Tag: freedom

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international affairs privacy

Delivering to Evil

China, privacy, donor, freedom

Will Americans who demand the outing of anonymous donors to political causes listen to Jianli Yang?

One reason that people donate to organizations anonymously — just as they want their votes and other personal information to remain confidential — is to avoid being harassed by political opponents.

But being bullied in a restaurant is hardly the worst that can befall donors stripped of anonymity.

Jianli Yang is a Chinese dissident. In 2008, after spending years in a Chinese prison for his activism, he founded Citizen Power Initiatives for China, a US-based organization working to advance rights and democracy in China.

Yang notes that Chinese supporters of his organization, even if residing outside of China, “can face extreme consequences when they are identified by the Chinese government.” Without the right to protect donor privacy, affirmed in a July 2021 U.S. Supreme Court decision on the associational rights of donors, donors can end up being punished by the Chinese government.

The risk isn’t just theoretical. In April 2021, one Mr. Lee, a businessman, was forced to appear on Chinese television to “confess” to supporting Citizen Power Initiatives for China. The government also sentenced Lee to eleven years in prison.

We must fight both the CCP and their wannabe branch in DC. Things are nowhere near as bad in this country as in China. But we don’t know what threats we will face the day after tomorrow even from our own government.

We need every First Amendment protection we can get.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom ideological culture international affairs

‘Ideological Prejudices’

Xi, China, communism, foreign policy

“‘One country two systems’ has been tested and proved time and again,” Chinese ruler Xi Jinping told his hand-picked Hong Kong audience last week, “and there is no reason to change such a good system.”

Twenty-five years into that “good system” — created when the United Kingdom signed it over to the Chinese Communist Party with the proviso it would recognize basic civil liberties in Hong Kong until 2047 — Xi was taking a victory lap. 

He had successfully squelched freedom of speech and of the press.

“China’s government is,” Ian Easton writes in The Final Struggle: Inside China’s Global Strategy, “far more powerful and sophisticated than any that came before. Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, the Soviet Union, and Putin’s Russia all pale in comparison.”

Easton, who studies defense and security issues involving the U.S., China, Japan, and Taiwan at the Project 2049 Institute, also pointedly suggests that it is “of national importance that Hollywood begins to make movies about China that are not censored.”

Censored by Beijing, he means. 

China’s long list of tyrannies has gotten so bad that even NATO — yes, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — has recognized the threat posed by the totalitarian country engaged in the largest military build-up in human history. 

“NATO has listed China as one of its strategic priorities for the first time,” Al Jazeera reported weeks ago, “saying Beijing’s ambitions and its ‘coercive policies’ challenge the Western bloc’s ‘interests, security and values.’”

To which the Chinese objected, arguing the NATO statement “vilifies China’s foreign policy” and “China’s natural military development” and was “filled with . . . ideological prejudices.”

They have a point. It’s about time the West shows a bit of “bias” against totalitarianism and genocide.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense Fifth Amendment rights First Amendment rights Fourth Amendment rights general freedom Second Amendment rights Tenth Amendment federalism

July 4, 2022 Independence Day

independence, Fourth of July, freedom, Independence Day, 2018

Independence Day

Those core ideas of independence and liberty still matter — perhaps now more than ever.

And to help take Common Sense with Paul Jacob beyond 2022, join . . .

Thanks for your contribution!

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general freedom too much government

Les Climate Lockdowns

France, ban, heat, freedom

It’s hot outside. In southern France, very hot. Obviously (?), then, regional governments there are justified in prohibiting various outdoor activities.

Following the pandemic-lockdown model, it is apparently now acceptable to annul the rights of French citizens if some persons may be hurt by the heat. Once again, adults are being treated as if not responsible for making their own judgments about personal risks.

In the Bordeaux area of France — the Gironde department, a “department” being a sort of county — officials recently banned various outdoor events, including concerts and commemorations of resistance to Germany during World War Two.

The department also prohibited indoor events in places that lack air conditioning.

“Everyone now faces a health risk,” one official explained, as if summer were a new thing.

We care about weather when deciding whether to proceed with events we have planned. We think nothing of calling off a parade on account of rain. By “we” I mean the organizers, who may or may not be a government entity.

But there’s a big difference between deciding oneself to cancel an event one is responsible for and a government’s decision to outlaw events produced by others.

Summer is just starting. Next comes winter. Cold.

