcomb
“Scientific method consists in applying to those subjects which lie without the range of our immediate experience those same common-sense methods of reasoning which successful men of the world apply in judging of matters which concern their own interests.”
Simon Newcomb, Principles of Political Economy, 1886, chapter III, “Of Scientific Method”
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What Does Snowden Deserve?
Who is Ed Snowden? And what does he deserve?
On May 20, 2013, 29-year-old security specialist Edward Snowden flew to Hong Kong after leaving his job at an NSA facility in Hawaii; in early June he revealed thousands of classified NSA documents to journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Ewen MacAskill.
In late June, the U.S. Department of Justice charged him with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and theft of government property, and the Department of State revoked his passport. Two days later, he flew into Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, to which he was restricted for over a month. Russia ultimately granted him right of asylum for one year, and has added extensions until 2020. Mr. Snowden is currently living in an undisclosed location in Moscow and continues to seek asylum elsewhere.
Though the United States Government still seeks his apprehension and prosecution, and politicians across the political spectrum have called him a traitor and worse, Mr. Snowden is far from universally reviled:
“He is a hero who exposed the most extraordinary violations of the Fourth Amendment in the history of the country.”
—Judge Andrew Napolitano
What Mr. Snowden revealed was a secret, illegal program undertaken by America’s Deep State. “It is not merely Snowden who calls the NSA’s programs unconstitutional,” writes Paul Jacob on this website, “or me, but how a federal judge ruled.” And for this reason many defenders of the Constitution of the United States and of the American way of life dub Ed Snowden not a traitor or fiend, but patriot, whistleblower, hero:
“He has done a great service, because he is telling the truth. The American people are starved for the truth. . . . Essentially there is no Fourth Amendment anymore, and for somebody to tell the American people the truth is a heroic effort.”
—Ron Paul, former Congressman
Even some folks in government have acknowledged the importance of Snowden’s service to our country:
“We can certainly argue about the way in which Snowden did what he did, but I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made.”
—Eric Holder, former Attorney General of the United States
The awesome power that Snowden revealed to us is truly astounding:
“When you are on the inside, when you go into work every day, when you go in in to sit down at a desk, you realize the power you have. You can wiretap the President of the United States. You can wiretap a federal judge. And if you do it carefully, no one will ever know because the only way the NSA discovers abuses are from self-reporting.”
—Edward Snowden
So, what does Ed Snowden deserve?
A pardon. And our thanks!
Paul Jacob has been on Ed Snowden’s side — and on the side of the Bill of Rights and citizen-controlled government — from the beginning. Help in Paul’s effort to promote our shared American ideas and show your appreciation by contributing to This Is Common Sense today. And for $10 show your appreciation for Ed Snowden with this simple and eloquent poster:
18″x24″ Edward Snowden Poster
$10 – Click to go to store page (FREE SHIPPING!)
Skeptical? Well, consider:
Mr. Snowden: Five Years a Fugitive
A Birthday Present for the Deep State
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Memphis Politicians Cheating Voters
Jennifer Lawrence urges voters to “Vote No on All 3 Memphis Charter Questions”:
See also:
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- Daily Memphian: Not No, But Hell No
- Save Instant Runoff Voting Memphis
- Independent Voter Network: Jennifer Lawrence Warns Memphis Voters: “You’re About to be Blindsided by Your Own Government”
- Common Sense: Intentionally Confounding Incumbents
- Commercial Appeal: Editorial | Just say no to confusing city ballot questions
- WREG News Channel 3 (video): Jennifer Lawrence appears in political video on Memphis on Memphis ballot measure
- Common Sense: Graceless Memphis Politicians
And Memphis is better represented here than by a bunch of cheating politicians:
King Curtis & The Kingpins: Memphis Soul Stew
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Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer, Principles of Ethics, Vol. 2, Part IV: “Justice” (1891), Chapter 5, “The Idea of Justice.”
Sympathy which, a generation ago, was taking the shape of justice, is relapsing into the shape of generosity; and the generosity is exercised by inflicting injustice. Daily legislation betrays little anxiety that each shall have that which belongs to him, but great anxiety that he shall have that which belongs to somebody else. For while no energy is expended in so reforming our judicial administration that everyone may obtain and enjoy all he has earned, great energy is shown in providing for him and others benefits which they have not earned. Along with that miserable laissez-faire which calmly looks on while men ruin themselves in trying to enforce by law their equitable claims, there goes activity in supplying them, at other men’s cost, with gratis novel-reading!
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American boundaries
On October 20, 1803, the United States Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase.
Exactly 15 years later, the Convention of 1818 signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which, among other things, settled the Canada-United States border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.
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Yves Guyot
We must not confound liberty with anarchy. Liberty is the reciprocal respect for personal rights, according to certain fixed rules known by the name of law. Anarchy is the privilege of some and the spoliation of others, according to the caprices and arbitrary will of the cunning and the violent, and the feebleness and lack of energy of the timorous.
“There was truth and there was untruth,” George Orwell wrote in his classic novel, 1984, “and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”
In the Age of Trump and Fake News, way past 1984, I’m hanging on for dear sanity.
Earlier this week, I commented on the brouhaha between the president and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Today, I have a bone to pick with Snopes, the faux-fact-checking site, which found this statement to be TRUE: “President Donald Trump offered to donate $1 million to a charity of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s choice if she would take a DNA test to demonstrate that she had Native American ancestry.”
Not “Mostly True” with some explanation, but just “True.” Problem is, that statement is false.
Mr. Trump did not make that offer; he promised people at a Montana rally that he would make such an offer in the future, if he found himself “in the middle of the debate, when she proclaims that she is of Indian [sic] heritage.”
Splitting hairs? Where is the split? Here is President Trump’s full statement.
Snopes was hardly alone in misreporting Trump. The Hill titled its story, “Trump denies offering $1 million for Warren DNA test, even though he did.” The Washington Post parroted The Hill’s “fact-checked headline.” Other major outlets from CNN to the Miami Herald declared, falsely, that Trump had made the offer.
Look, I don’t blame Warren for goading Trump to pay up. That’s the political game.
But the media, especially fact-checkers, should be diligent about what precisely the president has said — not playing that game.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Samuel Butler
Samuel Butler, Erewhon (1872), chapter 26.
Happily common sense, though she is by nature the gentlest creature living, when she feels the knife at her throat, is apt to develop unexpected powers of resistance, and to send doctrinaires flying, even when they have bound her down and think they have her at their mercy.
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Cornwallis Surrenders
On October 19, 1781, representatives of British commander Lord Cornwallis handed over Cornwallis’s sword and formally surrendered to George Washington and the comte de Rochambeau, at Yorktown, Virginia. The Revolutionary War (or War for Independence, or Colonial Rebellion, or whatever you wish to call it) was over.
In 1918 on this date, conservative writer Russell Kirk was born.