Think Freely Media presents Common Sense with Paul Jacob
Once upon a time, people who worried about communists infiltrating the government were often dismissed as paranoid. “Sure, commies under every bed! Right!” Communists in the State Department or wherever generally weren’t caught on tape boasting that they were Soviet agents and part of the Resist Truman or Resist Eisenhower
The cost of the War on Drugs is not to be reckoned just in dollars. Or in that more serious accounting index: lost lives. The hit to our civil liberties has been enormous, too, and instrumental in setting up the modern Surveillance State. But beyond these, there is a stranger
There is something peculiarly anti-life as well as anti-liberty about today’s attitudes towards children — as you can read at Townhall.com. But for more background, please consider: Trickle-Down Tyranny — Paul Jacob, Townhall (March 8, 2015) Ecstatic with Independence — Paul Jacob, Common Sense (April 2, 2018) Who Benefits from Our
Is it okay to steal if you can get away with it? A full answer would require a treatise. But most of us common-sensibly understand that evil does not magically become good when perpetrators are not stopped or punished. Thrasymachus was wrong to contend, in Plato’s Republic, that justice is
In February 1979, Professor George Rathjens called the editors of The Progressive, urging them not to publish a story in the works, which included a journalistic best guess as to the design of a hydrogen bomb. The Progressive refused to squelch the story, and the professor of poli-sci (not nuclear
The political case for the War on Drugs has always been intuitive. “Drugs are bad” has trumped practical concerns. But the actual, responsible case for the political crusade has depended upon some concept of “social cost.” Now that marijuana is being legalized state by state, the case against the greater War
When life hands you lemons. . . . Once upon a time, putting up a summertime lemonade stand was the American way for kids to learn about hard work, good will, and entrepreneurship. Almost every kid had one, making some spendable profit selling the nectar.* Some of the youngsters grew
Who spreads “fake news”? Gossips, politicians, publicity agents, Twitter eggs, partisan bloggers, lying news journalists? Or . . . the medium of communication they use? Do envelopes, stationery, telephones, email, and messaging apps have moral agency? And who commits the crimes that news (true or false) is used to rationalize?
FBI agent Peter Strzok is offended. Deeply. He takes pains to clarify: he sent emails during the last presidential campaign expressing a willingness and readiness and commitment to preventing a Trump Presidency because he, Agent Strzok, is patriotic. Deeply. During yesterday’s contentious congressional interrogation, fielding questions regarding just how anti-Trump
“Strip away the absurdity,” writes Scott Shackford at Reason, “and it’s essentially a very technical ruling.” Shackford is explaining a bizarre recent judgment of the California Supreme Court. Politicians in Sacramento had, years ago, passed a gun control measure requiring gun manufacturers to “implement microstamping technology that would imprint identifying
I was in Arkansas on Saturday when the downtown streets of Portland, Oregon, “exploded into its worst protest violence of the Trump era,” as The Guardian explains. “More than 150 supporters of the far-right Patriot Prayer group fought pitched street battles with scores of anti-fascist protesters. In total, nine people
If I deliberately help somebody to do evil things — and nobody is holding a gun to my head — I am thereby doing evil myself. A person should not let himself be in that position. Not even if he’s “just doing my job” and looking for a non-evil job