tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37411812084584492052024-03-14T10:07:21.780-07:00Woodchip Gazette - JournalIdle ObservationsChipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.comBlogger311125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-83104982799159967102024-03-02T19:40:00.000-08:002024-03-02T19:43:18.481-08:00A Prayer for Aaron Bushnell<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
On Thursday night, I had this notion to pray “for” Aaron Bushnell; that is, to assist him in some way. However, I have never been comfortable with the idea of intercessional prayers. The idea comes laden with all sorts of unprovable assumptions: that Aaron still exists, to be helped; that anything I can do could help or initiate help for him; and last, but not least: if God knoweth all and loveth all what need has he of me tell him what his job should be? So then, who am I really helping here, Aaron or myself and my own disturbed feelings at <i>his</i> distressed feelings which led him to take his life on account of the beneath human putrifaction that rules in Jerusalem, Washington and the decrepit West. <br /><br />
So apart from this jumble of thought and intentions, how should I start my prayer? It seemed to me that I had to envision Aaron going up in flames and hear in my mind's ear his shouting “Free Palestine!” And that is what I did, but no sooner I did it than it seemed too “hot” to get too close too. And “hot” was the least of it... I don't want to say “darkness” but there was a kind a <i>sacra</i> off-limits about what was going on beneath those flames. So then, I thought: am I strong enough for this ... to carry on with this intention? Am I courageous enough to bring the inner essence of his suicide close to my own innermost self? <br /><br />
At this point I just gave up and started to intone silently: have mercy on him, have mercy on him. ... I did not mean have mercy on him <i>for his having done some wrong</i>. I meant “mercy” in the sense of “shower him with your loving kindness.” I had no idea whether what he did was right or wrong. All I knew was that it was an ultimate sacrifice which by nature is beyond ordinary limits and therefore in a place where most of us do not go to. <br /><br />
And then, “have mercy on him” became “have mercy on me.” As for whether any or this helped Aaron... I have no idea. I hope so. I wish him well. <br /><br />
----<br /><br />
On further consideration, I have concluded that Aaron Bushnell did the right and noble thing. I am disgusted to the core at MediaControl's attempt to diminish his sacrifice by calling into question his mental stability. At least Madame Gnu was honest enough to forthrightly display her repulsiveness by calling self-immolating monks, “human babacue.” <br /><br />
I get to my conclusion rather simply and by analogy. During the Great War, young men on both sides of the death-strip went “over the top” for God, King and Country. They did so knowing full well that there was an 87.3625% chance that they wouldn't make it<br /><br />
<blockquote>
<i>Eine Kugel kam geflogen<br />
Gilt sie mir oder gilt sie dir</i>?
</blockquote><br />
I would not be the first to say that, over those trenches, Christian Civilization committed suicide. Or as Marine Corp sergeant Daniel Daly put it, rather less poetically, "Come on, you sons-o'-bitches, do you want to live forever?"<br /><br />
Either way, we honour the men who chose not to live forever; and we do so, if we are sensible, regardless of which side they were on because what matters is that they chose to give their all. Soldiers understand this. Unfortunately, civilians “bawling allegiance to the state” do not. <br /><br />
I personally agree with the cause for which Aaron Bushnell immolated himself. It is too early to tell if it was a futile act or if it will let loose a chain of consequences that will alter things. But in either case you cannot ask more of a man than that he give his all; and for having given it, he deserves God's <i>rewarding</i> mercy. <br /><br />
<a href="https://youtu.be/bvouc8Qs_MI?si=PwF8Ne_vFxgQg0hE"></a>
©</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bvouc8Qs_MI" width="320" youtube-src-id="bvouc8Qs_MI"></iframe></div><br />Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-64467183260166099702024-02-23T19:13:00.000-08:002024-02-26T11:41:13.710-08:00Inner Emigration<div style="text-align: justify;">
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During the World War a number of German intellectuals, writers, pastors, professors and even army officers practiced what was later described as <i>inner emigration</i> -- an interior withholding of consent to the policies and actions of the regime. <br /> <br />
Inner emigration is not the same as underground resistance. The latter is affirmative action against a regime by stealth, surprise or subversion. Inner emigration, by contrast, is simply a private posture, a kind of “I'm here but not here” thing. Resistance presupposes hope; inner emigration, hopelessness. <br /> <br />
Inner emigration was not limited to “good Germans.” In the 1960's large portions of American youth emigrated inwardly -- they were known as “Hippies.” Giving the maximum possible credit where credit is due, hippies realized not only that the system was evil and corrupt but, worse yet, impermeable. Confessing their political powerlessness, they tuned in and dropped out. <br /> <br />
The occasional justification for this posturing was that by dropping out they were creating an “alternative” culture and society. But this was a mirage. The evil system quickly found ways to commodify and subsume the alternative; so that, in the end, hippies ended up perusing NiftyStuff Catalogues, buying Volvo's and “sensibly” investing in real estate, all the while assuring themselves that, unlike their square parents, they had (somehow) protested the war.
<br /> <br />
I don't want to come down too hard on the hippies; for, it has to be said in the 1970's a wave of religiosity also swept over the the United States. The two phenomena were related, but the religious one gave up all pretence of being, or forming or leading to an alernative society. It was simply the Big Drop into Self, most perfectly exemplified by the mindless Hare Krishna chanters on Powell and Market or in airports. Be that as it was, from chanting, to Zen, to Pentecostalism, to the New Jesus Movement, to TM and EST and a hundred obscure spiritual sects people gave up on politics and fell to micro managing their inner selves. The war makers, financiers and mass marketters could not have been happier. <br /> <br />
<blockquote>
“What is that?” my mother asked. “It's a zafu,” I replied. “What's a zaahfoo?” “It's a meditation cushion.” “You don't need a cushion to meditate,” she scathingly replied. But I'm not meditating! I protested; and, in truth I have never been able to meditate for more than 30 seconds. I just wanted to decorate the house <i>a la japonnaise</i>. But no one should doubt the ability of “the system” to merchandize and hence emasculate anything. </blockquote>
<br />
Not surprisingly, in the late 1970's various French historians began to wonder if this all had not happened before; and, of course it had, the result being a series of books on the “interiorization” of “political” life, known as the rise of Christianity and the fall of the Ancient world -- one chapter being dedicated in all seriousness, to the “advent” of private toilets in lieu of public ones. <br /> <br />
In Europe, the rise of private toilets did actually lead to the evolution of an alternative civitas, known as Visigothic, Ostro- Gallo- or Germano-Roman depending on one's preference of labels. But in the 1970's the American Empire was far from collapsing and, instead, the forces that be found ways to evolve a totally kitsch politics -- an activism based on symptomatic issues (organic food, smoking and smog) and personal entitlements, <i>sub nom</i> “civil rights.” At the same time, the rulers of the country liberalized the market, exempting corporations from all sense of civic responsibility and enacted an all-volunteer military, thereby exempting individuals from the otherwise minimum obligations of citizenship. The result: individuals could pursue their “entitlements;” business could pursue its profits, and the government could pursue its wars without there ever again being any push-back. <br /> <br />
At least until this past October. The announced and blatantly executed genocide carried out by the Trio from Hell was so grotesque that it provoked universal condemnation from the ordinary people and lesser states of the world. Unfortunately, the situation has only served to illustrate how actually powerless the people of democratic societies actually are and how completely entrenched the neo-liberal and neo-con rulership is. Over the past 50 years they have so totally atomized the substance of “civic society” and so completely dominated the levers and avenues of political and cultural power that the protests for all their anger and moral force are but a drizzle over the landscape. The impunity with which Western leaders insult the protestors, blatantly lie to the public and, in Israel's case, say things that would make a Nazi blush (oh yes; oh yes) indicate that they are not in the least worried that their nefarious designs will be interrupted. Even the Yellow Vests provoked a more serious response from the state. <br /> <br />
So...we are once again faced with the German question: what to do when one is powerless to do anything? It is a moral dilemma to which I do not have an answer. <br /> <br />
I trust it will not sound too effete when I say that there can be no doubt that “exposing” one's self to the horrible images of Israel's brutality in Gaza produces a form of PTSD. It is not as acute as the trauma of actually being there, but it is also a trauma that is not compensated for with adrenaline. The result is a kind of masturbatory fetish where one goes back for more thinking that knowing is at least “being responsible” when in fact knowing does nothing but underscore the impossibility of accomplishing anything. On the other hand, “tuning out” and ignoring the inhuman savagery while one goes about one's life unhindered and unimpeded, traipsing through strawberry fields, is form of indifference that is itself inhumane and criminal... all excuses aside. <br /> <br />
So ... 1970's redux. I will only say that if anyone thinks private toilets or chanting mantras on street corners will make an “unseen” difference, I can only say that that is an illusion. Whether one is up to it or not, if one is honest, there is no emigrating from this fight. <br /> <br />
©</div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-2095343240305364922023-11-11T20:42:00.000-08:002023-11-11T20:57:24.710-08:00With Burning Regret<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
"Hezbollah is making mistakes, and the citizens of Lebanon will be the ones to pay the price," Israeli defence minister Galant<a href="https://www.financial-world.org/news/news/financial/23260/creepy-threat-to-lebanon-gallant-what-we-do-in-gaza-we-can-do-in-beirut/?fbclid=IwAR29J8eg4bgnVV2p0J9ZqauJ7hOLXYm7LWbuBj8bQ-UkigFWloe7Hl26P0M"> said.</a> "<i>What we do in Gaza we can do in Beirut.</i>" <br /> <br />
Well now... what exactly <i>IS</i> Israel doing Gaza? Let us not ask Antonio Guterres. Let us not ask millions of protestors around the world. Let us not even ask Manuel Macron. No. Let us ask the Israeli government.
<br /> <br />
According to them they are "<i>targeting</i>" Hamas leaders and fighters.
<br /> <br />
<b>Target</b> v. "<i>to select as an object of attention or attack</i>."
<br /> <br />
In other words, they are taking their 155mm artillery shells and MK80-JDAM guided 2000lb bombs and "aiming" them at coordinates where a Hamas leader or unit is supposedly located. <br /> <br />
WE ARE NOT "AIMING" AT CIVILIANS!!!! WE WOULD NEVER DO SUCH A OUTRAGEOUS, INHUMANE THING. <br /> <br />
Certainly the Israeli High Command know that the precisely targeted 2000lb bunker-buster-bombs cause tremendous collateral damage; but that, they argue, is immaterial because they do not "INTEND" to target civilians and, absent intent, there is no crime.
<br /> <br />
The same is said with respect to the use of white phosphorous which, the Israelis claim, is only intended to light up the battle-scene not to burn anyone to the bone. <br /> <br />
They insist hotly, earnestly, adamantly and to the point of outrage and anger they they do not INTEND to cause civilian casualties, although they admit, with deep regret, that collateral civilian casualties are caused.
<br /> <br />
That's their argument.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3JZjjFdaFPV8nuZzLmT366tpSfwxoVjgzr1iLrHpekoXE3C33juUgKREdDZxHJts2O7gzASops8MFUAaFwp0E2wpA7WyRjVvNOEjOpKn8ihW1MUvhqW4CLvvDyAenqOlVLUK7Fyi5yRjsz5o1TT-VJxjmPaisMLjKvvgtNJRKzVj-z-cbr8SVxy-zgFDT/s1920/gallant.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1920" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3JZjjFdaFPV8nuZzLmT366tpSfwxoVjgzr1iLrHpekoXE3C33juUgKREdDZxHJts2O7gzASops8MFUAaFwp0E2wpA7WyRjVvNOEjOpKn8ihW1MUvhqW4CLvvDyAenqOlVLUK7Fyi5yRjsz5o1TT-VJxjmPaisMLjKvvgtNJRKzVj-z-cbr8SVxy-zgFDT/w320-h213/gallant.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <br />Okee dokee; so cometh now Gallant and says: "<i>What we <b>DO</b> in Gaza we can <b>DO</b> in Beirut.</i>" <br /> <br />
Does anyone catch the difference between "what we INTEND" and "what we DO;" between "what we are trying to do" and what we are doing" ? <br /> <br />
Gallant knows perfectly well that what Israel DOES in Gaza is (to date) kill 10,000 civilians, and reduce a city to rubble. In so saying he admits to his real intent.<br /> <br />
Let us bend over backwards and suppose that when it began the bombing of Gaza Israel had no idea what the collateral damage of its "targeted" missiles and bombs would be. My golly!!! We wish the Amis had warned us how destructive these things were. We had no idea!<br /> <br />
Okay... but they know now, and it threatening to DO to Beirut what they did DO to Gaza, Gallant is threatening mass civilian deaths. And he does so without any qualms.<br /> <br />
He takes pride in his threat. <b>What I can DO, I will DO</b>!!! It has a godlike ring to it, does it not?<br /> <br />
And lest there be any doubt; whereas Gaza is located in Gaza, Beirut is 60 miles from the border with Israel and 60 miles from the Hezbollah units firing on the border.<br /> <br />
Out of their own mouths, by the very words they used, they have admitted to DOing war crimes in Gaza.<br /> <br />
©</div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-9258166084160861662023-10-21T18:45:00.004-07:002023-10-27T18:57:15.581-07:00A Letter to the Pope: Deus non vult!<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: right;">21 October 2023</div>
Your Holiness: <br /><br />
Yourself, Patriarch Bartholomew, Patriarch Kirill, Archbishop Justin Welby, all bishops of the Church and all leaders of Christian Denominations must unanimously and unequivocally condemn the State of Israel's disproportionate and genocidal response to the Hamas act of terror on October 7th.<br /><br />
If you fail to do so, then never again presume to criticise his Holiness Pope Pius XII.<br /><br />
I am an insignificant nobody without the least influence over my corrupt and corrupted leaders or the swill of our mainstream media. But it is intolerable to sit at my computer and watch the mass destruction and slaughter of a ghetto on live-stream. "Never again" Really?<br /><br />
Your condemnations must not be equivocal or hedged with false balance. The Israeli defence minister called the Palestinians "animals." Indeed, a cornered animal will act irrationally. But who did the cornering? A disproportionate response to a criminal act is itself a war crime and when that disproportionality destroys, displaces and degrades an entire population with willfully indiscriminate intent that is genocide. <br /><br />
Those of you who presume to speak in Christ's name, must speak out now. Only your united veto can put a stop to the barbarism of our secular leaders.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Respectfully,</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpwVsC3dJwEKE3d3eJ5YqeaWIp17fLMuOYo-yu7PnEcUNfDDQHkOjDtTZoD9UZVtaMGyTrVdsEv3F6ysAduSl8NVL0_IU_XggQsG8DnAl00ovi-8w-MuT7KKaSLcptQkbYWsZDOlyQ8ZZD5ck2-GbiobXQv5Q4rPSKUub3yNtDmPzr7spbIulosIr7lSzx/s75/redsquirrel(cameo).png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="75" data-original-width="65" height="75" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpwVsC3dJwEKE3d3eJ5YqeaWIp17fLMuOYo-yu7PnEcUNfDDQHkOjDtTZoD9UZVtaMGyTrVdsEv3F6ysAduSl8NVL0_IU_XggQsG8DnAl00ovi-8w-MuT7KKaSLcptQkbYWsZDOlyQ8ZZD5ck2-GbiobXQv5Q4rPSKUub3yNtDmPzr7spbIulosIr7lSzx/s1600/redsquirrel(cameo).png" width="65" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><span style="text-align: justify;">©</span></div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-57984279914895224552023-10-18T17:00:00.006-07:002023-10-25T04:08:32.038-07:00Biden Anchors America to Israel.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
The United States is run by insane imbeciles.<br /><br />
Biden flies to Israel and like a dog to its master does huggies and kissie poo's with the most thuggish, corrupt and polarizing figure in the region. Bibi is even loathed by one half of his own country. Huggies from POTUS should be doled out like mana. But, I guess punks have an instinctive affinity for one another.<br /><br />
As if the optics weren't bad enough, the sonics were even worse. "As long as the United States stands -- and it will stand forever -- we will not let you ever be alone" intoned Biden. And to wrap up: "...the United States stands with you. We'll walk beside you in those dark days, we'll walk beside you in those good days to come."<br /><br />
The United States will stand <i>forever</i>? Really? To a people who have outlasted the Egyptian, Babylonian, Roman and Holy Roman empires, that must have sounded like a childish brag. It is certainly hubristic. It is one thing to say that, with God's help, may we last forever. It is quite another to announce point blank that we will. Compared to Biden's "forever," Hitler's One Thousand Year Reich almost sounds humble. At any rate, hubris is a form of insanity and when our leaders give the slip that they have lost grip on reality, we ought to at least take note.
<br /><br />
But back to the point, has an American president ever given an unconditional commitment to stand by a foreign nation forever? For that was the unmistakable import of Biden's foolish palaver.<br /><br />
There are some, who thinking they are savy realists will cynically say that Biden's commitment was "just rhetoric." Actually... diplomacy is the art of evasion. The whole point of diplomacy is NOT to commit one's nation to any one course of action and certainly not to another nation. The last time that rule was flaunted with lock-step commitments, the result was a Great War. <br /><br />
If Biden was playing to a home-grown audience, he was downright derelict in his duty to represent the country to the audience <i>of other nations</i>.<br /><br />
In fact, Biden proved himself to be nothing but a minion. It was nauseating to watch him regurgitate the Likud's narrative. <br /><br />
What is fundamentally at issue here is the implementation of a "two-state solution." That was the basis for the original partition of Palestine in 1948. That basis was reaffirmed in 1974 by UN Resolution 194.
