Among recent efforts is a Missouri initiative to reform the eminent domain process, led by Ron Calzone with Missourians for Property Rights.

Alas, it’s all too easy to ignore the suffering of human beings whose property rights are violated by “legal” means when you neither see these human beings nor hear their stories. This is why critics of flipping property from the hands of rightful owners to the claws of rapacious opportunists with political pull must be grateful to the producers of Begging for Billionaires: The Attack on Property Rights in America.

The film exposes how city governments “brazenly seize property after property from the powerless” to turn over to well-connected players “for the pettiest of non-essential ‘economic development’ projects,” many subsidized by taxpayers. Neighborhoods flattened, lives uprooted.

Among other stories, we learn that of James Roos, property owner of an area called “blighted” who created a controversial mural to oppose eminent domain abuse.

Friends of liberty and property can defeat the enemies of these rights. Begging for Billionaires dramatizes why we must do so.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Novoselic ran under the Grange Party — not the “Grunge Party.” Next to his name on the ballot it would have appeared “prefers Grange Party” had he continued the campaign.

But there is no “Grange Party.” The Grange is a farmers’ association that endorses, but does not run, candidates.

He ran to demonstrate a flaw in Washington state’s “Top Two Primary” system. A person can run as “preferring” any political party — imaginary, defunct, or alive and kicking. The identified party has nothing to say about it. Lyndon LaRouche could’ve run as “preferring Democrat” without any Democratic organization’s vote; David Duke could run as “preferring Republican” without one drop of support from any GOP affiliate.

This offends Novoselic’s support for free association. Party affiliation and participation should mean something, he believes. In fact, he supports firehouse primaries wherein the parties pay for their own nominating procedures.

Before he withdrew, Novoselic got a fair amount of media attention. His stunt may actually effect a change for the good in the Evergreen state.

We could use more celebrities who are as thoughtful as Novoselic about the means of politics, not just the ends.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The Fed has been sopping up many billions in toxic assets, creating money hocus-pocus, loaning vast fortunes to central banks in other countries, and in general behaving as if its actions cannot have bad consequences.

HR 1207, introduced in February, would authorize the GAO to audit the Fed’s various funding facilities, used with such abandon over the last year. Look under the hood, see what’s going on in nitty-gritty detail.

Doesn’t sound very radical. But the Fed is accustomed to being “independent,” i.e., unaccountable. Yet as Jim Grant, editor of a publication that monitors interest rates, has observed, if the Fed had to accept the auditing it requires of others, it would be regarded as insolvent.

Except, of course, for that whole create-money-out-of-thin-air thing.

President Obama, a.k.a. Mr. Transparency, has said zilch to support the bill. Still, with over 150 Republicans and over 50 Democrats cosponsoring the legislation, it now has enough votes to pass if congressional leadership allows a vote.

An audit with a negative outcome would not force the Fed to shut down.

But it would provide more ammo for those interested in slowing or stopping fiscal insanity.

And that, too, should be bipartisan. Transpartisan. Universal.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

That’s what Karen Haug and her company, Advance Shoring, have endured since the early ’90s. That was when the port authority of St. Paul, Minnesota announced plans to grab the company’s property for somebody else’s private use.

Advance Shoring, founded by Haug’s father in 1960, has been fighting the grab ever since.

The port authority has now officially abandoned its plan, agreeing to seek to acquire the property only by voluntary means. Haug says: “I’m breathing a sigh of relief for our business and employees. . . . Now we can return to running our business.”

As so often in battles to protect innocent Americans against eminent domain abuse, some credit must go to the Institute for Justice. In publicly heralding the port authority’s decision, Lee McGrath, of IJ’s Minnesota chapter, urged city officials to recognize that “the port authority’s past uses of eminent domain are now illegal under Minnesota’s 2006 reforms,” and to strip the port authority of its power to condemn properties.

The port authority, for its part, seems annoyed that there’s been publicity about its defeat. They say they’d been hoping to keep the matter quiet.

Poor fellows. I weep for them; crocodiles have such tears.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

New Jersey’s a traditional favorite. Chris Christie, the Republican candidate for governor this year, built his reputation as a federal prosecutor convicting 130 state and local politicians of corruption.

