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What is the Libertarian Party up to in inviting former President Donald John Trump to address the party’s upcoming national convention ?
The goal of this “third party” may be crystalline in its clarity — a free society as understood by Libertarians — but how this can be achieved by running candidates for office in Partisan Duopoly America is murky at best. The number of self-identified libertarians in the country is small, though polling in the 1990s suggested that about a quarter of the population is of a general libertarian mindset: minimal government; private property; personal freedom as the tolerant community’s ideal; individual responsibility as the chief form of
The difference between a self-identified Libertarian and a libertarian-ish citizen at large can be huge, in some ways: no taxes versus lower taxes, for example. These positions play dramatically differently, of course, in elections where most voters are not libertarian at all.
The 2024 convention will be held May 23–26 in Washington, D.C. (of all places). And Donald Trump (of all people) has accepted the invitation to speak (offered to both he and President Biden). The party is shilling registrations for the event by telling prospects that only registered attendees will be able to cast their votes to establish “the topics President Trump will address during his time at the podium.”*
As a newsworthy event, this is one of the party’s best stunts. The very idea of inviting the presumptive Republican nominee to speak is . . . weird. And, therefore, newsworthy. It might make for an apocalyptic event — encompassing every meaning of “apocalyptic.”
The convention itself is titled, in traditionally flagrant Libertarian fashion, “Become Ungovernable.” While Libertarians mean this slogan in a good (and peaceful) way, its ambiguity and alarming nature is one of many reasons Libertarians get low vote totals.
Trump addressing Libertarians could suggest a more negative interpretation
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Good luck with that.
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What happened in Brussels?
“In Brussels, in the heart of the European Union, in a western liberal democracy, we’re unable to have a conversation about identity, migration, borders, family, and security without facing attempts to have it shut down,” says Matt Goodwin, a British professor.
The mayor of a Brussels district, Emir Kir, had ordered the shutdown of the National Conservatism Conference in order, he said, to “guarantee public safety.”
But Kir also stated the real reason, that in his neck of the woods “the far right is not welcome.” He apparently disagrees with viewpoints to be elaborated at
Police took steps to stymie would-be attendees.
Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán said: “The last time they wanted to silence me with the police was when the Communists set them on me in ’88. We didn’t give up then and we will not give up this
This is a more open targeting of political speech than erasing the “misinformation” of social media posts. Does it signal a new strategy
Hard to say. The immediate reaction of other European politicians, including many on the left, was dismay and shock that anybody would attempt such a thing.
“Banning political meetings is unconstitutional. Full stop,” proclaims the Belgian
“Extremely disturbing,” says a British spokesman.
Could be sincere; could be a realization that “Uh oh, we’ve gone too far”; could be a mixture of both.
The next question: will it happen again?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Can J. K. Rowling destroy Scotland’s new anti-free-speech law with a strategic wave of a single wand?
The author of the Harry Potter and Cormoran Strike series has gotten into trouble. She defied the State by saying that men are men and women are women even when a member of one of these sexes
To some, the author’s statements are “hate” speech. Speech now prosecutable in Scotland, where
On April 1, 2024, legislation went into effect there making it a criminal offense to “stir up hate” against members of a protected group, including transgender individuals. This is a “crime” that can be punished by up to seven years in prison.
The law’s terms are encompassing
So far, Rowling has escaped arrest, though offering herself as the subject of a test case. After the law went into effect, she penned a series of posts declaring that various men who say they’re not men are in fact men: blatant “misgendering.”
“If what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested,” she wrote.
When the Scottish police declined, she added: “I trust that all women — irrespective of profile or financial means — will be treated equally under the law.
This trust is, I fear, misplaced. As long as the law exists, Rowling’s very visible defiance cannot protect everybody else who might be targeted under it.
Scotland needs more Harry Potters, er, heroes … to stand up to this terrible law.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Fear was a major theme — and ploy — during the pandemic. But it’s looking now like the people we have been told to rely upon for our safety are themselves moved by fear. They’re cowards, poltroons.
The Centers for Disease Control wrote an alert in the thick of 2021’s “vaccine” rollout, warning of the dangers of the Moderna and Pfizer jabs.
It was never sent out.
“In the May 25, 2021, email, exclusively obtained by The Epoch Times, a CDC official revealed why some officials were against sending the alert,” explains Zachary Stieber. You see, while an alert to health care professionals using the official Health Area Network system made complete sense, one CDC official gave a clue to her colleagues’ hesitance: “people don’t want to appear alarmist,” you see.
What did we who took the jab risk? Heart inflammation, or myocarditis. The CDC knew this early on.
But did not warn us.
Now, from listening to Dr. John Campbell on YouTube and Rumble, we have learned a lot more (if not in time in 2021) about the myocarditis threat. The takers of the modRNA treatment who are most at risk are those who engage in strenuous exercise soon after inoculation (which explains why the bulk of the afflicted have been boys and young men in the prime of life). Or so I last heard. I am certainly no doctor; I merely rely upon doctors to advise me.
And those doctors, in turn, rely upon official sources of information like the CDC.
Who did not advise them properly.
Who worry too much about “appearing alarmist” and not enough about relaying the best information.
Poltroons!
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Markets work and markets for housing work.
This is what the new president of Argentina, Javier Milei, has sought to confirm by means of radically free-market economic policies. He is going as far as he can as fast as he can to make Argentina a freer and more prosperous country.
Can he succeed in the long run?
