Category: national politics & policies

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crime and punishment general freedom moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies privacy responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

Too Healthy to Play

marijuana, Cannabis oil, law, football, crime, criminal, therapy

Cannabis oil can prevent the seizures of at least some victims of epilepsy. But the hope this medicine provides is too often undercut by fear.

I discussed, a few days ago, the case of 15-year-old David Brill, whose life is in danger because officials forcibly removed him from the care of his parents. His mom and dad had (illegally) let him smoke pot — which stopped his seizures. Now they’re fighting to recover custody of David and save his life.

Somewhat different is the plight of an aspiring football player at Auburn University.

Early in 2017, the would-be safety in question, C.J. Harris, began taking cannabis oil to stop epileptic seizures. He has suffered no seizures in all the months since. And he’s in no legal trouble.

But Auburn University’s football team has rescinded its offer to join the team. Exactly why he won’t be allowed to play is unclear. One would guess it is because of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s ban on cannabis oil, even if prescribed. But the team’s medical personnel says they’re only concerned about his health given his history and the roughness of football.

Does Auburn apply the same standard to all players who have recovered from major physical setbacks? Or, rather, does the team typically let players return to play as soon as they’re ready and able?

Whatever is keeping him off the field, the factors that should decide the question are being shunted aside.

One, is C.J. Harris healthy enough and skilled enough to play for Auburn?

Two, is C.J. Harris willing to accept the risks involved?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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crime and punishment free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies privacy property rights responsibility U.S. Constitution

Wouldn’t Freedom Be … Easier?

cake, gay rights, Supreme Court, freedom of association, discrimination, law. nanny state

To bake or not to bake, that is the question.

Actually, the question was may a state discriminate against Christians in regulating “public accommodations”? The Supreme Court has decided, in a supermajority 7-2 ruling, that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission wrongly prosecuted a Christian baker who would not make a special wedding cake for a gay couple — while the Commission shrugged when it came to bakers who wouldn’t bake Bible verse cakes.

The ruling came down along the lines I suspected in December: Equal protection. This narrow ruling focused “on what the court described as anti-religious bias on the Colorado Civil Rights Commission when it ruled against baker Jack Phillips,” Fox News informs us.

In his majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy censured the “Commission’s hostility” to Phillips. And Kennedy recognized the root problem, the “difficult questions as to the proper reconciliation of at least two principles”:

  1. “the authority of a State and its governmental entities to protect the rights and dignity of gay persons”;
  2. “fundamental freedoms under the First Amendment, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Ah, discrimination. Has picking at this, like a scab, really increased comity? It sure would be easier were we to stick to freedom of association.

Wouldn’t that dredge up less animus?

States should not engage in invidious discrimination. Sure. Vital.

But businesses? Must they serve anyone and everyone? Even when it requires the baker or florist to create something custom — or the pianist to perform? Especially when customers can easily go to a competitor?

Besides, in Colorado, anti-discrimination laws were used by government to persecute Christians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability crime and punishment folly general freedom moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies privacy too much government

Good Pot, Bad Law

Brill, family, marijuana, pot, prohibition, seizures, epileptic, goFundMe

Should you let your son suffer, perhaps even die, if the medicine he needs — the only medicine that helps — is illegal to administer?

The question answers itself. It’s the answer that Matthew and Suzeanna Brill acted on when they let their 15-year-old son David smoke marijuana to help control his epileptic seizures. Nothing else was doing the job.

“For 71 days our son rode his bike, woke up, went to school, played with friends, played outside; and the terror for his life that gripped our hearts and souls began to lift,” says Suzeanna. “We were breaking the law. We saved our son.”

But because the Brills did what they did — and because a thoughtless therapist tattled on them — Georgia’s Family and Children Services took David away, with the help of the sheriff’s office of Twiggs County. So David has been living in a group home, forcibly separated from his parents and presumably from any effective treatment for his life-threatening seizures.

“Whatever the law is, it’s my job to enforce it,” says Sheriff Darren Mitchum in rationalizing his deplorable conduct. (Whatever the law is?) After all, “somebody’s got to stand up for the child’s welfare.” Because, as everyone knows, preventing destructive seizures could not possibly be in the best interest of the person suffering from those seizures . . . right?

Fighting to get their son back, the Brills are raising money for the legal costs through a GoFundMe campaign.