But Illinois is a contender: Think ousted Governor Rod Blagojevich.

Now, make room for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Recently, former House Speaker Sal DiMasi was indicted — along with several associates — for allegedly helping a software company obtain $20 million in state contracts in return for lots of cold, hard cash.

The previous speaker left office just before he was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice. The speaker before that had been pushed out after pleading guilty to federal income tax evasion.

This rather consistent level of corruption is a sign of too much power and not enough accountability. Frank Hynes, a Democrat who served in the legislature for 26 years, agrees. He says, “The speaker controls, basically, everything — where you sit, where you stand, how many aides you get, whether you get a good parking space.”

Obviously the Bay State needs term limits — DiMasi had been in office for 30 years. But years ago legislators blocked a term limits amendment just as they’ve blocked all but three citizen petitions for constitutional amendments during the last 90 years.

Massachusetts needs a new revolution, one that puts citizens in charge with an initiative process that politicians cannot ignore.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The best are those that make it easier for us to understand very complicated ideas. Paul Krugman, a Nobel Laureate, wrote one such tale years ago, an essay called “Ricardo’s Difficult Idea.” It explains something economist David Ricardo discovered nearly 200 years ago: When nations trade they both become better off even when some people seem to suffer.

Since that essay Krugman has been telling tales for the New York Times. Not all have been as wholesome.

Krugman appears to be one of those court wizard economists who believe they — that is, the government — can fine-tune the economy. In his August 2, 2002 column he says that “[t]o fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that . . . Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.”

Yes, back in 2002 Krugman supported the Fed’s super-low interest rates, and predicted the outcome: A housing bubble.

Which has burst.

Since then, Krugman’s readers have looked for someone to blame. Well, Krugman’s own words give us all we need to incriminate his own very self . . . and his fellow court wizards.

Familiar story: Self-aggrandizing experts aim to fix things, and put us all in a fix. The case against government management of the economy just got even stronger.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Earlier, private toll roads and bridges built our first good infrastructures.

There’s increasing talk, now, about congestion pricing of roads — charging more at peak hours, or for fast lane access.

Tim Rutten argues against this. In a Los Angeles Times op-ed called “Congestion pricing — a slippery slope to toll roads,” Rutten says that congestion pricing “discriminates against the working poor.”

Rutten imagines a low-level worker rushing from work to go to the day care center to retrieve her sick child. Driving the jammed lanes would be too slow, so she turns into the fast lane and pays money to get her child faster. Rutten says “A society that can rationalize the imposition of such pain doesn’t need to worry over how to define equity; it needs to worry about its soul.”

Yeah, right. There are costs and choices everywhere. In an emergency, spending a few bucks to help your child is reasonable. Even if you are poor.

But preventing the option from even being available?

Mr. Rutten should rethink his all-or-nothing approach. And maybe even the fantasies that jam up his own soul. Without faster lanes that cost money, the mother would have no choice at all but to sit in traffic.

Solutions that work are better than solutions merely dreamt.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The Canadian government has been intercepting shipments and travelers at the border and confiscating the drugs.

The drug in question is Thalidomide.

You no doubt remember this drug for its horrific side-effects, in babies.

But it is still used — by people who won’t get pregnant — to treat a rare form of cancer. It turns out that it’s one of the better drugs on the market, extending the lives of sufferers from myeloma.

Trouble is, only one province pays for one version of the drug. Other versions are illegal. Canada’s socialized health care system does not approve of cheaper versions of the drug hailing from Mexican factories. Those factories haven’t gone out of their way to deal with side-effects.

So Canada confiscates Thalidomide as if it were cocaine.

Do you ever get frustrated hearing these tales? I do. I don’t know about your frustration, but it seems to me that if someone’s going to take the trouble to go out of the country to buy a drug to treat themselves, the full weight of responsibility for safety and side-effects — as well as the choice — should fall on his or her shoulders.

