Tag: Christmas

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crime and punishment general freedom too much government

Impending Gifts

Santa, New York, regulations

Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas, denizens of the Sort-​of-​Great State of New York!

It is certainly a time to be jolly. For some time now, Santa and his legislative elves have been striving to give you and yours an ever more overbearing medical regime. 

Take a gander at some of the goodies that have been proposed in the Empire State’s Legislative Workshop:

  • A416 would let governors or health officials detain persons “afflicted with a communicable disease” as long as a state of health emergency has been declared.
  • A279 would institute a statewide vaccine database. If you’re vaccinated, you’ll be in the database unless you make a point of requesting otherwise (who knows, maybe even then).
  • A8398 would eliminate many religious exemptions from compulsory vaccination and limit the ability of local governments and private organizations to issue medical exemptions.
  • A02240 would mandate flu vaccines for children in daycare.

Santa sure has been working overtime the last couple of years.

Will such bills, lapsed at the moment, soon see the light of day? Let’s hope! You people of the State of New York really need this kind of bounty. Especially if you’ve been suffering any delusions about the propriety of independent judgement and personal discretion in such matters.

Did I say Santa? Maybe I meant the Grinch. Or Krampus. The real Santa would be putting moving-​expense vouchers in everyone’s stockings to help them get the heck out of this beleaguered state.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Illustration created with DALL‑E2, John Tenniel, JG

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Common Sense general freedom

Merry Christmas!

Christmas, 2021, Washington

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general freedom

The Season of Not Demanding

Every day, in tandem with these columns, ThisIsCommonSense​.org provides a bit of history (“Today”) and a wise or significant saying (“Thought”). Christmas Eve’s Thought is worth thinking about again. 

“Liberty is the only thing you cannot have,” wrote William Allen White, “unless you are willing to give it to others.”

While one could argue that trust and love and a number of other important things also require reciprocity, it is true, and profoundly so, that liberty is reciprocal — or non-​existent: if you won’t let others be free, they won’t let you be free, either. 

Further, the responsibility that is freedom’s flip-​side is something we must do together. 

That is where the idea of shared burdens comes in. Freedom is not itself a non-​economic, or free good, in that those who won’t leave us free must be fought, sometimes with a lot of time and effort and resources. And even danger.

The key to not turning the burden of defending freedom into a form of oppression itself is to respect individual liberty in doing so — not turning our wants into commands.

This year, 2020, the challenge has been bigger than usual. Governments’ demands have been breathtakingly extensive: to not work, not trade, to not engage in business or worship or even going to the beach.

That burden has been so oppressive — and so much worse for some (small business folks and their employees, especially, and those with mental health issues) than others (like retirees, people in government, those working from home) — that surely it is too much to demand of others.

That’s something to consider in this “gift-​giving” season: Don’t play the spoiled child, with a gift-demanding attitude toward others.

Freedom is the gift we can all afford to exchange.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom local leaders

Cancel Freedom?

Covid, lockdown, Christmas

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s message “couldn’t be simpler,” he offered last week: “It’s time to cancel everything.”

Gee whiz, that is simple.

The mayor’s order “prohibits public and private gatherings of people from more than one household and states that all businesses in the city that require people to work on location must stop operations. Walking, driving, travel on public transport, bikes, motorcycles and scooters are prohibited, other than for those undertaking essential activities,” Fortune reports. 

Walking alone; riding a bike — really?* 

Thankfully, folks are still permitted to play golf, tennis and pickleball. But … unless the course or the court is in your back yard, wouldn’t it remain illegal to travel there? Or to play with someone not living with you already?

Governor Gavin Newsom made similar demands, only over even more folks — and with less credibility — after flouting his own previous mandates. His regional order affected “some 33 million Californians, representing 84% of the state’s population,” to be locked down in their homes until after Christmas.

Restaurant owners are going to court to challenge the constitutionality of the governor’s lockdown. “We can’t close our businesses,” restaurant owner Angela Marsden told Fox news’ Neil Cavuto. “We need to stay open to survive this.”

And what about “following ‘the science’”? 

“For the second time in five days,” explained SFGATE​.com, “California Gov. Gavin Newsom did not provide evidence that businesses ordered to close during the state’s new stay-​at-​home order are actively contributing to the spread of the coronavirus.”

