The Declaration of Independence was signed by members of the Continental Congress of the United States, on August 2, 1776.
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Declaration signed!
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Stefan Zweig
The organic fundamental error of humanism was that it desired to educate the common people (on whom it looked down) from its lofty stance instead of trying to understand them and to learn from them.
Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Marion Sonnenfeld, translator (1934)
With the meteoric transit of Anthony Scaramucci — into the Trump Administration and then, in an eye-blink, out of it — I have never been more convinced of the vital importance of state and local activism.
Yes, it’s been a chaotic week in Trumptown. The new White House Director of Communications vulgarly communicated himself into administrative excommunication. So to speak.
Everybody’s heard the vulgarisms; we’ve all processed the insanity. It looks like Mr. Scaramucci is one of those professionals who think everybody else is an idiot, and in so thinking it, proves himself to be what he himself despises. @#$%&?!
The man nicknamed “The Mooch” screwed the pooch, as we now say, and we can all shake our heads and . . .
what?
What is the lesson?
We have long known the worst: our national politics is broken. It has been for a very long time. Is it possible we never recovered from the LBJ and Tricky Dick fiascos of my childhood? The parties have become more ideological and less regional, while the regions have become . . . less rational. The only word seems to be . . .
reactionary.
The press reacts to the president’s tweets, and the president tweets in response to media reaction.
Progressives hate progress; conservatives conserve nothing.
“Reactionary” is the apt word, despite all the term’s past Marxist associations, because no one seems able to think forward, independent of partisan oppositionalism.
Don’t drive yourself crazy with this. Look homeward; think locally, act locally, and let’s build on a solid foundation.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Samuel Adams
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Samuel Adams, speech, Philadelphia State House (August 1, 1776)
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Slavery Ends
On August 1, 1834, Great Britain’s Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 took force, freeing slaves throughout the British empire.
Technically, it freed slaves under the age of six. On the August 1 date in 1838 and 1840, the rest of the empire’s slaves were freed, practically speaking.
August 1 births include Francis Scott Key (1779), composer of the poem “The Star-Spangled Banner”; American authors Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815) and Herman Melville (1819); and Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (1972), historian and popularizer of Austrian economics, podcaster of the Tom Woods Show.
We all know the truth: Partisan “warfare” yields the usual war casualty, truth itself. Now, because of the increasing weight of federal government presence in healthcare markets, partisan untruth incurs medical costs.
Take the goofy Republican plan(s) to “repeal and replace” ObamaCare — pushed with so many half-truths and downright lies that one wonders where to begin. But before die-hard Republicans get too incensed about this judgment, let’s note that the supporters of the mis-named “Affordable Care Act” are no better.
Probably worse.
“Fact-checking,” writes David Harsanyi on the media mishandling of ObamaCare, “has evolved from an occasionally useful medium to an exercise in revisionism and diversion.” Journalists now seem more like spin doctors.
And their patient? The reputation of ObamaCare’s namesake.
One journalist, for example, insists that “Obama didn’t lie or ‘mangle facts’ or mislead anyone,” Harsanyi writes.
What does this journalist claim Obama did in repeatedly promising “if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor”?
Well, “he gave a ‘misguided . . . pledge.’ The word ‘misguided’ intimates that Obama wasn’t misleading anyone on purpose.”
It helps the former president save face if he accidentally got us in this fix. He had the best intentions, you know.
Worse yet, as both sides snipe about these little untruths, they lose sight of the biggest truth, which I wrote about this weekend: that “government-run” means “government-decided,” and that, in turn, means
government deciding matters of your life and your death.
It would be helpful if our leaders took this all a bit more seriously, daring to speak truth . . . to us . . . as well as to themselves and each other.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Karl Kraus
When a man is treated like a beast, he says, ‘After all, I’m human.’ When he behaves like a beast, he says ‘After all, I’m only human.’
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Pelted with Flowers
On July 31, 1703, Daniel Defoe — who would later become famous as the author of Robinson Crusoe and other literary works — was placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel. The sedition pertained to a satirical pamphlet he had published, “The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters; Or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church.” The mob pelted him with flowers.
On the same date in 1912, Milton Friedman was born. Friedman became one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, and one of the most effective advocates of free markets, as well. His books include Capitalism and Freedom and two famous collaborations, A Monetary History of the United States (with Anna Schwartz) and Free to Choose (with his wife, Rose Friedman).
A funereal note for a baby in Britain, a death knell for socialized medicine in America? See Townhall, click on over; then come back here.
- BBC: Charlie Gard parents announce death of ‘beautiful boy’
- CNN: Baby Charlie Gard dies after life support withdrawn
- Fox News Insider: Nigel Farage: ‘I Am Disgusted’ Charlie Gard Was Blocked From U.S. Treatment
- Wikipedia: UK’s National Health Service
- Common Sense: UK Death Panel
- Common Sense: Big Libertarian Questions
- Townhall: Canada’s medical gulag
Ashya King Case
- The Mirror (UK): Ashya King ‘is cancer free and back at school’ says dad three years after brain tumour treatment row
- The Telegraph (UK): UK to get first proton therapy centre after Ashya King’s plight raised awareness of vital cancer treatment
- The Sun (UK): ‘IT SEEMS LIKE REVENGE’ – Family say brain cancer tot Ashya King is being denied vital NHS treatment
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Out the Window!
July 30, 1419, the First Defenestration of Prague: Jan Želivský, a Hussite priest at the church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows, led his congregation on a procession through the streets of Prague to the New Town Hall, on Charles Square. While they were marching, a stone was thrown at Želivský from the window of the town hall. The mob, enraged, stormed the hall. Once inside, the group threw the judge, the burgomaster, and some thirteen members of the town council out of the window and into the street, where they were killed by the fall or dispatched by the mob.
King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, upon hearing this news, was so stunned, the legend goes, that he died soon after.
On July 30, 1619, the first representative assembly in the Americas, the House of Burgesses, convened for the first time in Jamestown, Virginia. On the same date in 1676, Nathaniel Bacon issued the “Declaration of the People of Virginia,” beginning Bacon’s Rebellion against the rule of Governor William Berkeley.
On this date in 1863, representatives of the United States and tribal leaders (including the Shoshone’s Chief Pocatello) signed the Treaty of Box Elder.
July 30 birthdays include Henry Ford (1863), Gen. Smedley Butler (1881), C. Northcote Parkinson (1909), and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947).
Vanuatuans celebrate Independence Day on July 30.