Tag: freedom

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free trade & free markets regulation

Bet on Rigging the Games

casino, online gambling, knowledge, certainty

Is the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency’s cronyism really “a little too obvious,” as Reason magazine ironically argues?

Both the casino group’s model letter and the Maryland agency’s nearly identical letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission speak of “our grave concerns regarding the introduction of so-called ‘sport events’ contracts,” how citizens are being put “at risk” by enabling avoidance of state regulations, etc.

Casinos compete with online prediction markets. One way to compete is just to compete. If some of your casino customers are drifting to online betting, find ways to make the in-person experience more appealing. Improve advertising. Jigger the odds ever-so-slightly more in favor of players. Increase the dollar value of wins. Etc. We might call this the economic means of competition.

The other way to compete? Deploy the political means: cajole government to bludgeon competitors. Thus the American Gaming Association, which represents casinos, would like the federal government to do something to impede online prediction markets — the trading of contracts about what’s going to happen in sports and otherwise on platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket.

Sean Maloney, who heads the competing lobby group Coalition for Prediction Markets, explains how prediction-market betting differs from casino betting.

“[A casino] wins when you lose. A sportsbook will kick you off if you win too much. An exchange has no such incentive. It just takes a small fee, and two equally situated counterparties can trade. That’s why consumers prefer prediction markets.”

My prediction? Industry foes of market competition won’t be persuaded.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling First Amendment rights ideological culture

DEI“A” Directive Denied

DEI, first amendment, free speech, compelled speech, freedom, academia

Daymon Johnson has been fighting to speak freely.

A professor at Bakersfield College, a community college in California, Johnson has for years been bucking a mandate that he parrot the state’s “DEI” and “anti-racist” ideology — well, DEIA now: “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” — lest he face disciplinary action or receive the boot.

Community colleges, remember, are creations of the state, and Professor Johnson was being forced, by state directive, to mouth specific bureaucratic verbiage as if he were a mere functionary under a central planning board.

Alan Gura, the Institute for Free Speech’s lead counsel in the case, observed that Johnson’s fight has been for the First Amendment right to speak his mind, which American professors should be able to take for granted.

The settlement with Kern Community College District includes payment of $150,000 for attorneys’ fees. But it’s not perfect.

A permanent injunction against harassing Johnson for speech “in the classroom, in his scholarship, or as a private citizen” covers only five years. Government defendants “typically resist injunctions that are open forever,” making time limits in such settlements common, Gura explained. And five years “more than covers Johnson’s anticipated remaining time” at the school.

Nor does the decision address “whether the laws were constitutional as applied to anyone else.” But, said Gura, “the legal principles adopted by the court are persuasive authority that could lead to relief for other professors. . . .

“It’s easy for Sacramento officials to pass insane regulations . . . in their academic fantasy woke universe. . . . Something else entirely for local districts to try to defend them in a real courtroom where the First Amendment matters.”

So this imperfect ruling paves the way for further vindications.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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defense & war general freedom ideological culture

These Difficult States

I’ve been a U.S. citizen for more than a quarter of the 250 years that there has been a United States.

Proud to be an American? Yes. Not because my country, or more specifically our government, has always been spectacular, or even in the right. I’ve taken a few lumps battling against the government. 

More than “proud to be an American,” which was admittedly an accident of birth, I’m proud of America. Even with all its faults, this country has been the greatest force for good, for freedom, for peace, for human dignity in the entire history of the world. 

Certainly, I get no personal credit for the revolution. I wasn’t around. I had no hand in writing the Declaration of Independence or the First Amendment. But I can recite parts. 

And defend them against modern foes. 

No blame goes to me for slavery — or any glory for ending it. Likewise, I didn’t storm the beaches of Normandy or plant the flag at Iwo Jima. I’m honored, however, to know men who did. Without those American kids, Europe and Asia would have been completely conquered by regimes of unspeakable evil. 

Those GIs were billionaires . . . saving truly billions of lives, physically and spiritually.  

We Americans — and the whole world — owe a grand debt to the ideals of the American Revolution and the blood and courage of Americans of yesteryear. One we can never fully repay. 

But we can pay it forward. By fighting to keep the Republic alive and well.

I think we all sense that these current times are those “that try men’s souls.” There are internal forces ripping at the fabric of our culture as well as militarized authoritarian forces on the march abroad. 

The first 250 years proved difficult; the next 250 may even be more so. But we say “The United States of America,” not “The United States of Easy.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture partisanship

Partisan Pride Divide

national pride, patriotism, democrat, republican, military, higher education, America, freedom, democracy

“How proud are you to be an American?” a new NBC News poll asked.

“At the turn of the century, three quarters of Americans were ‘extremely’ or ‘very proud,’” Steve Kornacki explained to Meet the Press host Kristen Welker yesterday. “That number’s fallen to 56 percent.”

It is a sizable drop, leading Kornacki to inquire, “What’s behind this?” before supplying an answer: “it’s partisan.”