Not the government’s.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Well, it’s all fine print when you’ve got a cap-and-trade bill 900-plus pages long. This bill would tax businesses that need to produce more “greenhouse gases” than the new law would allow according to a formula so congested that, well, it takes 932 pages to spell it out. If the bill passes, it’s another punch to the gut of the American economy.

For a while, it seemed that Republicans on the energy committee might obstruct things, might insist that the bill be read. Aloud!

So the Democrats hired a speed reader. No reading was ever demanded. But since the guy had been hired, he was asked to zip through just a bit of the bill. His incredible machine-gun delivery cracked everybody up.

Well, DownsizeDC.org isn’t laughing. The activist group notes that the cap-capitalism bill was rushed through committee so fast that it could not possibly have been read, publicly or privately.

The group supports a Read the Bills Act to require every bill to be read in full before the House and Senate . . . and require all lawmakers to sign an affidavit affirming that they have read any bill they vote on. A sensible rule, long overdue. Seriously.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Or it soon will be, if Oregon’s Governor Kulongoski signs a bill that has just emerged from the state legislature. The bilious bill would fine leaders of a citizen initiative campaign $10,000 if anybody working for the campaign is found to have committed fraud in the process of gathering signatures.

The alleged wrongdoing is not being complicit in fraud but “failing to prevent” it. Do you see the problem? No screening process, no matter how careful, can eliminate the free will of campaign workers. A chief petitioner on a campaign cannot be everywhere watching everyone as more than a hundred thousand people sign the petition. Under this law, an opponent could bankrupt the  leader of a ballot measure by joining the effort and committing fraudulent acts.

This and other less zany — but still burdensome — provisions are designed, presumably, to “cut down on fraud and abuse.” Tough job for a bill that is itself inherently fraudulent and abusive.

It’s real purpose, of course, is to hamper and obstruct the petition process.

The only Senate Democrat to vote no to the bill, state Senator Vicki Walker, notes that some activists will be more reluctant now to be lead a ballot initiative if they can be socked with a huge fine for a violation committed by somebody else.

Well, that’s obvious. It’s also, sadly, the point.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Last week, PETA sent a public letter to the American Veterinary Medical Association urging the group to cancel an upcoming event at their Seattle convention. The event would feature the world-famous fishmongers of Pike Place Market, folks who throw fish.

Not live fish. Dead fish. Fish intended for eating. The practice of throwing seafood began as a way to increase efficiency. It’s fun to watch, and it’s grown into a ritual attraction.

PETA says it’s bad enough that fish are eaten, but throwing them “adds insult to injury.”

The fishmongers say they “love fish.” They “respect fish.” Fish make their business thrive.

But of course, the way a fishmonger respects fish is different from a member of PETA. In a television interview, one PETA spokesperson argued that we wouldn’t throw around dead kittens.

Well, no. But we might if kittens were part of our diets, instead of our homes and families.

There’s a big difference. It’s lost on PETA.

To most of us, demanding the hyper-respectful concern for the mortal remains of fish by those tasked with preparing those remains for our meals is, well, not a position on the moral high ground. It’s fishy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Marion Smith is a 79-year-old widow living in Brooklyn. Ecologically pious bureaucrats are trying to stick her with a tree she doesn’t want. A friend, Nancy Cardozo, reports that they were even threatened with arrest for daring to object to the project.

Marion is disabled, and cannot rake leaves. Six years ago, a tree that had been in the same spot died, not long after her husband died. Years later, the city removed the stump, and a city worker assured Marion that no new tree would be planted there. So she paved the area.

The city worker who now came to plant a new tree proved inert to any appeals. “Sorry, I have the contract and I have a big payroll,” he told Marion and a neighbor trying to help her out. He had to put the tree there.

The city insists that it has a right to put the tree anywhere it wants on the sidewalk, since it owns the sidewalk. The city also says that if anybody slips on the leaves in front of Marion’s home, she as homeowner will be liable.

Maybe somebody could plant an idea about common sense and common decency in the minds of all concerned?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO and Republican candidate for governor, recently said, “In many ways, the proposition process has worn out its usefulness.”

She’s criticizing the initiative, and she’s not alone.

