Lauren Southern, late of Rebel Media, makes her point with some concision:
Caution: some sarcasm may be involved.
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The Great Pretenders … to Objectivity
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Immanuel Kant
On April 22, 1724, philosopher Immanuel Kant was born.
Aside from being the pre-eminent modern philosopher and originator of transcendental idealism, Kant was also a major figure of Enlightenment thought, a classical liberal, and the originator of the notion of the Categorial Imperative. He was an early and important astronomical theorist in his early career, but produced his greatest works towards the end of his life, including The Critique of Pure Reason and The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. He was also author of the 1795 essay “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch.”
Arthur Schopenhauer is widely known as an admiring and astute critic of Kant’s thought, while philosophical opponents include Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand. Kant’s approach to ethics continues to excite interest today, with some of the revival a result of the work of John Rawls.
Kant died on February 12, 1804, in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia), where he had lived the bulk of his life.
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C. S. Peirce
The first formulation of “the pragmatic maxim,” by C.S. Peirce, “How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” Popular Science Monthly, v. 12 (January 1878), pp. 286-302.
Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.
A state vast and powerful enough to enforce socialism is an irresistable temptation to those who would abuse power. . .
as has been demonstrated again and again and again.
Last November, Maine voters passed a ballot measure, Question 5, to begin electing their federal representatives to Congress, and their governor and state legislators, using Ranked Choice Voting. This selection mechanism allows voters to rank their choices, thereby removing the “spoiler effect” that often pushes citizens to support the lesser of two popular evils.*
Last month, Maine’s State Senate submitted advisory questions to the Maine Supreme Court about the new law’s constitutionality.
It is indeed constitutional. “Those who argue that ranked-choice voting conflicts with the Constitution,” explained Marshall Tinkle** in the Bangor News, “seem to be reading things into it that simply are not in the text.”
Last week, the Maine Supreme Court heard oral arguments. Justices Donald Alexander and Joseph Jabar seemed concerned about ranked-choice voting making it easier to vote for the person and not the party.
That’s not unconstitutional. But is it somehow bad?
“We are going to have a lot of people abandoning the political parties if ranked-choice voting remains,” argued Alexander. Or perhaps the parties might better serve voters?
The attorney representing the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting, James Kilbreth, reminded the justices that the voters have spoken, and as to the resistance by legislators in implementing their will, he remarked, “This is the tail-wagging-the-dog kind of problem.”
The courtroom broke out in laughter when Chief Justice Leigh Saufley responded, “Mr. Kilbreth, it’s a fairly large tail.”
I’m a big fan of ranked choice voting***, but the court’s decision is not about the policy. It’s about whether the dog (the people) will wag the tail (the legislators) or vice-versa.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Portland, the state’s largest city, has used ranked choice voting since 2011.
** And Tinkle should know, since he “wrote the book” on the subject — the reference book, The Maine Constitution.
*** I serve on the Board of Directors of FairVote, an organization that promotes ranked choice voting and other methods to make every person’s vote count.
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics.
One swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.
“Is there any chance the vetoes can be overridden?” asked a reader in response to yesterday’s commentary on Idaho Gov. Butch Otter’s veto of two pieces of common-sense legislation.
It’s a good question, because the bill reforming civil asset forfeiture and the bill easing regulations that block employment in cosmetology both passed by wide margins. Unfortunately, the answer is NO.
According to the Gem State’s constitution, the governor has ten days after legislation reaches his desk or, at the session’s end, ten days after the legislature adjourns to decide whether to sign or veto a bill. If he vetoes after adjournment, it cannot be overridden — unless the legislature comes back into session.*
Only the governor can call legislators back into session, which is exceedingly unlikely if a new session would entail a veto override.
It turns out that Idaho is one of only six states where legislators are unable after adjournment to override a veto. Still, the problem’s simple enough to solve: legislators could propose a constitutional amendment changing the process.
Senator Steve Vick did just that, in 2014 and again in 2016. But though his amendment garnered the two-thirds majority needed in the Senate, the House never took it up. He plans to reintroduce it next year.
There’s another constitutional change needed: term limits for the governor. A 2015 poll found a whopping 84 percent of Idahoans favor such limits. Yet, legislators may be squeamish, knowing that those same voters (by that same margin) also want legislators term-limited.
“Sometimes it is amazing,” Idaho Politics Weekly’s Bob Bernick explained, “how elected officials can just ignore the will of voters.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Gov. Otter also vetoed the legislature’s repeal of the state sales tax on groceries, the timing of which legislators are challenging in court.
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C. S. Peirce
C.S. Peirce, Reasoning and the Logic of Things: The Cambridge Conferences Lectures of 1898, Kenneth Laine Ketner, ed. (1992).
The early Greek philosopher, such as we read about in Diogenes Laertius, is certainly one of the most amusing curiosities of the whole human menagerie. It seems to have been demanded of him that his conduct should be in marked contrast with the dictates of ordinary common sense. Had he behaved as other men are supposed to do his fellow-citizens would have thought his philosophy had not taught him much.
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New Amsterdam
On April 20, 1657, freedom of religion was granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam (which was later renamed New York City).
Eric Boehm over at Reason excoriated Idaho Gov. Butch Otter for giving libertarians “the double bird salute.” Boehm wondered if the governor, in vetoing two bills earlier this month, had been merely “trying to make libertarians mad.”
That’s not exactly fair.
The two blocked bills, one reforming unjust civil asset forfeiture and the other easing pernicious regulation of cosmetology, did certainly appeal to libertarians. But they also appealed to conservatives and liberals. And both passed with bipartisan support.
House Bill 139 would have reduced the number of training hours for a cosmetology license and allowed folks to fix hair at special events like weddings without a license, etc. “The fact that many lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats, liberals, moderates and conservatives, are working together to advance legislation in the interest of economic opportunity and prosperity,” argued Wayne Hoffman of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, “is a thing of beauty for a profession that’s all about beauty.”
But beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Those who run cosmetology schools probably like more mandated hours and folks in the profession might wish for less competition. Governor Otter said as much, complaining that HB 139 was written “without input from interested parties or due regard for the health, safety and welfare of the public.”
Just how dangerous is a bad haircut?
Putting safety in context, Hoffman explained that the current mandated hours of training for a cosmetology license “is more than is required to become an EMT in Idaho.”
Gov. Otter vetoed HB 202, the civil asset forfeiture reform, at the behest of “law enforcement” — the very interested parties who gain from taking people’s stuff without bothering to charge or convict them of a crime.
That makes no sense . . . according to Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
