Tag: freedom

Equal or Free?

draft, conscription, women, servitude, military, illustration

On Tuesday, the Senate voted to force American women, in their early years, to register for the draft.

Just like men have been required to do since 1980.

The White House threatens to veto the bill, though perhaps on other grounds, since the bill also, in the words of Richard Lardner (AP), “authorizes $602 billion in military spending, bars shuttering the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and denies the Pentagon’s bid to start a new round of military base closings.”

The Senate’s social conservative ranks made the whole process leading up to the vote difficult for the mainliners, like Sen. John “Maverick” McCain, who is enthusiastic about registering women. Sen. Ted Cruz expressed alarm at the direction “sexual equality” is taking, and didn’t want to see “girls drafted onto the front lines.”

Decades ago, the Supreme Court had nixed a challenge to draft registration on discrimination lines, reasoning that since women weren’t allowed onto the front lines, there was no cause to force them to register for military conscription.

But now there are women in combat positions. So the old ruling no longer applies. If draft registration isn’t expanded to women, it’s likely to be struck down for men.

We have no draft, we are reminded, mere registration — which our government keeps in place mainly to remind men that they may be drafted.

In the House version of the bill, there’s no draft registration amendment. So there will be negotiations. Maybe a compromise can be reached where neither young men nor women face a military draft* or, likewise, signing up for one.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* For more on why to oppose the draft, see my essay “The Draft Is Slavery” in J. Neil Schulman, The Rainbow Cadenza, pulpless.com edition (1999).

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Tags Congress, conscription, draft, draft registration, feminism, freedom, military

general freedom individual achievement

Jefferson’s Achievements

Thomas Jefferson, birthday, slavery, freedom

In 1743, on April 2, Thomas Jefferson was born. But the old Julian calendar was superseded in 1752, so we now mark his birthday as April 13.

Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft of the United States’ Declaration of Independence. He authored the State of Virginia’s Statue of Religious Freedom, which disestablished the Episcopalian Church, thus officially beginning the long process of what he referred to as “building a wall of separation between Church and State.”

He followed Patrick Henry as Governor of Virginia, and was in that position when it was attacked by British forces (led by Benedict Arnold and Gen. Cornwallis). He later served as the first Secretary of State of the new union, and then as its second Vice President and third President. He wrote one book, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), and translated several others, including Volney’s Ruins of Empires (1802) and Destutt de Tracy’s A Treatise on Political Economy (1817). He designed the first campus of the University of Virginia, and managed its founding.

Thomas Jefferson was a man of achievement, yes; but mostly he is associated with the idea of freedom.

Yet, he was also a slave-owner. His several attempts to limit the severity and extent of slavery were mostly beaten back. And his personal involvement with slaves (he likely sired several children with his late wife’s half sister, a slave) was even more tangled.

Some people say this disqualifies Jefferson from current praise.

I’m not in that camp. It seems to me less than honest not to esteem him for helping us declare that “all men are created equal” … and outright foolish to ignore Mr. Jefferson’s lifelong agitation for a more equal freedom under law.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags birthday, Declaration of Independence, freedom, slavery, Thomas Jefferson

free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Socialist Stasis, Disturbed

Post author By CS Admin
Post date March 21, 2016
3 Comments on Socialist Stasis, Disturbed

Cuba, stasis, Obama, visit, illustration

As the President of the United States treads ground previously trod by such a personage nearly ninety years ago — Calvin Coolidge was the last U. S. Commander in Chief to make the trip to Cuba — we are understandably inundated with coverage.

Obama’s Cuba trip is Big News.

We see that Cuba is backwards — it is socialist, after all, so no surprise there — but slowly opening up to American travel and trade. The nation’s voluntary sector squirms under the omnipresent, oppressive feet of its regulators.

What we see now is the result of socialist repression. Cuba shows, perhaps, socialism’s best-case-scenario result, stasis. The island dystopia is in many ways a time capsule. Some of its current charm is that stuck-in-timed-ness.

But there is also endemic hopelessness in the country. The people are held back. Infantilized. Ruled.

And there is no disputing the fact that this is all the result of an excess of socialism. As I have argued before, the old standby, the Blame the US Embargo ploy, is one that socialists wield with devastating results — to their own ideology. Socialism is the suppression of free trade; pure socialism abolishes all trade, along with all private property. Blaming an embargo shows how important private property and capitalism itself are to socialism’s few successes.