That is official United States policy. So what did Biden say?<br /><br />
Speaking of a "resolution" to the crisis, he said, "for me that means a two state solution."<br /><br />
<i><b>For me</b></i>????? <i><b>For me</b></i>????? He speaks for the fucking United States, not for himself. He couldn't even manage to read the riot act to a state that is dependent on U.S. financial largesse and military assistance. <br /><br />
Other than stating his personal preference, the only thing he called for was (a) the destruction of Hamas (which was duly elected) and (b) for Palestinians to live in conditions of peace and dignity. Say what? <br /><br />
The issue is statehood. In calling for conditions of peace and dignity, Biden was in fact accepting Israel's current apratheid policy of denying statehood to Palestinians. Biden just prefers that the conditions in the apartheid enclaves be secure, peaceable and provide enough goodies to the inhabitants as will keep them quiescent.<br /><br />
That is not going to work; and that means that the only other solutions are: (a) continued repressive occupation or (b) forcible relocation (aka ethnic cleansing). <i>At best</i>, if we are all lucky, that will only push another generation of Palestinians into unquenchable rage and push Israeli's into a war-induced state of permanent psychosis.<br /><br />
I do not place all the blame on Israel for the impasse. The Palestinians have been equally intransigent. But in 1982 and then in 2017 the PLO and then Hamas accepted in principle the idea of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders. <i>THAT</i> is the goal of U.S. policy and <i>THAT</i> is what Biden should have seized the occasion to insist upon.<br /><br />
Instead Biden seized the occasion to let out more of his inner punk. Oh yes. Democrats might want to ignore it, but his constant <i><b>snaps and snarls</b></i> are there for all to see. As when during a 2020 town meeting he called a questioner a "damned liar" and challenged him to a push-up contest. Or when, denouncing the defund-the-police movement, he shouted into the mic, "there's NO PLACE!! in this country NO PLACE!!! for endangering the lives of law enforcement NO PLACE, NONE, NEVER, PERIOD!!!!! This supposedly avuncular Joe has a pronounced tendency to punch his message through. This punctuated yelling at you, is a form of threat and intimidation. So, when it came to Hezbollah, it was hardly surprising that Biden's message was a pounding "<b>DON'T!... DON'T... DON'T."</b><br /><br />
Biden may get away badgering Anita Hill, challening overweight blue collar workers and shouting down reporters, but if he thinks this display of gerontological toughness impresses Hezbollah, he is gerontologically deranged.<br /><br />
But perhaps this too was just another rhetorical display designed to make Lindsay Graham happy. Alas, we are not on Capitol Hill but rather in a region that is on the edge of a possible conflagration. <br /><br />
Having just announced that two carriers groups were heading to the region, Biden was clearly threatening Hezbollah with American military retaliation. In other words, he was committing the United States to involvement if and when Hezbollah should decide to do whatever Biden didn't want it to do.<br /><br />
Brilliant! Hand the trigger to Hezbollah which now gets to call the shot on whether U.S. troops get involved. That is the stupidest thing a nation can do. Should Hezbollah act against Israel then the U.S. can (a) humiliatingly retreat from Biden's "DON'T DON'T DON'T" or (b) venture into the maelstrom.<br /><br />
Biden's DON'Ts would have better been directed against Israel, which only hours before his arrival had bombed an airport and Syria and various border locations in Lebanon. Why is Israel poking a hornets nest? Hezbolla had nothing to do with the massacre on Oct 5th. Biden might recall, that contrary to MSM's propaganda, the last time the IDF took on Hezbollah, the IDF got creamed. <br /><br />
As it will if it undertakes a ground assault into Gaza. There are 300 miles of tunnels in Gaza. Let's do a Biden. 300!!! 300!!!! 300!!! So we'are talking about a two-tiered Stalingrad. Urban warfare on the surface and urban warfare in 300 miles of underground tunnels. <br /><br />
That is one bloody clusterfuck waiting to happen. Israel's only "solution" is to create a desert of rubble and call it victory. Suppose that "works" and that it works without provoking Hezbolah. Then what?<br /><br />
Assuming that the approximately 1 million youth of Gaza accept occupation quiescently, Israel has NO plans for administering, controlling, feeding, and taking care of the 2.5 million huddled into half the space. No plans for preventing starvation, or controlling outbreaks of disease or insuring that the sewage system works. <br /><br />
Genocide is not limited to the drama of gas chambers. Engineering conditions that will result in mass deaths qualifies just as well.<br /><br />
So the most the "Most Powerful Country on Urth" can wrangle out of Israel is an agreement not to prevent humanitarian assistance (paid for and provided by others) from crossing into Gaza from a single point on the Egyptian border? <br /><br />
Whatever side one wants to take in this matter, Israel's retaliatory rage is not a winning policy. It avenges an appalling act of murderous terror but it fails to address the underlying problem which being underlying will perist. And so, Israel's policy ends up being no more than murderous madness. And it is to this madness that our punk-imbecile president has committed the United States "forever." <br /><br />
As Israel cuts the electricity to Gaza, so the U.S. mass media apparatus cuts the light of information to the dumbed down American public. Gaza is <b><i>not</i></b> a separate country. Israel has prevented it from becoming a sovereign state. So then, what <i>is</i> Gaza's status? It is <i><b>occupied territory</b></i> and under long established international law Israel and Israel alone is responsible for the welfare of the inhabitants of the occupied territory. Allowing truckloads of water bottles, band-aids, and powdered milk to cross the border does not qualify as insuring the welfare of the population. And yet the craven American press treats Biden's "gaining" this pathetic "concession" as some great diplomatic feat on our part and humanitarian gesture by Israel. Shameful. <br /><br />
Equally nauseating was Biden's blather about a "pathway" and "framework" for peace. The one offer the Likud can't bear to accept is the peace of a two-state solution. They have resorted to every artifice to avoid building on Hamas' acceptance of 1967 borders. It is a gross distortion say that Biden is "standing by" Israel. He is supporting an extremist party within Israel -- a party that calls Palestinians "animals." <br /><br />
What is truly dismal, is that U.S. political class is so utterly brainwashed by the narrative of an extremist party in Israel that no one in any position of authority thinks of dancing to other than Bibi's tune. Oh, I am sure there are some wonky people in the State Department or in think tanks that will point out how diastrous all this is, but they have no influence. Unfortunately, mainstream Jewish organizations in the United States are not using their influence to read some sanity into U.S. policy. <br /><br />
It will be a bloody miracle if this does not blow up in our faces, at which point the U.S., which has already lost its proxy war in the Ukraine will be faced with another unwinnable war in the Middle East. Oh joy.
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©</div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-70519827706343065792023-08-20T19:40:00.004-07:002023-08-22T20:40:54.772-07:00In Defence of the Court<div style="text-align: justify;">
<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX1zw-_85Ef3XyZv7uJJD8YHlxDyd73_TETjB5RXkeZUEZOj3LYLNaki7HtsC993bVmiueFv6cjL1IAeyu3zB5-4vx9wBAH7zao1bSRwLa-vdUXhvY4isdjtWBFf9jWSiGSd_Cbc9AI6n_vHJf3Wr5oflbSEZ_yb99hiEPe0q8RtCo3_WFBmcbmiC7MUCW/s600/hooded%20SupremeCourt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="600" height="341" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX1zw-_85Ef3XyZv7uJJD8YHlxDyd73_TETjB5RXkeZUEZOj3LYLNaki7HtsC993bVmiueFv6cjL1IAeyu3zB5-4vx9wBAH7zao1bSRwLa-vdUXhvY4isdjtWBFf9jWSiGSd_Cbc9AI6n_vHJf3Wr5oflbSEZ_yb99hiEPe0q8RtCo3_WFBmcbmiC7MUCW/w400-h341/hooded%20SupremeCourt.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><p></p>
There is circulating a meme picture of the Supreme Court that depicts six of its conservative members in KKK hoods. This is obviously part of the Democrat Party's ongoing attempt to delegitimize the Court. The KKK was a vicious, sadistic organization that lynched Negroes and burned them alive or dragged them to their death while terrorizing whole neighbourhoods. The picture is a slur too far. <br /><br />
But even apart from such demagogic excesses, the Democrat assault on the Supreme Court is a greater threat to our system of government than any, assumedly bad, decision of the Court. It is time for the Demorats to stop it.<br /><br />
I would never deny that politics is not involved in Supreme Court decisions; of course it is. But it is a kind of politics that is restrained by precedent; that is to to say by the fair meaning of words within custom and usage. A judge or justice can get to the result he wants but he has to rationalize it in a certain manner. That manner does not include advertising, electoral hoopla, dramatic rhetoric snatched of out thin air or riding on some popular meme. It is rhetoric and reasoning according to the manner judicial decisions have been arrived at. <br /><br />
To give an example. The Fifth Amendment provides “<i>nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation</i>.” Implicit in that provision is the recognized power of government to take property. Two conditions are imposed: (1) compensation and (2) “public use.” But what does “public use” mean? Does it include a municipality taking your property in order to allow Walmart to build a Super Store in your town? <br /><br />
One would think that “public use” meant precisely that: some publicly owned use, such an a highway, a dam, an airport, a municipal park. Indeed, long standing Supreme Court precedent had always interpreted “public use” to mean just that sort of thing. But in <i>Kelo v. City of New London</i>, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), the Court held otherwise. Public use included taking your property and giving it to Walmart, <i>sub nom </i>“comprehensive development plan.” A better fascist marriage between government and corporations could hardly be imagined.<br /><br />
So the question in this case boiled down to: what to we mean by “use”? Does “use” include “indirect use” or “benefits” ? After all the land was not being given to the owners of Walmart et al. for their private residence but for shopping centers open to and used by the public. Plus (and this is the part to salivate over) the “redevelopment plan” would provide “tax revenues” to the city which is a public entity. <br /><br />
Arguably “use” includes “benefit” and, in the abstract the only “answer” is how many vote yes or no on the question. But the issue raised more than an abstraction or (in legal usage)more than an “issue of first impression.” There was precedent: how have the collective we (“the saints assembled”) interpreted “use” in the past? Well... their verdict was unequivocal: use meant “use by the public under government auspices.” <br /><br />
So what does “auspices” mean....? And so on. <br /><br />
But one gets the point. Judicial law is politics but one in which the results depend on grammar, the fair meaning of words, the soundness of reasoning, (with a dash of rhetoric), and ...in the end... what you can or cannot get away with... within reason. What one cannot do, is substitute one's own tabula raza ideas about things.<br /><br />
This is the distinction that Hamilton draws in <i>Federalist Paper No. 78.</i> The Legislature, he says, acts on the basis of WILL. The judiciary exercises JUDGEMENT. Congress can pass any law it pleases, whatever the bee that enters it bonnet. The Supreme Court is required to compare the fair meaning of words within our custom and usage. That is “politics” but one requiring a certain knowledge, training and above all, restraint.<br /><br />
So what about <i>Kelo</i>? The majority departed from previous understandings concerning the meaning of “public use” in order to expand the term according to their own notions of what it should mean. While it was not an illogical interpretation, it was not one that was restrained by prior usage. <br /><br />
According to the dissent: “Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. ... Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's interpretation of the Constitution. Though citizens are safe from the government in their homes, the homes themselves are not” <br /><br />
<b><i>Go RBG!!! Go Girl!!! Read those Federalist Society / Heritage Foundation justices the riot act!!!!</i></b><br /><br />
Uh.....Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer. <br /><br />
Justice O'Connor, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Thomas. dissented.<br /><br />
All of which brings me to my next point which is that the division of the Court between “conservatives” and “liberals” is so haphazrd and riddled with exceptions as to be meaningless... at least the way it is presented. There <i>is</i> a distinction in the reasoning processes judges follow in analyzing a question and working toward a conclusion, but even this is often nuanced. What I can say very broadly is that the difference is between those who espouse a sociologically infused “analysis” and those who espouse legal formalism; i.e. adhering to the text of what has been written.<br /><br />
I will return to the question of judicial methodology shortly. But first we might very well ask why have a Court at all? Isn't it just an oligachical device to thwart the will of the all knowing all beneficent democratic majority? You bet it is. And with good reason. The Court is our <i>tribunicia potestas</i>.<br /><br />
From history we will recall that, as a result of a plebian revolt, Rome established a college of five tribunes any one of which had the power to veto any act of the Senate or Assembly. The person of the tribune was sacred and his word was final. <br /><br />
Well, what sense did that make? Why have an Assembly at all, if some clown in a special toga can simply nullify whatever it does? How can you trust these “tribunes”? To which I ask: how can you trust the Assembly? Has the majority always ruled well and wisely? It was the majority in the Athenian assembly who voted to send ships out to slaughter every Melian man woman and child. Only when they sobered up the next morning did they realize what a vile thing it was and sent out ships to recall the ones they had sent the day before ... And row hard, by Jove, row!!! A tribune might have helped.<br /><br />
The simple and philosophical fact is that all society is always a balance between “the one and the many” and we have to trust both because we can trust neither. Can you prove in some sort of Cartesian way that the tribunician power is a good thing? Not really, but it served the Romans well enough for 700 years.<br /><br />
The thing that needs to be borne in mind is that the tribunician power is negative. It can stop but it cannot initiate. This distinction is what saves it from being tyrannical. As Voltaire wrote, “<i>a tyrant is the sovereign who knows no law but his own caprice</i>.” In our system the sovereign is Congress; and Congress, which has the power to make and unmake law, knows no law but its own caprice. The fact that our tyrant is democratically elected doesn't solve the problem of bad laws. We may, like the regretful Athenians, recall bad legislation by electing different representatives or parties to power; but sometimes it may be too late.<br /><br />
So this is Hamilton's argument: In America “<i>We The People</i>” are the true and only sovereign. But “<i>We the People</i>” spoke only once, and that was when we ordained the Constitution. So the Constitution (and by understood inclusion the Bill of Rights) is the one true expression of the will of truly direct popular sovereignty. Congress is only a derivitive sovereign. The Judiciary exists, then, to protect the original design of what “<i>We the People</i>” did ordain and establish.... Of course, the Court also interprets various laws and statutes, but it's main constitutional purpose is to excercise a negative judgement on laws or actions which transgress constitutional bounds.<br /><br />
Hamilton's argument somewhat involves a slight of hand; one that ends up saying (with a certain amount of cheek) that an oligarchical mechanism exists to protect the popular will. The simple fact is that by establishing the Constitution, the sovereign people delegated their law-making power to Congress which thenceforth represents the sovereign will of the people. But this simple description does not take into account the difference between an axiom and a theorem. <br /><br />
Axioms establish absolute fundamentals without which and outside of which nothing is possible. Theorems are specific propositions existing under and operative only within that conceptual universe established by axioms. In 1789, <i>We the People</i> did not simply delegate our collective power to three branches of government. We certainly did not, as the English did in 1688, decree simply and without more that “Parliament was supreme.” We delegated our powers within a prescribed constitutional order of doing things and subject, most importantly, to the fundamentals of the <i>Bill of Rights</i>. That was an act of axiomatic legislation. From this constitutional perspective, Hamilton's argument is more than a trick. The Court exists to protect the <i>axiomatic will</i> of the People as against subsequent propositions ensuing, supposedly, thereunder. <br /><br />
This explains why the Court is essentially a conservative beast. It does not exist to initiate changes. It does not look forward but back; and, most importantly back to our axioms. This is why FDR complained that the Court was “taking us back to horse and buggy days.” Yeah, so perhaps we should give horses and buggies a second look.<br /><br />
And taking a second look, we can notice that our Constitution and Bill of Rights presuppose a Liberal political philosophy; that is, one that, in the balance between the One and the Many, inclines toward the individual and his freedom of action. This may sound nice, but it has to be remembered that “individual” includes Very Big Individuals who Have a Disportionate Amount of Political and Economic Power. For better and for worse in no other nation was the “liberal idea” given such free reign as in the United States.<br /><br />
I'm not saying that the Constitution prohibits government initiative or regulation, or that it demands unfettered capitalism. Although principles may be stated in pristine simplicity, in actual practice there is always a near infinite amount of variation. But given the essential role of the Court and given our foundational documents it is not surprising that the Court's rulings should have a “conservative” (i.e. Liberal) tilt. <br /><br />
It was precisely for this reason that beginning in the 20th century some jurists began a movement to revamp jurisprudence, so as to make it make amenable to achieving socio-economic change. Thus arose the division between formal (veto prone) jurisprudence and sociological jurisprudence, or as it is often called, “legal realism.” The Big Battle arose, of course, over FDR's New Deal. <br /><br />
Sniffed Justice Mc Reynolds “I readily and, I trust, feelingly acknowledge the duty incumbent on us all as men and citizens, and as among the highest and holiest of our duties, to provide for those who, in the mysterious order of Providence, are subject to want and to disease of body or mind; but I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States.”<br /><br />
Whatever might be said about the mysterious order of Providence, there is no authority in the Constitution for the government to run a Social Security Administration. And proof of that fact is that when the Court (under pressure) got around to approving Social Security it did so under the “general welfare” preamble of the Constitution. But if that is the logic to be used then “general welfare” becomes an infinitely malleable variable and we might as well have no restrictions at all on what Congress can do.<br /><br />
The most egregious example of “sociological” jurisprudence that I can think of is the Case of <i>Wickard v. Filburn</i> (1941) in which the Court held that a backwoods Ohio farmer who lived miles from anywhere and who grew his own wheat entirely for home consumption was “in” interstate commerce (and therefore could be regulated by the government) because by NOT buying bread produced in interstate commerce he affected interstate commerce as much as if he sold his wheat in interstate commerce. <br /><br />
Although I am very glad for Social Security and think we need more government regulation of private enterprise, the problem with this kind of Alice-in-Wonderland sophistry is that it basically destroys the very idea of law. If words and ideas can be abused in this way, we are left with brute will and that, imo, is not a good thing.<br /><br />
This is why, at least as much as the achieved result of any case, I am concerned about how the “<i>ratio decidendi</i>” -- how the case was reasoned to its conclusion. If the reasoning is honest and fair, then even if I would have reasoned otherwise, I feel I got as good as any of us can expect to get. Verbal thuggery, is another matter. <br /><br />
So... to summarize. In the ever ongoing balance between the One and the Many, or between the Settled and the Needed, the Supreme Court, as it is, serves a very necessary function. Its decisions have never been perfect, and since there are always at least two sides to any issue, they will always offend at least one party. From day to day, I find myself being delighted or outraged. But at the end of the day, I have to ask whether I would prefer an imperfect restraint on popular will or none at all. <br /><br />
No one who is even tepidly social democratic could possible support the Republican agenda, but what the Democrats are doing is reprehensible. Knowing that they will not be able to force court-packing legislation through Congress, they are attempting the next worser thing: witch-hunt conservative justices off the Court so that a Democratic administration can re-pack it with legal realists more amenable to their will. Oh, yes, they may get the rulings they want but they will have completely politicised the Court by making it a steppinfechit for the caprice of the majority. And once the Democrats succeed, the Republicans will follow suit. I would vote for any Republican in order to estop this destructive petulance.<br /><br />
©</div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-78152220019562282542023-07-04T20:13:00.007-07:002023-07-05T08:42:56.067-07:00Scumbagging the Second Amendment<div style="text-align: justify;">
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The Supreme Court has granted certiorari in <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca5/21-11001/21-11001-2023-02-02.html" target="_blank"><i>United States v. Rahimi</i>,</a> after a ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal (Texas), setting aside Rahimi's conviction, under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), for possessing a firearm in violation of a civil restraining order based on a judicial finding that he represented “a credible threat to the physical safety of” his domestic partner. <br /> <br />
Rahimi asserted that his conviction was invalid because he had a constitutional right to possess the weapon in question. He argues that § 922(g)(8) is unconstitutional on its face. <br /> <br />
That Mr. Rahimi is a poster boy for the type of scumbag no one in their right mind would want possessing a firearm is beyond dispute. His record includes a lengthy criminal history the most recent episodes of which included drug dealing, burglary, two assaults on women with a firearm, the latter of which was accompanied by brandishing a gun, and firing it into the air while arguing with a potential witness. For these accomplishments Rahimi was convicted and sentenced in a Texas state court. When he gets out, he will never be allowed to possess a firearm. Nevertheless, the Department of Justice decided to pursue Mr. Rahimi on federal charges. <br /> <br />
On the first appeal from his federal conviction, the Fifth Circuit rejected Rahimi's constitutional claim. The court ruled, that under the “two-part balancing test” in use at the time, Rahimi's rights were “outweighed” by the compelling state interest in maintaining the peace, tranquility and safety of the realm. <br /> <br />
After Rahimi was packed off to prison but, before his judgement was final, the Supreme Court decided <i>N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen</i>, (2022), __U.S.__, 142 S. Ct. 2111, which changed the Second Amendment legal landscape. Under <i>Bruen</i> a person has a presumptive right to posssess weapons in “common use” among the public, and it is the government's burden to prove that the restriction or deprivation of the right is justified by some analogue in the “history and tradition” of the Second Amendment. Rahimi thereupon mounted a second challenge to § 922(g)(8) and, this time, “in light of Bruen” the Fifth Circuit reversed. <br /> <br />
Needless to say, the anti-gun lobby -- which has finally stopped making a secret of its desire to abrogate the Second Amendment -- has raised a <i>hutesium et clamor</i> against a ruling that will cruelly subject the country and its millions of innocent children to the bloody rack and ruin of gun violence. Not only is Rahimi's scumbaggery the main ballast of their argument, but in a perverse way he has become the anti-hero of their cause.<br /> <br />
However, a facial challenge to a statute considers only the text of the statute itself, not its application to the particular circumstances of an individual. The question properly before the Fifth Circuit was whether, § 922(g)(8), as written and in abstract principle, passes constitutional muster. Of course, the law would not be the law without there being a wrinkle and, as written, § 922(g)(8) is something of a clunker. <br /> <br />
That statute prohibits possessing a firearm in violation of a civil protective order. The order must have prohibited stalking or threatening a domestic partner (1) based on a finding that the person “represents a credible threat to the physical safety” to said partner OR (2) “explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against such” said partner. In other words, § 922(g)(8) can be violated without there having been any finding of “dangerousness.”