Wrong target. California’s initiative process account for what little political sanity exists in the state.

The problem is spendaholic politicians.

But politicians and pundits continue bashing California’s ballot initiative process. Anything to deflect attention away from the inability of politicians to prioritize.

Even The Economist has taken up the bludgeon. A recent story, headlined “The ungovernable state,” said of the voter initiative process:

At first, it made sense . . . . The state in 1910 had only 2.4 million residents, and 95 percent of them were white. (Today it has about 37 million residents, and less than half are white.) A small, homogenous and informed electorate was to make sparing and disciplined use of the ballot to keep the legislature honest, rather as in Switzerland.

Is The Economist actually suggesting that a multi-ethnic electorate is incapable of democratic decision-making? I think we are witnessing the insider class move from condescending disdain for the people to a full-blown case of dementia.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Maybe it does if you live in Beverly Hills. But the answer’s a big No if you dwell in a Mumbai slum targeted by a government touting a sanctimonious “cleanup” agenda. Why? Because callously uprooting lives is part of the allegedly “acceptable” cost of that “cleanup.”

Mumbai officials have destroyed yet another shanty home of a child who starred in the popular and multiple-Oscar-winning movie “Slumdog Millionaire.” The victims are the family of Rubina Ali, who played Latika in the film. Rubina says, “I’m feeling bad. I’m thinking about where to sleep.”

Her family had not even been given any notice when cops swooped in to supervise the demolition. The week before, the home of Azhar Mohammed Ismail, who played Jamal as a child in the movie, had also been flattened. Rubina and Azhar lived in the same part of Mumbai.

One would think that fame might have helped these kids catch a break from functionaries eager to forcibly reorder the world no matter what damage is done to innocent victims in the process; perhaps they might be sensitive to the bad publicity. No such luck.

Not that whether your rights are respected should have anything to do with whether you’re a movie star. Being a human being should be enough.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

At a news conference to announce his decision, Pawlenty said, “I still have a lot of ideas and energy left, but being governor should not be a permanent position for anyone. . . . It’s time to give someone else a chance.”

Partisan Democrats are quick to charge that Pawlenty doesn’t think he can win a third term. They point to a poll wherein 57 percent of Minnesota respondents think the governor should not run for a third term.

But hey: That poll may show more about the public’s thinking on term limits than on Pawlenty. A Rasmussen Reports poll shows the governor with a 53 percent approval rating.

Pawlenty told

Sean Hannity on Fox News: “In Minnesota, we don’t have term limits, but we do have common sense and good judgment and we’re also good about taking turns. . . . [L]ike with everything else, there’s a season in life and eight years is enough. . . . I think we’ve got a lot done and now it’s time to pass the baton to someone else.”

Pawlenty was on John McCain’s short-list for Vice President and is now being talked about as a likely GOP presidential contender come 2012.

Asked to speculate on his next position,

Pawlenty offered, “My dream job is to be an NHL defenseman, but at 48 and having no skill, it’s tough.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

They hold Bible studies in their home. Being Americans, they expected the freedom to associate and practice their religion.

But a county employee grilled Pastor David Jones and his wife about what they were up to with their Bible studies — did they pray? did they say “amen”? Then they were told that the study group, averaging 15 people per meeting, violated county regulations.

“Unlawful use of land,” you see. It had nothing to do with suppressing religion, everything to do with how many cars appeared Tuesday nights. County officials said the ominous grilling about religion was done simply to find out which land-use regulation to use in filing the complaint.

And there was a complaint. Too often, these days, instead of neighbor taking up the matter with neighbor, the government gets called in. So, before these students of the Bible could even consider carpooling, to respect the Joneses’ neighbors’ parking concerns, government employees told them to cease and desist — or else apply for a major use permit. Which could take a lot more money than found in your average Sunday passing of the offering plate.

This story is almost a parable — of why zoning laws don’t make good neighbors. Zoning is a blunt instrument, indeed. There are alternatives.

But the alternatives require a bit of common sense.

I’m Paul Jacob.

You probably wonder how that initiative, passed way back in the ‘70s, could be so key.

