If he attends the opening ceremony of the Olympic games in Beijing, President Bush will miss an opportunity . . . an opportunity to protest the Chinese government’s crackdown and jailing of dissidents in Tibet and elsewhere.

On the eve of Olympic festivities, China jailed oft-detained human rights activist Hu Jia for “inciting subversion of state power.”

A spokesman for the International Olympics Committee says Hu’s fate is a “matter of Chinese law,” that there should be a “big, fat, red line” between sports and politics. But by keeping mum the IOC is indeed making a statement. Just as they did when they picked China as the Olympic venue. They’re giving the Chinese government a green light.

At the same time, though, IOC vice president Kevin Gosper urges China to lift any censorship of the Internet during the games. It’s fine before and after the games, I guess. Gosper also objects to a law under which the Chinese can detain anyone, including athletes and ticket-holders, for up to two days without informing anybody.

That fat red line stretches thin.

Democrats like Hillary Clinton urge President Bush to skip the opening Olympic ceremony. Is she sincere or an opportunist? Doesn’t matter. In this case, politics should indeed be set aside — American domestic politics, that is.

Mr. Bush, do the right thing. Don’t attend.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Have you ever read the Asbury Park Press? I’s a New Jersey paper.

A recent Press editorial advocates statewide initiative and referendum, currently enjoyed by only 24 states . . . none of which is New Jersey. The editorial notes that I&R has been often introduced in the state legislature only to die on the vine.

The paper says citizen initiative would “give citizens disenfranchised by political bosses, gerrymandered voting districts, uncompetitive elections and unresponsive public officials a direct say in state policy.” And that voters must demand this right if they wish to escape politics-as-usual in New Jersey.

The Asbury Park Press recently also carried a review of a book called The Soprano State, by Bob Ingle and Sandy McClure. The concluding chapter is entitled “The Soviet Socialist Republic of New Jersey.” Ouch!

According to the reviewer, the authors report in vivid and inescapably depressing detail how “œself-serving pols and their greedy cronies raid state and local treasuries and gang-rape the New Jersey taxpayer.” No, tell us what you really think!

They count 1,969 separate government entities in New Jersey with the power to levy taxes. Plenty of opportunity for overloaded payrolls, inflated contracts, no-show jobs for cronies, spiraling debt, and on and on.

How to trim leviathan? Aggressively pursue initiative and referendum.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Can you get arrested for celebrating Jefferson’s birthday?

I’ve just received an alert from Jason Talley, the former publisher of Bureaucrash.com. Jason remains active trying to get people to think about freedom. He’s made a lot of noise . . . by being silent.

His most recent effort seemed innocuous enough: A ten-minute “silent dance,” abetted by iPods, at the Jefferson Memorial on April 13. That’s Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. The 20 or so participants celebrated in a perhaps startling way. The group performed their dance late in the day, midnight actually, so as not to interfere with the experience of other visitors.

Well, after a few minutes, security at the memorial leapt into action to expel the dancers. One was even arrested. Her sin? Asking “Why?” In a local NBC news report Jason points out that the dancers were silent, which video confirms. So there isn’t much weight to claims that they were disturbing the peace. School kids visiting the monument are rowdier. Jason says he hopes police don’t start arresting school kids.

Videos of the incident at YouTube have already been viewed by tens of thousands. A “Free the Jefferson 1″ blog and Facebook and Flicker and Twitter accounts are helping spread the word. When the charges are dropped, it’ll all stop.

Tom Jefferson once said, “Dancing is a healthy and elegant exercise.” And he didn’t even own an iPod.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Do citizen initiative rights give voters or give special interests “too much” power to pass bad laws?

Sure, bad initiatives sometimes pass. But as Eric Dixon points out at the Show-Me Institute blog, our intermittently esteemed representatives do not religiously avoid passing bad bills. Lawmakers enact lousy laws galore.

Dixon argues that the track record of citizen initiative is actually pretty good. “For every misguided minimum wage increase and tax hike that voters pass,” he writes, “there are dozens of initiatives that have cut taxes, slashed spending, passed term limits . . .” He also says that ballot initiatives make elected officials much more accountable than would otherwise be the case.

Exactly, Mr. Dixon.

There even seems to be a kind of multiplier effect. More good has come from California’s Proposition 13 than bad has come from all the bad initiatives passed in all the states over the past century. After all, it sparked a tax revolt nationwide.

We enjoy disproportionate benefits from initiative rights because the good things that come from them are nearly impossible to get from legislatures. Meanwhile, the bad things typically expand the power of politicians - so, politicians are inclined to enact them anyway.

Besides, it’s easier for special interests to persuade or bribe a handful of politicians than influence a majority of voters. So, to block and reverse the bad stuff, the citizen initiative sure comes in handy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

I am all for transparency in government. That’s why I may have expressed some skepticism, in the past, over how the Federal Reserve operates.

Alan Greenspan, former and most famous Fed chairman, was especially . . . opaque. He spoke as if he were trying not to communicate.

He could be clear, though. He said that, if he had his druthers, he would dissolve the Fed and go back to the gold standard.

But his prognostications and explanations of economic movement and Fed policy were more like something out of the Journal of German Metaphysics rather than designed to be understood by citizens and their representatives.

Now, maybe we should be amused by how Greenspan played his tough job, as Obfuscator in Chief. There’s this idea of expectations in economics, which says that if the people know what’s going to happen with money, they’ll discount the policy, and render much of its intentions without effect.

Greenspan obfuscated for a reason.

Now we learn that his PhD thesis is unavailable, kept in a locked vault. In a new book, Deception and Abuse at the Fed, author Robert Auerbach argues that this secret thesis is “symbolic of a career marked by prevarication, cover-ups and a general aversion to making the Fed more publicly accountable.” That’s how an article in Barron’s explained it, anyway. I think I’m siding with Auerbach.

But also with Greenspan. You know, the Greenspan who preferred the “transparency” of the gold standard. Or some kind of standard.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.