<br /> <br />
This second condition was so obviously flawed that the Fifth Circuit had previously held that it contained an “implied” finding of dangerousness. (<i>United States v. Emerson</i>, 270 F.3d 203 (5th Cir. 2001), cert. denied, 536 U.S. 907 (2002).) As thus patched up, section §922 (g)(8) rests on a civil judicial finding that the subject of the order represents a danger to a particular person.
<br /> <br /><div style="text-align: center;">“<i>A well regulated militia... the right of the people to keep and bear arms...</i>”</div> <div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>
Interestingly enough, instead of asking whether such a finding constituted a sufficient predicate for depriving Rahimi of his right to bear arms, the Court of Appeal began by asking whether Mr. Rahimi was part of the “people” to whom the Second Amendment refers. At this point my ears started to burn. Yes indeed: who and on what basis gets to decide whether a person is part of the national community? <br /> <br />
By phrasing the question in that manner the Fifth Circuit transubstantiated the issue of “my rights” into the more primary existential question of whether “I” am part of “Us.” That it seems to me is a rather important question, especially when we recall the lamentable history of regimes that have excluded categories of people from their national community. <br /> <br />
There is no question that a member of “we the people” can disenfranchise himself by his conduct. The concept is known as “civil death.” But our Constitution provides specific means and limitations on how that is done; namely, after conviction by jury trial with assistance of counsel. It is not the <i>conviction</i> that causes a man to forfeit his membership in the the community but rather the <i>decision</i> of his fellow people. In civilian countries like France or Germany, it suffices for agents of the State, professionally trained judges, to make the decision as to whether someone should incur civil death and thereby be excluded -- for a time or forever -- from walking freely among fellow citizens. <br /> <br />
But neither England nor the United States have ever followed the civil law. In our tradition a man's right as “one of a people” can only be taken away by the people, and the Sixth Amendment specifies that this is to be taken literally. As Justice Scalia put it, “Judges, it is sometimes necessary to remind ourselves, are part of the State -- and an increasingly bureaucratic part of it, at that” (<i>Apprendi v. New Jersey</i> (2000) 530 U.S. 466, 498.) "It is the jury that functions as circuit-breaker in the State’s machinery of justice." (<i>Blakely v. Washington</i> (2004) 542 U. S. 296, 307.)
<br /> <br />
Now, it is true that the overwhelming majority of cases are disposed of by plea. But that does derogate from the principle at issue. Every plea must be based on a voluntary and knowing waiver of the process accorded. Anyone who wants to be judged by his peers, face to face, has the absolute right to appeal to the circuit breaker.
<br /> <br />
This is yet another example of the ways in which the Bill of Rights enshrines not only individual rights but the right and power of popular control over government and over our own destinies. No judge, magistrate, agent, bureaucrat, or lackey can exclude you; only the people can say that you are no longer part of the people. You can't get more fundamentally democratic than that.
<br /> <br />
Of course, a popular decision while a necessary condition is not a sufficient one. In addition to a determination by jury, the decision must accord with substantive standards and due process of law. In a word, there must be good cause and reason for finding someone unworthy to participate in the community of the free. The shorthand for all of this is the well known truism that a person may loose his rights through and upon conviction for a crime or for a certain class of crime. Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind what lies behind the shorthand.
<br /> <br />
The Department of Justice would have it that a person can be excluded from the national community and the rights shared therethrough, by the say-so of a civil order made by an agent of the state, pursuant to no specified criteria or standard of proof. The only contingency is that the subject of the order receive “actual notice” and be given the opportunity “to participate.” What this boils downs to in practice is a showing that notice was mailed to him at his last known address.
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To justify this sort of regime, the Government pointed to various historical analogues in English and Colonial law. The first of these was the <i>Statute of Northampton</i>, 2 Edw. 3, (1328), and various copy-cat statutes, which prohibited “riding about armed to the terror of the King's subjects” (<i>ne de chivaucher ne de daler arme</i>). As I have written <a href="https://wcg-features.blogspot.com/2022/07/arma-virumque.html" target="_blank">elsewhere</a>, what the statute actually prohibited was using arms to terrify the people. The statutes in question invariably resort to phrases such as “with force and arms,” or “affrayers,” or “breakers of the peace,” or “go armed offensively.” As such, these statutes (English and Colonial) presupposed a primary right to lawfully bear arms, and the universal acceptance of this right cannot in good faith be doubted by anyone familiar with the historical and legal record from King Alfred (850) to James Madison (1791). As stated by the Fifth Circuit, <br />
<br />
<blockquote>
“In substance, the early “going armed” laws that led to weapons forfeiture are not relevantly similar to § 922(g)(8). First, those laws only disarmed an offender after criminal proceedings and conviction. By contrast, § 922(g)(8) disarms people who have merely been civilly adjudicated to be a threat to another person.”
</blockquote>
<br />
The Government's second argument relied on various English and Colonial laws which had authorized the seizure of weapons from “dangerous” classes of people. Or, as the Government summarized it, “persons and disaffected persons perceived as threatening to the crown.” The difficulty with this line of argument is that the persons deemed “dangerous” were either Protestants (under Charles II and James II), or Irish and Catholics (after the Glorious Revolution) or slaves and Indians (in the Colonies). The perversity of the Government's argument is truly astonishing. If anything, the Second Amendment was designed to forestall precisely those kinds of status-based forfeitures.<br /><br />
Lastly, the Government sought to rely on various surety laws by means of which an individual who could show that he had “just cause to fear” that another would injure him or destroy his property could “demand surety of the peace against such person.” If the party of whom surety was demanded refused to post surety, he would be forbidden from carrying a weapon in public absent special need. The similarity between § 922(g)(8) and surety laws is obvious. Where the analogy breaks down is that surety laws did not confiscate or prohibit possession of the weapon itself. The Government's argument that the right to possess arms can be based on a civil finding of dangerousness; and, therefore, if a finding of dangerousness is sufficient to condition your right it ought to be sufficient to abrogate it as well. <br /><br />
The Justice Department is hoping that the outrageousness of Rahimi's conduct will distract and obscure the pernicious principle being asserted. In seeking Supreme Court review, the Government has sought to portray the Fifth Circuit's ruling as one that would hog tie the authorities from taking any reasonable measures to counteract a patently dangerous and, indeed, deranged person from committing further gun violence. Needless to say, the Anti-Gun activists and media followed up with the appropriate rhetoric qua reportage. Since it makes for such salacious reading we might as well quote the Government's brief in full: <br /> <br />
<blockquote>
“... Zackey Rahimi was a drug dealer who mostly sold marijuana and occasionally sold cocaine. In December 2019, Rahimi and his girlfriend C.M. had an argument in a parking lot in Arlington, Texas. C.M. tried to leave, but Rahimi grabbed her wrist, knocking her to the ground. He then dragged her back to his car, picked her up, and pushed her inside, causing her to hit her head on the dashboard. Realizing that a bystander had seen him, he retrieved a gun and fired a shot. In the meantime, C.M. escaped the car and fled the scene. Rahimi later called her and threatened to shoot her if she told anyone about the assault. <br /> <br />
“In February 2020, after giving Rahimi notice and an opportunity for a hearing, a Texas state court granted C.M. a restraining order, which was valid for two years. C.A. ROA 12-18. The court found that Rahimi had “committed family violence” and that such violence was “likely to occur again in the future.” . The court accordingly prohibited Rahimi from committing family violence and from threatening, harassing, or approach ing C.M. or her family. . The order also suspended Rahimi’s handgun license, prohibited him from possessing a firearm, and warned him that possessing a firearm while the order remained in effect may be a federal felony. Rahimi signed an acknowledgement that he had 'received a copy of this protective order in open court at the close of the hearing in this matter.' <br /> <br />
“Rahimi, however, defied the restraining order. In August 2020, he tried to communicate with C.M. on social media and approached her house in the middle of the night, prompting state police to arrest him for violating the order. C.A. ROA 218. And in November 2020, he threatened another woman with a gun, leading the State of Texas to charge him with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
<br /> <br />
“Rahimi then participated in a series of five shootings in December 2020 and January 2021. First, after someone who had bought drugs from him “started talking ‘trash’ ” on social media, he went to the man’s home and fired bullets into it using an AR-15 rifle. The next day, after colliding with another vehicle, he alighted from his car, shot at the other driver, fled, re- turned to the scene, fired more shots at the other car, and fled again. Three days later, Rahimi fired a gun in the air in a residential neighborhood in the presence of young children. . A few weeks after that, a truck flashed its headlights at Rahimi when he sped past it on a highway; in response, Rahimi slammed his brakes, cut across the highway, followed the truck off an exit, and fired multiple shots at another car that had been traveling behind the truck. Finally, in early January, Rahimi pulled out a gun and fired multi- ple shots in the air after a friend’s credit card was declined at a fast-food restaurant.”<br /> <br />
“Police officers identified Rahimi as a suspect in those shootings and secured a search warrant for his home. A search of his room uncovered a .45- caliber pistol, a .308-caliber rifle, pistol and rifle magazines, ammunition, approximately $20,000 in cash, and a copy of the restraining order. [ as a result of which he was indicted for violating 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8]”<br /> <br />
</blockquote>
What this stunning narration glides over is the fact that prior to be charged with the federal offence, Rahimi had been convicted on state charges of “terroristic threat of a family/household member, discharge of a firearm in certain municipalities, and family violence assault causing bodily injury.” (see United States v. Rahimi (5th Cir., June 8, 2022, No. 21-11001) [pp. 3 fn. 2].) After conviction and sentence on these state charges, Rahimi admitted and pleaded guilty to the federal charges, reserving the right to appeal the constitutionality of the federal statute. The federal district court then imposed a prison term to run consecutive to the state sentence. <br /> <br />
In his first federal appeal (the June 8, 2022 case, cited above), Rahimi argued that the state and federal sentences should run concurrently because, after all, it was all part of his singlular deranged and dangerous propensity. The Fifth Circuit rejected this claim on the ground that “the pending state charges are not a part of the same course of conduct as Rahimi's possession of a firearm in violation of a restraining order” inasmuch as federal offence arose two and 12 months after the state prior state charges. (<i>United States v. Rahimi </i>(5th Cir., June 8, 2022, No. 21-11001) [pp. 4].) At the same time the Fifth Circuit rejected Rahimi's constitutional challenge.
<br /> <br />
What the Government elides gracefully is that there was plenty of time for the Texas courts to issue an order restraining Rahimi from possessing a firearm. In fact, they had done so and if Texas did not do so again it was because Rahimi was being packed off to prison in any case. Despite all the tears and rending of garments, this was not a case where the authorities were rendered helpless in their attempts to control an armed, violent and dangerous lunatic. The good and peaceable citizens of the United States and the Great State of Texas can sleep tight at night knowing that Rahimi's dangerous are under lock and key.<br /> <br />
What remains then is a facial challenged to a criminal statute that is based on the deprivation of a constititional right issued by a civil magistrate who decides that a person represents a danger to another. That's it. No further requirement or qualification. In defending 922(g)(8), the Government is arguing for the deprivation of a constitutional under a totally undefined standard of determination.
<br /> <br />
As Judge Hoo, noted in his concurring opinion, “civil protective orders are too often misused as a tactical device in divorce proceedings—and issued without any actual threat of danger. ... Judges may face enormous pressure to grant civil protective orders—and no incentive to deny them.” That is true enough, but the situation is far worse.<br /> <br />
Because, by definition, a "danger" is a possible or, to some degree, a probabable harm, a "danger" can always be said to presently exist and is impossible to deny. Authorities intuitively understand this which is why they speak of "potential dangers," which sounds like it is saying something more when, in fact, it is saying less. Unless tethered to enumerated and specific objective criteria, a finding of dangerousness is not only easily made but, worse yet, is no more than a self-certifying excoriation. The inherent capriciousness of such findings make them the favourite tool of tyrants.
It is precisely for that reason that the Government and gun control activists wish to mesmerize people with “dangers.” This is the same Administration that has a track record of exerting government pressure to censor “dangerous” or “hateful” speech by gagging or cancelling social media accounts. Once they establish the principle that constitutional rights can be taken away through such vague and facile “findings” liberty ceases to be guaranteed. This is not the beginning of a slippery slope, it is the end of it. It is nothing a true and honest liberal in the mold of justice Douglas, Brennan or Black would have countenanced.
<br /><br />
Although the Fifth Circuit opinion did not mention <i>Apprendi</i> or <i>Blakely</i> the way it initially framed the question indicates that it clearly had those cases in mind. The Bill of Rights presupposes the loss of the rights it protects, but it does so by the means it prescribes. <br /><br />
©</div>
Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-43630213150322588172023-06-29T18:26:00.002-07:002023-06-30T23:23:27.469-07:00Supreme Court rules on Affirmative Delusions<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Needless to say, the usual suspects are venting about how the Court's "overruling" of affirmative action fails to address "historic racism." This is yet another example of nonsensical Orwellian memes that do nothing but paralyze thought. <br /> <br />
I honestly don't know what it means to say that we need to address historic racism. The one thing I am certain of is that history is dead and gone. Affirmative action will do nothing to save the black man lynched on a tree or the black slave torn from her child and raped... and on and on. Addressing history is like talking into the grave. <br /> <br />
If, on the other hand, one means that we have to address the LEGACY of our history then at least we are focusing correctly on the issue that needs to be addressed. The legacy -- that is, the "what-are-we-left-with-NOW" -- is that blacks are (for the most part) economically deprived and being poor are culturally deprived and being culturally deprived are personally disabled. Punto y final.<br /> <br />
Ohhh but we're not supposed to say that. That is somehow insensitive and ignores the richness of jazz, blues, hominy and grits. Bunk. The "richness" of the human response to oppression isn't going to help you cut it in med school.<br /> <br />
Anyone who knows anything about child development knows that affirmative action begins at home and at about age two. In all spheres, a middle or upper middle class child is presented with worlds of opportunity, wonderment and challenge through which and with which he develops his interests and abilities. For the child who grows up in poverty -- or worse yet, in an urban "ghetto"-- the situation is the reverse. The action is all unaffirming and negative. The idea that giving such a person a "leg up" into college was a cruel deceit.<br /> <br />
I saw it myself in law school where Blacks and Hispanics were admitted on condition they undertake remedial reading. HUH??? Really? Law is nothing if not the science of words. As Aristotle put it succinctly millenia ago; "for it is words that give us the ability to decide between the just and unjust...." (<i>Politiks</i> Bk 1. ch.1) If you are struggling with the syllables to make out the word, to put together a sentence, you're just not going to make it. Worse yet, you just can't DO it. And it's the same thing in physics, mathematics, medicine or any other discipline. A mid-century German politician put it this way: <br /> <br />
<blockquote>
"I perceived very clearly that the aim of all social activity must never be merely charitable relief, which is ridiculous and useless, but it must rather be a means to find a way of eliminating the fundamental deficiencies in our economic and cultural life - deficiencies which necessarily bring about the degradation of the individual...."
</blockquote><br />
So indeed affirmative action was and is a band-aid. But it is band-aid that deceives everyone from addressing the real underlying problem: "eliminating the fundamental deficiencies in our economic and cultural life."<br /><br />
And that does indeed begin with medicare for all, with a affordable housing, with guaranteed livable pensions, and with a "wage that enables a man to provide for himself, to raise and family and to set aside savings." (Pope Leo XIII (1891) in case anyone was wondering.) Most of all it requires an education that allows the young person to test himself against the full range of challenges that exist from mechanics to quantum mechanics, so that he can discover what he likes and what he is good at. For, developing one's "individual potential" is not a question of becoming a doctor or lawyer, but rather of becoming a responsible and respected contributor to society.
<br /><br />
In Germany for example, it is not a dishonor to be a "master baker." Everybody gets respect for what they bring to society's table. But,along with depressing wages, America cheapens everything.<br /><br />
This whole affirmative action stuff began when the Detroit and Watts riots put the fear of the Caesars into our ruling class. The slaves were revolting. Buy peace! Buy peace! Bump a few of them up into the professional classes and call it a day. But along the entire trajectory of affirmative action the condition of most Blacks has flatlined. <br /><br />
It was worse yet; for along with bumping up a few minorities, the ruling class set out to degrade and destroy the working class whose real incomes progressively declined for 40 years until they too have flatlined. <br /><br />
The liberals can bitch and whine all they want about how the "reactionary" court has "set us back" to the Jim Crow era and blah blah blah. The Supreme Court has actually done us a favor by removing a bewitching panacea.<br /><br />
One has to read between the lines. C.J. Roberts wrote that the Court had never accepted affirmative action as a permanent solution. Correct. Since the <i>Bakkee</i> decision in 1978, it has always said that affirmative action would have to end "at sometime." In other words, the Court was willing to accept what everyone understood was a violation of Equal Protection, as temporary measure to jump start some kind of Black "middle class." <br /><br />
Most of what Americans call "liberalism" is a blindfold that allows liberals to forget the material sacrifices THEY as a class must make in order to achieve the society they <i>say</i> they want. In removing the blinder, the Court has actually forced us to look elsewhere than at college admissions offices for solutions. <br /><br />
In so far as admissions offices are concerned, I would recommend reading the dissent of Justice Douglas in <i>DeFunis v. Odegaard</i> (1974) 416 U.S. 312, No one -- absolutely no one --- can accuse Douglas of being a toady to reactionaries...and yet this is what he wrote:<br /><br />
<blockquote>
"The Equal Protection Clause commands the elimination of racial barriers, not their creation in order to satisfy our theory as to how society ought to be organized. .... A segregated admissions process creates suggestions of stigma and caste no less than a segregated classroom, and in the end it may produce that result despite its contrary intentions. One other assumption must be clearly disapproved: that blacks or browns cannot make it on their individual merit. That is a stamp of inferiority that a State is not permitted to place on any lawyer. ... So far as race is concerned, any state-sponsored preference to one race over another in that competition is in my view "invidious" and violative of the Equal Protection Clause.” (<i>Id</i>., at pp. 343-44.)
</blockquote><br />
Douglas also makes good reading in comparison to the dissents of justices Jackson and Sotomayor; for, way before woke,Douglas was very aware of the cultural discrimination in so-called "objective" measurements like the SAT/LSAT. But, he was also prophetically aware of the problem in creating a cascade of conflicting preferences based on race, national origin and other "cognized" categories. At the end of the day, when it comes to any technique, cultural values and perspectives have nothing to do with it: either you know how to tune a V-8 engine, or you don't.