Boy, is it. Fully 90 percent of Republicans are “extremely” or “very proud” to be Americans, with just a mere 3 percent “only a little” or “not at all” proud. Compare that to Democrats, less than a third (29%) of whom are “extremely” or “very proud” to be Americans with a whopping 36 percent “only a little” or “not at all” proud.

There is a significant divide between those 65 years old and older, 75 percent feeling pride, and the 18 to 34 age group, with only 36 percent feeling it. But those differences pale in comparison to party identification.

In analyzing the poll at NBCNews.com, Jonathan Allen points out that Americans “have little faith in their institutions.” 

The military is the only institution mentioned in the survey that received overall majority support — 60 percent had a “great deal” or “quite a bit of trust,” including 86 percent of Republicans but only 40 percent of Democrats.

A bare majority of Democrats, 52 percent, had significant trust in colleges & universities, while only 17 percent of Republicans shared that trust. “The significance: this is the only major institution,” noted Kornacki, “that a majority of Democrats feel that way about.”

Institutions often disappoint and our government has done things for which the proper emotion is shame, not pride. But the principles of individual liberty, equality and justice, proclaimed here 250 years ago, have been, as Tom Paine predicted, “an asylum for mankind.”

A source of pride.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies too much government

The Long, Long Two Weeks

covid, hysteria, protest, obedience, disgrace, freedom

Nothing is so permanent, wrote Milton Friedman, as a temporary government program.

Six years ago, Americans learned that not only vaguely temporary measures go on and on, even precisely marked-out periods with clear starts and stops stated at the outset can be dragged on well past their expiration date.

Last week, Robby Soave “celebrated” the most astounding example of this in an article for Reason titled “This Was the Moment the COVID-19 Experts Betrayed Us,” about how the “two weeks to slow the spread” rationale for the lockdowns was shown to be a lie.

I wonder how many people were like me, at the time, noticing that the lengthening of the lockdown period was almost never justified by hospital numbers — a key point in the initial rationale, since we feared overwhelming the hospital system. The opposite happened almost everywhere, with hospitals becoming ghost towns in most locations, stressing the system in the opposite manner. By extending the duration of the near-universal quarantine, government officials and employees and their hangers-on showed how little interest they had in taking our health seriously.

What Soave focuses on is one tweet by National Public Radio, about how all crowds were bad for public health except those marching in protest of the death of George Floyd, a criminal with a long, violent rap sheet. NPR’s post began “by condemning the protests against lockdowns” and then drew “an explicit contrast with the racial justice protests, which are explicitly condoned.”

Soave calls this “junk science.” 

But it wasn’t any kind of science at all. It was pure ideological perversity.

Knowledge of that moment must be kept alive. Our expert class betrayed us by prioritizing their riot apologetics over our health.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

NOTES:

See Milton Friedman, Tyranny of the Status Quo (1980) p. 115.
For a “Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States (2020)” see Grokipedia.
The encouragement of the riots was, many hazard, an opportunistic psy-op to unseat President Trump in the 2020 election. It seems to have succeeded.

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Today

Remember June 4

On June 4, 1989, student protests at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square were brutally suppressed by the People’s Liberation Army.

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Common Sense defense & war general freedom Today

Last Monday of May

memorial day, 2026, war, foreign policy, freedom

Once called Decoration Day, this last Monday of May is a federally designated holiday set aside from the normal course of days for solemn reflection on the sacrifices made by soldiers — many with their very lives — in past wars of the United States of America.

In past episodes of Common Sense with Paul Jacob, you can find

“In Memory of the Fallen” — May 25, 2025 — “Don’t we owe them our freedom? I certainly believe we owe it to the fallen to keep that freedom alive.”

“Memorial Day Questions” — May 25, 2015 — War in the time of President Obama. “Vets deserve, and we all need, more (not fewer) questions of presidential candidates, such as the hypothetical inquiry of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Iraq, and the hypothetical Libya question Sen. Rand Paul suggests should be posed to Mrs. Clinton.”

“Disneyland vs. Politicians” — May 30, 2016 — “Do congressmen wait months to get a medical appointment? No. Then why not close the VA and give veterans the same healthcare coverage as our (pardon the term) representatives?” 

“Of Horror and Honor” — May 25, 2020 — “Last year, when the public relations wing of the U.S. Army asked, on Twitter, “How has serving impacted you?” the bulk of the responses were not what was hoped for. What came like tear drops and bursts of rage were thousands of horrific tales, expressions of sorrow, bitterness and despair.”

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general freedom ideological culture

Welcome the Revolutionaries?

Declaration of Independence, freedom, communism, leftism, universities, education, schools, anti-Americanism

Attending his son’s commencement ceremony at the University of Michigan, Judge Michael Warren came away . . . concerned. 

