Category: moral hazard

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crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies Second Amendment rights too much government U.S. Constitution

The Good vs. Freedom?

Second Amendment, gun control, freedom, Washington Post, Elizabeth Bruenig, pope, Middle Ages

Politicians regularly argue for new “gun control” laws, even while ignoring the execution and enforcement of laws already on the books.

Exhibit A, as I wrote at Townhall.com yesterday, is the failure of the military to provide the FBI with the information that would have blocked the Sutherland Springs church shooter from getting his guns.

Meanwhile, in the Washington Post’s Outlook section, Elizabeth Bruenig takes a more . . . philosophical perspective. She contends that “Western thought moved from seeing freedom as a means to an end — what philosophers call ‘the good’ — to seeing freedom as an end in itself. Thanks to our liberal heritage, we regard freedom as an intrinsic good, perhaps the highest one of all. The more of it we can get, the better off we are. Right?”

Right!

But Bruenig’s answer isn’t in the affirmative.

Instead, she points to Vatican elections during the Middle Ages in which “canon law enshrined the right of eligible individuals to cast their votes. But their choices . . . could simply be overturned [by church officials]. Freedom mattered, in other words, but was always subordinate to the highest good, which could sometimes place limits on liberty.”

Ah, the Post advises us to embrace the Middle Ages . . . just so our freedom doesn’t get out-of-hand.

Bruenig also thinks that “we largely lack the framework to ask what gun ownership is for. . . .”

Huh? The Second Amendment answers that gun ownership is “necessary to the security of a free state.”

In terms of both scholarship and insight, the Founders’ constitutionalism far outshines the Post’s shiny new neo-medievalism.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom ideological culture media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies too much government

To Anachronism in Heaven

Star Spangled Banner, anthem, PC, slavery, political correctness, war, violence

Symbols sure seem important in politics and government. I love the Statue of Liberty. Others may cherish the Lincoln Memorial and Mount Rushmore more. I’ve even heard people wax poetic on the images we find on our coinage.

But what about “The Star-Spangled Banner”? The lyrics are not general at all, but instead an exultation about a moment of victory in a very bad war that our union almost lost way back in 1814.

The melody leaps all over the place, making it difficult to sing.

But its words are what stick in some peoples’ craws.

No, not the florid, old-fashioned* phrasings. What bothers some people is all the violence . . . and a mention of the word “slave.”

Now, if the song were about slavery, or even mentioned the enslaved ancestors of current Americans, I’d side with the California branch of the NAACP, which wants to junk the old warhorse.

But the offending line does not seem to be what these activists say it is, one of “the most racist, pro-slavery, anti-black songs in the American lexicon.” The words refer, instead, to British sailors and soldiers:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave. . . .

The phrase “hirelings and slaves” means “mercenaries and conscripts.” Wednesday, on Fox, Tucker Carlson grilled a cheerful advocate of the NAACP position, whose main point was “unity.” He doesn’t think the anthem promotes “unity.”

But what would? Doesn’t taking on the anthem constitute just another divisive salvo in the culture wars?

We’ve bigger problems.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The tune is by John Stafford Smith, who wrote it for the Anacreontic Society. Because the original version is usually called “To Anacreon in Heaven,” and because the phrasings of Francis Scott Key’s originally titled “In Defense of Fort McHenry” are “old-fashioned” and arguably “anachronistic,” we have the title of this Common Sense outing.

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Accountability crime and punishment general freedom moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies Second Amendment rights too much government U.S. Constitution

Government Control

gun control, shooting, church, government, violence, 2nd Amendment, rights

“When do we say enough is enough?” asked California Senator Kamala Harris after Devon Patrick Kelley murdered 26 churchgoing Texans in cold blood, last Sunday.

“The terrifying fact is that no one is safe so long as Congress chooses to do absolutely nothing in the face of this epidemic,” argued Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy.

President Trump, on the other hand, not only pointed out that criminals will violate gun laws to acquire weapons, he speculated that had Stephen Willeford, the former National Rifle Association instructor, not come upon the scene, armed, “instead of having 26 dead, you would have had hundreds more dead.”

After previous mass shootings, Democrats pushed legislation that, even if it had been the law, would not have prevented that particular killer from obtaining the weapons. This time it’s different, since the killer should not, by current law, have been allowed to purchase the firearms he used. Kelley’s conviction for domestic violence, while serving in the Air Force, disqualified him.*

But the Air Force did not do its job, failing to report his record to the FBI. So the background check found . . . nothing.

“The Pentagon has known for at least two decades about failures to give military criminal history information to the FBI,” the Associated Press informed, “including the type of information the Air Force didn’t report about the Texas church gunman.  . . .”

The Obama administration, through its command of the military, failed to execute the law designed to keep guns out of dangerous hands. And it sounds like this failure dates back to Bush and Clinton days.

Where does the buck stop?