<br /><br />
©</div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-83904731544780167682023-05-25T09:43:00.006-07:002023-05-27T10:18:52.229-07:00Give Us a People's Court!!! (Not)<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Not content with circumventing the First Amendment or seeking to subvert the Second, a recent hit piece in the <i>La Guardiana</i> makes clear that the Demorats are out to turn the Supreme Court into a lackey of the Executive. <br /> <br />
The shot across the bow: "There is no better symbol of the crisis of trust in American institutions than its highest court, pummeled by partisan appointments, divisive rulings and ethical scandals." <br /> <br />
Say what? Since when have appointments to the Supreme Court not been partisan? <br /> <br />
Since when have Supreme Court rulings not been divisive? It is in the nature of things legal that there will invariably be two sides in any case and the side that looses will be grumpy about it. When the case is of public interest, the public will be divided on the issue. This is new? <br /> <br />
The <i>Guardian</i> article then positions itself for a broadside:<br /><br />
<blockquote>"Congressional Democrats ... believe that they have a solution: expand the court by adding four seats to counter a rightward tilt during the Donald Trump administration that, they say, put it out of step with mainstream public opinion."</blockquote><br />
This is nothing less than a call for insurrection against the Constitution. Permit me to explain why.<br /><br />
The Constitution does not prescribe any number of justices to sit on the Court and, originally, the number was set at seven. So then, there is nothing unconstitutional in seeking to increase the number of justices on the Court.<br /><br />
Furthermore, since the Constitution gives Congress the power to create such inferior courts as it deems fit, there is no bar to creating "sub-supreme" courts to respectively handle criminal or civil matters, leaving only the most rare and rarified cases for Supreme Court review. If it wanted, Congress could imitate a College of Lords model and provide that the Supreme Court be comprised by all Circuit Court judges assembled. <br /><br />
What makes the Demorat proposal insurrectionist is not the plan but the motive; namely, <i>to bring the Court in step with mainstream public opinion.</i><br /><br />
That is definitely not what the Supreme Court is about. It is nothing the Court <i>can</i> be about. In our system, public opinion (la volonté général) expresses itself throught Congress not the courts. In contrast "it is emphatically the role of the courts to say what the law is." (<i>Marbury v. Madison</i>, Marshall,J.) Or, as Hamilton put it,<br /><br />
<blockquote>
“The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. ...<br /><br />
“[T]he courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. ...
<br /><br />
“[T]hough individual oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter; I mean so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and the Executive. For I agree, that 'there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers.'' ... [L]iberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments...” (<i>Federalist Paper</i> No. 78.) </blockquote>
<br />
This means nothing to the Democrat Party or its hacks in the press. To speak of countering a "rightward tilt" during an Administration is to insinuate that the Court is nothing but an instrument of the executive; that it is a mere creature of political will that can and should reflect a dominant ideology by packing it with partisans who will toe the line. Broadside indeed!
<br /><br />
Yes, the proposed means is constitutional but the aim and purpose is to destroy the independence of the judiciary; to make it as subservient to the Biden Administration as the Stuart judges were to James II. <br /><br />
For shame! <br /><br />
Cynics on both sides of the factional divide will say that the Court has always been "political" and that the notion of an a-political “interpretation” of the law is a fiction. I agree. But what the cynics omit is that there are different types of "politics." <br /><br />
Hamilton states that courts must exercise <i>judgement</i> and not <i>will</i>. But what does this mean? We can begin an answer by asking, what is "the law" if not a pile of words? After all, it is language, Aristotle says, that allows us to "decide between the just and the unjust, the expedient and inexpedient." (<i>Politics</i>, Bk.1, ch. 1.) And so deciding, what we call “law” is simply a prescription for the conduct of persons and the operation of institutions. Thus, the role judgement boils down to declaring the sense of words, in relation to themselves and in relation to yet other words which are used to describe what we call “reality.” <br /><br />
No one can seriously argue that making enforceable decisions about public or private controversies does not have a corresponding political implication. The entire course of Anglo-American law is infused with politics; and it is in the genius of our system that it extracts a universal principle from a particular case and that the wrangling between two parties can have implications for the nation. <br /><br />
Of course the courts are political institutions. But the "politics" of the courts is the politics of grammar whereas the politics of the legislature is the politics of number. <br /><br />
As Hamilton reviews in Federalist Paper No. 78, this political grammar operates at two levels, the lowest being ordinary statutory construction and the resolution of conflicts between two or more statutes. The next higher level involves judging the constitutionality of statutes and official acts or the interpretation of two or more conflicting constitutional provisions.<br /><br />
But in my view, there is yet a broader and deeper level at which the high court operates; namely, the historical assessment of our custom and usage -- how we, as a People, have been talking about things. Or, what is the grammar of our tradition? <br /><br />
The first two levels of judicial judgement are basically textual. A<i> sola scriptura</i> sort of thing where will is harnessed by the “plain meaning of words.” The third level is hinged to the textual but stretches into the finesse of our legal and political tradition.<br /><br />
At all levels there is a danger that judges will depart from exercising judgement and pass over into exercising will. The danger is greatest when the matter at hand devolves into "history and tradition." The reason is simple. Supposing for the sake of argument that a history or tradition is ascertainable with a reasonable degree of certainty, that being the case tradition only brings us up to the present. The question still remains which way the law points with respect to the future. Whither the next step, if even a step at all? <br /><br />
There are two possibilities: progression or stasis. The text in light of history and tradition either calls for a development or mandates constraint. This choice lies at the base of the argument over "activist" versus "conservative" justices. Neither is inherently better than the other. The whole history of the Common Law is one of development by analogy. At the same time, throughout that history, there are times when the brakes are applied in the name of received custom. At times, the pen writes in both directions. The American Revolution, which was steeped in legalisms, indubitably pointed forward while being grounded in an asserted vindication of long established rights.<br /><br />
This is not the civilian system in which justice is regarded as merely administrative. In our tradition, judges are not meant to be robots. It is understood that they bring to the bench a <i>woolsack</i> of ideas and notions on which they sit. What distinguishes their decisions from a mere exercise of will is a commitment to be led and restrained by the meaning and trajectory of words. In Congress there are no limits as to what can be proposed. In courts of law there are limits as to what can fairly and reasonably be deduced.<br /><br />
It is here that a further distinction between “liberal activism” and “conservative interpretation” arises; namely, what is “fair and reasonable.” Until, the end of the 19th century the name of the game was legal formalism. What this meant is that any <i>ratio decidendi</i> had had to abide basic canons of deductive reasoning. <br /><br />
"All wrong, all wrong — but no one can say why..." said governor John Randolph of<i> Marbury v. Madison</i>, the cornerstone of the Court's judicial power. And so the case has stood.<br /><br />
At the end of the 19th century there arose a sociological movement in the law which aimed to investigate and understand the social and economic causes out of which the law grew and which it was said to reflect. There was nothing especially egregious in this sort of exercise. Indeed the meaning of words themselves are socially contextual. But this “new jurisprudence” quickly got inverted into using law to effect social and economic outcomes. Throughout the 20th century law students were taught that “law is a tool of social engineering.” The game of this new “legal realism” was to select a desired outcome and then rustle up the rationale needed to make it fly. It was immediately apparent to any first year law student that this methodology reduced law to an exercise in advertising. What mattered only was that an appearance of law be lent to bringing about a result. <br /><br />
The culmination of <i>outcome-determinism</i> came in 1942 in a case called <i>Wickard v. Filburn</i>. In that case, the question was whether an isolated, backwoods farmer who grew a few acres of wheat entirely and exclusively for his own consumption was “within interstate commerce” and therefore subject to federally imposed limits on wheat production. The answer was yes, because by being outside interstate commerce he affected the level of interstate commerce as much as if he had sold his wheat in interstate commerce and therefore by being out of interstate commerce he was “in” interstate commerce and subject to federal regulation. At this point rhetoric spilled over into sophistry of the most grotesque sort. FDR's newly constituted Court had declared that words would be used to decide what was <i>expedient</i> and that decisional law was an exercise of will.<br /><br />
Nor was <i>Wickard</i> a particularly exceptional case. To give an apropos example, in <i>Kelo v. City of New London</i>, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), the “liberals” on the Court headed by Justice Stevens held that the power of eminent domain allowed government to take one man's private property in order to sell it to private developers. Prior to <i>Kelo</i>, the rule was that property could be taken but only for “public use.” After <i>Kelo</i> that was still the rule only “public use” was redefined to include the general promotion of economic development, including creating new jobs and increasing tax revenues along with “other exercises in urban planning and development.” <br /><br />
A more perfect example of the alliance between “the state and corporate power” (quoth) could hardly be imagined. Had Justice Thomas written the opinion, the pages of <i>La Guardiana</i> and the <i>New York Slime</i> would be overflowing with outrage at his cozy and corrupt relationship with billionaires. Well what <i>did</i> Justice Thomas write in his dissent?<br /><br />
<blockquote>
“... extending the concept of public purpose to encompass any economically beneficial goal guarantees that these losses will fall disproportionately on poor communities. Those communities are not only systematically less likely to put their lands to the highest and best social use, but are also the least politically powerful.”</blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br />
While one may perhaps sympathise with Thomas' more "populist" perspective, it was as much an expedient argument as that of majority. The matter was far simpler: the Fifth Amendment refers to taking property for "public <i>use</i>;" it does not refer to taking property for a "public <i>benefit</i>."<br /><br />
Another example of grotesque outcome determination was <i>National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius</i>, 567 U.S. 519 (2012), which upheld Obamacare's insurance mandate. The difficulty was that the Constitution does not allow the federal government to force anyone to enter into a private contract. Justice Roberts avoided this inconvenience by ruling that the Constitution allows the government to levy taxes and the "mandate" was simply a non-tax tax. Liberals cheered!<br /><br />
The law could not survive without a degree of sophistry, and the best one can say is that there are simply limits. <br /><br />
The dichotomy between “liberal activism” and “conservative interpretation” is overdrawn to the point of triviality and demagoguery. The question is more aptly phrased in terms of a judge's resort to outcome determination; or, in Hamilton's terms by asking whether the outcome was the result of judgement or of will.<br /><br />
So-called conservative rulings tend to resort to legal formalism for the simple reason that our Liberal constitution imposes limits on government action. As such, constitutionalism becomes mostly a question of negation. When Justice McReynolds voted to strike the first Social Security law he stated "I can not find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the chief almoner of the nation," one has to admit that he was right.<br /><br />
With so called liberal rulings, the case is just the reverse. While any jurist can push the limits of what words will fairly bear, typically it is the so-called “liberals” who resort to outcome-determination because they are using the law to “engineer” a result. But in doing so they think and act exactly as legislature: they cite data and sociological studies; they “balance interests” and, after rustling up some nice sounding verbiage from somewhere, propose a solution.<br /><br />
This was precisely the problem with <i>Roe v. Wade</i>. As an act of legislation it made perfect sense in that the scheme it established was a reasonable choice among several. But it was simply not the sort of thing a court should be doing. It was within the compass of legitimacy to deduce an implicit “right of privacy” from the Constitution. Had the Court struck the Texas law as going too far, such a holding would have been completely unremarkable. But the Court did not so content itself. <br /><br />
The fundamental tenet of "legal realism," "sociological jurisprudence" or "outcome-determination" was candidly distilled by Justice Breyer in his dissent in <i>New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen</i>, 597 U.S. ___ (2022)<br /> <br />
<blockquote>
“In my view, when courts interpret the Second Amendment, it is constitutionally proper, indeed often necessary, for them to consider the serious dangers and consequences of gun violence that lead States to regulate firearms.” <br /></blockquote>
In my view, Justice Breyer's opinion is untenable; it is destructive of the very concept of law. What he was saying, in effect, is that the law will mean what <i>he</i> wants it to mean.
Bryer's dictum ought to give us serious pause. In 1934, an influential German legal scholar postulated,<br /><br />
<blockquote>
“We do not determine what National Socialism is according to a pre-existing concept of the constitutional state, but rather the reverse; the constitutional state is determined according to National Socialism. ... <i>Every interpretation must be an interpretation according to [the demads of] National Socialism.</i>” (Carl Schmidt, “Nationalsocialismus under Rechstaat,” <i>Juristiche Wochenschaft</i> 63 (1934), pp. 713, 716; cited in Ingo Müller, <i>Hitler's Justice</i>, Harvard University Press, (1991), p. 71.)<br /></blockquote>
I have no interest in bandying about cheap and outrageous insults and to be very clear, Justice Bryer was not a "fascist" or "Nazi." But it is not amiss to point that, in terms of jurisprudential method, Breyer and Smith's approaches are too close for comfort. In either case where there is will words will follow rather than words implicating a judgement. That's great when you get what you want, but suppose the shoe is on the other foot, to what "law" will you appeal then?<br /><br />
Despite being excoriated by the New York Times' peanut gallery, Justice Scalia was entirely correct to ask whether we wanted, or can even tolerate, nine unelected judges acting as a super-legislature. The intolerable Democrat answer is that we can so long as the result is tolerable to us. In other words, to “judgement” and “will” we can now add “petulance.”<br /><br />
And it is precisely this petulance that drives a cabal of Demorat congressoids -- including Senators Ed Markey, Tina Smith and Elizabeth Warren, Jerrold Nadler, Cori Bush and Adam Schiff -- to announce the reintroduction of legislation that would create a 13-justice bench.<br /><br />
What is galling in all of this is that it is the utter bankruptcy of Congress which is the impetus for institutionally destroying the Court. It is hardly a secret that the Court has resorted to “judicial activism” precisely when Congress has been deadlocked by its own divisions and archaic procedures. Instead of blaming the Court the liberal congressional cabal would be better advised to look itself in the mirror. <br /><br />
If the abortion and gun control activists (for that is what it currently boils down to) succeed in their packing scheme, they will not only have undermined the Court as a court, they will have trashed the law itself making it as meaningless and vapid as steamy hortatory that vents from congressional mouths.<br /><br />
©</div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-29312278329863280992023-05-13T12:39:00.002-07:002023-05-13T12:58:47.784-07:00Weaponizing Ignorance
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Chipster has to confess that he backslid on his New Year's resolve to no longer pollute his mind with poisons from the pages of the <i>New York Slime</i>. But I couldn't resist.<br /><br />
Through the tube-vine, I heard that the <i>Slime</i> was proclaiming that Cleopatra was black (or as the <i>Slime</i> would have it "Black"). You kiddin me??? Nope.<br /><br />
Cleopatra was black because there is a possibility that maybe some slave or Persian [sic] got mixed into her bloodline somehow, sometimes, AND BESIDES "black" isn't a question of skin colour anyways but has to do with the experience of oppression. .... Cleopatra was "oppressed"??? <br /><br />
And because culturally "oppressed" therefore it is legitimate to portray her skin tone as black (or "Black") or "black" or at any rate as a slimmer version of the later versions of Aunt Jemima....<br /><br />
What is really deplorable about all of this is that USA's cultural hegemenony has now turned into a Black Hole of Ignorance and Insanity which is sucking in the rest of the world. <br /><br />
I renew my resolve. <br /><br />
©</div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-10362447716796980052023-04-09T19:24:00.004-07:002023-04-10T06:21:17.312-07:00UPDATE - Democrats Trying to Smear Thomas off the Court<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
In writing <a href="https://wcg-journal.blogspot.com/2023/04/anti-gunners-gunning-for-thomas.html">Friday's article</a> on the Demorats' “gunning” for Justice Thomas, we we cited a letter from Rosylnn R. Mauskopf, Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Court's to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, explaining the “personal hospitality exception” to 5 U.S.C. ¶ 7573.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Response%20to%20Senator%20Whitehouse's%20Letter%20of%202-21-2023%20(Final).pdf">Response to Senator Whitehouse</a></b></div> <br /><br />
We thought it suspiciously curious that Mauskopf's letter referred to an inquiry from Senator Whitehouse, dated 21 February 2023, concerning the same “personal hospitality” exception. That inquiry meant that <i>prior</i> to the “bombshell” <i>Pro Publica</i> report on Thomas' vacations, somebody on Capital Hill was nosing about the Supreme Court's regulations concerning “gifts”.<br /><br />
In our mind, the inference was plain: the Democrats on the Hill and their scribblings in the media were out to get Thomas and, once he fell, Alito. The only problem was that two dots do not a connection make.<br /><br />
What I mean by this is simple. Two dots make a correlation, but something more is needed to flesh out either a cause or a conspiracy. In my case, that “cause” was my general historical knowledge of how humans behave in the political arean. Simply put, read enough and you get good a smelling shit. <br /><br />
But convincing others requires more than bragging “I am good at this stuff.”
Well, as fate would have it the third point was published just this weekend, Truthout, a progressive on line source, which ran a headline entitled:<br /><br />
<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Lawmakers Urge Chief Justice Roberts to Probe Clarence Thomas’s Secret Trips</b><br /><br /><i>calls mount for Thomas to be investigated after accepting millions in undisclosed gifts from billionaire Harlan Crow.</i><br /><br /><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/lawmakers-urge-chief-justice-roberts-to-probe-clarence-thomass-secret-trips/">HERE</a></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">
Ho, ho, ho, ho ho-ooh. And who might those “lawmakers” be perchance? <br /> <br /><div style="text-align: center;">“In a <a href="https://www.kaine.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_to_chief_justice_re_justice_thomas_and_ethics.pdf">letter</a> led by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (...)</div> <br />
Breathlessly, <i>Truthout</i> reports that: “In a letter led [sic] by” Whitehouse... the Democrts ... cited Thrusday's BOMBSHELL REPORT by <i>Pro Publica</i>....” etc.<br /> <br />
Cunningly omitted was the fact that Whitehouse had been sniffing at the base of this bomb, at least, since February. The utterly fake narrative thus presented was that intrepid journalists from <i>Pro Publica</i> had uncovered a scandal, and now, the stunned and surprised Democrats were indignantly calling for an investigation.
<br /> <br />
Not, not and NOT. Not only does the letter “led” by Whitehouse confirm that he was looking for indignation back in February, it reveals without doubt that the Demorats and their scribblings in the media began circling their prey in June of 2011
(see links on page 2 of the letter.) <br /> <br />
In that month Think Progress ran a story entitled:<br /> <br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Second Harlan Crow Connected Group Has a Perfect Litigation Record Before Justice Thomas</b><br /> <br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><br />
Ah yes... the ubiquitous “linked to” so favoured by cops lying in their search warrant affidavits.... The essence of this scurrilous report was:<br /> <br />
<blockquote>
Harlan Crow ... donates the American Enterprise Institute.<br /> <br />
The American Enterprise Institute filed briefs in the Supreme Court.<br /> <br />
Crow gave gifts to Thomas.<br /> <br />
Q.E.D.<br /> <br />
</blockquote>
It was worse. What <i>Think Progress</i> actually wrote was: “AEI filed at least three briefs in the Supreme Court after giving Thomas this very expensive gift.”<br /> <br />
Other than this flagrant misstatement of fact, nothing in the article supports an inference that the American Enterprise Institute gave anything of value to Thomas.<br /> <br />
Then, after falsely stating that it had, <i>Think Progress</i> back pedaled, with “To be clear, there is no direct evidence that Crow lavished gifts on Thomas in order to switch his vote in any of these cases. “<br /> <br />
What <i>Think Progess </i>can't stand is that think-alike conservatives associate with one another and, in doing so, inform and support one another's outlooks. That is true but exactly the same might be said of the Democrats, of any one, and even of Marxists!!!<br /> <br />
What it all boils down and stacks up to is that the Demorats are now embarked on a contrived and coordinated campaign to smear Thomas off the bench. <br /> <br />
We have never argued that the Supreme Court should be “above politics.” The Supreme Court is eminently a <i>political</i> institution. To think or argue otherwise is just plain stupid. But it is a politics grounded in the constraints of grammar and logic as distinct from that <i>other</i> politics which is grounded in number and power.<br /> <br />
The Democrats are degrading both. In consistently, resorting to trumped up scandals and repeated calls for the impeachment of their opponents, the Democrats are turning the politics of compromise and consensus into political bloodletting. They will rue the day; and, if they don't, then we will.
