“There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy,” former US president Barack Obama tweeted on July 13, in response to the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump.

Former president Bill Clinton agreed: “Violence has no place in America, especially in our political process.”

As did current president Joe Biden Official statement: “There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.”

Former president George W. Bush — who got Daddy to secure him a stateside Air National Guard billet so he could avoid risking his hide in Vietnam, then deserted — called the attack “cowardly.”

It probably goes without saying that Donald Trump doesn’t like being shot at.

Yes, of course I also condemn “political violence.” Not just some of it — all of it.

All the aforementioned presidents are mass murderers, and by definition all of the murders they’ve ordered have been “political.”

Obama and Trump in particular have ordered the political murders of American citizens, including 16-year-old Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki and eight-year-old Nawar al-Awlaki. Neither of the victims were charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime. Nor have any of the perpetrators been charged with or tried for the murders.

Bill Clinton took “full responsibility” for the murders of 82 Branch Davidians by federal agents in Waco, Texas in 1993. Apparently “full responsibility” doesn’t include throwing one’s self on the mercy of a court.

I have to disagree — but only partially — with journalist/novelist Ben Ehrenreich’s snarky tweet: “There is no place for political violence against rich, white men. It is antithetical to everything America stands for.”

There’s quite a bit of “political violence” in the world, but the term seldom gains much traction, nor does the phenomenon get much attention, unless the target is an American politician.

American politicians are responsible for “political violence” resulting in literally millions of deaths during my lifetime (I was born just as the war in Vietnam was heating up).

While there’s usually vigorous debate about the wisdom of such “political violence,” and plenty of hand-wringing about “collateral damage” and such, we see none of the red-faced, vein-popping outrage that suddenly appears when the target is one of America’s Very Special Important People.

Contra Ehrenreich, the outrage isn’t about the targets being rich or white. It’s about the targets being part of the American political class.

There’s an interrogation scene in the 1996 biopic Michael Collins, in which a prisoner is told “Don’t threaten us, you Fenian swine. We threaten you!”

That sums up our rulers’ attitude toward “political violence”: Perfectly acceptable when they’re choosing the targets, outrageous that they should ever BECOME the targets.

I oppose “political violence,” even against murderous scumbags like Donald Trump. I’d like to see him brought to justice, but I don’t expect the vigilante method to produce good outcomes.

Until we find a way through and out of ALL the “political violence,” just keep in mind that political class VSIPs see themselves as untouchable ranchers and you as disposable livestock.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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As I write this, on the afternoon of June 13, nearly 650,000 homes and businesses in Texas remain without utility-provided electricity due to the effects of Hurricane Beryl.

Naturally, Texas politicians know where to put the blame.

No, not on a massive storm which, at times, hit Category 5 — the top of the Saffir-Simpson wind scale — wreaking havoc on power delivery to millions across the Caribbean, Mexico, and across a wide swath of the United States, but on the private sector and government utilities which actually generate and deliver electricity.

State senator Molly Cook (D-Houston), the Houston Chronicle reports, wants to know “Why is this happening? Why is it happening here? Who’s responsible? How do we fix it? What needs to happen at each level of government so that it does not keep happening?”

Why is this happening, ma’am? Well, there’s this thing called “weather.”

Why is it happening in Texas? Because hurricanes love the Gulf of Mexico and the Texas coastline on that body of water is either 367 miles long (if you ask the Congressional Research Service) or 3,359 miles long (if you ask the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).

Who’s responsible? Interesting question with many plausible answers, but for the sake of brevity let’s just go with “The Almighty.”

How do we fix it? Again, many plausible answers, but definitely not the answer Cook seems to imply in the final question: What needs to happen at each level of government so that it does not keep happening?

Her colleague in the state senate, Boris Miles, wants “highly enhanced oversight provisions” and a legislative study on the “feasibility” of burying power lines. All, of course, with a “significant investment of state dollars” that somehow magically doesn’t “[pass] the cost on to those whose lives are affected.”

A better answer would be for the state legislature to dissolve itself, perhaps designating Cook and Miles to exit the state Capitol last, turning out the lights as they go.

Failing that, the legislature could at least stop trying to centrally plan the generation and delivery of electricity over long-distance “grids” — which always and inevitably produces results like the Beryl outages — and let power companies and their customers figure out decentralized solutions that reduce the carnage.

Yes, such solutions MIGHT include burying power lines.

Such solutions would almost certainly include hyper-local (even down to the household level) power generation so that downed lines and blown transformers black out — at most — city blocks rather than entire cities.

Household-level solar and wind would mean that even if your power goes out, your neighbor’s might very well not.

Small nuclear reactors of the newer, more efficient, safer generation might mean that an outage in Pearland need not extend to Stafford.

Absent some really amazing technological developments, we can count on occasional terrible weather events forever.

And so long as government insists on blocking innovation and substituting its central planning for real solutions we can count on the fallout from those terrible weather events remaining worse than it has to be.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“There is one and only one reason to ever require students to spend time at home mastering what is introduced in class,” libertarian columnist Paul Jacob writes at Common Sense, in criticism of a California bill which might result in reduced homework loads for public school students. “Only to prepare them for earning a living and living life by helping them obtain knowledge and skills and realize their potential.”

I disagree.  Unless things have changed since the early 2000s — when my wife and I pulled our own kids out of government schools and switched to homeschooling — the “homework situation” in America is beyond crazy.

As an elementary school student in the 1970s, I could reasonably expect 30-60 minutes of homework per night. That seemed like a lot, but I was a preteen. The workload increased in junior high and high school, but probably still averaged not much more than an hour per day.

By the early 2000s, it wasn’t unusual for my kids’ teachers to send home three hours’ worth of homework per weeknight, or more, and several hours’ worth for weekends.

No, I’m not exaggerating. We were involved parents who helped our kids get through that insane workload.

A workload, I should remind you, that came ON TOP of six to eight hours per day, five days per week, nine months per year, either in school or commuting between school and home.

Almost any adult worker who spent eight hours a day on a factory floor or at an office desk, then was told to work another three hours from home each weeknight and six to eight hours on the weekend, “off the clock,” would seek a salary re-negotiation or quit.

The kids don’t get paid, and they’re not allowed to quit.

Also, they’re kids, not adult workers.

Kids need more, not less, sleep than adults. Kids need more, not less, time to play and socialize than adults. And at least some studies show that more than an hour of homework per day correlates with decreased, not enhanced, academic performance.

I’m not normally a “there oughtta be a law” type. In fact, I oppose the government’s “public” education system in its entirety and  prefer to see kids homeschooled or privately schooled.

But IF there’s going to be a “public” education system, I favor legally capping that system’s “homework”  loads at (for the student of average intelligence) an hour per day in elementary/middle/junior high school, and two hours per day in high school, perhaps with exceptions for “honors” courses, etc.

There’s a term for more homework than that: “Child abuse.”

Yes, education is important. So is kids’ quality of life outside school hours. Leave them some time for their kid stuff.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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