Lacking legal authority and defying science provide more than enough reason for outright defiance. “At least seven counties say they won’t enforce the mandates,” NBC Nightly News informed. “The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department will not be blackmailed, bullied or used as muscle against Riverside County residents,” announced Sheriff Chad Bianco.

Defying tyranny is simple, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* As I noted months ago, the scientific data correlate Vitamin D deficiency with serious and deadly cases of COVID-​19. Therefore, telling people to stay inside, thereby avoiding sunshine, a major source of the vitamin, is not good advice. As an order with threats of enforcement, it is something even worse.

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Precious Gifts

Christmas, 2018, Paul Jacob, liberty

There’s a quiet on Christmas morning … after Santa has come and gone … and the kids are still sound asleep … sugar plum fairies dancing to their gentle snoring.

A moment to stop and think.

I hope they’ll like their presents; they always do. There’s so much love my wife and I want to share, to give to them.

Of course, the biggest gifts are never under the tree. The most important being a stable home, with love, and the freedom for children to grow into themselves.

My parents gave me that … along with the bicycles and baseball gloves and some really good books. I’ve tried to be the same kind of parent.

Another incredible endowment I’ve enjoyed is to be born in a country “conceived in liberty.” A place where individual citizens are the sovereigns, creating government to be a servant and not a master. Land of the free.

What a gift!

But Tom Paine told us that, “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly, ’tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”

Freedom is under siege. And, therefore, we who love freedom, grateful for our historic luck, must come together to protect our “expensive” gift.

Some may get discouraged after setbacks, but none of us got involved in politics because we like “the game” and figured we’d pile up a shelf of trophies. We’re engaged because we must be and we seek victories because, as Churchill once put it, “without victory, there is no survival.”

In 1776, on this very day, General George Washington and his soldiers of the American Revolution crossed the Delaware River to score a surprise military victory against the British at Trenton, New Jersey.

Thank goodness, for these brave patriots and their muskets. Three Americans gave their lives in the battle. To secure our liberty.

Today, the Gift has been handed to us. Not to play with on Christmas morning and forget about, not to let get broken without our fixing it, but to protect and defend and cherish.

My commentary strives to illuminate, at times amuse and, most of all, to motivate toward action, bringing citizens together. Citizens in Charge protects the initiative process — the best weapon citizens have to cut taxes, term-​limit politicians, stop the drug war, protect property rights, and place limits on government. The Liberty Initiative Fund partners with leaders across the nation putting measures on the ballot to protect freedom and hold government accountable.

Thanks for your gifts to these efforts and to the many other important ones. We aim to protect the precious gift of freedom.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!

Christmas, 2018, Paul Jacob, liberty

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general freedom U.S. Constitution

Merry Christmas, America

In addition to the religious significance of Christmas, Americans share an excellent historical reason to celebrate this day.

In January of 1776, Thomas Paine published his smash hit, “Common Sense.” This pamphlet galvanized public opinion in favor of the American Revolution, which had begun the previous year at Lexington and Concord with the shot heard ’round the world.

That July, the Declaration of Independence was written, signed and proclaimed to the new nation by the Continental Congress.

But by December of the same year, the prospects for the American cause were looking bleak.

British forces, along with their mercenary Hessian reinforcements, had manhandled the Continental Army. Gen. George Washington’s troops were routed at Long Island, pushed out of Manhattan, forced to retreat across the Hudson to New Jersey, and then run out of Jersey across the Delaware River to Pennsylvania “exhausted, demoralized and uncertain of [their] future.”

Soon, the British believed, the American revolt would be extinguished.

“To compound Washington’s problems,” recounts the EyeWitnesstoHistory​.com website, “the enlistments of the majority of the militias under his command were due to expire at the end of the month and the troops return to their homes.”

Yet, on Christmas night, Washington marshaled his ragtag soldiers and crossed the icy Delaware, marching his men nine miles to Trenton. In the wee hours of the morning on Dec. 26, the Continentals attacked, catching more than 1,000 Hessian soldiers by surprise and taking nearly all of them captive.

In strictly military terms, the victory was not terribly significant. But in terms of American morale, as well as the perception of important potential allies such as France, the win was an absolutely perfect Christmas gift to the new Republic.

Our Republic, dedicated to liberty and justice for all, continues to this day.

And today, you and I are left to defend it — just like the barefoot minutemen who walked through the snow to face the most powerful military force of their world.

Merry Christmas, America!

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