<br /> <br /><br /> <br />
©</div>
Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-81681602793426010102023-04-07T21:11:00.002-07:002023-04-08T05:31:20.181-07:00Anti-Gunners Gunning for Thomas<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Anti-Gun Fanatics know that their efforts to erradicate guns from American society are ultimately doomed to failure when the measures they have undertaken finally reach the Supreme Court. Accordingly, they are determined to <i>unpack</i> the Court by running Justice Thomas from the bench by means of a vicious, vile smear campaign based on false charges and innuendo.<br /> <br />
<div style="text-align: center;"> <b>Legal Backgound</b> </div>
<br />
<div>
Thomas wrote the majority opinion in <i>New York Rifle and Pistol Assoc. v. Bruen</i>, which insulated the Second Amendment from so-called “<i>balancing tests</i>” designed to weasle around and readjust inconvenient legal provisions that are considered outmoded or inexpedient. These “tests” -- which are not “tests” in any scientific way -- are simply a form of rhetorical triangulation through which a law's alleged “social purpose” (given as point “C”) is used to move the law from point “A” to point “B”.<br /> <br />
For example, the Sixth Amendment affirms the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, in the flesh. Alas, a certain key witness may have died. Can the prosecution introduce a hearsay statement the witness gave to a neighbour shortly after the incident in question? Not unless a corpse can be cross-examined. But no problem, the requiremet can be “balanced” away. The <i>real purpose</i> of the right to cross-examination is to insure the “reliability” of testimony. But that's not the only way to insure “reliability.” The “trustworthiness” of a statement can be ascertained by other means; namely, by judges taking into account various factors and the totality of the circumstances in which the hearsay statement was made. Voilá. No need to cross-examine the corpse. Justices Scalia and Thomas debunked this “test” for what it was, and restored the right of cross-examination to its constitutional prominence. <br /> <br />
Liberals have hated Scalia and Thomas ever since. Liberals don't much care about cross-examination; what really exercises them is taking away a “test” that allows them to read rights into and out of the Constitution, <i>au gout</i>. The debate on how to “interpret” law has been going on since the very beginning of the Court and it is interesting to see which justices fall on which side of the issue in any given case. But, as for the present, Liberals hate the fact that Scalia and Thomas opposed reading gay rights <i>into</i> the Constitution and prevented reading gun rights <i>out</i> of it. <br /> <br />
Let's be clear about one thing. The majority of gun-control legislation being enacted by liberal bastion states is patently unconstitutional under <i>Bruen</i> and the liberal democrats know it. They don't care; they are throwing down the gauntlet. This was made abundantly -- indeed <i>flagrantly</i> -- clear by Governor Hochul who took to the podium to denounce the <i>Bruen</i> decision and then vowed to re-enact the very same law that the Court had just declared unconstitutional. The only changes Hochul made was to make the “new” law even more flagarantly unconstitutional. <br /> <br />
The day the <i>Bruen</i> decision was handed down, Hochul took to the podium to denounce this “shocking absolutely shocking decision” that had “ taken away our rights to have resonable restrictions” on guns. [<a href="https://youtu.be/_z9XyYIb_Xg">Watch</a>] <br /> <br />
Hochul was followed by a parade of activists: <br /><br />
<blockquote>
“With this action, New York has sent a message to the rest of the country that we will not stand idly by and let the Supreme Court reverse years of sensible gun regulations." (Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado.)<br /> <br />
What the Supreme Court didn’t take into account when they ruled on Bruen is that New Yorkers are tough, and this fight is far from over, (Mom's for Action)<br /> <br />
“If NRA leaders thought New Yorkers would roll over when the Supreme Court recklessly struck down a portion of a hundred-year-old gun safety law, they don’t know New Yorkers very well,” (Everytown for Gun Safety)<br /> <br />
Our elected leaders in New York have accomplished a remarkable feat today — fixing, in just a few days, a problem the Court has created with their dangerous decision-making, (Mom's for Action)<br /> <br />
“The <i>Bruen</i> decision made by extremist, unelected judges was wrong and dangerous, and now our grassroots army is working with our elected officials to make it right. (Mom's for Action.)</blockquote><br />
Not only was the “revised” legislation cast in the teeth of the Court. Hochul knows it is unconstitutional. Under the “balancing test,” she said, the question was “do the means justify the <i>infringement</i>” And it is precisely that infringement that New York and copy cat legislation in Illinois, California and Washington seeks to effect.<br /> <br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>The Smear</b></div>
<br />
But it cannot be effected so long as Thomas, the hated lynchpin, remains on the Court, and so the Liberals have now raised a new storm of outrage over what they say is Thomas' “corruption.” As is always the case with these sorts of smears, the proof lies in the salaciousness. <i>Pro Publica's</i> hit piece starts off with the allegation<br /> <br />
<blockquote>
“For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman [Harlan Crow] without disclosing them. ... The extent and frequency of Crow’s <i>apparent</i> gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.” </blockquote><br />
<i>Apparent</i>? That one word betrays the shabbiness of the work. Ah... but there was not one betrayal but two.<br /> <br />
<blockquote>
"[Thomas'] failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said."
</blockquote><br />
Needless to say, Pro Publica did not bother to mention <i>which</i> law Thomas “apparently” violated. 28 U.S.C. § 455 requires a judge to disqualify himself if he has a financial interest in the case or previously represented a party in the case or had personal knowledge of facts in dispute. That was not within the gist of Pro Publica's allegations.
<br /> <br />
More to the point was <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/7353">5 U.S.C § 7353</a> which prohibits “gifts” to federal employees. Under the act, no person “shall solicit or accept anything of value from a person— whose interests may be substantially affected by the performance or nonperformance of the individual’s official duties.” However, a <i>supervising ethics office</i> “is authorized to issue rules or regulations implementing the provisions of this section and providing for such reasonable exceptions as may be appropriate.” <br /> <br />
As regards the Supreme Court, the supervision ethics office is the Judicial Conference of the United States Committee on Financial Disclosure. That committee previously carved out an exception for personal hospitality extended for a non business purpose. In other words, having dinner at a friend's house, or spending an afternoon on his yacht, or vacationing with him at a dude ranch he owns, is not considered a “gift” under Section 7353. <br /> <br />
From that empty point of departure, <i>Pro Publica</i> went on to list all the non gifts Thomas had received from Harlan Crow. Crow, we are told: <br /><br />
<blockquote>
is an influential figure in pro-business conservative politics, [!]<br /> <br />
was an early patron of the powerful anti-tax group Club for Growth and has been on the board of AEI for over 25 years. [!]<br /> <br />
sits on the board of the Hoover Institution, another conservative think tank. [!]<br /> <br />
has donated to the Federalist Society and given millions of dollars to groups dedicated to tort reform and conservative jurisprudence. AEI and the Hoover Institution publish scholarship advancing conservative legal theories [!]<br />
</blockquote>
Thomas<br /> <br />
<blockquote>
boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. If he had hired a private jet it would have cost $500,000.00 [!]<br /> <br />
Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks. [!]<br /> <br />
gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, [!]<br /> <br />
and so on...]<br />
</blockquote><br />
And this proves, what exactly?<br /> <br />
<blockquote>
Through his <i>largesse</i>, Crow has gained a unique form of access, spending days in private with one of the most powerful people in the country.<br /> <br />
The extent and frequency of Crow’s <i>apparent</i> gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.<br />
</blockquote><br />
Nothing in this crescendo of indecencies shows that Crow or Thomas did anything illegal. Pro Publica admits that “[t]he pair have become genuine friends, according to people who know both men.” What outrages the liberal rag is that two conservatives meet, socialize and talk about stuff. <i>Oh the corruption!!!</i>
<br /> <br />
<div style="text-align: center;"> <b>Oh the Bullshit</b> </div>
<br />
<div></div>
In case <i>Pro Publica</i> hasn't heard, the United States is an oligarchy. It is ruled by a numerically small caste of ultra-wealthy individuals and families, who are interconnected by school ties, business ties, political orientation, cultural interests, inter-marriages and inter-divorces. Take <i>any</i> prominent person, go Wiki and follow the links on who their parents were, who their spouses are, whom they clerked for, campaigned for, worked for and were recommended by.... Within clicks you will enter into the vast incestuous network that is the United States' ruling class. <br /> <br />
This network divides into sub-networks according to region (East, West, South, Midwest...) and nature of activity (defence, finance, health, environment, law, social causes). But they are all networks nonetheless and this means that they involve people meeting one another, talking to one another, scratching each other's backs and sucking each other off... literally and metaphorically. If this were to stop, the country would cease to function. <br /> <br />
What about George Soros or Bill Gates? Do they not meet up with their acolytes and fund their causes? The billionaire Pritzker family has been actively funding trans-gender causes (in tandem with vested medical interests). Governor Pritzker made two half million dollar donations to the successful campaigns of two sitting state Supreme Court justices. Does Pritzker not have business before the court? What does Pro Publica have to say about that? Nothing, because Pro Publica <i>likes</i> Pritzker's political orientation and is offended by Thomas's.<br /> <br />
<div style="text-align: center;"> <b>Bribe versus Gift</b> </div>
<div></div> <br />
Ruling caste networks are noting unique to the United States. All countries at all times are so ruled, and this caste, by whatever name it may be known, always operates on the basis of unwritten (“secret”) understandings and favours. <a href=" https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/201">18 U.S.C. § 201</a> outlaws bribery -- the giving or offering of anything of value for the purpose of influencing an official act. This is colloquially known as the <i>quid pro quo</i> statute, and it outlaws the tip of the iceberg. <br /> <br />
Section 7353 slides down a little further. It prohibits federal employees from accepting “anything of value” from a person “doing business with, or conducting activities regulated by, the [recipient's] employing entity.” Thus, even if there is no express or even tacitly understood <i>qui pro quo</i>, if you have business before the E.P.A you <i>cannot</i> make a gift to an employee of the E.P.A. On its face, this is a form of strict liability. <br /> <br />
However, subdivision (a)(2) goes further. It prohibits gifts from a person “whose interests may be substantially affected by the performance or nonperformance of the individual’s official duties.” On its face, this provision would make it impossible for any Supreme Court justice to accept anything of value from anyone, because the very nature of the Supreme Court is to issue rulings which substantially affect either <i>all</i> of our interests or those of large chunks of people. <br /> <br />
Congress was aware of the fact that it had legislated overbroadly and for that very reason Section (b)(1) set up a “supervising ethics office...to issue rules or regulations implementing the provisions of this section and providing for such reasonable exceptions as may be appropriate.” In other words, <i>let some committee figure it out.</i> <br /> <br />
Not surprisingly the Judicial Conference on [ ] Financial Disclosure, determined that accepting a trip on a billionaire oil-man's yacht was not a <i>prohibited type</i> of gift. This is known as the “personal hospitality” exception to Section 7353. Judge Thomas states that he asked the committee for its advice ands followed its advice on whether his trips and visits with Crowe were required to be reported.
<br /> <br />
In March of this year, the Judicial Conference <a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Response%20to%20Senator%20Whitehouse's%20Letter%20of%202-21-2023%20(Final).pdf">revised its rule</a> so as to disallow the “personal hospitality” exception for anything more than being taken out to dinner or visiting a person's home for “non business” purposes. The Conference explicitly affirmed the “substantially affected” clause of subdivision (a)(2). How, the justices of the Supreme Court will abide this rule, remains to be seen. Perhaps they will all have to follow the example of Justice Van Devanter (loathed by liberals because he struck most the New Deal) who lived alone in a hotel room for the entirety of his tenure on the Court and associated with no one except his Presbyterian church and a childrens charity. <br /> <br />
But whatever the case, Justice Thomas did nothing wrong and as for appearances, they were no different than those of any other justice on the Court, none of whom have the decency to follow Van Devanter's monkish example. <br /> <br />
What is truly choice in all of this is that Ruth Bader Ginzburg, icon and idol of the left, got her position on the Court of Appeal and then on the Supreme Court <i>only</i> on account of intense “personal hospitality” efforts of her husband, a major donor to the Democratic Party. Not a peep from the left on that. <br /> <br />
As for the liberal base of Pro Publica, the FemGuardian and the New York Slime , they will live to rue the vicious and vile smear game they have begun with such feigned outrage and fake tears of piety. <br /> <br /> ©</div></div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-25042377903849555982023-04-06T20:20:00.004-07:002023-04-10T16:35:42.645-07:00The Rights of Recruits to be issued Arms...
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
As viewable on Colion Noire's blog, some <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jj2jdxhYmQ">Anti-Gun Jihadist</a> was constitution thumping and declaiming (in an angry tone of voice to be sure) that “<i>The Congress shall have Power. . . To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions</i>; . . . “ and “<i>to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia</i>. “ (Art. I, § 8.) This supposedly proved that there was no such thing as an individual right to possess arms but rather that the Second Amendment did no more than refer to various enumerated powers in Section 8. Barking straight into the camera: “<i>that means you get your militia arms from the government. You don't get to buy them by yourself.</i>” <br /><br />
In other words, the Bill of <i>Rights</i> guarantees the "right" of a recruit to be issued arms upon being drafted. Brilliant!<br /><br />
If emphasis won arguments, this crusader certainly won the day. But informed reason and logic are seldom found in noise. What this anti-gunner, who goes by the name of Adrian Fontes, seems to have forgot is that the Militia Act of 1792, which provided for the enrollment of “every free able-bodied white male citizen” between the ages of 18 and 45 into a militia company...." Section 1 of the Act specified,<br /><br />
<blockquote>
“That every citizen so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear, so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise, or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack.”
</blockquote><br />
So yes, Instructor Fontes, you do get to buy them by yourself. In fact, you were required to.<br /><br />
You also don't get to understand things simply by pounding the literal text of a document. <i>Sola Scriptura</i> may work in mathematics and certain branches of abstract philosophy but in literature and law the meaning of words has to be derived from their social and historical context. Americans have a strong tradition of pounding the plain meaning of words from a sorely-beaten text. Alas, the true meaning of something tends to be more nuanced; and, in our present case, nuance originates in medieval England.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPt-9vUVW-v5jcjinE_9CIy8vlNWDWnjbQQs3LADkqV8ZGyqPowa3knpJvMW-zYCkEjCI3ZVdTMnmzuHxv-4L2Hxl6Xic3WH9j2t8mXabzPqLwZhpTD2EzsXvKin1FJrcytHQlryWTdlFbaFdmHA11wHTtZ0mmP0_U_vGN8zsYzsDaYJoZjz5tw9IlxQ/s233/Assize%20of%20Arms.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="233" data-original-width="216" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPt-9vUVW-v5jcjinE_9CIy8vlNWDWnjbQQs3LADkqV8ZGyqPowa3knpJvMW-zYCkEjCI3ZVdTMnmzuHxv-4L2Hxl6Xic3WH9j2t8mXabzPqLwZhpTD2EzsXvKin1FJrcytHQlryWTdlFbaFdmHA11wHTtZ0mmP0_U_vGN8zsYzsDaYJoZjz5tw9IlxQ/w297-h320/Assize%20of%20Arms.jpg" width="297" /></a></div><br /> <b>The Assize of Arms - Hen. 2 (1181)</b><blockquote><br />
Whoever possesses one knight's fee shall have a shirt of mail, a helmet, a shield, and a lance; and every knight shall have as many shirts of mail, helmets, shields, and lances as he possesses knight's fees in demesne.<br /><br />
Moreover, every free layman who possesses chattels or rents to the value of 16m. shall have a shirt of mail, a helmet, a shield, and a lance; and every free layman possessing chattels or rents to the value of 10 marks shall have a hauberk, an iron cap, and a lance.<br /><br />
Item. All burgesses and the whole community of freemen shall have a gambeson, [padded doublet] an iron cap and a lance; <br /><br />
If anyone having these arms die, his arms shall remain to his heir. If, however, the heir is not of age to use arms in time of need, that person who has wardship over him shall also have custody of the arms and shall find a man who can use the arms in the service of the lord king until the heir is of age to bear arms, and then he shall have them <br /><br />
Item, no Jew shall keep in his possession a shirt of mail or a hauberk, but he shall sell it or give it away or alienate it in some other way so that it shall remain in the king's service.</blockquote>
In early Anglo-Saxon days, common defence was based on the <b><i><a href="https://regia.org/research/warfare/fyrd1.htm">fyrd</a></i></b> -- an army mobilised from freemen to defend the local area or to join in a royal expedition. The idea was simple: a freeman was expected to be armed and to respond to a summons with whatever he had of use in the cause. King Henry's statute was designed to impose some regularity as to what kind of arms a free man should possess. And it might be noted that they were all <i>weapons of war! designed to kill!!!!</i> <br /><br />
(And lest anyone think that a sword was just a silly pokey type of thing. Not. It was a highly crafted very lethal, <a href="https://youtu.be/CcpXmIgmDRY">forged steel razor blade</a> that could clear cut through a limb as through butter. ) <br /><br />
The straight line from statute of 1181 to the act of 1792 ran through the entire course of English history. That history shows that the English were an armed people and that collective defence, whether local or national, depended on calling forth men who were armed and trained in arms. <br /><br />
<b>A decree of Edward III in 1363</b> provided that:<br /><br />
<blockquote>
“Whereas the people of our realm, rich and poor alike, were accustomed formerly in their games to practise archery – whence by God's help, it is well known that high honour and profit came to our realm, and no small advantage to ourselves in our warlike enterprises...[be it decreed] that every man in the same country, if he be able-bodied, shall, upon holidays, make use, in his games, of bows and arrows... and so learn and practise archery.” (Morgan, R.B., ed. <i>Readings in English Social History: From Pre-Roman Days to AD 1837.</i> Cambridge University Press. (2014) [1st pub. 1923] p. 150.)
</blockquote><br />
Likewise, a decree of Henry VIII ordered that every village was to maintain targets on its green on which local men were to practice shooting “in holy days and other times convenient.”<br /><br />
This long-standing tradition of the <i>fyrd</i> was accepted as a matter of course by the Colonists. They hardly needed to legislate on the matter for it was simply the custom and usage of the land. <br /><br />
There is a deleterious tendency among Americans to think that upon crossing the pond, the Colonists started a “new” society and forgot the old. On the contrary, the baggage they brought over as much included English law as it did English. <br /><br />
That said, a kind of reverse historical dynamic arose. As one might imagine, medieval England was something of a wild place. There were multiple invasions by or battles with Danes, Normans, Scots and Irish. There were vast solitary areas of forest, heath and bog. As of the early 17th century, England became more settled and urbanized. Even the protracted Civil War from 1649, (when Charles I was beheaded) to 1688 (when James II was run out of town), had more of a modern than medieval quality. <br /><br />
But as of 1607 and 1619, the situation in America went backward, toward a more primitive wildness. The only difference was that Danes, Normans, Scots and Irish got replaced with Iroquois, Mohicans, Cherokee and so on. Of necessity, the tradition of the <i>fyrd</i> acquired a new vitality. Thus, it is hardly surprising then that Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia South Carolina, and Georgia all required men to carry arms at church.<br /><br />
<blockquote>
<i>No man able to bear arms to go to church or Chappell ... without fixed gun and 1 charge at least of powder and shot."</i>(Maryland)</blockquote><br />
AND <br /><br />
<blockquote>
"<i>All persons whatsoever upon the Sabaoth daye [who] frequente divine service and sermons ... [to] beare armes [and] bring their pieces swordes, poulder and shot</i> (Virginia)</blockquote><br />
At least two colonies required carrying arms to other public public gatherings. For example a ordinance in Rhode Island provided: <i>"It is ordered, that no man ... shall come to any public Meeting without his weapon."</i> Virginia, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maryland all enacted some requirements for travellers to carry arms.
