Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.
Aristotle, Politics, Book One.
President Donald Trump’s promise — threat? mere negotiating gambit? — to add a 25 percent tariff on steel could usher in a new international trade war, which he says is “easy to win” but which in reality could lead to a cascade of tariff increases worldwide, throttling trade and plummeting us into a Great Depression.*
This is not just politically divisive (designed to please his protectionist base), it’s socially and globally divisive.
But that’s not the only radically divisive move at present.
Last weekend, YouTube froze, for a short time, the account of one of the most popular channels on the video service, Alex Jones’ Infowars. This is part of a major effort by Google’s platform, Jones says,** as well as a general trend by businesses and European governments, to suppress the speech of the strongest critics of open immigration, PC speech codes, gender politics, and outrageous media bias. Though, in Jones’ case, admittedly peddling some ridiculous conspiracy theories in the process.
YouTube has admitted that the new people the company had hired to police the platform — from the Southern Poverty Law Center, Jones pointedly emphasizes — had taken down thousands of sites without cause.
For partisan reasons. Apparently.
Jones and many other YouTubers call it a “purge.”
What to make of all this I’m not sure. But I do know that the pressure that activist groups are putting on some companies to sever all ties with the National Rifle Association has an obvious problem: fracturing the market into warring political tribes.
Do activists on the left not see where this ultimately leads? Some companies serving half the market, others the other — this is a disaster in the making.
I prefer civil discourse.
And democracy.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Just as it happened in 1929-1931 with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.
** Infowars insists that CNN is behind at least some of the push against Jones’ popular radio/podcast news-and-conspiracy commentary business, as CNN’s own coverage more than suggests.
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The First American Bicameral
On March 7, 1644, Massachusetts established the first two-chamber legislature in the American colonies.
One hundred thirty years later, to the day, British forces closed the port of Boston to all commerce.
The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.
Master Kong, The Analects, fourth chapter.
Sometimes common sense and open discourse can’t be suffered — or won’t be, anyway.
So discovered Timothy Locke, a popular teacher at Cherry Hill High School East in New Jersey, after discussing the possibility of arming teachers to help protect adults and kids from would-be mass-murderers. Locke also suggested that he’d be among those bearing arms if allowed.
Most of Locke’s students were okay with his opining. But one student was bothered enough by the viewpoint to complain to administrators.
Without further ado, the school — the “Home of the Cougars,” which proudly proclaims its promotion of “a welcoming environment, community, diversity . . . participation . . . growth mindset, grit. . . ,” so forth — searched Locke’s belongings, subjected him to mental and physical evaluations, and suspended him.
Mental evaluation? Wasn’t that a ploy in the old Soviet Union: dissenters must be crazy, hence ought to be carted off to the loony bin? Let’s go nowhere near such sanctions against independent thinking here.
“The bottom line,” Locke summaraized, “is that I was very concerned about security at my school.”
Through an online petition and otherwise, hundreds of students have protested the shabby way that a teacher who inspires them has been treated.
Students less enthusiastic about Locke lament the teacher’s tendency to digress — still legal in all 50 states.
So what now? After a futile school board meeting deflecting questions on Locke’s fate, a second, special meeting is scheduled for tonight, March 6, at 7 pm in the Cherry Hill High School West Auditorium.
Let’s hope sanity prevails.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
On March 6, 1967, Soviet Premiere Joseph Stalin’s only daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, defected to the United States. She later took the name Lana Peters, upon marriage to William Wesley Peters. The marriage was short-lived.
The March 6 date also marks term limits advocate and initiative organizer Paul Jacob’s birthday. He was born on the anniversary of the births of Michaelangelo, Cryano de Bergerac, and Alan Greenspan. He is also, obviously, the reason this site, ThisIsCommonSense.com, exists. (It continues, however, only through the continued support of readers like you.)
Categories
William James
An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: ‘There is very little difference between one man and another; but what little there is, is very important.’ This distinction seems to me to go to the root of the matter.
William James, “The Importance of Individuals” in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
Ronald Reagan was known to make a jest or two. After being shot, he joked with his surgeons about their partisanship. In front of a hot mic, he shocked the media by saying he had “signed legislation to outlaw Russia forever,” and that bombing would begin “in five minutes.”
The down-homey half-quips of George W. Bush turned malaprop into something almost endearing — to some. And Barack Obama’s appearances on talk shows were often well-crafted comedy routines.
So, let’s not take President Donald Trump’s recent quip in honor of China’s President Xi Jingping too seriously.
Let’s not freak out just yet.
Sure, he seemed to favor Xi’s moves to remove the constitutional term limits placed upon him. But, not reported in much of the coverage, was the tone.
Trump was joking.
“He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great,” Trump said. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”
That is supposed to be funny. Trump does have good comic timing and delivery. Hillary Clinton not so much.* That may be one of the reasons he squeaked into the White House.
But to take it all seriously for a moment. What Trump is talking about is basically an elected king. Which is precisely what Alexander Hamilton first pitched in Philadelphia, so long ago. It was struck down — along with most of his nationalist agenda — by the convention. But he did “give it a shot.”
And was it entirely unrelated that Thomas Jefferson’s first Vice President later gave Hamilton a shot?
Too soon?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Just compare how Barack Obama killed with UFO material, and how Hillary seemed to be several degrees too clumsy at it.
Natural justice is a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another.
Categories
A Banned Book
On March 5, 1616, Nicolaus Copernicus’s book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, was placed on the Catholic Church’s Index of Forbidden Books. This censorship notwithstanding, the Earth continued to revolve around the Sun. The book had been first published in 1543 in Nuremberg.
| In 1770, the Boston Massacre took place on March 5.
| March 5 is magician Penn Jillette’s birthday. He turns 63 today, beginning his 6th year of life.