Barack Obama is, right now, demonstrating the best case against socialists in his own party, by opening up Cuba to the wonderfully corrosive processes of the market.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Cuba, freedom, Havana, Obama, socialism

ballot access Common Sense general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies responsibility term limits U.S. Constitution

The Quadrennial Distraction

Post author By CS Admin
Post date August 19, 2015
3 Comments on The Quadrennial Distraction

As the leading Republican candidate for the presidency ascends into the air in a helicopter filled with kids, and makes his most astute declaration yet — “I am Batman” — it becomes clearer than ever how distracting these presidential campaigns are.

Much of American Big League politics is theatrics, with some pandering for good measure. Of course, all people running for the presidency are by definition over their heads, at best … posturing attention-seekers at worst. Fretting about what they believe and “would do” if voted in as President of these United States is mostly a waste of time. Experience tells us that what they promise is perhaps the least likely outcome of all.

What is more effective? Affecting the political environment by getting together with like-minded folk to advance principled causes closer to home. As a side effect of your activism, a successful issue in a single city or region — especially one that spreads — can have a dramatic influence on present and future presidential wannabes.

With organization and consistent activity at the local level, your voice can be heard. But you have to do something. That activity doesn’t have to be to “run for office”; you can turn up the volume by proposing (and sometimes opposing) ballot initiatives, constitutional and charter amendments in the state, county and city where you live.

There is so much to be done at this level that could create political climate change, which in turn would invariably make federal-level candidates better, that it seems a shame to see us so focused on long shot bets.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, activism, democracy, elections, freedom, presidency, vote

free trade & free markets general freedom individual achievement

Call for Great Communicators

Post author By CS Admin
Post date August 4, 2015
No Comments on Call for Great Communicators

Money can’t buy me love. So, the $10,000 first prize in the Second Annual Great Communicators Tournament doesn’t matter to me at all. Nor does the $5,000 second prize entice me, and certainly not the $2,500 for third place.

You, however, may be fond of money.

And if you can effectively communicate the freedom message, this contest is well worth joining. But the deadline — THIS FRIDAY, August 7 — is fast approaching.

The tournament’s “goal is to identify … and promote individuals who can effectively and persuasively discuss and defend the free market and the founding principles.”

It’s the brainchild of the folks at Think Freely Media — the good souls who sponsor this Common Sense program. They know that liberty advocates must take the moral high-ground in making the case for freedom, and not merely argue by empirical analysis.

The competition is easy to enter. No later than midnight this Friday provide a 1 – 3 minute video of yourself addressing one of several issues listed on the contest website.

“Videos should be … clear and concise, make sure … that you use moral, not material, arguments,” contestants are informed. “We’re looking for solid arguments and messages, not flashy production value.”

Your video will be posted, so a combination of public voting and deliberations by the Think Freely staff and judges will identify twelve semi-finalists. These twelve will then compete in person for the top prizes at the State Policy Network’s Annual Meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in September.

Why not see just how talented a communicator you are? And perhaps get even better … at growing liberty.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul McCart … er, Paul Jacob.

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Tags contest, freedom, great communicators

Common Sense crime and punishment general freedom

Ultra Anti-Civilization

The stabbing event at a Thursday “Gay Pride” march in Jerusalem reveals an element of the much-talked-about “clash of civilizations” not often discussed any longer. But it used to dominate the conversation.

Why? It was not a Muslim jihadist who stabbed six people and ultimately killed one of them, a 16-year-old girl (she died in the hospital this weekend).

It was an Orthodox Jew.

That is, the man arrested at the event, identified as Yishai Schlissel, certainly looked Orthodox, when I saw him on TV, briefly, in an early report. The BBC now refers to him an “ultra-Orthodox Jew” (“ultra” theirs; emphasis, mine). He had previously carried out a similar attack in 2005.

“Israel’s government would have ‘zero tolerance’ for Jewish extremists, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a security cabinet meeting on Sunday,” according to a BBC report.

What suspect Schlissel shares with other terrorists is not merely a rock-hard belief that certain other people are sinful and corrupt, etc. He somehow also believes that he may assume the role of judge and executioner … of people he only knows by their differences.

This is beyond “ultra.” Schlissel repudiates not only the rule of law (since he acts outside it), but a basic idea that has grown in Western civilization — from roots found in his own religion.

Liberty.

The essence of liberty? Leaving peaceful people you disagree with alone.

It is more than possible for the religiously orthodox to get along with the un-orthodox. We can all get along if we respect each others’ rights, regardless of our differences.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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