<br /><br />
Doubtless, as things settled down, some of these expedients fell into disuse. Nevertheless, the <i>fyrd</i> now called a <i>militia</i> remained the principal way in which the Colonists provided for their defence, and no one questioned the right and the duty of able-bodied men to keep arms. <br /><br />
What was open to question, both in England and in the newly independent United States was the relationship between a “militia” and a regular “army;” between local authority (whether called a state, a “county,” “duchy,” or “baronage” ) and the central authority (whether called the “king” or the “federal government.”) <br /><br />
At this point, we have to mention that at no time did the King not maintain a core army. In fact, the whole purpose of “knights” was to serve as a professional “officer” corps, which freemen would support and by whom they would be directed. <br /><br />
When freemen were actively enrolled in the King's army for a campaign, they undoubtedly fell under what we would call military discipline. It could hardly be otherwise. But they were not a standing army. <br /><br />
As of the 17th century, with Cromwell's establishment of a “Model Army” the concept of a true standing army began to gain hold. But precisely because England was at war with itself at the time who controlled the army and “what about the militia?” became unclear. When the monarchy was restored, Charles II's first concern was to disband the army which was almost exclusively Protestant. When these rebanded as “militia,” he went after those. Thus, after James II was exiled, the 1688 Bill of Rights guaranteed the right of Protestants to keep arms for their defence (while at the same time the Crown went about disarming the Irish and taking their horses, to boot). <br /><br />
Things were a little more harmonious in the colonies, but equally ambiguous. Each colony had its own militia system. But, very nicely and free of charge, the Crown also provided regular army contingents to defend the colonies as a whole against the French, Indians and Spanish. The colonists were very happy with this arrangement... perhaps precisely because it provided the flexibility of ambiguity. They only became displeased with the regular army when it was used to confiscate illegal rum, enforce limitations on commerce or -- horror of horrors -- actually protect the Indians!!!<br /><br />
(Oh yes! If Americans actually read beyond the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, which the likes of Obama never tired of reciting <i>ad nauseam</i>, they might discover a thing of two.)<br /><br />
This ambiguous colonial situation replicated itself in the Constitutional Convention of 1787-1789. As is well known, the core tug of war at the convention was the power-relationship between sovereign states and the new national government. This was a repeat, under modern labels, of the old medieval tug-of-war between the barons and the king; at any rate: central authority versus local autonomy. This tugging and its fudging are at the heart of American Liberalism (as opposed to the French varietal which is much more logical but, in my view, less satisfactory). <br /><br />
As respects the army and the militia, there were basically three viewpoints: (1) that of the “radical Whigs” who wanted nothing but State run, popular, local militias and were hostile to any standing army; (2) that of the “moderate Whigs” who agreed but saw the necessity for some kind of standing army or core of trained professionals, and (3) Hamiltonians, who admired the French model, wanted a strong national Army and Navy and (by the way) saw no need for a Bill of Rights, on the ground that since “the People” were now sovereign how could they possibly reserve rights against themselves. (<i>Logique, n'est ce pas?</i>) <br /><br />
In true British fashion, the newly minted Americans fudged. The First Fudge was found in <i>Enumerated Powers</i> of Section 8, which granted Congress the power to:<br /><br />
<blockquote>
(a) To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;<br /><br />
(b) To provide and maintain a Navy [note: no two year limitation];<br /><br />
(c) To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;<br /><br />
(d) To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.</blockquote><br />
Clearly, these enumerations were a balancing act. It must be asked, if Congress has the power to “raise and support” an Army and to “provide and maintain” a Navy, why bother with militias at all? Just raise such armies and navies as Congress sees fit. That's the way Frederick the Great did it! But ...oh no... something called “the Militia” is distinctly preserved. If you didn't know the history you might be excused from wondering what the difference between and “army” and a “militia” was. The text itself doesn't tell you. <br /><br />
But what historical tradition tells us is that those state-based popular armies, based on an armed citizenry, were implicitly preserved. What the Constitution granted was the power “to <i>provide for</i> the calling forth” of them. Huh?
<br /><br />
Why the pussy-footing? If Congress has the power to raise an army why doesn't it simply have the power to “call forth” the militia? Clearly, the Framers were ill-at-ease here, so they gave Congress the power to make preparations for that day when Congress might call forth the militias. The last clause gave some indication as to what this might entail; namely, to provide for arming and disciplining the Militia and governing that <i>part</i> of them <i>as may be employed</i> in national service. In other words, actual “active duty” federal control over the Militia only applied when and to the extent the militia were called forth <i>and</i> employed in federal service. Otherwise, what Congress has the power to do is to provide uniformity of regulations and, if desired, funding. In other words, the state militias were preserved, but since the Framers didn't want this to end up as a useless hodgepodge of different arms and regulations, Section 8 allowed Congress to provide uniform standards for such time as they might be employed by the federal government. (Think of the effort to “coordinate” the national armies within NATO.) However, none of this gave Congress the power to take over the militia or even to issue arms to the militia, as a general propostion. <br /><br />
As is well known, Madison and others remained ill-at-ease with the powers accorded to the federal government, and in order to counter-balance Section 8's grant of powers, they insisted on a <i>Bill of Rights</i> making explicit what powers were not granted. It is within this context that the Second Amendment must be understood.
<br /><br />
That Amendment killed two birds with one stone. It made clear, albeit obliquely, that the militias of a “free state” were preserved. But it also made clear that the <i>fyrd</i> too is preserved. The medieval and colonial system of a militia that is drawn from a pre-existing armed population was expressly confirmed by “the right to keep and bear arms.” <br /><br />.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf8x9C61ytmfmjHMJfk21YFkasmfUyQ7BNNc9EGFke6Fad2qUgchirg4a5W0KdyN4R0EwPSZ9hMKwadHvrxIOALJU0PUZio81Ffk6pHsBw1IIrB1pVEJnNmQ1G-bu7DxAYn_0fk_TJTUOeeL5SYOxGYthJkwPqGEZiDH5_mzNRPHt22E8T8bp02jnP_w/s630/militia-drill630.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="414" data-original-width="630" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf8x9C61ytmfmjHMJfk21YFkasmfUyQ7BNNc9EGFke6Fad2qUgchirg4a5W0KdyN4R0EwPSZ9hMKwadHvrxIOALJU0PUZio81Ffk6pHsBw1IIrB1pVEJnNmQ1G-bu7DxAYn_0fk_TJTUOeeL5SYOxGYthJkwPqGEZiDH5_mzNRPHt22E8T8bp02jnP_w/w400-h263/militia-drill630.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />
I have never been hostile to the argument that “to bear arms” might refer to bearing them “in service.” I think it clearly has that meaning. But within the thousand year arc of English and Colonial history, it also meant to bear them as individuals for general purposes. Issuing from and calling upon English tradition, the Framers expected men to render military service but that did not mean that they were otherwise unarmed; on the contrary, they were armed in expectation of military service and for other purposes. Nothing in legal text or history or social conditions supports such a contrary contention.<br /><br />
Adrian Fontes makes the anachronistic mistake of thinking that Section 8 modifies the Second Amendment. Nope. The Second Amendment was designed to clarify Section 8.<br /><br />
Further clarification was provided by the <i>Militia Act </i>of 1792 which, as stated, went the other way, giving Congress general oversight of the militia. In the original act, the president's power to “call forth” (or “activate” in modern usage) the militia was made contingent on his obtaining a judicial warrant for that purpose. In light of “disturbances” in the West which required swift action, this embarrassment was removed in 1795; henceforth, the president had summary authority to call forth the militia as needed for federal purposes. <br /><br />
Unfortunately, the propensity to use words carelessly confuses things. Many summaries on Google state that the <i>Militia Act</i> (1792) provided for the "conscription" of adult age males. The word <i>conscription</i> implies a standing militia of men on active duty. That was not the case. The Act required the <i>enrollment</i> of males aged 18 to 45. What this meant, in modern language, was that men were registered for the militia, akin in modern times to registering for the draft. The States might prescribe when the militias were “called out to exercise” and/or what discipline should be followed when called “into service;” but otherwise men were free to go about their business. <br /><br />
The popular and haphazard nature of the militias in the early nineteenth century cannot be stressed enough. The language of the statutes are much more “imposing” than the reality. When Abraham Lincoln was a young man, the militia in his district was called forth by the governor to suppress some disturbance up-river. The men gathered together on the green with whatever guns and knives they had and wondered what to do. Well... first thing was they needed a leader and so they elected Lincoln (who was the tallest of the bunch and good at wrestling) to be their captain. Lincoln himself had little idea of what to do and so he ordered his men to march up-river. After marching up and around, pitching camp, and telling stories around the campfire, they marched around and back down, and then disbanded. Mission accomplished. Doubtless, there were other better regulated militias, but what I wish to stress is the popular nature of the militia as free men assembled with arms. <br /><br />
In my opinion, the core theme of the Bill of Rights is to preserve three main <i>popular</i> assemblies of citizens: (1) assembling to peaceably petition; (2) assembling with arms and (3) assembling as juries. In the Hamiltonian scheme there is no need for any of these. Once legislators are duly elected by free citizens, there is no need for the <i>demos</i> to meet and petition (i.e. raise a ruckus). Write to your congressman or vote him out. As for trials, what an absurdity to allow a bunch of untrained and probably half literate yahoos to investigate the facts and apply the law! Law is a matter for professionally trained judges, as in France. As for assembling with arms, if you want to do that enlist in the King of Prussia's army. But this was not the English or the American way.
If anyone thinks that juries were much different from Lincoln's militia band, think again.<br /><br />.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij7oEYr26xnxi-x3Dk67zB63nIoY435unsf1c0fskoYgKziQi2FfZJbnbj41EjnOk87EyAyta3wvi-nlvSflRNIy8Vfhsdk2uHMgMFrLbaGrQD8PCIw_9n2UpLCX_MvzqIDOFaJMeQGILZhsV6MRMYBAcYVsJV6WjEezGEPlEff5egAl32N7ccqdrUGA/s1000/Jury-Wighe-49s.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="738" data-original-width="1000" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij7oEYr26xnxi-x3Dk67zB63nIoY435unsf1c0fskoYgKziQi2FfZJbnbj41EjnOk87EyAyta3wvi-nlvSflRNIy8Vfhsdk2uHMgMFrLbaGrQD8PCIw_9n2UpLCX_MvzqIDOFaJMeQGILZhsV6MRMYBAcYVsJV6WjEezGEPlEff5egAl32N7ccqdrUGA/w400-h295/Jury-Wighe-49s.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A jury of peers</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />But as Justice Scalia wrote, the jury was preserved as a <i>circuit breaker</i> against judges too much in the employ of the Government. So too the other two rights. <br /><br />
No government can provide for its own dissolution; and, indeed, one of the impetuses for calling the constitutional convention was the need to put down rebellions that had broken out. Government must oppress, otherwise anarchy prevails. At the same, time the Framers did not want it to have unlimited powers of oppression. The original Constitution established a system of split sovereignty coupled with republican "checks and balances." The <i>Bill of Rights</i> added specific limitations coupled to the further bullwark of popular circuit breakers. <br /><br />
Make no mistake, the jury has the power to “return a verdict in the teeth of the law and the facts.” We don't encourage them to do so, but they retain the power so to do. Similarly, the Framers retained to the people the power of popular protest and the power to resist tyranny. In <i>Federalist Paper 10,</i> Madison discussed the risks and dangers of free speech; and yet to abolish it, he wrote, would make as little sense as abolishing air simply because oxygen imparts force to fire. Again, in<i> Federalist Paper 78,</i> Madison specifically notes that the popular retention of arms is a bulwark against tyranny. Is there any child that does not understand that "tyranny" as often as not operates under colour of law and is imposed by those who legitimately acquired power? <br /><br />
To some, the constitutional edifice may seem a ridiculous muddle and hodgepodge. But as Justice Holmes famously said, “the life of the law is not logic but experience.” (<i>N'est ce pas?</i>)
<br /><br />
The experience of the colonists was such that while establishing a stronger central government, they nevertheless retained the limited sovereignty of the states, popular powers and the autonomy of the individual as both a responsible and participating member of society. Unlike Justice Breyer's “bureaucratic world of perfect equity” and safety, the system may be theoretically muddled but it preserves the ability to remain free.<br /><br />
In the nineteenth century <a href="https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/2421411/calling-forth-the-military-a-brief-history-of-the-insurrection-act/">numerous issues</a> arose concerning what was a “federal purpose” and in what manners concurrent state-federal jurisdiction operated with respect to the militias. <br /><br />
What can be said briefly, is that over the course of a century, the militias gradually metamorphosed into the National Guard and the Army, which started out in 1790 as a regiment of 700, grew into a standing, professional military, the very thing the Founders had feared. Worse, during reconstruction and industrialization, the Army itself was used to put down “insurrections,” “disturbances” and labour strikes, culminating in General MacArthur's outrageous suppression of the veteran Bonus Marchers. <br /><br />
But all of this is policy. The <i>principle</i> of the matter remains the <i>Second Amendment</i> which stands before and above all else. Attempts to reduce the <i>Bill of Rights</i> to a mere iteration of expediencies reflects a profoundly subversive misunderstanding of the American political concept. <br /><br />
©</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-88828984172802571722023-03-27T12:02:00.003-07:002023-03-27T12:02:27.474-07:00More Medicine! More Medicine!
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Another shooting and another storm of hysterical outrage from all the usual suspects, resorting to all the usual rhetorical tricks and traps. "Yet another ...!", "How long Oh Lord....?" and "Give us more gun control! Give us more gun control!"<br /> <br />
What I find contemptible is that the facts of the case are barely known and yet the cry goes up for more gun control. Don't we at least need a diagnosis based on facts before we know what medicine to prescribe? Or will any medicine do so long as it is in a big enough dose?<br /> <br />
What is known as of this writing is that the assailant, a 28 year old woman, was armed with two "assault style rifles" and a handgun, or so it is reported. It is important to the copy writers at the New York Times to work in assault style rifles in some manner; but were they actually used to do the shooting? <br /> <br />
Has anyone paused their scribbling long enough to ask how in hell one walks about with two rifles and a pistol? It seems rather cumbersome to me and leads directly to the question of: how was what handled when? <br /> <br />
Was the woman actually carrying all three weapons? Often in these reports the word "armed" is used to describe the fact that guns were located in the trunk of a car or some such. So, was she armed in this (misleading) sense or was she actually carrying? <br /> <br />
My suspicion is that the shooting was done with the pistol which was probably a semi-automatic. But I don't know and I can't draw any conclusions about anything until I do know.<br /> <br />
What I do know is that the facts are irrelevant to the usual suspects. The anti-gun hysterics are shedding crocodile tears and pumping "yet another shooting" of innocent children for all it is worth in their crusade to nullify the Second Amendment. <br /> <br />
©</div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-55807700897691910862023-03-11T19:37:00.003-08:002023-03-11T20:07:49.983-08:00Throwing Tulips at Tigers<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /><b> (or the Right to a Return on one's Labor) </b>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
This week Senator Sanders crossed examined Norfolk R.R. CEO, Alan Shaw about future
company policies in the wake of the East Palestine disaster. Sanders asked:
<b>(1)</b> if the company would commit to ending so-called "precision
scheduling" which involved laying off 40,000 railroad workers as a result of
which safety standards had plumeted; <b>(2)</b> if the company would commit
to giving all of its workers paid sick leave in line with the rest of the
country; and <b>(3)</b> if the company would commit to paying "all" of East
Palestine's health care needs resulting from the accident. <br />
<br />
To each of the questions, Shaw begged off with some evasive burble which,
said Sanders, made him "sound like a politician."
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"With all due respect" Bernie sounded like a dog barking up the wrong
tree.<br />
<br />
This issue was settled a century ago, when Henry Ford wanted to "plow back"
company profits into building more factories and employing more people
instead of paying dividends to shareholders. The shareholders filed suit,
demanding their dividends. In <i>Dodge v. Ford Motor Company</i>, 204 Mich. 459,
170 N.W. 668 (Mich. 1919), the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that Ford's
desire to use profits for some social and economic benefit took a back seat
to the stockholders' right to those profits. In other words; the business of
America is profit. No Shakespeare here. <br />
<br />
The court's ruling became America's law which is founded on the principle
that officers of a corporation owe a "fiduciary duty" to the stockholders.
After all when someone lends you something you have a duty to do your best
to return it in as good or better condition than when you got it. Company
officers have a duty to use the money with which they have been entrusted
wisely and for the benefit of the the investors. As a result the profit that
money generates also belongs to the investors. <br />
<br />
Bernie certainly knew or should have known, that the
<b><i>Prime Directive</i></b> binding Shaw was his fiduciary duty to the
company's shareholders. As such he could not possibly commit to doing
anything that would prima facie detract from this shareholders' profits.<br />
<br />
It may be that in the course of business a CEO or manager must, as a result
of some necessity, undertake measures which diminish profits; but that does
not equate to making a commitment to do so out of the blue and in the
abstract. If Shaw had answered "yes" to any of Bernie's question he would be
committing himself to malfeasance of office. Surely Bernie understood this.
<br />
<br />
It almost made one feel sorry for Shaw. It certainly made me feel sympathy
towards Lenin.
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<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Lenin <i>hated</i> social democrats. Why? Because underlying social
democracy is a <b><i>Fatal Compromise</i></b> -- one which accepts the
capitalist engine while hoping to make it run, not just more efficiently,
but more fairly. However, the business of America is not "fairness" but
business. We don't ask tigers to become vegetarians. Why should we expect a
thing (in this case "capitalism") to be other than what it is. Bernie's
questions to Shaw were like God asking the Devil if he promises to be good.
<br />
<br />
When Social Democrats promised to be good Germans, Lenin was furious. In a
curiously prophetic phrase, he denounced them as "<i>social chauvinists</i>"
who -- he said -- would in the end march off gloriously to war for the sake
of German Big Business. In Lenin's view, there could be no compromises.
Either one supported the system economically, politically and geo-politically
or one did not.<br />
<br />
To be fair, intellectual purity is the enemy of practical good. Even Marx
understood that it was hard and sort of unfeeling to chastise social
democrats for negotiating an eight hour day, safer working conditions, sick
leave and pensions -- in short for negotiating for capitalist-conferred
benefits. These do help people and that is nothing trivial, especially if
you are one of the people needing help.<br />
<br />
But one should not forget that they are <i>capitalist</i> conferred. They
are not just "benefits" but benefits provided by a system in antagonism with
itself. <br />
<br />
This was the meaning of Reagan's joke about "Hello, I'm from the Government,
and I'm here to help." Reagan and Thatcher were keenly aware of the inherent
antagonism. They promised to do away with it. They did do away with 90% of
it and <i>le voila</i>. Half the country lives in working poverty, without
"benefits," owning 3% of the total wealth, while the upper ten percent own
70% of all wealth.
