Censorship

This piece is the offspring of CBS cancelling Steven Colbert and ABC suspending Jimmy Kimmel.

What is free speech, anyhow?  The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads in part: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”  To make a point of it, the Constitution only forbids Congress (or the federal government) (the 14th Amendment added state governments to who was forbidden) from abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.  But freedom of speech only protects a speaker from government prosecution, it does NOT protect him from being fired by a private corporation, for any – or no – reason at all.

Ben Franklin speaks

On September 17, 1787, just before the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were asked to sign the document, Ben Franklin asked his fellow delegate from Pennsylvania, James Wilson, to read his considered closing remarks.

Antisemitism in America: A Solution

Before I start, I must declare my bias.  I am biased against stupid human beings.  But by that pejorative term, I do NOT mean low IQ persons, I mean people who are ignorant (in one field or another) and have no interest in fixing their ignorance with facts and history.  Another qualification is needed: none of us can have an interest in every field, and that is fine.  But if someone has a need to share his opinions on a subject, despite his ignorance of the facts and the history of that field, he qualifies as STUPID in my mind.  And, potentially dangerously stupid, too.

OK, please show us examples of stupid people, stupid Americans.  Americans who do not care about facts or history.

The Common Sense Party

America needs the Common Sense Party because our democracy is a sham and the two major parties are corrupt beyond repair.[1]

We believe that many if not most elections are won or lost at the margins, by voters who are not bound by their party affiliation.[2]  This means that our “third party” candidates stand a real chance of winning if voters know that we exist and appreciate what we offer them.  What the Common Sense Party promises is unprecedented in American political history.

Low-Income Housing

A hypothetical.  Imagine, ...

I am a retired senior, and my sole source of income is my monthly Social Security check.  I rent an apartment on the South side of town, and I pay probably less than most of you because I cannot afford to pay much more.  But I do not live in low-income housing, and this is NOT a quibble.  Low-income housing is government subsidized housing.  The reason that I can pay so little to rent my apartment is manifold: I live far from the cultural center of town, I do not live very close to any big box stores (where I typically shop due to their low prices), I am not close to any hospital, and I have no luxuries.  If some low-income housing was less desirable than my apartment, it would cost less to rent than my apartment without a government subsidy.  So, by definition, low-income housing – housing that is partly paid for by the government – is more desirable than my place but costs its tenants less than what I pay for my place.  Which means, partly, that someone who could afford the rent of a place more desirable than mine is losing out to someone who cannot afford the rent.  And that is a solution that no classical economist would favor.

Hate Speech

In the year 2005, a Dutch cartoonist by name of Kurt Westergaard drew this brilliant cartoon.  In case it needs explanation, it depicts the prophet Muhammad as a man of war.  The cartoon set off a worldwide controversy for its blaspheming the prophet Muhammad and, by implication, the religion of Islam.  Westergaard died in his sleep at age 86 in 2021.

In the year 2015, two Muslim brothers murdered a dozen people and injured 11 others in response to the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo's persistent satirization of Islam and its prophet Muhammad ("We have to carry on until Islam has been rendered as banal as Catholicism").

Israel-Palestine

To those of my readers who entertain the notion that the Palestinians are the good guys, and the Zionist Jews are the bad guys, here is a challenge for you.  Google “list of terror attacks by {Palestinians or Muslims} against {Jews or Israelis or Christians or Americans or Europeans} over time” (this is ten searches) and compare the results with “list of terror attacks by {Jews or Israelis} against {Muslims or Palestinians} over time” (four searches).  Or, just four Google searches, “list of terror attacks perpetrated by {Jews or Israelis} over time” and “list of terror attacks perpetrated by {Muslims or Palestinians} over time.”  My use of curly brackets (“{“ and “}”) means choose one before making the search.  If you believe that Google is prejudiced, use another search engine.