Tag: freedom

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First Amendment rights ideological culture media and media people

Gun Group Deplatformed

Mailchimp, email, marketing, 1st Amendment, speech, censorship

Mailchimp is an “all-in-one integrated marketing platform” that helps businesses send newsletters and other email to customers, prospects, and supporters. In January it blocked the Virginia Citizens Defense League from sending email to members about an annual rally in defense of gun rights and told the organization to get lost.

Some help.

According to the president of the Defense League, Philip Van Cleave, “There was no justification. They provided nothing. Basically, they just said we need to get our stuff and be prepared to move on.”

Well, Mailchimp’s boilerplate letter did also state that its “automated abuse-prevention system, Omnivore, detected serious risks associated with [your] account. . . . This risk is too great for us to continue to support the account.”

What risk? Oh, why bother to specify. The point is, the automated system detected it. I’m guessing that certain scary words were flagged, like “gun,” “Second Amendment,” “Constitution,” “rights.”

It seems that any kind of assembling on behalf of certain constitutionally protected rights or to petition for redress of grievances is to be regarded as a rationale for summarily ejecting politically right-leaning customers — at least by firms going along with this accelerating strategy to abet repression.

Mailchimp has violated the terms of service upheld by those who respect freedom of speech and do not respect arbitrary assaults on costumers. If you’re using it, look for an alternative.

The Defense League’s “Lobby Day” rally was peaceful again this year — as the group’s website informs, “just a lot of patriots sending a strong message to the General Assembly to keep their hands off our gun rights.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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international affairs

The China Syndrome

China, flag, blood, red

Is the Chinese government under Xi Jinping becoming as murderously totalitarian as it was in the time of Mao?

Since Mao was responsible for the slaughter of tens of millions, today’s China is not, at least yet, Maoist bad. But as Doug Bandow reports in a recent overview (“China’s Terrifying Return to Maoism”), it is indeed awful.

The scuttling of presidential term limits is the merest tip of a titanic iceberg of tyranny. 

Beneath the surface is China’s intensified repression of the Uyghurs, Tibet, and Hong Kong; prolific use of torture; a rise in coerced televised confessions; increased censorship and detaining of foreign journalists; massive expansion of the surveillance state with the help of technology firms like Huawei; and new crackdowns on practices of religion.

A few years ago, churches in many provinces of China could carry on without interference as long as they steered clear of politics. Hardly a minor restriction. But today, writes Bandow, “ministers are arrested, churches are closed or destroyed, members are barred from bringing their children and forced to display communist agitprop, and the [Chinese Communist Party] even wants to rewrite Scripture. Islam, Buddhism, and Daoism are also under sustained attack.”

Bandow bases his observations in part on a Human Rights Commission report just published by the UK Conservative Party.

Too often, journalists, politicians and others ignore or whitewash what the Chinese regime is doing at home and abroad. Whatever our policies toward China should be, they should be based on eyes-wide-open reality.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom too much government

The $165,000 Question

How far will the enemies of liberty go?

Well, almost all the way to armed robbery, for the latest outrage by foes of individual rights looks an awful lot like just that, plain armed robbery. 

The victims? 

The owners and staff of Atilis Gym in Bellmawr, New Jersey.

On January 13, at the behest of Governor Phil Murphy, state officials seized the assets of the gym. These assets included $165,000 in the business’s bank account, all of which, says co-owner Ian Smith, had come from donations and online sales of T-shirts and other apparel.

For months, the owners of Atilis have been involved in a pitched battle with the state of New Jersey over orders to shut down the gym, which they have kept open despite those orders (for which disobedience they were arrested in July). Atilis has been pursuing litigation to overturn the order, revocation of its license, and fines ($15,000+ per day) that the state has imposed to punish the defiance.

Smith is asking for our help as he and his business partner confront Leviathan.

“This was never about protection, it was always about control,” he says. “Please continue to support us in any way possible. Please share as much as you possibly can this story and help us continue our fight.”