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<br />
Yes for a while the tiger will behave, but he never ceases to be a wild
animal and at any point the wildness can erupt, as it did in Norfolk's
"precision scheduling" program and as it did, just the other day, in a
Republocum's proposal to do away with laws against child labor.<br />
<br />
Personally, I do not trust in absolutist solutions. Things always work
better when they are a little bit fudged... like the "well tempered" musical
scale. Perfection is grating on all things natural.<br />
<br />
But one cannot walk down the road obliviously, the way liberals do, expecting
tulips to fall from the sky, which is precisely the performance Bernie put
on at the hearing. <br />
<br />
What was needed was not a "commitment" from the tiger to do other than what
tigers do. What was and is needed are binding laws that will force the tiger
to behave with restraint. In theory, fascists actually understood this.<br />
<br />
The principle of <i>Dodge v. Ford Motor Company</i>, needs to be uprooted
and repudiated. For good measure, the opinion should be burned in public
squares around the nation.<br />
<br />
The <i>Book of Genesis</i> makes no mention of corporations. Corporations
are not individuals with god-given rights to property. They are creatures of
the State and it is the state which can create them to work as the State
wants them to work with such immunities, rights and duties as the state
shall grant and impose. This has apparently been forgotten in the United
States and certainly in the murky well of the Senate <br />
<br />
It is simply a no brainer, that if the State wants to it can impose limits
on returns and dividends. It can require corporations to limit their
financial growth in order to promote the public good. It can restrict what
they do and how they do it. It can require them, for the sake of the workers
and, by extension, for the sake of a happy society in which all have a
purpose and place, to fork over money for safe working conditions, health
care, pensions and so on. It is this principle that made France, Germany and
the Nordic countries so successful both as societies and as "economic
engines."<br />
<br />
The United States also understood this from about 1945 to 1970, at which
point capitalism's savage wildness began to reassert itself. <br />
<br />
The principle of "imposing" socio-economic duties on corporations is hardly
untoward or unnatural. The canard underlying so-called "fiduciary" duty is a
dodge that assumes, without questioning, that the profits a corporation earns is "its" own money.<br />
<br />
Say an investor invests $10.00 in a company, as a result of which he owns 10
shares at a dollar a share. Let us suppose that all of that money is used to
produce better mousetraps as a result of which, all costs deducted, the
company earns takes in $100.00. Suppose that the company has a total of five
investors and (to make it simple) each of whom bought 10 shares. A total of
$50.00 went in and a total of $100.00 returned. Each investor as doubled his
investment. <br />
<br />
But by what slight of hand is it said that the $50.00 in extra inflows "is"
the investor's money? If we were to mark the bills with initials, $50.00 of
the $100.00 woulds be initialed "A," "B," "C," "D," and "E". THAT money
which was invested, which went out in costs, and which came back a part of
returns, could properly and rightly be called "the investor's money." <br />
<br />
But the other $50.00 was not the "investor's" money. That's the whole point.
If it were the investor's money then the investor would have gained nothing.
He would simply have gotten back all that he put in. But the whole point of
the exercise is to get back more than you put it.<br />
<br />
So whose money is the additional $50.00. The Capitalist says: "It is
obviously mine." Why? Because without the "trigger" of $50.00 invested there
would no "return" at all. This is absolutely true. There is no pregnancy
without an egg.<br />
<br />
But the worker says: The additional $50.00 is obviously mine because without
my work there would also be no "return." If the reader has jumped ahead;
yes, there is also no pregnancy without a fuck.<br />
<br />
Operating within the capitalist system both are right. But since both are
right, both have a just claim to the company's profits. Our law,
disgracefully only recognizes one party's rights. This is a grotesque
violation of Equality Under Law. <br />
<br />
Instead begging for commitments, Sanders should introduce and Congress
should pass, legislation which recognizes the workers right to a "return on
his labour" and the company's fiduciary duty to its workers as well as its
stockholders. Anything less is throwing tulips at tigers. <br />
<br />
<br />
©
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Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-12196514439168177442023-03-08T07:10:00.002-08:002023-03-09T08:07:13.569-08:00Washington's Latest Fad: Spurious Outrage & the Subversion of Justice<div style="text-align: justify;">
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The <b><i>Upper Crusti</i></b> of the country are in over-drive that Tucker Carlson should have "selectively" released, hitherto suppressed, security video footage showing the peaceable nature of the January 6th insurrectionists once inside the Capitol. Rather than address the issue of why such material evidence should have been kept from Peelousy's supposedly full and fair hearing on the so-called "insurrection," Democratic sound boxes in office and in the media have taken to excoriating the messenger.<br /> <br />
Leading the charge was none other than Senawhore Shuck Schumer who vented a pastiche of insinuation and invective blended with indignation and outrage. One gets caught up in this stuff like being overwhelmed by a wave that tosses you up over and around. One was helpless in the spin of Schumer's words. All one can do is shake the water out of one's ears when the overwhelming is over.<br /> <br />
It is as pointless to parse such demagoguery as it would be to try to trace the paths of particular molecules of water in a tidlewave. The vile thing about sophistry is that it takes one page of analysis to deconstruct two sentences of bullshit. By the time one is finished everyone has collapsed either out of exhaustion or boredom and the demagogue walks away with his prize. This is why the average Joe simply knocks their teeth out, provided he can close enough. <br /> <br />
We leave Schumer to is self-satisfied smirking and salivating. Just wipe away the slime and throw the rag out. <br /> <br />
What was surprising was to see Republoscum united with Demorats on the issue, especially in view of the fact that they have sat sullenly on the side-lines while the Pelosicrats carried on with their witchhunt instead of dealing with the nation's business (except of couse to fork billions over to some corrupt, bankrupt country in Eastern Europe). <br /> <br />
The reason for the suddens show of unity is that they are all of them measily, mice. Behind all the pompous grandstanding, they are cowardly (and incredibly stupid) midgets, bereft of new ideas and cravenly subservient to their dildo-weilding donors.<br /> <br />
They were all terrified for themselves on January 6th, crouching under their desks, and so they take after Tucker Carlson for showing footage Viking Warrior being quietly escorted from room to room by Capitol Hill cops.<br /> <br />
Let's be clear. Whenever a large crowd is gathered to protest something there is a potential for violence. Grievance and anger are in the air and a spark can always set things off. There were in fact acts of violence on January 6th, mostly by some of the protestors. But the Capitol is a large edifice, and violence was not everywhere. <br /> <br />
What the suppressed footage showed was that for the most part the protest outside and into the Capitol itself was surprisingly peaceful.<br /> <br />
In this regard, one also has to differentiate between a threat, danger or potential -- all of which refer to something that <i>might</i> or <i>could</i> happen but did not and actual conduct which did. No senawhore or congressoid was actually accosted and threatened. Whether they would have been, whether there was an intent to do that, is a matter of opinion but an opinion that has to be based on <i>all</i> of the footage not portions selected to buttress a chosen conclusion. Tucker is entirely right on this point. What is revolting is that the Upper Crusti don't see it.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> -o0o- </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> What is even more revolting is that the prosecutors of Shaman Man suppressed -- I repeat -- suppressed exculpatory information. This is, and has for decades been, a MAJOR constitutional infringement, known as a <i>Brady Violation</i>, Under <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/373/83/">Brady v. Maryland</a> (1963) 373 U.S. 83, 86-88, it is a prima facie violation of Due Process for the prosecution to suppress any evidence or information that is of material benefit to the defence. "Material" means anything that could be exculpatory or of assistance to the defence, including but not limited to sentencing issues. Moreover, it is not for the prosecutor to decide what is or is not relevant. The prosecution's duty is to liberally apply the "materiality" standard. Irrespective of its good or bad faith, if it calls it wrong, then it pays the price which is dismissal of the case or nullification of the verdict. <br /> <br />
Worse than they hypocrisy of midgets on the hill, was the subversion of justice in the halls of law. Shaman Man, deserves to have his conviction set aside and to be immediately released. Nor should it be taken for granted that the judge or prosecutor are immune for their misconduct. <br /> <br />
Immunity serves an important function in the administration of justice. But it should not be regarded as an absolute. If rights aren't absolute, neither are immunities. The suppression of evidence showing Shaman Man being peacefully escorted into the Senate Chamber where he did nothing but emit a wolf-like howl was too persuasive of innocence not to have been discovered. That it wasn't rendedered his trial a vindictive, farce and fraud. Neither judge nor prosecutor as the case may be should be allowed not to swing from the hook. <br /> <br />
All democracies must endure demagoguery but when the machinery of justice is used to persecute scapegoats for political ends that is tyranny. <br /> <br />
Those who participated in this hunt and those who knowing better stood by and let it happen have forever sullied themselves. <br /> <br />
©</div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-10718685071295892422023-03-08T05:28:00.000-08:002023-03-08T05:28:23.994-08:00Mexico: A Case Study in Gun Control<div style="text-align: justify;">
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About 20 years ago, I took a trip to Mexico. I arrived as scheduled and took a cab to the house where I would be staying. The house was located in a very upscale neighbour-hood of Mexico City -- the sort of place where there is no commercial hustle and bustle and where <a href="https://www.vivanuncios.com.mx/n/jardines-del-pedregal">stately houses</a> sit behind gates and walls. No one answered the door. <br /><br />
WTF? After ringing and waiting, I began to think that perhaps we had gotten my time of arrival mixed up. For some reason, I had packed my watch, and so I sat on my suitcase wondering what to do and what time it was. Yes... there was a time before cell phones. <br /><br />
As I sat, a young man in his early thirties came out of an adjacent residence and headed toward a parked car. He had a watch. So I got up, walked over toward him and in correct and flawless Spanish said, “Excuse me, señor, but you wouldn't happen to...”<br /><br />
He immediately snapped to. A look of fear and dread came over him and he quite literally ran to his car, open and slammed the door and drove away in an evident panic.<br /><br />
WTF? Mexico had always been a friendly and, most of all, a courteous place and in many ways it still is. This sort of reaction was inconceivable to me. <br /><br />
My hosts eventually arrived and I told them about this encounter ending with, “...and as you can see, I was dressed neatly” in loafers, slacks and Brooks Brothers shirt.... “Ah well,” my host replied, “that was probably what set him off...”<br /><br />
WTF? As it turns out, Mexico was experiencing a “epidemic” of kidnappings. The standard modus operandi was for a neatly dressed gentleman to politely approach and take you off-guard, at which point accomplices would emerge from nowhere and hustle you into a waiting car. Then the call... <br /><br />
Kidnappings have gotten so ubiquitous that there are now <i>professional</i> “kidnap brokers,” sitting behind shiny desks in fancy offices, whose job (for a fee) is to negotiate the ransom with or without the interference of the police as the case may be. Sometimes the negotiations work; sometimes the don't.<br /><br />
Mexico has <a href="https://davekopel.org/Espanol/Mexican-Gun-Laws.htm">strict gun control.</a> You can possess certain firearms in your home or designated places, but they must be registered and licensed. As many American tourists have discovered to their grief, failure to comply can lead to a five year prison sentence. “As with much of the rest of Mexican law enforcement, corruption is a major element of the gun licensing system.”<br /><br />
I have always laughed at how <i>gringos</i> misconceive of Mexico and how they confuse politeness and reserve with lack of ingenuity or initiative. The difficulty to legitimately acquire firearms has led to a <a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/gun-rentals-life-easier-mexico-city-criminals/">gun-rental business</a> through which<i> criminals can rent the guns they need for the occasion</i>.<br /><br />
Of course, the bigger criminals are themselves the gun cartels...<br /><br />
Gun control, clearly works, right?<br /><br />
But! But! But! the gun control fetishists will reply, look at Denmark, Norway and Sweden. <i>They</i> have gun controls and they are perfect societies! Precisely. They are perfect societies <i>but not because they have gun control. </i><br /><br />
As usual American liberals got it inside out and upside down. If gun control works in European countries, it is only because those societies have already achieved a certain level of social justice and economic security which are the cornerstones of a sense of community which in turn is the actual precondition for law and order. American Republicans likewise got it backwards in thinking that “law and order” gives rise to a sense of community. Nope.<br /><br />
All one has to do is compare Mexico to Sweden. Mexico far outpaces Sweden in cultural and economic vitality and in gross-domestic product. It is currently the 15th strongest economy in the world, at least 15 places ahead of Sweden. But for all that, Mexico suffers a very high level of economic disparity. <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD">Per capita GDP</a> in Sweden is 60K a year; in Mexico, 10K. In other words, Mexico suffers from acute income disparity; Sweden does not.<br /><br />
Income disparity is not the only indicator of everything. But one has to be an idiot not to know, at this point, that crime and poverty are handmaidens. It's really very simple. The word “community” derives from “<i>com</i>” + <i>muneris</i>, meaning <i>mutual</i> service or obligation. In other words, a society in which all look out for each, and each owes a responsibility to the whole. When community is lacking, “self-help” of necessity prevails. <br /><br />
Mexico has a crime problem because it has an economic disparity problem. The same is true in the United States, despite the fact that it is still the wealthiest country in the world. In fact its tremendous wealth actually distorts the significance of the figures. Per capita income of GDP in the United States in 70K a year, but for 50% of the country it is under 50K. The <i>individualized</i> <a href="https://datacommons.org/place/country/USA?utm_medium=explore&mprop=income&popt=Person&cpv=age%2CYears15Onwards&hl=en#">median income</a> is 30K. In other words, in terms of income distribution, the United States is more like Mexico than Sweden. <br /><br />
There was a time, back in the Fifties and Sixties, when the United States was more like Sweden; but our political and financial elites, Demorat and Republoscum alike, <i>intentionally</i> decided to <i>Mexicanize</i> the country back in the late 70's and 80's. To put it simply: the <i>gig</i> economy (scrambling for scraps) is the diametric opposite of <i>community</i>; and, as I have said, without community there is no cohesion and hence more crime.<br /><br />
I have little patience with Republicans and their inane and outdated <i>Smithian</i> yap about free markets, rising tides and trickle-down. Trust me; it is dead on arrival. All economics has <i>always</i> been the result of intervention. The issue is the kind of intervention we want. When I listen to Republicans blabbering about “too many dollars chasing too few goods” I have to wonder if they are really that stupid or if they are just whores to the corporations unilaterally raising prices because they can get away with it.<br /><br />
But I have even less patience with liberals, who have avoided underlying issues in their own inimitable and equally inane way. Has anyone ever noticed how liberals are always chasing after some issue -- the race issue, the women issue, the disability issue, the gay issue, the trans issue, the gun-safety issue... ANYTHING but the 401(k) issue... <br /><br />
Liberals are culled from the upper middle class; the “Ten Percent”. They instinctively know (that is, they know without knowing it) who and what butters their bread. Oh yes! Housing affordability is a crisis! Something must be done! And what might that be? Building more houses, so as to increase supply and hence lower prices? And then? What happens to your little “nest egg” of ever-appeciating real estate value? Some 30 something can't afford a house and your 60-something “nest egg” just doubled in value and you don't see the connection? Are you as stupid as Republicans?<br /><br />
This has been going on for decades. Back in the 60's Phil Ochs, composed a song, <i>Love me! I'm a Liberal,</i> which is as timely now as it was then. And so, ever in avoidance of the economic elephant in the room, the liberals are chasing after the next <b><i>Issue-in-Avoidance</i></b>. ... Gun control. If only we get rid of a symptom (“gun violence”) the cause will go away...<br /><br />
Well...politics is nothing if not rampant stupidities. One might as well demand that birds not chirp. But when the chirping starts to chip away and subvert the Bill of Rights, at that point I draw the line. <br /><br />
The right to keep and bear arms, is the second foundational principle of our society. It is at the essence of “what we are about” as a people. If liberals don't get it, they should go to an ashram, cross their legs and meditate on the Bill of Rights until they achieve Foundational Enlightenment. <br /><br />
The Mexican Constitution (1917) also guarantees the right to possess arms:<br /><br />
<blockquote>
"The inhabitants of the United Mexican States have the right to possess arms in their homes for their security and legitimate defense with the exception of those prohibited by federal law and of those reserved for the exclusive use of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and National Guard. Federal law shall determine the cases, conditions and place in which the inhabitants may be authorized to bear arms."</blockquote><br />
Therein lies a fundamental difference. One that leaves you defenceless when a stranger approaches you to ask for the time....<br /><br />
©</div>
Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-41747476272144739672023-03-02T21:52:00.000-08:002023-03-03T22:16:32.168-08:00An Unasked Question<div style="text-align: justify;">
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A year ago to the month, San Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, began a mass roundup of gang members. Within months, the government had detained about 40,000 members of the Mara-Salvatrucha and M-18 gangs, who were jammed like human sardines into the country's inadequate and delapidated jails, from where they conducted business as usual including blackmail, terrorist retaliations and murders.<br /><br />
Bukele's response was swift: he turned off the food. A howl of protest arose from various international human rights organizations. Bukele was ready for them as well: “And if the international community is worried about their little angels, they should come and bring them food, because I am not going to take budget money away from the schools to feed these terrorists.”