Many exploiters of the socialist status quo ante are bitterly opposed to his reforms and hope to undo them. We’ve seen before how quickly a relatively anticapitalist administration can kill the freedom-expanding reforms of a relatively procapitalist one.
But at least for now, Milei is proving his point, as witness the market for apartments in Buenos Aires.
The Buenos Aires newspaper El Cronista reports (with the help of Google Translate) that with the end of rent controls, the supply of rental units in Buenos Aires has doubled and prices for units have fallen by around 20%. The paper cites data by the Argentine Real Estate Chamber and the reports of brokers.
Under rent control, by 2023 the supply of rentals had shrunk to just 400 units. “Today we have a stock of more than 800 apartments, and it is growing day by day,” says Alejandro Bennazar, a director at
Eight hundred units is still low given the size of the capital city, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Getting rid of the controls caused supply to double instantly. An excellent start.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Happy New Year–2024
“We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the events of a few months. The reflection is awful, and in this point of view, how trifling, how ridiculous, do the little paltry cavilings of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of a world.”
from “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine
“There is no ‘red line,’” says an anonymous thirty-something Hong Kong humanities professor. “If they want to come after you, everything can be used as an excuse.”
Grace Tsoi, writing for the BBC, shows what happens when political correctness returns to its roots in totalitarianism. As it has in Hong Kong, in the “People’s [sic] Republic [sic] of China [sick].” The young academic Ms. Tsoi is quoting elaborated the situation: “He says his nightmare is being named and attacked by Beijing-backed media, which could cost him his job, or worse, his freedom.”
Political correctness can cause academics in America their jobs, of course. But as relentless as our woke media and online mobs may be to “de-platform” people they disagree with, it’s harder to go all the way.
Under a totalitarian state, it’s easier to be more thorough.
That’s why totalitarianism is the modish form of tyranny that tyrants aspire towards.
More power.
“In the academic year 2021/22, more than 360 scholars left Hong Kong’s eight public universities,” Ms. Tsoi explains. “The turnover rate — 7.4% — is the highest since 1997, when Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule, according to official data. Foreign student enrolments have dropped by 13% since 2019.”
The chilling effect is arctic. Self-censorship has become the rule, in advance of expected censure, censorship, or worse. Hong Kong academics blame all this on 2020’s National Security Law, which “targets any behaviour deemed secessionist or subversive, allowing authorities to target activists and ordinary citizens alike.”
It’s worth remembering that while “secession” is a dirty word for the powerful, and subversion the enemy of all, it does depend on context: secession from a tyrannical state is liberation; subversion of an unjust system is justice.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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It was a joke. For which he’s been sent to prison.
A political joke online.
Admittedly, it wasn’t very funny. It certainly wasn’t new. That is, the general idea has been floating around for as long as there have been ballot boxes.
The ur-form of the joke is “Hey, [political opponent], why don’t you deposit that ballot right here in this handy receptacle [trash can]?”
The specific joke that got Douglass Mackey into big trouble sported an image of a smiling black woman in front of a white-on-blue “African Americans for Hillary/President” sign, along with the message: “Avoid the line. Vote from home. ¶ Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925 ¶ Vote for Hillary and be a part of history.”
It arguably flirted with dirty tricks of the sort honest people don’t engage in. But a lot of partisans do that sort of thing, not just Mr. Mackey, who posted the joke to his now-defunct “Ricky Vaughn” Twitter account. A better version of the joke about the same time was not only never prosecuted, the link to it’s still on Twitter (X). It just so happens, however, to have been made by a Democrat . . . against Trump voters.
Trolls flirting with Dirty Trick status are not criminals; there is the First Amendment. But what Mackey was successfully prosecuted for (he was sentenced last week to seven months) was “Election Interference.”
Tellingly, ZERO is the number of voters stepping up to testify that they were tricked into texting 59925 and then not voting by his lame meme. If there were any, they might understandably be too humiliated to bear witness.
Curiously, the law he violated does not mention misinforming a person as a criterion for criminality.
A country that selectively prosecutes this sort of thing — can it be said to be free?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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The Gadsden Flag: “Don’t Tread on Me” — it is many an American’s favorite flag, for it expresses a sentiment, the most American of political sentiments: resistance to tyranny.
Other flags, including the Stars and Stripes, are symbolic without being explicit.
What American could be against it? To oppose the Gadsden Flag is to oppose liberty!
But, these days, there are a lot of people who try to impugn the flag and the concept as being, I kid you not, “white supremacist” and “pro-slavery.”
It’s absurd, of course. Slaves were tread upon. Those who demand not to be tread upon object to their own slavery. And, by extension, others’.
Tell that to the woke mob.
And to public school administrators.
On Monday, a likely lad named Jaiden was removed from his class at Vanguard Elementary in Colorado Springs. He triggered his teacher with a patch on his backpack featuring the Gadsden. When his mother confronted the charter school’s administrator, recording the chat, the administrator defended the action on the usual woke grounds: its alleged “origins with slavery.”
Oddly, not even the school rules gave grounds to remove him for it — even if it were “about slavery.” (To repeat: it’s about slavery’s opposite.)
I smell the stink of partisanship. Many teachers and administrators so object to some people who like the flag that they distort facts to enforce ideological conformity on students.
The story has a happy ending, though. Jaiden was exonerated, walking into school with the patch still visible.
To make the story better, however, the teachers and administrators who thought they could tread upon Jaiden should be severely reprimanded, if not fired outright. For violating his rights.
And for not knowing history.
Flunk ’em!
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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