Tag: responsibility

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“Our Agenda Was Common Sense”

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The Republican Party doesn’t need to bury the corpse. Its victim has been assimilated, like the Borg did with alien peoples in the Star Trek universe, or maybe it was just soaked up as if the GOP were a giant fungus amongus.

So, what’s dead? The Tea Party, which was killed by partisanship, says Matt Kibbe, President and Chief Community Organizer at Free the People. He admits that the movement’s obituary has been written many times, but, he argues, “this time is different. Republicans, now controlling both the legislative and executive branches, jammed through a ‘CRomnibus’ spending bill that strips any last vestiges of spending restraint from the budget process.”

Kibbe identifies the Tea Party’s central theme simply: “Our agenda was common sense: We demanded that Washington politicians stop spending our money like it was theirs, and keep out of our health care. But in Washington, common sense is often seen as radical.”

This, he insists, was not a partisan movement.

But only Republicans played to it. Kibbe calls Sarah Palin a “political huckster” who “helped hijack our purpose,” and fingers Mitt Romney as the man who scuttled Tea Party “political momentum” in 2012. “And then Donald Trump split the Tea Party right down the middle, and that was the end.”

Nail in the coffin? The recent budget deal.

Kibbe signs the autopsy, but assures us: “American principles of individual freedom, fiscal responsibility, and constitutionally limited government, are all still very much alive.”

I sure hope so. But it takes more than a handful of Freedom Caucus members on Capitol Hill to realize it in practice.

Like a new citizen movement.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability education and schooling folly general freedom moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Eternally Postponing Responsibility

responsibility, Denmark, education, welfare, socialism, Bernie Sanders, freedom

There is a common sense element to economics. We ignore it at our peril. So let’s take a cue from the Democratic Party’s current and de facto leader, Bernie Sanders.

Turn to Denmark for a model.

The Nordic state has what Bernie wants: higher education “free for all.” But there are . . . costs involved.

It turns out that “some Danes, especially older citizens already in the labor force,” explains Business Insider, “say the extra freedom can eliminate a crucial sense of urgency for 20-somethings to become adults. The country now deals with ‘eternity students’ — people who stick around at college for six years or more [not to mention advanced degree work] without any plans of graduating, solely because they don’t have any financial incentive to leave.”

Hardly a shock. Young Danes would not be the first to see in college life what satirist Tom Lehrer identified as the prolongation of “adolescence beyond all previous limits.”

Give young people an incentive to suck up resources year after year, and some will certainly take you up on that.

It’s hard to counter, too. The Danish “eternity student” problem remains even after taking policy steps to discourage it.

Business Insider ends its report by quoting an expert who insists that “motivation to succeed in your studies is in no way linked to whether you’re paying for your tuition or not.”

Yup, that’s what proponents of “free” education keep telling us. But there is more at play here.

Responsibility is on the line. Adulthood is about responsibility. Free tuition is about postponing responsibility.

Do we really want to go further in that direction?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility

Asleep at the Constitution

Niger, war, Congress, Sen. Lindsey Graham, responsibility,

Are we at war in Niger, too? Do our “representatives” in Congress know?

The answer to the first question is, obviously, yes. The answer to the second is, admittedly, no. 

Yesterday, Meet the Press host Chuck Todd asked hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) what the four U.S. soldiers ambushed and killed weeks ago were doing in Niger. “I can say this to the families,” Sen. Graham offered, “they were there to defend America,” before conceding that, “[W]e don’t know exactly where we’re at in the world militarily and what we’re doing.”

Oh.

Graham acknowledged he had been unaware U.S. military forces were even in the African country. And still hasn’t “been briefed.” Later in the program, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also confessed his profound ignorance . . . before reading in the newspaper about the deaths of four soldiers there.

Still, Sen. Graham expressed great hope that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) could “create a new system” to ensure that “if somebody gets killed there, that we won’t find out about it in the paper.”

Huh?

Doesn’t Congress’s job description include something about debating and deciding on policies, providing funding, and checking executive power?

Not, surely, cuddling in ignorance and burping up pablum.

Cradled in their long-term careers, our congressional delegates neither debate, deliberate, nor oversee much of anything.

In any case, we can be sure that Congress’s role in our constitutional system is not to scoop reporters to war news.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment folly ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility

Excepting Responsibility

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Responsibility: demand it of others, expect it demanded of you.

So you might think that those who try to redress old grievances with compensatory (“reverse”) discrimination would be a bit more careful.

Yesterday I wrote about the bizarre Google Memo case, wherein an employee was fired for (basically) warning of a groupthink ideological monoculture at Google . . . thus proving him right.*

Last weekend I wrote about racial quotas in college entrance.

In both cases, there’s this idea that moderns in general and white males in particular must “accept responsibility” for the past.