Governments seem to be regarding the COVID-19 lockdowns as evidence of just how much pushing around we’ll accept in the name of eliminating all risk but the risk to freedom.

A lot, seems to be the conclusion. 

We must show them otherwise. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment defense & war general freedom Second Amendment rights

Spree Shooter Shot Dead

handgun, self defense, freedom, 2nd Amendment

We need to be reminded every now and then that shooting rampages can often be stopped as soon as they start — if only a good guy with a gun is on site and willing to use it. 

Or good gal.

Dennis Butler, a 37-year-old with an “extensive criminal history,” recently targeted the attendees of a party in Charleston, West Virginia.

Earlier, someone at an apartment complex had asked Butler to drive more slowly because there were children around. This made him feel explosive rage. So he fetched a semi-automatic weapon that he owned illegally and started firing into a crowd of party-goers at the complex.

A woman with a gun and presence of mind happened to be at the party.

“She’s just a member of the community who was carrying her weapon lawfully,” says police spokesman Tony Hazlett. “And instead of running from the threat, she engaged with the threat and saved several lives.”

No one in the crowd was reported to be injured.

I hope that if this heroic woman had been carrying her weapon unlawfully, relevant authorities would have cut her some slack. But it’s good that she didn’t have to deal with such a complication.

Butler is dead — shot multiple times by the woman with a gun. Police haven’t reported her name.

Just as well. We wouldn’t want her to become a target of gun-control groups upset that she used a pistol rather than sharp words to dissuade Butler from killing everybody.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability general freedom local leaders term limits

Freedom in Granite

Governor Sununu, New Hampshire

“In the past two years,” the Cato Institute announced last January, “Governor [Chris] Sununu and the State of New Hampshire have topped Cato’s rankings for both our Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors and our recently released Freedom in the 50 States report.”

How? Why? 

The governor points to “a long history of local control,” insisting that “town meetings matter.” 

He also cites the state’s executive council which, along with the governor, publicly debates “every contract over $10,000,” as well as a two-year gubernatorial term that “sucks” for him but gives citizens “all the say.”

Most of all, consider the sheer size of New Hampshire’s House of Representatives.

“When you have one of the largest parliamentary bodies in the free world with 400 members representing only 1.4 million people,” Gov. Sununu explains, “by definition” it has to be “one of the most representative bodies of government in the world.”

He elaborates that “they only get paid a hundred bucks a year. I mean, it’s like herding cats. Don’t get me wrong, it has its ups and downs. But that’s one state representative for about every 3,000 people. Like town selectmen, your representative in Concord is going to be somebody you know, somebody you see at the grocery store, somebody you can easily reach and who can hear you. It’s very different from other states where you have one person representing a district with tens or hundreds of thousands of people.

“Which means the control is really at the individual level,” Sununu adds, and “an individual citizen has much more say on how their taxes are spent or what’s going on in their schools or whether that pothole is going to get filled or not.” 

Sounds like citizens are more in charge.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment general freedom

Injustice By Quota

arrests, quotas

Let’s say there are 100 murders — in a certain city in 2021. How many arrests for murder should there be in that city that year?

We can’t know in advance. Setting lagtime aside, consider the other factors. Some of the killers may have killed more than once. Some of the murders may never be solved. Some honest arrests may prove to be mistaken. We can only say: “As many arrests as possible, so long as persons are arrested for murder only if and when there is good cause to do so.”

Properly, one establishes sound criteria for making arrests and good investigative procedures. Not quotas. The same principles apply to every kind of arrest.

“Yes, Paul Jacob. But all this is bleedingly obvious. Why go on about it?”

Alas, what is really basic common sense to you and me apparently clashes with the desire of some within and without police departments for “proof” of effective results. Proof like total number of arrests. (Of course, in a police state, you might arrest half the population, far exceeding any quota, and still get lots of crime.)

The errant fondness for arrest quotas is at least being ended, almost, in Virginia, where the governor has signed legislation to prohibit Virginia agencies and police departments from using them.

I write “almost” because the legislation does not include a ban on quotas for traffic tickets, which are like being half-arrested. Tickets are one way municipalities make money.

Well, maybe we can all just stop driving.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo credit: arrests

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Worse Than Shanghaied

Shanghai, China, covid, masks, oppression

Two years into the pandemic, we in America are now mostly arguing about masks.

