Categories
Thought

Doris Lessing

What the feminists want of me is something they haven’t examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness. What they would really like me to say is, ‘Ha, sisters, I stand with you side by side in your struggle toward the golden dawn where all those beastly men are no more.’ Do they really want people to make oversimplified statements about men and women? In fact, they do. I’ve come with great regret to this conclusion.

Doris Lessing, in Lesley Hazelton, “Doris Lessing on Feminism, Communism and ‘Space Fiction,’” New York Times (July 25, 1982).

Categories
Today

A New Jersey First

On November 20, 1789, the state of New Jersey led the way to establishing the Bill of Rights by being the first U.S. state to ratify the document.

Actually, the state ratified on that date Article One of the original twelve, which has yet to be fully ratified as a constitutional amendment, and Articles Three through Twelve, which became the ten articles of the Bill of Rights. On May 7, 1992, the state ratified Article Two, which became the Twenty-seventh Amendment to the Constitution.

Categories
defense & war international affairs Internet controversy

Decapitation Diplomacy

China, Japan, Taiwan, war, foreign policy

The Chinese Communist Party has presided — is presiding — over the largest peacetime military buildup in history. 

And China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats constantly reflect this fact.

Earlier this month, during a parliamentary session, Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was pressed by an opposition lawmaker on scenarios that could trigger the clause in Japan’s constitution concerning “survival-threatening situations,” thus allowing collective self-defense. Takaichi explicitly stated that Chinese military action against Taiwan — such as a naval blockade, invasion, or interference with U.S. forces — could qualify. 

No “strategic ambiguity” there!

But as scandalous as Takaichi’s answers were to the Communist Party in China, it was the response of Xue Jian, consul general of the People’s Republic of China, in Osaka, Japan, that raised more than eyebrows: “I have no choice but to cut off that filthy head that barged in without hesitation — are you ready?” This was followed by a red emoji, an angry icon.

It has since been deleted.

Last Friday, lawmakers from both Takaichi’s party and Komeito (a centrist, socially conservative party) demanded Xue’s immediate recall; a petition with more than 50,000 signatures circulated online. 

But Takaichi herself is under pressure to apologize.

I agree with the Scribbler’s take over at StopTheCCP.org: “It would be disappointing if instead of ‘muddling through,’ the Japanese government as led by its new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, submitted to China’s malicious demands and formally retracted her very reasonable statement about Taiwan.”

The only apologies should come from the CCP’s Osaka Decapitator.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
Thought

Doris Lessing

We live in a world of incredible suffering. This brief paradise in the West since the end of the last war, which is about to end, has educated two generations into thinking we live in some sort of Shangri-La. As usual we — that is, the human race — are in for a hard time. But that is our history. When have we not had a hard time?

Doris Lessing, in Lesley Hazelton, “Doris Lessing on Feminism, Communism and ‘Space Fiction,’” New York Times (July 25, 1982).

Categories
Today

Biden’s Polyp, Harris’ Power

On November 19, 2021, President Joe Biden temporarily transferred his powers and duties to Vice President Kamala Harris before undergoing a colonoscopy, making her acting president from 10:10 a.m. until 11:35 a.m. This was the first time a woman held the powers and duties of the president of the United States.

Biden had a benign but pre-cancerous polyp removed from his colon during that procedure.

Categories
partisanship U.S. Constitution

Constitutional Defects

Trump, filibuster, law, nuclear option

“It is now time for the Republicans to play their ‘TRUMP CARD,’ and go for what is called the Nuclear Option — Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” 

That’s what President Trump posted on Truth Social back during the shutdown, adding, “WE are in power, and if we did what we should be doing, it would IMMEDIATELY end this ridiculous, Country destroying ‘SHUT DOWN.’”

This was prior to Democrats, off-year election over, suddenly deciding to agree to the same deal to reopen the government that Republicans had been offering for weeks.  

The 60-vote supermajority the United States Senate needs to end debate and vote on legislation is a small-r republican measure, not a small-d democratic one. Reasonable people can disagree over its merits, certainly, but I like the greater consensus it requires. 

What I don’t like is that the party in control of the Senate can at any time change the filibuster rule in any way it wishes, including ending it altogether. 

Rules shouldn’t be this easy to junk. 

Make the Senate filibuster not just a rule, but constitutional law. 

Another major matter of constitutional change is sorely needed. The stability and independence of one of the three branches of the federal government, the U.S. Supreme Court, hangs by a thread.

The number of justices, now nine, is nowhere set in the Constitution. 

Congress and the White House, when held by the same political party — even short of 60 votes in the Senate, because they could simply end the filibuster — could immediately add ten new justices.

Or 20. 

And then confirm all the president’s picks.

All something Democrats mused about doing years ago: packing the High Court with many new justices to magically engineer a new Democratic Party majority on the SCOTUS. 

The number of justices, like the Senate’s super-majoritarian filibuster, aren’t written in stone.

But should be.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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Thought

Gustave Le Bon

We have not triumphed over a doctrine when we have shown its chimerical nature.

Gustave Le Bon, Psychologie du Socialisme (1896), translated as The Psychology of Socialism (1899). Passage offered here last week, but this sentence stood out. Worthy of emphasis.
Categories
Today

Columbus Sees Puerto Rico

November 18, 1493, Columbus caught first sight of the island now known as Puerto Rico.

Categories
crime and punishment government transparency privacy

Transparency, Weaponized

Jeffrey Epstein, law, transparency, privacy

Transparency is usually a good thing. But so is privacy. And so, too, are limits on government power. 

Which bring me to the Epstein files — or, more accurately, those files bring me here. 

“I don’t think we’ve had a scandal like this in this country,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) offered yesterday on Meet the Press, “and what we’re asking for is justice for those survivors.” 

I want justice, too — that is, the prosecution of any crime grand juries honestly believe was likely committed. 

By anyone! No matter how powerful that suspect might be.

On the other hand, the Epstein File Transparency Act, which will be voted on this week in the U.S. House of Representatives and for which Khanna is a primary sponsor, “would require the Justice Department to declassify and release all files pertaining to the prosecution of the late sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.”

The public has a right to know! 

But does it? 

And if so, does that ‘right’ mean we permit the federal Department of Justice to use prosecutorial power to grab incriminating evidence on “suspected criminals” and then weaponize and deploy that information not to prosecute a crime in a court of law, but rather to publicize the damaging dirt discovered in the court of public opinion?

From then-FBI Director James Comey’s ridiculous public preening over the non-prosecution of Hillary Clinton in 2016 to the demanded release of the Epstein files today, we must be careful the DOJ does not become an opposition research firm for the party in power, using badges and guns. Or the world’s most outrageous doxxing scheme.

Our criminal justice system should do one thing and only one thing: Prosecute crimes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

David Graeber

If the existence of bullshit jobs seems to defy the logic of capitalism, one possible reason for their proliferation might be that the existing system isn’t capitalism — or at least, isn’t any sort of capitalism that would be recognizable from the works of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, or, for that matter, Ludwig von Mises or Milton Friedman.

David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018).