And the evidence is undeniable: Our pale-faced ancestors — or more likely a very small percentage of other white people’s ancestors — held human beings in bondage. So, too, did almost all peoples around the world; slavery’s old. Here in these United States, after our bloodiest war, our forebears ended that ancient crime. Then there was another century of Jim Crow discrimination, with systemic violence committed against blacks in many areas of the country, often with government acquiescence or involvement.

Harvard and other educational institutions are trying to right those wrongs.

But there’s a problem: the principle behind their affirmative action schemes is lunatic: Each person of one race bears responsibility for the crimes committed by any person of that same race.

Far better is individual responsibility. Individuals have every right to compensation for any harm another has caused them, certainly. But folks have no right to create new harms against innocent people who happen merely to be of the same race or gender as those who have caused them past harm.

Justice is supposed to be blind, not crazy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The author, it is worth noting, addressed this monoculture in his title, “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber.” I wonder if being proven right by one’s enemies compensates for job loss.

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Accountability folly local leaders moral hazard porkbarrel politics responsibility term limits too much government

Most Messed Up

Illinois, budget crisis, garbage, term limits, spending, responsibility, Junk Bond, Moody's

“Politicians are notorious for making promises they can’t keep,” Matt Egan reports at CNN Money. “But they really outdid themselves in Illinois — and now the state is paying for it.”

Egan dubs the state “America’s most messed-up.”*

No wonder the state has the worst outbound migration in the nation — or, as Egan puts it: “people are leaving in droves.”

On June 1, Moody’s and S&P Global Ratings downgraded the state’s credit rating to one notch above so-called “junk bond” status. “Illinois has suffered 21 downgrades from the three major ratings agencies since 2009,” the Illinois Policy Institute informs, and now has the lowest credit rating of any state, making it more expensive to borrow. Even with passage of a budget — finally, after three years of the legislature failing to fulfill its constitutional duty — the threat of a further downgrade still looms.

“After decades of historic mismanagement, Illinois is now grappling with $15 billion of unpaid bills and an unthinkable quarter-trillion dollars owed to public employees when they retire,” the article explains.

Decades of mismanagement? Perhaps the problem was inexperienced legislators, lacking the necessary expertise to do their crucial jobs, because of term limits. Except that Illinois doesn’t have term limits.

In fact, Illinois sports the nation’s longest-serving Speaker of the House in modern times. Mike Madigan has been speaker for 32 of the last 34 years, since 1983. Call him “Mr. Experience.” Madigan is recognized as the most powerful man in state government.

All that leadership experience . . . leading citizens to experience much pain and suffering.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* That’s in the headline. In the article, Egan explains the mess as “the inevitable result of spending more on pensions and services than the state could afford — then covering it up with reckless budget tricks.”

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Accountability moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility U.S. Constitution

The Chicken-Ostrich Congress

Congress, checks and balances, war, cowardice, responsibility, Afghanistan, president, presidential powers

Those who work for the president must tell the POTUS hard truths — on matters of war, most of all. Citizens must also be told hard truths. After all, we are, at least theoretically, the ultimate decision-makers . . . the president works for us.

That was my point yesterday.

But when it comes to life-and-death decisions about war and peace, there is also a congressional check on executive power.

Well, theoretically.

The big problem isn’t chicken-hawks in Congress, but chicken-ostriches. Bird-brained members of Congress implant their heads deep into the sand when it comes to foreign policy.

Where is the congressional debate over what to do in Afghanistan, our nation’s longest war? Rather than helping shape policy, Congress gladly lets the commander-in-chief control every aspect of foreign and military policy.

This gives the president unitary war-making power, anathema to the original character of our Republic, but it also means precious members of Congress are never held accountable for the disasters. After all, they didn’t do anything.

When mistakes are made or policy fails, the legislative branch can hold hearings to carp and moan and pontificate for the TV cameras.

American citizens, on the other hand, cannot so easily dodge the consequences of unaccountable foreign policies. In addition to engaging in military action in seven countries at present, the U.S. Government has pledged to defend another 50 countries, about one-fourth of the world.

Should more conflicts erupt, Congress won’t fight them. But our sons and daughters will.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense responsibility

Fatherlessness

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Yesterday was Father’s Day; tomorrow, I’ll attend my father’s funeral.

Ample opportunity to reflect on missing Dad . . . and dads.

My father was two months shy of 85 years. He lived a long, full life with a loving wife of more than 60 years, six children he adored and who felt likewise about him, 13 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

He started his own small business and achieved his version of the American Dream: to be his own boss.

More than a decade ago, when my pop was fighting through open heart surgery, I wrote in this space that he was, in the words of one of his favorite movies, “the richest man in town.” Sadly, he’s no longer in town.

Except that he still is . . . in me. And in my kids and their kids.