Visit the Atilis Gym website to buy merchandise, and visit the gym’s GoFundMe page to “support the efforts to reopen and stay open” and to help staff and members cope with the financial hardships imposed by the shutdown order.

And subsequent armed robbery.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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international affairs

Slow on Subjugation

Hong Kong, China, flag

Latest: China opposes democracy!

When Great Britain turned Hong Kong over to China in 1997, the half-capitalist, ninety-nine-percent-totalitarian mainland government promised, scout’s honor, to preserve “one country, two systems” for 50 years. Hong Kong was to be mostly autonomous.

Almost immediately, China began interfering in Hong Kong’s democracy with the help of puppet officials on the island. 

In 2003, China tried to impose a “national security law” to squelch the Hong-Kong-system part of the two systems. Criticism of the Chinese government would be treated as sedition. Five hundred thousand Hong Kongers marched in protest. Not wanting to send bombs and tanks, China retreated.

Hong Kongers blunted other assaults in 2012, 2014, and 2016.

But this last year, with the help of pandemic-rationalized restrictions on civic life, China has been making great leaps forward with its agenda. Recently, it detained 53 Hong Kongers for the terrible crime oftrying to run candidates in local elections.

Observing this, Victoria Hui, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame, has reached an insight. 

“This is a total sweep of all opposition leaders,” she says. Why, if it is judged “subversion” just to run for office in Hong Kong, then the true purpose of the new security law is “the total subjugation of Hong Kong people.”

This goal has been blatant at least since 2003; longer, to anyone who knows China’s history. Sounds like Ms. Hui is only now catching on. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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too much government

Distill This

hammer, hand sanitizer

This story started out lousy and then swerved into neutral. But there are still problems under the hood.

At the very end of 2020 (good riddance, 2020!), U.S. distilleries were suddenly faced with a ludicrous FDA tax of $14,000 for using their facilities to make alcohol-based hand sanitizer.

These adaptive distilleries — about 835 of them — have long used alcohol to make booze, of course. But early last year, lockdowns began to massively reduce demand for alcoholic beverages in certain venues. It made sense to begin producing hand sanitizer in order to meet the massively new pandemic-induced demand for sanitizer.

Win-win, until, in the last days of 2020, FDA decided that such flexible pivoting deserved what amounts to a penalty. Bureaucrats decided that producing hand sanitizer changed how the 835 distilleries should be classified. Entities so classified — as “over-the-counter drug monograph facilities” — are supposed to pay the $14,000 fee.

Media coverage and the outcry by already-walloped distilleries has, however, led the Department of Health and Human Services to rescind the penalty. HHS has told FDA to stand down. The fee has been cancelled.

So everybody is happy now, the way you’re happy when the sledgehammer swinging down doesn’t bash you in the head after all.

Aaron Bergh of Calwise Spirits wonders whether distilleries will still get hit with such a fee in 2021. What the government giveth, it can taketh. For now, though, like everyone else, he’s just darn relieved.

Happy New Year, folks.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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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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initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies term limits

Why Congress Can’t Read

Blind Leading the Blind, US Congress, politicians

They don’t read.

No one reads the legislation Congress passes, not the staffers and lobbyists who write “the packages” and congresspeople least of all, as again illustrated by the recent 5,593-page, $2.3 trillion pandemic-relief-plus-kitchen-sink bill just passed by Congress. 

They haven’t for decades. 

Nor do they care to.

James Bovard, expert reporter on the excesses of the modern individual-stomping state, says the new monster-bill “is another warning that know-nothing, no-fault legislating will be the death of our republic unless Americans can severely reduce Congress’s prerogative to meddle in their lives.”

Correct. Problem is, it’s Congress that must enact reform — on itself. Talk about a conflict of interest! That’s why the citizen initiative process has been so important at the state level. Without democratic checks — initiative, referendum, recall — at the federal level, what major reform is even possible? 