“In stark contrast to several speakers who dutifully acknowledged that the campus sits on land ceded by the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi Nations by the 1817 Treaty of Fort Meigs (or Treaty of the Foot of the Rapids),” the judge lamented in The Detroit News on Monday, “not a single speaker dared to acknowledge the birthday of our own nation.”

The ceremonies, writes Judge Warren, “could have occurred in any country without missing a beat.” 

Warren, a U of Malumnus, sadly notes how thoroughly “in thrall” to the “well-documented anti-West, anti-American sentiments” his old school has become. He also highlights how very different they were from the ceremonies, a half century ago, during the Bicentennial, when the keynote speech was entitled “Welcome to the Revolution.”

Nowadays, any Revolution extolled on campus might best be symbolized not by fife and drum or quill on parchment, but by a raised red fist.

Or hammer and sickle — perhaps painted in rainbows.

Lost on the university class? Any charm to the “near magical words” of the Declaration of Independence. Before the Declaration, Warren explains, all governments “were unequivocally opposed to recognizing that the people had the right to reform or start government anew.”

Today’s university folk, expressing the typical pieties of the center-left, in fact mimic our familiar American model to justify their own, much less impressive and far more dangerous notions of never-ending revolution.

In April, Republic Book Publishers came out with The Revolutionary Words that Forged America: The Definitive Guide to the Declaration of Independence by this very same Judge Michael Warren. I bought a copy. It looks great. 

For he takes the founders’ seriously good ideas seriously.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

NOTE: Judge Warren also happens to be a very serious candidate for the Michigan Supreme Court. And, in full disclosure, my friend.

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education and schooling general freedom ideological culture international affairs subsidy

The Price of a Canadian Education?

Canada, education, authoritarianism, freedom

At a convention of Canadian Liberals, tech executive Patrick Pichette proposed that youngsters eager to escape Canada be charged a half-million dollars for what he apparently regards as a privilege, not a right.

We must remind ourselves that the word “liberal,” here, is used in its modern, anti-liberal sense: of the ideology of ever-increasing restraints on everybody.

Very illiberal.

Even if Pichette means Canadian dollars, that’s still $360,000 in real USD dollars. Hardly a ten-dollar processing fee. More like extortion. He rationalizes that the kids owe that much anyway thanks to Canada’s heavily subsidized education system.

Terry Newman observes that Pichette “is a Canadian who left Canada for better opportunities himself.” He went to California and Google and now lives in London.

But Pichette and his de facto self-exemption are not the problem. The problem is all Liberals who “want to govern as many aspects [of the economy] as possible, pick winners, and unload the tax burden of the massive bureaucracy onto Canadians, the smartest of which understand this clearly and choose to leave.”

While Pichette’s proposal had his audience of Canadian Liberals cheering, sane individuals rightfully express varying degrees of alarm. After all, punishing people for leaving a country is eerily reminiscent of what totalitarian states do: prevent them from leaving altogether.

Pichette’s rationale itself is based on a misunderstanding. Are the half-million per student subsidies really there to educate? More like to placate well-organized lobbies of too-often ideologically driven careerists. 

The idea that Canadian students actually receive half-a-million-dollar educations is not believable.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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defense & war general freedom ideological culture Internet controversy national politics & policies

Deuce Bigelow, Political Philosopher

Rob Schneider, the draft, conscription, freedom

Americans have not endured a military draft since the 1970s. Our bodies and very lives aren’t conscript. Just our fortunes.

Not perfect, true, but as political trades go it’s better for equal freedom than slightly lower taxes and a return of the draft, which conscripts some* to benefit (the story runs) “all.”

The all-volunteer force has produced the world’s best military . . . without “slave” labor.

Comedian Rob Schneider thinks differently.  

“We must once again recommit ourselves to one Nation under God, indivisible,” he posted to X recently. “Therefore, we must restore the military draft for our Nation’s young people.

“Each and every American, at eighteen years of age, must serve two years of military service. They could also choose to serve part of that time overseas or in country in a volunteer capacity,” he went on.

“Unlike in today’s Universities, our young people will learn how truly great their country is and how unique and incredible are the Freedoms that this Nation bestows upon them.” But wouldn’t the best place to learn of American freedoms be living free in America? 

Other criticism leaned to mockery, such as the parody movie poster of Deuce Bigelow Joins the Army. 

Schneider later clarified that he aims for less military action: “A military with EVERY SEGMENT OF SOCIETY REPRESENTED would make the DEPLOYMENT of TROOPS and foreign wars LESS likely as there would be MORE accountability at the highest levels of power.”

This notion is, explains The Epoch Times, “part of a public appeal for Americans to return to traditional values.”

But surely the all-volunteer service is more traditional, the norm for most of our history, and, especially in the sense that freedom to join, or not, embodies liberty better than coercion does. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The all-volunteer force is admittedly not an exact replica of our society, representing “every segment.” It is better than that. Better educated. Better motivated. In better shape. Consider that the military cannot use at least 12 percent of the population for any purpose.

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