Common Sense with Paul Jacob - Page 9 - Presented by Think Freely Media

Michael Shellenberger

New research finds that left-wing authoritarians — people that support socialist dictators … people that support censorship … [who] think there should be a committee to decide what you should be allowed to say — that it’s almost identical with narcissism. And you can sort of see why, which is that you have a strong sense of entitlement. I see this on the censorship stuff all the time. “Of course we — we the good people — should decide what you’re allowed to say and hear on social media platforms.” That’s a sense of entitlement; a sense of grandiosity; and then there’s a kind of psychopathy, or anti-social part of it, which is that they don’t even care or even think about the impact on other people.… They say they do. But really it’s about feeling powerful and domineering. So, lo and behold, the ideology that claims to be more caring and compassionate for the vulnerable actually ends up caring the least about them.
Michael Shellenberger on the Winston Marshall podcast, #009, “Worst Medical Scandal in History.” 1:57 mark or thereabouts.

Today

The First ‘Common Sense’

On January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense.

You can read this classic on this site’s library.

Too Damn High?

unintended consequences, renter, landlord, regulations, private property, property

It’s getting tougher to rent a place to live.

Applications now often entail fearsomely intrusive scourings of financial history. And, writes Jeffrey Tucker, “if you are unbanked or missed a payment at some point, you can forget it.”

This is about more than digital intrusiveness or the end of privacy. It’s about aversion to risk.

The aversion may have many causes. Tucker stresses a factor that’s pretty glaring once you think about it: the federal government’s assault on private property rights during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some tenants eagerly exploited a federally imposed moratorium on rent payment — plus ban on evictions — only finally stopped by a 5 – 4 decision by the Supreme Court.

At the state level, evictions continued to be outlawed until 2022.

So property owners assume that they cannot at all count on government to be in their corner. If a tenant fails to pay rent, folks in government (who include the ones with guns) protect the person who cannot or will not pay his or her bills.

The concern must be even more intense if an owner’s property is located in a town with a track record of demonizing landlords and in the process of launching further assaults on property rights. (Example: New York City, where high rents are now officially called rip-offs.)

Landlords want to avoid tenants who would use any law or bureaucratic tendency to rationalize skipping rent payment. Since owners can’t count on government to protect their property rights, they are becoming ultra-cautious.

That is why conscientious prospective tenants who may have a blot or two in their financial history are paying the price.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags landlord, private property, property, regulations, renter, unintended consequences

Thought

Dunoyer

Forbid a man this premier quality [the right to labour freely], he is forbidden the principle which constitutes man, and which is so necessary to his existence that, when he is deprived of it, he declines, he is effaced; he is no more than a machine moved by an impulsion which is not his own.
Charles Dunoyer, De la liberté du travail (1845), David M. Hart, translator.

Today

Balloon & Autogyro

On January 9, 1793, Jean-Pierre Blanchard became the first person to fly in a balloon in the United States.

Precisely 13 decades later, Juan de la Cierva y Codorníu, 1st Count of la Cierva, made the first autogyro flight.

Common Sense meme Thought

Individualism & Collectivism

Post author By Redactor
Post date January 8, 2026
No Comments on Individualism & Collectivism

“Rugged individualism may seem frigid (it’s anything but), but the people in the countries that used to be bathed in the warmth of collectivism now live a lot longer.”

–Michael Shermer (an American science writer, historian of science, executive director of The Skeptics Society, and founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, a publication focused on investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims)

Common Sense meme Thought

Warmth of Collectivism

Michael Shermer, collectivism, individualism

“Rugged individualism may seem frigid (it’s anything but), but the people in the countries that used to be bathed in the warmth of collectivism now live a lot longer.”

national politics & policies responsibility

On the Government’s Diet

One could argue that our dietary habits are something government shouldn’t be involved in.

I do. But the federal government taxes, regulates, subsidizes, and researches for food production in these United States “bigly.”

And then the government taxes, regulates, subsidizes and researches for medical interventions that mitigate the consequences of how we eat.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Brooke L. Rollins, the current secretaries of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA), respectively, have signed their names to a new set of Dietary Guidelines for Americans — an interesting document.

“The message is simple,” it says: “Eat real food.”

The fact that much of our food industry has been constructed in collaboration with the USDA makes this advice … piquant.

While Vitamin D intake was mentioned several times, I notice that the fact that our bodies produce Vitamin D when exposed to sunlight went undiscussed. Also unrecognized? That Vitamin D levels have been shown to be a key indicator of how well people fight off infections … like COVID.

Alcohol use is discouraged. Drinking “water (still or sparkling) and unsweetened beverages,” highly encouraged.

“Pay attention to portion sizes” is just common sense.

The advice to “increase protein consumption” ruffles some feathers, according to The Epoch Times’ coverage.

“Since the first edition was published in 1980, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans have provided science-based advice on what to eat and drink to promote health, reduce risk of chronic disease, and meet nutrient needs,” explained the previous Guidelines.

But how science-based is all this, really? Seems “the Science” in the Guidelines changes with each innovation in political and economic pressure.

Now and previously.

Most of all, however: Our diets remain our own responsibilities.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags food, food pyramid, health, MAHA, regulations, responsibility

Thought

F. A. Hayek

What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free.
F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (1960).