Well, it was the first of a long line of voter-instigated tax limitation measures, and it made politicians ache with frustration. Politicians LIKE spending money; Proposition 13 limited, somewhat, their greedy quest for ever more money to spend.

But did it really unbalance California fiscal policy?

Chris Reed, writing in the San Diego Union-Tribune, explains how nutty this charge really is:

[S]ince shortly after Prop. 13’s adoption, property tax revenue increased by 579 percent. That is not a typo. It went up 579 percent.

During the same span, population went from 24 million to 38 million — an increase of 58 percent.

Reed checked his numbers against the inflation rate, and found that “property tax revenue has increased by more than triple the combined rate of inflation and population growth.”

He did a little more checking and learned that property tax revenues went up faster than any other major revenue source!

So Prop 13 simply cannot be the reason for California’s impending bankruptcy. Though the measure limited tax rate growth, and helped homeowners, it did not unbalance the budgets.

Humungous increases in spending did. Politicians need look no further than their own projects.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

I understand. It happens in baseball. Two teams want to trade a player, but can’t decide who to trade for that player. So, one team hands over, say, their left-fielder for “a player to be named later” from the other team.

These deals require tremendous trust.

I wonder how much the people of Nevada trust their state legislature.

I wonder because what their legislators want is to make the ballot initiative process much, much harder to use.

Years ago, the federal courts struck down a requirement that petition signatures be gathered in three-fourths of Nevada’s counties. So the state legislature passed a new law requiring signatures from every county.

Yes, the court struck that law down, too.

Nevada solons came back with legislation mandating that petitions be gathered in each of 42 legislative districts. This makes a petition drive actually 42 drives — greatly increasing costs and the opportunity for error.

Worried that scheme wouldn’t pass court review, legislators amended the bill to require petitions to come from every U.S. congressional district. But only for this election cycle. There’s a kicker: By 2011, legislators will create “petition districts.” How many districts? They’ll decide later . . . as many as they determine can get away with.

The bill passed in the last days of the just-completed session. It’s sort of a policy to be named later.

Unlike that bill, this is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tillman, head of the Illinois Policy Institute — a think tank offering what it calls “liberty-based public policy initiatives” — doesn’t think battling big government is hopeless at all. For instance, the Institute helped generate support for transparency legislation that passed.

And last week, as the state’s legislative session closed, Governor Pat Quinn’s proposed 50 percent income tax hike was soundly defeated . . . by the state’s very blue legislature.

How did that happen?

Well, the first step is always to believe enough in your fellow citizens to wage a fight for their “hearts and minds.” Hope helps.

Next step? Getting the facts out.

The argument for huge tax increases is always that government can’t survive without the additional money. In a series of media appearances and grassroots events, Tillman and the Institute kept talking about sensible ways to cut spending.

Governor Quinn talked about the painful consequences if government didn’t have more money. Tillman spoke about the painful consequences if working families, already paying high taxes, had to fork over still more dough.

Kristina Rasmussen, the Institute’s Executive Vice President, published a report entitled, “Would My Family Pay Higher Taxes Under Governor Quinn’s Plan?” The answer for the average Illinois family was: Yes — 17 percent more.

Hope wins again. Helped by hard work.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

I don’t take offense “as a white male.” I object as a rational human being.

But while Judge Sotomayor continues to catch flak, I must say, bashing white males has become rather commonplace.

Being rational, not so much.

For instance, Kathleen Parker, a usually reasonable columnist, had this to say in defending Sotomayor’s statement:

“Could a white man get away with saying something comparable about a Latina? Of course not. After Latinas have run the world for 2,000 years, they won’t be able to say it ever again.”

So the reason it is open season on white males is because we run the world?

You see, I’m a white male and I’ve never ruled the world. Not even for one minute.

I don’t even want to rule the world. I don’t even want to dictatorially rule my own house — that’s done by a a nice oligarchy of my wife and me, with a barking veto from the dog.

I’d like my freedom, though, and to have a democratic say in my government.

Oh, and to be judged on my demonstrated character . . . not blamed for what some other guy with similar skin hues did two thousand years ago.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.