All big, necessary reforms hit a roadblock on that issue alone.

That goes for limiting the page-length of bills or requiring legislation be posted online for days if not weeks before a vote. 

Same for congressional term limits, which would de-insulate Congress from us. 

And, just so, with the late columnist Bob Novak’s proposal of smaller districts, maybe increasing the number of U.S. representative to 2,000. (It wouldn’t cost taxpayers anything more if we cut their pay.) More politicians might be better than fewer by decreasing the power of individual politicians — diminishing marginal power, you might say.

We find ourselves in a trap. These ideas amount to ways to avoid the trap once we are out of it.

But it is getting out of the trap that’s the hard part.

Any ideas? Please advise. You can be sure your good ideas will be read — not by Congress, of course, but by those of us who want a way out.  

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Fourth Amendment rights general freedom

Evicting Unjust Evictions

Good news: New York City businessmen can no longer be threatened with eviction and forced to forfeit their rights for the crime of . . . well, for no crime at all.

Sung Cho, owner of a Manhattan laundromat, is one of many victims of an eviction-and-extortion racket perpetrated by the city.

For years, business owners have faced eviction because of offenses that occurred on the premises of their business — even if the owner was ignorant of the alleged offenses before they were committed.

In 2013, police entered Cho’s laundromat to sell supposedly stolen goods. After a couple of people unconnected to the business accepted the offer, the NYPD threatened Cho with eviction. Even though neither Cho nor his employees were accused of doing anything illegal.

Cho felt he had no alternative but to waive his right not to be subjected to warrantless searches, and grant police access to his security cameras, and forfeit his right to a hearing if ever penalized for alleged criminal offenses in the future. To avoid eviction, he accepted those obnoxious terms.

But he didn’t leave it there. In 2016, Sung Cho teamed up with the Institute for Justice to sue the city.

After many ups and downs, the final result is that the law so often used as a club against innocent business owners has been changed. Also, the NYPD must obey a binding order that it “shall not enforce or seek to enforce” the terms of agreements imposed under the old law.

A big win for lots of small businesses against tyrannical actions by government.

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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general freedom too much government

A Tyrant’s License

Covid, virus, epidemic, US Flag, lockdown

The “lockdowns” are not how a free society would handle a contagion.

Free people might advisedly wear masks and physically distance themselves from others when they are especially vulnerable to an airborne disease, or they themselves show some symptoms.*

But free people take risks, too, and accept responsibility for risks taken. And they go about trying to improve their lives generally, in society.

In society, via commerce. 

Furthermore, free people would also change their behavior based on good information freely discussed.

What they would not do is engage in bullying to suppress information, cheer on institutional debate suppression, or mandate abridgments to other’s liberties on the basis of personal or sectarian opinion.

That is, they would not do what we do now.

And, perhaps most importantly, free people would utterly condemn leaders who lied to them, or who took special privileges by flouting their own mandates, enforced on the rest of us.

We’ve sure seen a lot of this latter.

The latest case is that of Austin, Texas, Mayor Steve Adler, who has been caught in one of those grand hypocrisies that show the panic to be mostly political opportunism: he had recorded his early November message to “stay home if you can” after attending his daughter’s wedding with 20 guests and then taking a getaway trip with a party of eight.

“This is not the time to relax,” he warned, however. “We may have to close things down if we’re not careful.”

Recorded in Mexico, I guess that “social distance” allowed him the gumption to deliver a threat: if you don’t self-quarantine, I will quarantine everybody!

Except, of course, himself.

Freedom is not just something for our rulers. Liberty with an exception clause is spelled “L-I-C-E-N-S-E.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


* By wearing masks and gloves these two groups would signal to others to give them some distance. Not virtue-signaling, but well-mannered responsibility signals. The healthy people, though, would take the risks of the disease because, after all, we face a million risks every day, from automobile injury to cancer.

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