As an adult, admittedly I haven’t often asked my dad for advice. Why? Because I already know exactly what he would say. I like that. And thankfully that voice remains.

Moons ago, I also acknowledged that I was privileged, but argued “My Privilege Isn’t White.” Instead, my advantages mostly came from growing up in a home with two loving parents.

We Homo sapiens learn by imitating others. Hence the term “role model.”

Nowadays we often hear about poor role models when some spoiled-brat sports celebrity or narcissistic rock star behaves badly. As a teenager, I had their posters on my wall. But my dad served as my 24/7 role model.

He still does.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment general freedom responsibility

Heroism for Everybody

self defense, gun, responsibility, terrorism, collage, photomontage, JGill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense

Liberty is achieved, when it is achieved, at a price. Vigilance.

And this isn’t just an inspiring political message. It’s practical advice for extraordinary circumstances.

What’s the best thing to do if you meet a mass murderer on a rampage, or a terrorist on his mission? It may not be to merely call 911. As one counterterrorism consultant puts it, “We are conditioned to dial 911 and wait, but, in the case of an active shooter, that does not work.”

This conflict expert, Alon Stivi, went on to explain that “[m]ost casualties occur within the first ten or fifteen minutes, and police response usually is too late.”

And speaking of 911, remember that on 9/11/2001, the most successful anti-terrorist effort was by the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93.

That was heroism. It cost them their lives, but they accomplished something in that they saved lives, too.

Some people don’t like bringing this up for fear of, well, hurting some feelings. But Ari Armstrong has an answer for this:

If we avoid serious discussions about self-defense and survival tactics in cases of intended mass murder out of fear that such discussions are somehow insensitive to victims of past attacks, all we accomplish is to ensure that more people will be murdered in possible future attacks.

There is a reason we should keep ourselves fit, and alert. Who knows when we may be called upon, by circumstance, to defend not only ourselves and our loved ones, but our way of life?

Sure, this “call” is made by the unjust. But we, the just, should answer anyway.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Memorial Day Questions

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What do we owe to those who fight and give, as President Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg, “their last full measure of devotion”?

More, surely, than appreciative applause for the troops on airplanes and at professional sporting events . . . with their high-priced, taxpayer-paid military promotions.

First, vets are entitled to contracted-for medical care, as I addressed in greater detail at Townhall.com yesterday — not a Veterans Administration that systematically denies them needed diagnoses and treatments.

Second, wiser strategic decisions going forward. Vets deserve, and we all need, more (not fewer) questions of presidential candidates, such as the hypothetical inquiry of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Iraq, and the hypothetical Libya question Sen. Rand Paul suggests should be posed to Mrs. Clinton.

Bring on the if-you-knew-then questions!

But wait, what about a non-hypothetical: Are we today at war against the Islamic State?

We really should know . . . I mean, on Memorial Day and all.

President Barack Obama claims he has the constitutional power to engage militarily against the Islamic State under Congress’s 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). A number of legal scholars vehemently disagree. Which may be why, back in February, Obama asked for a new, anti-ISIS AUMF. Congressional Republicans balked, complaining the president’s proposed AUMF isn’t strong enough.

Of course, nothing prevents congressional Republicans from passing a stronger version.

Or better yet, demand that President Obama keep American boys and girls out of harm’s way in the always-messy Middle East.

The murderous leaders of the Islamic State may wish to be at war with us, but we don’t have to humor them. Let Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Iran defend themselves and their territories from this gang of cutthroats.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Resist Criminal Attacks

Defend and Evade

Are you ever too old to stop a mugger? Not if your mobility scooter is ready to go.

This conclusion is informed by the example of 92-year-old Eileen Mason, who was with her 75-year-old friend, Margaret Seabrook, when a mugger tried to make off with the contents of a scooter basket.

The two British great-grandmothers were returning from a lunch club in Wiltshire as the thief approached and targeted the older of the two.

When he grabbed Eileen Mason’s arm and reached for the bag, she shouted “Oh no you don’t” — at her maximum volume.

“I put my scooter into accelerate and turned really fast,” she told the UK Telegraph. “The next thing I know he was on the floor. I thought ‘my gosh.’ Something in me just told me to turn so I squeezed the accelerator and turned and he went flying. He was so evil looking.”

If you like this story, don’t miss the ones about the grandma who used a handbag to stop a jewel-store robbery, or the grandma who trapped a burglar in a shed.

Margaret Seabrook says they want their experience to teach people “not [to] leave things on display in their baskets. . . .”

That’s one lesson — don’t make yourself an unnecessarily tempting target. But the other thing is be prepared . . . to defend and evade.

If somebody is gearing up to rob you, be ready to stop him. At least, if you can do so without too much risk to life, limb, or liberty.

Thanks, ladies.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Defend and Evade