Tag: optimism

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies

The Battle Ahead

Tonight — or hopefully sometime before Christmas — we will know who the next president of these United States shall be. 

I’m also anxious to find out who wins control of the U.S. Senate and House — and most excited to see the outcome of 11 statewide ballot measures that I’ve been engaged in — across ten states, including eight states with Citizen Only Voting Amendments on the ballot, most critically North Carolina and Wisconsin. 

But my elation in expectation on this fine day is greatly tempered by the sobering reality that awaits on Wednesday. No matter who wins … something approaching half the country will be deeply distraught. 

I’m tired of hearing that America is “over” — that this experiment in freedom and democracy has run its course and is destined to soon fail. But on Wednesday I’ll no doubt hear that chorus again from the losing side.

No one gets a prize for predicting America’s demise — only for preventing it. 

What worries me most, however, are the challenges Wednesday’s winner will face from a world at war in Europe and the Middle East, with conflict rapidly approaching in Asia. 

“World War III,” as columnist George Will wrote weeks ago, “has begun.”*

Yet, the election has been largely devoid of serious foreign policy discussion. “The U.S. presidential campaign is what reckless disregard looks like,” quipped Will. “Neither nominee has given any evidence of awareness of, let alone serious thinking about, the growing global conflagration.”

Whoever wins today (or whenever): Buckle your seatbelts. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

* Mr. Will believes history will look back to mark the beginning of the Third World War with “Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea,” during the Obama administration. 

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Categories
general freedom government transparency ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies too much government

A Tale of Two Sectors

best of times, worst of times, 2017, 2018, optimism, pessimism

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” begins Charles Dickens’ popular 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities. The British master was not prophesying our times. He was describing the period of the French Revolution.

But the judgment feels awfully familiar.

Over at the Foundation for Economic Education, Antony Davis and James R. Harrigan talk up the case for “the best of times,” for optimism: “Global illiteracy rates are below 14 percent. Global rates of extreme poverty are below 10 percent. Despite there being more people currently alive on the planet than ever before, there are also more calories per capita than ever before.”

Davis and Harrigan provide actual reasons for thankfulness as we meet the New Year. 

Is there a case for pessimism, nevertheless? Yes. And Davis and Harrigan discuss at length a topic covered here earlier this month: the Ballou High School educational improvement scandal.

Optimism and pessimism, rationally speaking, fall into two camps: private sector progress and government-​sector regress. 

So, following Dickens’ checklist, ours is an age of

  • wisdom and foolishness —  check (both)
  • belief and incredulity — check (pick your subject)
  • Light and Darkness — check (just move your eyes from higher ed’s hard science departments to the humanities)

and on and on.* 

But the most unsettling thing about the “best of times” is that sometimes the great feeling of ebullience can end suddenly: one feels great in free fall — unburdened! free! — right before one hits the pavement.

Splat.

Maybe the best thing we can do this coming New Year is watch our governments as if we were hawks. To avoid the splat.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Dickens’ long and memorable first paragraph: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness …”

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Categories
Common Sense general freedom

Thanks for Freedom

For two days my message has been about thankfulness. I’m going for the trifecta.

This may disappoint Sheldon, a commenter at ThisisCommonsense​.com, who pooh-​poohed my earlier expression of gratitude. “It sounds as though one of the guests invited to your Thanksgiving table will be your very distant relative Pollyanna,” he teased.

Countering my view that “the abundance on our Thanksgiving tables” comes from “the freedom to work and produce and trade with each other,” he argued that this abundance “decreases yearly as government-​produced inflation eats away at our purchasing power. Every single aspect of our ‘freedom to work and produce and trade’ and even to eat, drink, travel and enjoy life is surveilled, controlled, obstructed and regulated by ‘our’ government.”

Though I certainly didn’t notice any diminution of the “abundance” at yesterday’s feast, Sheldon nonetheless has a point. Heck, it sounds like he’s been reading these commentaries word-for-word!

There is, indeed, a lot that’s wrong in this world — and the power and arrogance of government is right there in the middle of most of it.

But in necessarily focusing on the problem, on our eroding freedom and lack of control over our lives, let’s not lose hope. Instead, let’s be thankful for what we do have: the ability to do something about it.

There are solutions. Even with all the political corruption and rules rigged to favor the insiders, we still have meaningful freedom to stand up, to speak out, to help create and organize and agitate for desperately needed change.

I’m thankful for that much freedom. Let’s use it to make more.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.