Well, this clears it all up:
But questions remain:
This time they are absolutely sure of their proof of evilness of the enemy:
We really can trust them this time.
Categories
Americanisms
On April 14, 1775, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, the first American organization committed to the abolition of slavery, was formed in Philadelphia.
On April 14, 1818, Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language, one of the first lexicons to include distinctly American words. The dictionary, which took him more than two decades to complete, introduced more than 10,000 “Americanisms.”
On April 14, 1988, representatives of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, the United States, and Pakistan signed an agreement calling for the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. In exchange for an end to the disputed Soviet occupation, the United States agreed to end its arms support for the Afghan anti-Soviet factions, and Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed not to interfere in each other’s affairs.
Pushing annual federal spending over a trillion bucks into the red?
It has consequences.
“Our debt is growing, and it’s growing fast,” writes Veronique de Rugy at Reason. “Though it’s a shame that lawmakers passed tax cuts without cutting spending to offset short-term losses in revenue, there’s no doubt that Social Security and Medicare deficits are almost entirely to blame for our impending debt crisis.”
Ms. de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, has a typo in the version of her article that I read (it has probably since been corrected): “Based on current trends, the debt held by the public is set to reach $15.7 trillion by the end of this year and continue rising to $28.7 trillion by 2028.” She surely meant “$25.7 trillion,” since the current debt clock figure shows the U.S. public debt at over $21 trillion. Still, $25.7 seems a bit high . . . but at this point we can leave the exact numbers to the professionals.
We just know that the debt’s too damn high.
As de Rugy explains, it has present as well as future cost. And, yes, entitlements are the biggest problem — but even more than Ms. de Rugy suggests. Congress owes the Social Security “trust fund” (in Al Gore’s infamous and non-existent “lock box”) nearly $3 trillion.
Our solons would have to (painfully) switch from revenue deficits to revenue surpluses just to pay off its debt to a much-relied upon institution.
What will happen, though, is surely this: Congress will borrow more from elsewhere to pay what Social Security needs — which all too soon will be a lot more than $3 trillion.
That’s not Common Sense. (But I am Paul Jacob.)
Categories
James Madison
It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.
Categories
Thomas Jefferson
On April 13, 1743, Thomas Jefferson was born. Author of Notes on the State of Virginia and the first draft of the United States’ Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was also a scientist, philosopher, inventor, diplomat, and American politician. He also composed music, designed buildings, and translated works from his favorite French writers, whom he had met in his diplomatic missions to Paris.
In 2013, Tacoma Park, Maryland, became the first place in the U.S. to allow 16-year-olds to vote in local elections.* Now, Washington, D.C., Councilman Charles Allen, “inspired by the high-schoolers who are campaigning for gun control and filled D.C. streets last month in a massive protest that mesmerized the country,” reports the Washington Post, wants to follow suit.
“It’s pretty hard for anyone to watch the events of the last couple of months,” claims Councilman Allen, “and not understand the pure power and maturity of incredibly young voices.”
Well, they do use adult words.
One has to wonder: would the “maturity” of these young adults equally amaze this politician, were they advocating opinions** with which he disagreed?
But wait a second . . . wasn’t one of the demands of the “March for Our Lives” to raise, not lower, the age when a person would be deemed mature enough to legally purchase a scary-looking rifle?
Lowering the voting age seems odd, at best, with society lurching in the other direction — raising the age of adulthood for everything else. Decades ago, the legal age to purchase alcohol was 18 in some places; today it is 21 everywhere. In Virginia, one may still drive at 16, as I could back in the day . . . but now there are limits on other young people riding in the car unless the driver is 18.
More ominously, facilitation by many public schools of the recent student walkouts and marches present the strongest argument against lowering the voting age: So long as government schools act in a partisan manner, indoctrination and intimidation would be rampant.
Who wants a captive audience of would-be voters most?
Unscrupulous ideologues.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Greenbelt and Hyattsville, Maryland, as well as Berkeley, California, have since joined Tacoma Park in allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in local elections.
** Term limits, say. Or school vouchers. Or the rights of gestating humans.
Categories
Armen Alchian
On April 12, 1914, American economist Armen Alchian was born. His contributions to economic theory and teaching were many and varied — his textbook, co-authored with William R. Allen, University Economics (also titled Exchange and Production), was widely considered one of the finest intermediate texts in microeconomics — but he remains perhaps best known for his work on property rights.
Alchian died in 2014, in late February, at the age of 99.
Categories
Robert Nozick
The socialist society would have to forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults.
Philosopher Robert Nozick explaining why freedom cannot be maintained in a statist society, Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974).
Once upon a time, President Donald Trump was against attacking Syria merely on grounds that its dictator is a murderously bad guy — despite numerous chemical attacks on civilians in opposition-occupied and -contested areas that had been blamed on Syrian dictator Bashar Hafez al-Assad.
Almost exactly a year ago, a sarin gas attack spurred President Trump to order a cruise missile strike on the Syrian airstrip where it was alleged the Assad regime sent those planes to drop weaponized chemicals on innocent populations. The strike was widely characterized as “Donald Trump’s most dramatic military order since becoming president.”
Since then, after another reported gassing — this time “chlorine”; this time a hospital as target — the drumbeat for war has gotten louder, despite Russia’s stern warning that there would be “grave repercussions” were the U.S. to attack its ally again.
Whoops and war cries even from the anti-Trump media.
But as Tucker Carlson argues, there are still legitimate disputes about previous gas attacks — about who really perpetrated them, and the uncertainty of proclaiming Assad the malefactor in the most recent one.*
Meanwhile, the FBI raided Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen’s offices. The rationale? Apparently unrelated to the “Russia investigation.” Instead, it is about “campaign finance law” — that is, the paid-off pornstar issue.
In the 1990s, we called Bill Clinton’s bombing of a “chemical weapons” factory in Africa — on the very same day that Monica Lewinsky testified before a grand jury about her affair with the president — “wag the dog.”
Trump cries “witch hunt!” but I wonder if the Deep State may not be trying to wag the wolf this time around.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* News stories about atrocities have been faked before in the Middle East — remember the hospital baby-murder story in Kuwait? “Both” sides in Syria are known to possess chemical weapons.
Categories
H. L. Mencken
One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.