We’ve suffered pretty repressive measures, here. But we haven’t had to cope with:

● Being literally imprisoned in your home. Stopped from going out even to get food.

● Having fences erected around your home. “What if a fire breaks out?” one Shanghai resident asked a reporter. “I don’t think anyone in their right mind can seal person’s homes.” (Well, fire is not a virus.)

● Being ejected from your home and forced into public barracks for people infected with COVID-19.

● Being ejected from your home so that it can be disinfected.

● Being subjected to a “zero COVID-19” policy, zero common sense.

This is the fate of millions in Shanghai and elsewhere in China.

In the U.S., maybe you were harassed for conducting unmasked church services or keeping your shop open. Maybe you got arrested for paddle boarding, alone, in the Pacific Ocean.

It got pretty bad. But what we are seeing in Shanghai is the reality of a totalitarian regime when it chooses to fully exercise its power to repress. At any moment, the Chinazi state may make it impossible for millions to take the simplest steps to survive.

Shanghai residents may not even complain about their fate. To the extent they have voiced any complaints publicly, the Chinese government has struggled to eliminate all traces of the complaints.

Here, at least, we can gripe. 

But what does a people do when not allowed to protest or argue against their oppressors?

They scream. At night, the people of Shanghai yell out their windows.

Think of it as the soundtrack of mass misery.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights too much government

Four of Five Doctors Disagree

Salem Witch Trial

“Thank goodness I don’t live in X,” we may say as we follow the news.

Billions live in Russia, Ukraine, China, Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, Cuba, New York, Chicago, Seattle, California, Canada, and other statist hellholes. The rest of us live elsewhere. Perhaps we congratulate ourselves on our wise choices of birth location and/or subsequent residencies.

But people are copycats.

As producers, we are often inspired by great achievements and seek to emulate them. The destroyers among us, somewhat similarly, are eager to adopt the latest in fashionable assault on what the producers are doing.

So we don’t necessarily escape if, say, California prohibits physicians from discussing things medical whenever their judgment conflicts with state-approved doctrine. Because next thing you know, lawmakers in Tennessee or Virginia will be saying, “Gee, that’s right, gag the doctors. Why didn’t I think of that?”

Legislative masterminds in California now want to harass doctors who recommend a non-government-approved treatment for COVID-19. If AB 2098 is passed, it would authorize California medical boards to discipline doctors for “dissemination of misinformation” related to COVID-19.

The bill implies that no doctor can legitimately disagree with another about a particular case. (Yeah? See the history of medicine.)

When I say that this legislation assaults truth and truth-seeking — which requires freedom of speech as a necessary corollary of freedom of thought in medicine or in any field — I speak for Californian doctors and California patients.

I speak also for us all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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The Witch Trial of George Jacobs by Thompkins. H. Matteson

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education and schooling general freedom national politics & policies

The Explosion in Alternatives

home school, student, education

“Across the country, we’re in the midst of an unprecedented explosion in homeschooling and alternative education,” Sharyl Attkinson reported last Sunday on her weekly news program, Full Measure, citing a “mass exodus from America’s public schools.”

And it’s not just about pandemic measures like mask mandates. In February, San Francisco voters overwhelmingly recalled three school board members over their fixation on wokeness to the exclusion of in-person education. And the school board’s antics in liberal Loudoun County, Virginia, turned last year’s race for governor into a referendum on whether parents have any say-so at all. 

They do, apparently. 

Though I have covered the enormous growth of alternative education during the pandemic — here and here, for instance — I have been looking for more specifics. 

“Relative to pre-pandemic levels,” Corey DeAngelis with the American Federation for Children told Attkisson, “homeschooling has at least doubled,” and now accounts for “closer to 4 million students.”

Too good to be true? I double-checked. The U.S. Census Bureau used the same language as Attkisson and DeAngelis: “the global COVID-19 pandemic has sparked new interest in homeschooling and the appeal of alternative school arrangements has suddenly exploded.”

At the end of the 2019-2020 school year, “about 5.4% of U.S. households with school-aged children reported homeschooling,” according to their Household Pulse Survey. “By fall, 11.1% of households with school-age children reported homeschooling.”

The increase was five-fold for “respondents identified as Black or African American,” with 16.1% homeschooling.

“Still more students have left for religious schools,” reminds DeAngelis, “or other private schools.”

Attkisson also pointed to a jump in support for school choice.

Parents of the world unite. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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