On September 21, 1897, the “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” editorial was published in the New York Sun. Note how long before Christmas this is. The Christmas season has long been a long affair.
“Social media has given extremists a new tool with which to recruit and radicalise,” writes British Labour MP Lucy Powell in The Guardian.
And just where are people “being exposed to extremist material”?
On Facebook!
“Instead of small meetings in pubs or obscure websites in the darkest corners of the internet,” she explains, “our favourite social media site is increasingly where hate is cultivated.”
Sharing ideas that she opposes is dangerous because they quickly spread. But her main ire is directed against private “Facebook groups,” an environment she argues “normalises these hateful views” because “critics are removed from the groups.”
Apparently, the problem with Facebook is that it is open — and that it is closed. Facebook is something new and dangerous because everybody uses it. Yet, because it allows closed groups, it is something very much like . . . “small meetings in pubs.”
Ms. Powell has, naturally enough, proposed a bill. “The responsibility to regulate these social media platforms falls on the government,” she asserts. “I believe we can force those who run these echo chambers to stamp out the evil that is currently so prominent.”
Like any politician, she talks up unity, of course. She demands the government prevent social media from “being hijacked by those who instead wish to divide.”
But remember, she is a member of a political party that opposes other parties. She is trying to suppress divisions that exist. The implication of her agenda is a one-party state, where opposition is suppressed.*
By censorship.
A word she somehow neglects to use.
Online extremism, she writes, “is something we are frighteningly unequipped to deal with.”
I’d say she is frighteningly equipped.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Social media critic Dave Cullen notices that MP Lucy Powell admits that there is a huge personal element here: she is a politician who doesn’t like criticism.
Illustration by JG
On September 20, 480 BC, Greeks defeated Persian forces in the battle of Salamis.
If So-and-so challenges me, I shall lay before you a careful account of what I have said and done; if he should continue, I shall reciprocate his dislike of me.
Tiberius, as quoted by Suetonius in De vita Caesarum, Chapter 28, in this form:
“California is the place you oughta be” — or so sang Jerry Scoggins for The Beverly Hillbillies. That may still hold true, if you are an oil millionaire retiring to a pleasant climate.
But if you are trying to make your fortune, the direction is outbound.
Take, for example, the case of Yamaha Motor USA.
The company’s big bike sales — motorcycles 500cc and up — went way down during the last dozen months, 19 percent. And since Yamaha’s operations are in California, hits to revenue like that intersect alarmingly with ongoing hits to the cost of doing business.
Which explains the decision to move the company to “just outside of Atlanta, Georgia,” as reported by Jensen Beeler in Asphalt & Rubber.
“It should be an obvious statement that California is an expensive place to operate a business,” Beeler explains. “The state isn’t known as being a tax haven for corporations, the property values are high, which means buildings are expensive, and the standard of living for Los Angeles is one of the highest in America, which means that employees have to be paid a premium as well.”
And Beeler’s report does not even mention the state’s regulatory burden.
Problem? Southern California is “where the bulk of the motorcycle industry resides,” and Yamaha will face some difficulty being so distant from its industry’s major talent pool.* But there are a few automotive and motorcycle companies in Georgia, so Yamaha is not alone.
Indeed, if politicians continue to wreak havoc on their business sector, the Golden State bike industry will lose more than just Yamaha.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* The company will keep “a small cadre of Yamaha employees” behind in Cypress, California, focusing on testing and racing.
Illustration by JGill (running silhouette from Max Pixel)
On September 19, 1778, the Continental Congress passed the first budget of the United States.
Congress last passed a budget in 1997.
He indeed who believes that by studying isolated histories he can acquire a fairly just view of history as a whole, is, as it seems to me, much in the case of one, who, after having looked at the dissevered limbs of an animal once alive and beautiful, fancies he has been as good as an eyewitness of the creature itself in all its action and grace.
Polybius, The Histories.
With “democratic socialism” again on the rise, a refresher course in history seems apt: socialism has demonstrated the strong tendency to end up in totalitarian tyranny, poverty, and genocide.
As I mentioned on Monday, Reason’s Nick Gillespie suspects that this response is not very convincing to people tempted by socialism. But really, why not? What about a history of horror could be appealing?
Which is why the question “Do Socialists Mean Well?” as answered by Grant Babcock, might help. Babcock answers in the negative.* “Socialism is not ultimately an end but a means. And as a means, socialism is evil.”
With an evil means, one’s chosen end is irrelevant, because of other results. “If I told you I wanted to end homelessness, you might say I had good intentions,” Babcock explains. But if he confessed to seek that end “by conscripting the homeless into the army . . . [n]ot only should you say I have bad intentions, you shouldn’t give me any moral credit for saying I want to end homelessness.”
True. But Babcock has to engage in his extended argument about means because, for purposes of his essay, anyway, he began with the premise that while fascists are evil because they seek directly to harm some people, socialists do not.
Uh, really? Most socialists make much of taking from “the rich,” however they define the rich — as “the one percent” or “the privileged,” etc.
Call it expropriation; call it theft: that’s a lot of anger and ill will directed to one group of people.
In that way, the appeal of socialism is too much like the appeal of fascism.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Babcock, by the way, denies the label “socialist” to social democrats who call themselves “democratic socialists” — by definition. On this matter, see “Bernie’s Slippery Definition of Democratic Socialism” and “Is Denmark Socialist?” on this site.
Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance they called civilisation, when it was but a part of their servitude.
Tacitus, De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae (89 AD), Book 1, paragraph 21.
On September 18, 1793, George Washington laid the cornerstone of the Capitol building.
It has grown, since.
On September 18, 1838, Richard Cobden established the Anti-Corn Law League, which proceeded to bring free trade to Britain.