People disagree. When it comes to government policy, people not only disagree, but on occasion even get hot under the collar. Why? Governments have so much power and tend to waste so much money. Our money. Yours.

That’s why, in public meetings, we should expect citizens to fly off the handle every now and then.

And that’s why those who run public meetings must retain a measure not merely of civility, but lenience. When some citizens disagree, that disagreement will sometimes be . . . disagreeable. But understandable.

I’m preaching the obvious here, but to town officials in Elmhurst, Illinois, I’m preaching a message they don’t want to hear. When citizen Darlene Heslop rolled her eyes and sighed out loud as they moved to hire a state lobbyist, the officials running the meeting objected. They threw her out, saying she was disorderly.

And then they told the city attorney to look into the guidelines for public meetings — you know, everything from state statutes to Robert’s Rules (I kid you not) — to find a definition of “disorderly conduct” that would allow them to keep Heslop out of their hair. Her eyes! Her sighs!

Heslop is all for settling on a definition. Perhaps she knows state law, which defines disorderly conduct as acts of “such unreasonable manner as to alarm or disturb another, or to provoke a breach of the peace.” Her eye-rolling and sighing in no way qualifies — and should be tolerated . . . maybe even as free speech.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Do not look at the liability behind that curtain! Or: Do not mention that we don’t know what the liabilities are.

Some things are too painful to report.

Apparently.

The folks who audit the Social Security Administration are late on a set of reports. The reports in question account for the financial and actuarial (un)soundness of Social Security, specifically on the (un)funded liabilities of the pension system and Medicare.

Unlike corporations, which are required to report to the IRS on March 15 each year, and individuals, who must report on April 15, there’s no set date for the trustees of our federal government’s biggest program to make its report. But in recent years the reports have been published early enough to allow summary by May. The last report summary we have is for 2009.

Why so late?

Could it be that things have gotten so bad that it’s difficult to figure out — and embarrassing to sign one’s name to — the actual financial situation? After all, this year Social Security ran out of money to write checks for its promised (and quite immediate) pay-outs.

Sheila Weinberg, CEO of the Institute for Truth in Accounting, writes that she heard the reports were late because “trustees wanted to include the effect the health care bill had on these liabilities.” Ms. Weinberg not unreasonably challenges this rationale. Wouldn’t Social Security’s liabilities have been worth knowing before Congress committed to more entitlement spending?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Let a thousand floral arrangements bloom.

Louisiana has just abolished the “demonstration” section of the state’s licensing exam for florists. The new law came in response to a lawsuit by florists working with the Institute for Justice. IJ argued that the four-hour demonstration requirement was “arbitrary, subjective and antiquated,” and allowed state-licensed florists to determine the fate of their future competitors.

The outcome represents yet another victory for the “merry band of libertarian litigators” who regularly do battle “in the courts of law and in the court of public opinion on behalf of individuals whose most basic rights are denied by the government. . . .”

Founded in 1991, the Institute for Justice has successfully fought to lift caps on the number of licensed taxis in Minneapolis; eliminate laws around the country that prevent competition in every kind of occupation, from animal husbandry and interior design to hair braiding and pest control; restore freedom of speech undermined by vague and arbitrary campaign finance regulation in Florida and enemies of property rights in Tennessee; protect businessmen and home owners from eminent domain abuse in Arizona and Ohio.

IJ’s many successful efforts to defend the rights of individuals are having a major impact. Looking back over the many installments of Common Sense, I find that I mention this group’s work again and again.

With good reason. They keep fighting the good fight, and winning.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

BP finally managed to place a cap on its leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Bristol Palin — that other “BP” in the news — is engaged to be married.

And the new iPhone’s antenna problems can be fixed by holding it in a special, dainty way — or by adding on a plastic holder.

So, with popular news stories wrapping up, can we now get back to fixing the political mess we’re in?

With the Republicans now said to be divided on whether to actually produce a game plan to fix up the fix we’re in, you can see how all the old perversities of politics still remain in full play at the federal level.

But look closer to home. There’s a lot to fix there.

Throughout the country, politicians have made all sorts of bad deals with public employee unions regarding pay and pensions. They love to spend our money buying their votes. In cities like San Diego, the invested pension funds’ values have plummeted, making renegotiations necessary, and necessarily painful. Your town may be next.

Simple solution? We need constitutional amendments preventing politicians from promising pension pay-outs of any amount. The only kind of pension governments should be allowed to offer is the placement of a negotiated amount of funds in a retirement account to be managed by the employee or the employee’s assigns.

Taxpayers must not be held in hock to the unfulfillable promises of a previous set of politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Where to begin? How about the very first sentence of the New York Times article hailing passage of the Dodd-Frank financial bill? According to the illustrious fishwrap, “sweeping expansion of federal financial regulation” reflects “a renewed mistrust of financial markets after decades in which Washington stood back from Wall Street with wide-eyed admiration.”

We’ve seen some liberalization of financial dealings over the years. It was once illegal to own gold. Travelers can be glad of the rise of interstate banking after governments began to permit it in the 1980s.

But have politicians really offered nothing but “wide-eyed admiration” for “Wall Street” for “decades”? Has the federal government really been hands-off till now?

Take Senators Dodd and Frank. They were out front pushing home ownership on people who could not afford homes, with multiple programs and legislative packages. This bubble-making process was further inflated (quite literally) by the Federal Reserve’s cheap credit policies. Many lenders, encouraged by government-provided (but perverse) incentives, jumped onto the Irresponsibility Bandwagon in the run-up to collapse.

So how can the “solution” be additional bailout authority . . . which will further encourage bankers and others to invest unwisely?

And the new regulations — these, too, are supposed to help? We don’t even know what they are yet, because bureaucrats have yet to write them, as specified (vaguely) by Congress. In addition to their burden, they will allow pols to shake down Wall Street for years to come.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.