■ Proverbs
17:28 contains a lesson that I should probably learn:
28 Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent,
and discerning if they hold their tongues.
Are you thinking (as I did) "Oh, yeah. That's pretty much what
Abe Lincoln said!"
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool
than to speak and to remove all doubt.
Or maybe Twain? Well,
think
again, buddy boy:
In conclusion, there is no substantive evidence that this popular
adage was coined or employed by Abraham Lincoln or Mark Twain. The
earliest ascriptions to these famous figures appeared many years
post death. [Quote Investigator] thinks that Maurice Switzer is currently the top choice for coiner of the expression though future data may reveal alternative claimants.
The Quote Investigator notes the Proverbial roots, but the modern
version "is certainly more humorous." Well, you don't go to the Good
Book for chuckles, do you?
■ @kevinNR has one of his
dead-trees National Review articles slip out into web
freedom: Scott
Pruitt’s Reformation. That would be of the Environmental
Protection Agency. Pruitt talks quite a bit about differing philosophies
captured in the words "stewardship" and "prohibition".
Stewardship, Pruitt says, is making responsible use of
our national blessings, including our natural resources: “Feed
the world and fuel the world,” he says, over and over. But the
Left — and the EPA, which has long been dominated by it — is not
interested in stewardship. It’s interested in
prohibition, in a lot of Thou shalt and a whole heck of
a lot more Thou shalt not. “You have two different approaches,
two different worldviews, two very different sets of
assumptions,” Pruitt says.
“One side says we exist to serve creation,” he explains. “The other side says creation is there for us to use and manage to the benefit of mankind. Those are competing ideologies, and they drive decision-making. They drive regulation. If you are of the side that says we exist to serve creation, then you have no trouble putting up a fence and saying Do not use. Even though people may starve, may freeze, though developing countries may never develop their economies. That’s something they’re comfortable doing, and I think that’s wrongheaded.”
As it happens, relevant to the starving/freezing bit:
another
article at NRO noted the response of the Obama
administration's Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell, in denying
an Alaskan fishing village's request for a one-lane gravel road
to be built through a wildlife refuge for purposes of medical
evacuation: "I’ve listened to your stories, now I have to listen to
the animals,"
And the animals said no, so that was that.
■ Reason's Jacob Sullum brings a little sanity to the current
pot fight, asking the musical question: Did Jeff Sessions' Marijuana Memo Restore the Rule of Law?
If there is a rule-of-law problem here, it is similar to the one
created by alcohol prohibition. The federal government has decided
to ban peaceful activities that violate no one's rights, turning
millions of otherwise law-abiding people across the country into
criminals. The number of offenders is so large that the feds cannot
hope to catch and punish a significant percentage of them, even with
the cooperation of the states. Almost everyone who violates the law
does so with impunity, while the high prevalence of these so-called
crimes gives police and prosecutors dangerously broad authority to
harass people and deprive them of their freedom. The treatment of
the tiny share of offenders who happen to be arrested and prosecuted
seems utterly arbitrary and unjust, inviting jury
nullification.
The ban on marijuana is even more offensive to the rule of law than alcohol prohibition was, because it was never authorized by a constitutional amendment. The grotesque stretching of the Commerce Clause required to justify a law that applies to every trace of cannabis in America, whether or not it crosses state lines, down to the plant in a cancer patient's closet or the bag of buds in her dresser, is surely a bigger challenge to the rule of law than a weaselly memo suggesting how federal prosecutors should exercise a power they never should have been given.
Man, wouldn't it be cool if Wickard v. Filburn were
overturned?
■ The MinuteMan notes Resistance
Madness at the New York Times:
The editors of the flailing NY Times have lost the plot and lost
their minds. They have now run not one but two stories hailing tax
shelters for and tax avoidance by the rich. OK, they hate Trump but
really - what has happened to decades of progressive orthodoxy
regarding "tax the rich"? weird.
The first example is really weird: states who are trying to
enable their relatively well-off citizens to continue to get a tax deduction for
their local taxes.
■ At Town Hall, Derek Hunter discovers the obvious: We
Live in Stupid Times.
The big story this week was a book written by a guy known for exaggerating about a guy known for exaggerating with the main source being another guy known for exaggerating. And I’m not exaggerating.
A less euphemistic word than "exaggerating" might have been better,
but why quibble?
I've been stupid myself recently, engaging in a Facebook debate with
a lefty friend from high school who thought Nancy MacLean's Democracy in
Chains was the epitome of good scholarship, instead of the
shoddy smear it was.
I should have been content with what I did: asserting that point and pointing to
the
Reason
review as backup evidence.
But then he responded, and I responded, and…
well, it was on the verge of Getting Personal on my part. (It had
already done so on his part.)
Our 50th class reunion is still about a year and a half away, and
things might be uncomfortable as a result. Which would suck.
So, a belated New Year's Resolution: Paul, if you must talk
about politics in social media,
take your best shot, but only one. Do not engage, or debate, or make
it personal.