We don’t need gun control; we need government control.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Note also that the murderer, as Ben Shapiro recounted at National Review: “escaped from a mental institution in 2012, threatened his superior officers and attempted to smuggle weapons onto a military base to carry out those threats, cracked the skull of his infant stepson, beat his wife, abused a dog.”

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Categories
Accountability government transparency insider corruption local leaders moral hazard porkbarrel politics responsibility too much government

More-Equal-Ness

George Orwell, Kaya Henderson, Washington D.C., equal, Animal Farm, favors, corruption, crony, cronyism, politicians,

“All animals are equal,” wrote George Orwell, “but some animals are more equal than others.”

That was the regime’s final slogan in Orwell’s allegorical novella, Animal Farm . . . and it currently serves as the operating principle for local government.

Well, at least in Washington, D.C., our country’s pig trough.

Washington Post reported that the District of Columbia’s Board of Ethics and Government Accountability spelled out the details of its official reprimand of Kaya Henderson, the former chancellor of D.C. Public Schools.

Henderson, the article explained, “violated the city’s Code of Conduct by granting permission for some people — including a White House official, an employee of the mayor’s office, a district principal and a former classmate — to choose the school they wanted their children to attend even though other D.C. families had to go through a competitive lottery system.”

Using one’s position of trust to hijack a public benefit and gift it to one’s cronies at the expense of everyone else is clearly corrupt. Henderson deserves more serious repercussions than a belated reprimand, especially since she has already moved on professionally. She now works as “a distinguished scholar in residence at Georgetown University,” researching “racial justice.”

Ms. Henderson offered weighty reasons for her cronyism. Regarding her special treatment for City Administrator Rashad Young, she offered that D.C. officials “do not necessarily get paid as much as we should.”

Young’s annual salary? $295,000 a year.

Did you also notice she said “we”? As chancellor, Henderson was paid a mere $284,000 a year.

Being “more equal” is nice. It’s especially nice to be friendly with those “more equal” folks, who can bestow a little more-equal-ness on you.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights responsibility too much government

The Owners of Twitter Have Rights

Twitter, freedom, social media, bluebird, government, internet, speech

Roger Stone is suing Twitter for kicking him out.

Without saying exactly why they booted him, Twitter implies that the reason is abusive language. For his part, Stone accuses the social media giant of targeting right-wing tweeters while letting left-wing tweeters off the hook for the same or worse alleged wrongdoing.

I’ll stipulate that Stone is justified in accusing Twitter of rank, ideologically motivated hypocrisy in applying its micro-blog policies. But he’s wrong to sue.

As I have argued before — indeed, just yesterday — government should not regulate Internet forums and should not compel Twitter or other firms to provide a soapbox for anybody else. The only relevant legal issue here is whether Twitter has violated a contract. But Twitter does not agree to let anyone use its services unconditionally. And I don’t think that Stone is alleging any violation of contract.

Our right to freedom of speech does not include the right to force others to give us access to their property in order to exercise that freedom. Nor do the rights of any individuals to use and dispose of their own property disappear if they happen to create a very big and successful enterprise. There are many ways to try to make Twitter pay for bad policies without using force against the company, including boycott and direct competition.

I agree with the guy who said that one’s right to freedom is not contingent upon a guarantee “that one will always do the right thing as others see it.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo by Nigel on Flickr

 

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Accountability First Amendment rights folly media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies too much government U.S. Constitution

Our Royals Are Not Amused

Dianne Feinstein, First Amendment, free speech, censorship

“You created these platforms,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) informed the top legal minds at Facebook, Twitter, and Google, “and now they’re being misused.”

“And you have to be the ones who do something about it — or we will.”

Take that as a threat.

But also take it as the grand moment when the Establishment showed its hand.

Consider: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (a Google product) are “media platforms.” So are books, libraries, newspapers and newsstands. Imagine being a king right after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. Very quickly, the world changed.

People thought differently. And they began demanding change from government. The sovereigns had to make room for subjects-turned-citizens.

Royalty and aristocracy did try to regulate the new platforms of information and opinion. Censorship was all-too-common. The rulers killed upstarts for writing the wrong things, saying the wrong things.

So, which side would you be on, Mrs. Feinstein?

That is Scott Shackford’s basic take on this. I’m with him.

I just wish to expand: in my lifetime the media platforms of newspapers and television were regulated. Heavily. Mergers and business purchases were subject to government permission; the electromagnetic spectrum was licensed rather than treated as private property, and the actual content of radio and TV shows were regulated by the FCC.

And the Feinsteins of Washington got awfully secure in their positions. Had the regulation of American media done its trick?

Enter new media, uncorking the bottle of opinion.

No wonder the Establishment is scared.

We shouldn’t let them regulate political content on the Internet. Demand, instead, the opposite: a complete repeal of the regulation of business management — and non-criminal content regulation — of all media platforms

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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