Let’s help them succeed. Fast.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability crime and punishment folly moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies Popular responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

Where the Beef Is

cheese, law suit, justice, McDonald's, hamburger, Florida, class action

In South Florida, two McDonald’s customers are suing the fast food behemoth for charging them for cheese they say they do not want.

“According to a class-action lawsuit filed in Fort Lauderdale federal court on May 8,” informs the Miami Herald, “Cynthia Kissner, of Broward County, and Leonard Werner, of Miami-Dade, say they have had to pay for cheese they don’t want on their Quarter Pounder sandwiches.”

Before you upchuck every last greasy, chemical-infused/extra-beef morsel of this story, let’s look at the facts:

The Quarter Pounder went national in 1973.

The fast-food franchise used to charge extra for the cheese.

But “at some point” the junk food purveyor stopped “separately displaying these products for purchase on menus.” These days, only the Quarter Pounder with Cheese and the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese are listed.

McDonald’s joints in Florida, at least, provide no discount for removing the cheese.

Rip-off, say these two customers. How big? A $5 million injury!

That’s what they are suing for.

It’s mad. The lawsuit, that is. You are not entitled to set the pricing and menu policies of stores you do not own.

In a celebrated analysis of loyalty in markets, an economist revealed that consumers have a continuum of options, including “voice” and “exit.”

“Voice” is what you express when you argue your case in a family or a democracy — and fast food provisioners. Decent people will, if disgruntled, choose “exit,” driving down the street to a Wendy’s.

McDonald’s could rightly charge extra for withholding the cheese.

That it doesn’t do so? Chalk it up to savvy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability crime and punishment folly free trade & free markets insider corruption media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies porkbarrel politics property rights responsibility too much government

Déjà vu All Over Again

housing, bust, financial, meltdown, Government-Backed Mortgages, jail, punishment, cause

One of the stand-bys of the post-2008 mortgage finance bust, at least from left-of-center policy mavens, has been to ask: why has no banker gone to prison? They played a game of fraud and got rich. What a protected class — Cronyism! Plutocracy! Capitalism!

The why is much easier to understand if you read up on Round Two of the aughts’ boom-bust scenario, as in Prashant Gopal’s coverage in Bloomberg, “Getting Rich on Government-Backed Mortgages.” Gopal spotlights a non-bank mortgage broker, Angelo Christian, who is making a killing selling houses to people with horrible credit, just as happened before 2008.

“Christian can do this kind of deal because he is, in effect, making the loan on behalf of the federal government through its most important affordable housing program,” Gopal writes. “It’s a sweet deal: He gets his nearly risk-free commission. [His client] puts no money down. If things go south, the government ultimately bears the risk.”

So, should he go to jail?

Not really. He’s merely doing Congress’s bidding.

Gopal notes that it is not banks that dominate this round. They are under too much scrutiny. But non-banking loan intermediaries like Mr. Christian are swarming like flies on a cow’s behind.

There’s a problem in Gopal’s account though. “No one is saying the system is close to another collapse.”

Well, plenty of people are saying that.

The Cassandras are just not being heeded.

Of course, they don’t know when the bust will happen.

They just know it will.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Photo by Images Money on Flickr.

 

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crime and punishment education and schooling general freedom national politics & policies responsibility Second Amendment rights too much government

Good Men With Guns

guns, gun control, school shootings, 2nd Amendment, good men, self defense

We hear too much about “successful” mass murderers — from news readers, journalists, and so-called experts.

And it is hard not to think about the disturbed gunmen who kill as a way to feel powerful for a few seconds as they seek revenge for whatever they hate about their lives.

Now families in Sante Fe must deal with the horror.

We don’t hear as much about the good men who interrupt such rampages.

A report about how a killer was stopped on May 24 begins with these matter-of-fact words: “A gunman who opened fire at an Oklahoma restaurant Thursday evening was confronted by two people who saw what was happening, got their guns and shot him dead, police said.”

The gunman was able to wound three people. But before he could hurt others, Carlos Nazario and Bryan Wittle, outside the building as the shooting began, quickly grabbed firearms from the trunks of their vehicles and ended the threat.

A week earlier, Mark Dallas, a police officer on duty in Dixon High School in Dixon, Illinois, had exchanged gunfire with a recently expelled student, stopping him before anyone else could be shot. The attack took place in a gym where many students were gathered for a graduation rehearsal.

Mark Dallas happened to be an officer of the law. But you don’t need to be a policeman to use a gun justly and well in a bad situation. What you need is training and presence of mind — the willingness and ability to protect yourself and others.

And you need the gun.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Photo by Ken on Flickr