<br /><br />
As if to underscore the point Bukele posted a video showing guards with billy clubs forcing inmates to walk, run and even descend stairs with their arms held behind their necks or backs. The inmates were stripped to their underwear, and their mattresses were taken away. <br /><br />
The San Salvadoran congress approved and extended the temporary state of emergency which included longer pre-hearing detentions, loosened procedural safeguards and the removal of unenthusiastic judges. The international NGO-Press was again in arms lamenting the perhaps 1,600 youths who had been mistakenly detained and some of whom got “lost” in the morass of cages that passes for a penitentiary system. It is a safe wager that Bukele's private response was that: you can't make an omelette without cracking some eggs. <br /><br />
By all accounts, except for legal perfectionists, the average San Salvadoran was enjoying the omelette. Make no mistake, these gangs are <i>brutal</i>. There is no other word for their behaviour. Their morality is an inversion of our own -- a negative universe where nightmares are sweet dreams.<br /><br />
Almost a year to the day, and Bukele has announced the opening of a new mega-prison in the middle of nowhere to house 40,000 inmates for sentences ranging from 25 to 40 years. To all intents and purposes, these gang members have been permanently <i>extracted</i> from civil society.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiridN80NbAd7rCexff_mO-DGp4myKDN94EObRYjZwMpVLP5I4_DulYVTNv7xgTK7eLu65aRAB2jx-gkAup8NzOM3myz004QIX_mngjYK9TvcVXxQAAZpo2AXm2p_rGgpLKnCci6ROWUxiDpzwpHXiI472Ca82869WTtfxQdPpFaaqbMPCsg_DBzHsPWQ/s310/prison.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="162" data-original-width="310" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiridN80NbAd7rCexff_mO-DGp4myKDN94EObRYjZwMpVLP5I4_DulYVTNv7xgTK7eLu65aRAB2jx-gkAup8NzOM3myz004QIX_mngjYK9TvcVXxQAAZpo2AXm2p_rGgpLKnCci6ROWUxiDpzwpHXiI472Ca82869WTtfxQdPpFaaqbMPCsg_DBzHsPWQ/w400-h209/prison.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />
Well... what else is new? Using similar measures, Caesar “cleansed” the Mediterranean of pirates and the world was grateful to him for it. <br /><br />
Normally, inmates thus removed from society are inserted into an alternative society, such as Alcatraz, Devil's Island... Georgia... Australia... Life in such institutions and penal colonies is harsh both <i>de jure</i> and <i>de facto</i>, but it is a form of society nevertheless. In contrast, Bukele's Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) is not any form of society at all. It is purely and very simply a human warehouse.<br /><br />
The entire complex is a surgically antisceptic. Bright, white, shiny, and devoid of any discernible character. The bright hangars in which prisoners are to be housed contain nothing at all except concrete, metal and artificial lighting. <br /><br />
I mean nothing. No common areas. No television. No tables. No chairs. There is no privacy at all. Everything is empty, open, and closed off. The cells, housing about 40 inmates each, consist of nothing except fixed metal racks stacked four high. They look exactly like the pallet racks in warehouses. No sheets, much less pillows or mattresses are provided. The inmates must sleep like animals on the sheer metal surface. <br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgL_lycn_yABP410jCohiUn51vNHAEm0LYyJfTyconSU-F2zhR9_mGh2cPSfJ7plF7Bq3RBQGOFjvADgA3mfdymFgzlXtRsN3F_ap39YVUrhQqrWJsMjntywkkKqF4RZUopk_Ot_fXXUXHPEGcTYpsk-kVqABBPmjymoTNYO0kCGcgaQGBAhTMLd5Ebg/s652/racks.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="652" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgL_lycn_yABP410jCohiUn51vNHAEm0LYyJfTyconSU-F2zhR9_mGh2cPSfJ7plF7Bq3RBQGOFjvADgA3mfdymFgzlXtRsN3F_ap39YVUrhQqrWJsMjntywkkKqF4RZUopk_Ot_fXXUXHPEGcTYpsk-kVqABBPmjymoTNYO0kCGcgaQGBAhTMLd5Ebg/w400-h225/racks.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />
The inmates themselves are stripped of everything, except one pair of white scivvies and (of course) their shackles and hand-cuffs. <br /><br />
Some reports have stated that the “facility” has a gym and an outside exercise yards. It does, but these are for the staff. Another report showed a large dormitory area with mattress beds and lockers. But these too were for staff.<br /><br />
Other reports have shown what purports to be “shops” where inmates will be able to work; but these are patently for show. They were not big enough to occupy 40,000 slaves; nor did they contain much of any visible machinery for anything. <br /><br />
No. The plan is to keep 40,000 human beings in a state of mere existence. Even the metal grating has been designed as a species of razor sharp wire, making it impossible to hang or swing therefrom. What is planned is a form of mass solitary confinement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo_iBWY8OsEdg2knbnQScaCJ2k_9sVTdHOTP0LusJp5dRG5oU1W9_8BXNSoSM_DZa6XfjZLdwHyVURx-ydyyouOEK5tgzs_2lvqyLo8ra9WOJ755rIG1RKs6zblmGGm9JsRwlRj25CKqMAnmuQXpulyfyBmTJZzweo7LGXYAUfnUKHiySvfPkezQc7zw/s1088/MegaCellsnap.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="868" data-original-width="1088" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo_iBWY8OsEdg2knbnQScaCJ2k_9sVTdHOTP0LusJp5dRG5oU1W9_8BXNSoSM_DZa6XfjZLdwHyVURx-ydyyouOEK5tgzs_2lvqyLo8ra9WOJ755rIG1RKs6zblmGGm9JsRwlRj25CKqMAnmuQXpulyfyBmTJZzweo7LGXYAUfnUKHiySvfPkezQc7zw/w400-h319/MegaCellsnap.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />
For those who act up, or go crazy, there are dark solitary confinement cells consisting of six walls of concrete and one heavy iron door. The aptly named minister of the interior brags that those so confined will not see any light at all. Bright hole, black hole take your pick.<br /><br />
None of the reports we have read made any passing mention of counselling, rehabilitation, remedial programs, religious services... nothing. <br /><br />
At some point, the government may decide that a docile work force of 40,000 is too profitable a thing to waste and will invite some German company to set up shop in a camp annex. But, as of the moment, the prison consists of nothing except housing cells, punishment cells and (supposedly) some sort of slop-preparation facility. <br /><br />
Thus, in addition to being deprived of all clothes and all amenities, the prisoners will be deprived of all purpose and all hope. In this excrutiatingly antisceptic void, the inmates will no doubt start to canabilize themselves at which point they will be dragged into dark holes or beaten and tear gassed into quiesence until life itself becomes mere listless stupefaction.<br /><br />
Bukele has evidently decided that gangs are a civil cancer and CECOT is the chemotherapy, one short step away from disinfecting gasses. <br /><br />
The amazing thing is how compliant the prisoners already are. A year ago, they were carrying on in the usual boisterous and violent manner. Today, a relative small handful of guards control 500 or 1000 men, who always keep their shaved heads bowed, who bow at the waist when they walk or run to a designated destination and who sit quietly on the floor, dick-to-asshole, without a murmur.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHT1o5E3UgC4yzAjWKQv53nFX4AJNQlPSouA2kZv42K5t2GZLb5m73pjOF5r-uvfunEUl_qUFdkDoCWbjsLGym9FZmODdfAKvHNXVTvoo3uXGkpALuHqX6NvrvdYa_NPpU8cLYpXbm7zJ2e-TpZRoCWGCFyC2zl9C5z0WnCPqnpZikn040cZaoC5-myw/s643/BowedLegions.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="322" data-original-width="643" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHT1o5E3UgC4yzAjWKQv53nFX4AJNQlPSouA2kZv42K5t2GZLb5m73pjOF5r-uvfunEUl_qUFdkDoCWbjsLGym9FZmODdfAKvHNXVTvoo3uXGkpALuHqX6NvrvdYa_NPpU8cLYpXbm7zJ2e-TpZRoCWGCFyC2zl9C5z0WnCPqnpZikn040cZaoC5-myw/w400-h200/BowedLegions.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <br />What turned thousands of hardened, brutal, tough criminals into docile cows? It cannot have been beatings. These men are tough and thrive on physical violence. Moreover none of them looked physically damaged. No one has asked this question. <br /><br />
My guess (and it is only a guess) is that they were starved into submission. “Any one acts up and no one eats for a week” is a mighty effective inducement.<br /><br />
The brutality of the gangs was (and is) appalling. Equally appalling, though, is the government's response. From Supermax prisons in Colorado, to Metropolitan Detention centers in LA and NYC and now to gang warehouses in San Salvador, we have perfected the art of anodyne torture and dehumanization. The dystopia of the New American Century is bright, light and empty space inhabited by carbon-based objects.<br /><br />
I have very little confidence in rehabilitative programs. Aside from the Nordic and Germanic countries, prisons only make criminals worse. <br /><br />
The reason for this is that most prison regimes are based on retribution: making the criminal suffer for the crime he has committed. If beating an animal or chaining it to a post does not make it more social, it is a mystery to me why people would expect locking a man in a cage to produce any better results.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7UYqB8JjgMzWMemMFKJdZWOUW-gl68-UApuVBe5Dr1iPr9F-zDK1yj9PdgflHRzWQEvEMzWKuFF0ganDy3FZxKztw-zTpdbOqFrMPUl3J2OH9v2WhMyxNro_n8T5DjGbsaUfO6p8R3zvUpOyk0rBQwuCDj_gfc_1Ie_Bswfz7l7oU44FwJaDEiIza4w/s1024/crawling.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="713" data-original-width="1024" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7UYqB8JjgMzWMemMFKJdZWOUW-gl68-UApuVBe5Dr1iPr9F-zDK1yj9PdgflHRzWQEvEMzWKuFF0ganDy3FZxKztw-zTpdbOqFrMPUl3J2OH9v2WhMyxNro_n8T5DjGbsaUfO6p8R3zvUpOyk0rBQwuCDj_gfc_1Ie_Bswfz7l7oU44FwJaDEiIza4w/w400-h279/crawling.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />
It seems to me that the only way to undo the defect and the hurt that underlies most anti-social behaviour is to give criminals the respect, love, security, encouragement they were denied as children. In other words, to throw roses at pigs.<br /><br />
Obviously most people gag at “love your criminal” notwithstanding that on Sundays they promise to love their enemies. <br /><br />
Be that as it may, Bukele's inmates are not merely pigs but wild and savage boars. One can only imagine what deprivation and violence turned once soft and helpless babies into such cruel and hardened lovers of all things dark. And it's not just the “turning into” but also the “training in.” What we have in gang memebers is a life that is the inverse of “justification” and “sanctification” <br /><br />
Having been turned into criminals, they are now too far down the road of habituated vice to be called back. Bukele's solution to this human ruination is to replace it with another type of ruination. While I am not the least bit indifferent to the pain and suffering these gang members callously and even happily inflicted on their many victims, I cannot but feel sorry for a creature who was doomed from the start of his life. I have to ask myself, what kind of god is it that throws so many human lives to waste. <br /><br />
Whatever God or Bukele want to do, I cannot but think that we cannot go down that road; that writing off people whom Fate herself had written off is not the decent thing to do. It creates <i>in us</i>, the good and the decent, an attitude that is all too amenable to inhumanity and evil... Once we loose our feeling of compassion, once we treat other living things as disposable objects we become the greatest of Creation's monsters. Did not the 20th century teach us that not once but multiple times? <br /><br />
And so it is that I think that for our own sakes, we must play the fools and provide these inmates with some occasion to practice a positive form of community. If all Bukele is going to do is turn them into warehoused objects he might as well just gas em and be done with it.<br /><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgLQvnZrYBu9XuLwUEUnX6Mm9UR2u3eEdVr9vVDLzFcSBHmt0goX8TE6JyCcwN6pxoJdjKSPq1UdYc4ayrkiVziHdwbDchBmVug8HVjMV4oqtytDkqkMDxK0W24j0fGBlpwMi-SeLFHEI5EUp2gO39L5_N-5zRwrSAI6FUHYoFSyfZN8nA0HTAhOf0DA/s600/xalertanoti.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="340" data-original-width="600" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgLQvnZrYBu9XuLwUEUnX6Mm9UR2u3eEdVr9vVDLzFcSBHmt0goX8TE6JyCcwN6pxoJdjKSPq1UdYc4ayrkiVziHdwbDchBmVug8HVjMV4oqtytDkqkMDxK0W24j0fGBlpwMi-SeLFHEI5EUp2gO39L5_N-5zRwrSAI6FUHYoFSyfZN8nA0HTAhOf0DA/s320/xalertanoti.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;">©</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-18603316731745119642023-01-22T21:33:00.002-08:002023-01-23T21:57:37.174-08:00Demon Gun
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Another shooting and once again another assault on our eardrums from all the usual suspects. Without any information on the incident, except that a shooting had occurred in an Asian venue, a chorus of Gun Prohibition furies immediately pounced on the opportunity to denounce "another act of gun violence." <br /><br />
The Democrats in particular jumped at the chance to be proactive about an issue that does not involve redistribution of wealth from their donor class or their uppper middle class base.<br /><br />
Not to be outdone, self-avowed "community leaders" joined in bewaling another "hate crime" that afflicted a "community" already under "assault." Hours after this denunciation sheriffs disclosed that the prime suspect was himself Asian. <br /><br />
After the usual denunciations Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan concluded by saying "Let’s wrap our arms around the community and put in the work to prevent these senseless acts of violence."<br /><br />
<b><i>Yessss!!! Hear, Hear!! Enough is Enough !!!!</i></b> <b>BAN GUN</b><br /><br />
OK... but how does one prevent a "senseless" act?<br /><br />
The word "senseless" means "Destitute of, deficient in, or contrary to, sense ... foolish; unwise; unreasonable, absurd, ilogical, irrational, pointless."<br /><br />
The idea of prevention is to take logical and practical steps which are reasonably calculated to prevent a knowable occurrence; for example, using a condom, covering windows with plywood, and so on. <br /><br />
But something that is "senseless" is unknowable until it takes place. Before it takes place it exists in the universe of randommness. How is it possible to prevent a randomn occurrence? It is like trying to predict chaos. <br /><br />
The inane hysteria that emits from <i>Gun Prohibitionists</i> is reflected in the term "<i><b>gun violence</b></i>" which has convinced them that the "thing" at issue - violence - is something done by guns; that the gun is in someway the cause of the violence. That's the way adjectival nouns work. <br /><br />
To attribute to an object -- a cut piece of stone or a tree perhaps -- the ability to cause something is the core of all fetish totems and taboos. But that is precisely what Gun Prohbitionists have done, just the way their erstwhile predecessors attributed all evil in society to demon rum. <br /><br />
So now we have <b>Demon Gun.</b><br /><br />
Guns don't act senselessly; people do. If people are acting senselessly the remediative efforts must be directed at the psychological, social and economic causes. Banning guns is to chase after a chimeral solution.<br /><br />
As to chimeral solutions, Sheriff Luna stated, "California has some of the strictest gun laws in the country... let's look across our nation and see what works and what doesn’t. I can tell you this - the status quo's not working."<br /><br />
And what precisely is the "status quo"? California has among the strictest gun laws in the country. Simply the list (not the text) of statutes prohibiting gun use, possession and regulation is three pages long. The state's "<i>Assault Weapons Identification Guide</i>" goes on for 96 pages. What more is left?<br /><br />
California's gun control regime has obviousely failed. It will continue to fail because it is blaming the stone for the hand that threw it.<br /><br />
CNN reports that "The gun wrestled away from the man in Alhambra was a Cobray M11 9mm semi-automatic weapon according to a law enforcement official." What can be said is that the gun is not listed in 96 page Identification Guide.<br /><br />
The Cobray M11 is designed to take 30-round magazines which are now illegal in California. (Penal Code 32310(c)) For some reason law enforcement had yet to clarify, as of this writing, whether the gunman had an illegal magazine or whether he used a legal 10 round magazine. <br /><br />
But it really makes no difference. If the gun or the magazine were illegal, it just goes to show how laws do not prevent crime. Laws can punish crimes, but why anyone in his or her right mind would think that laws prevent crime is beyond me. <br /><br />
If the gun or the magazine was not prohibited it just goes to show that California will have to ban all guns outright. "Mass shootings" are defined as those involving three or more persons. Anyone who thinks that a mass shooting cannot be accomplished with shotguns, revolvers or bolt action rifles doesn't know weapons. That it is easier to kill with a semi-automatic does not mean gun violence cannot be accomplished with non automatics.<br /><br />
Banning all guns outright which is what Gun Prohibitionists are really after and what they will have to do if they continue to pursue their Total Safety in Senselessness agenda. <br /><br />
Since when has prohibition worked? In the lead up to the 18th Amendment, ardent, monomaniacal prohibitionists traced all evil to Demon Rum. They assured us that once alcohol was banned "there will be world peace." I'm not kidding, I saw the film footage with my own eyes. The day after the amendment was pased the mafia was born in this country. And, speaking of crime, how's the war on drug working?<br /><br />
We laugh at primitive people who make a taboo of some Byanyang Tree, but gun-controllers are no different. They have a fear infused gun fetish. They are convinced that if they abolish guns they will have cured the psychological and socio-economic causes of senseless acts. Like all primitive fanatics they will trample on everything and anything in pursuit of their ghostly solution, including the Constitution.<br /><br />
Democrats have become the party of subversive insanity.<br /><br />
© WCG </div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-44029801045542467392023-01-20T12:38:00.001-08:002023-01-23T13:18:37.119-08:00EIGHT POINTS REGARDING GUN PROHIBITION LEGISLATION
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<b> 1. The Bill of Rights established Principles not Policies.</b><br /><br />
The Bill of Rights establishes existential principles that govern the whole framework of our social, political and economic life. It is to politics what axioms are to geometry. The Bill of Rights sets limits on what policies the government can enact. That's what “no law” and “shall not infringe” mean. As to the principles established, it is a "No Trespassing" sign.<br /><br />
<b>2. The Bill of Rights does not need to be subject to any “Balancing Test.”</b><br /><br />
In law, “balancing tests” are used to factor in competing interests in forming legislation or arriving at judicial decisions. But the Bill of Rights is not a collection of legislative policies. The balancing struck by the Framers was the Bill of Rights itself. The convention debates and the Federalist Papers show, the Framers were very atuned to the benefits and risks of each and every provision of the Bill of Rights. <br /><br />
<b>3. The Second Amendment is not about Guns.</b><br /><br />
The Bill of Rights was not concerned with objects but with human behavior in the social and political context. The Second Amendment is part of a <i>triad</i> of rights designed to insure raw <i>popular</i> participation in public affairs. The Framers understood the risks of liberties and the dangers of tyranny and it was with those risks that they were concerned. They reserved three fundamental non-legislative, non-judicial, non-military popular rights:<br />
<blockquote>
(a) the <i>popular</i> right to assemble, to speak and to incite.<br />
(as Justice Douglas wrote “all speech is incitement”)<br />
(b) the right of a non-professional, <i>popular</i> and independent jury
(as Justice Scalia wrote: “the jury serves as a circuit breaker.”)<br />
(c) the <i>popular</i> right of individuals to keep and bear arms.
(as Madison wrote, the right of people to be armed is the
ultimate bulwark against tyranny.)
</blockquote>
<b>4. The Second Amendment's Purposes included Self-Defense</b>.<br /><br />
At the time of ratification English and American law recognized the natural “<i>right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence</i>.” (“1 William Blackstone, <i>Commentaries on the Laws of England</i> § 144 (1765) <b>Of the Absolute Right of Individuals</b>”). The existence of modern police forces does not abrogate that right because as a matter of law the police have no duty to respond and cannot be sued if they fail to. If the State cannot guarantee a person's safety it has no interest or business in taking away his or her means of self defense. <br /><br />
<b>5. The Right to Keep & Bear Arms is not Dependent on Militia Service.</b> <br /><br />
The argument that the right to keep and bear arms is "connected only to service in the militia" is patently absurd. Do those who advance this rationale mean to say that Framers felt it important to protect the right of recruits to be issued arms upon enlistment in a militia? Those who advance this argument have got it upside down, in England and in Colonial America, the army or the militia and policing all presupposed the existence of an armed citizenry. And it is precisely an armed citizenry that the Second Amendment insures.<br /><br />
<b>6. It is not Relevant that the Framers did not “envision” Assault Rifles.</b><br /><br />
It makes no more sense to say that the Second Amendment should be revised because assault weapons were not envisioned that it would be to say that the First Amendment can be “modified” because the the Framers did not envision that propaganda power of modern mass media. What the Framers understood was that weapons of any sort can be used to inflict great injury against unarmed people, especially if taken by surprise. The<i> Staute of Northampton</i>, which was known to all colonists, prohibited riding with force and arms into a crowd in order to terrorize the people. At the time the statute was enacted a military style sword was a hardened steel razor blade that was capable of slicing through a neck or arm like a knife through butter. (That's why they wore steel armor.) In a crowded place it could kill several people in a matter of seconds. Did the Framers envision such a sword attached to a spinning rotary device? Who knows; but they understood the risks of armed anti-social behavior, including the killing of three or more people, which is the current definition of a so-called “mass” killing.<br /><br />
<b>7. The Proposed Bills will not Address and Underlying Social Problems</b><br /><br />
“Gun violence”is an ambiguous noun-adjective that creates a rhetorical shibboleth which suggest that “guns” do harm to people. Actually guns do not do anything. They are inanimate objects. It is humans who do violence with, among other things, guns. Attributing causality to an inanimate object is to indulge in a primitive, fetishistic taboo. Cold, unemotional statistics show that most gun-related deaths are committed in crimes by minorities in their mid teens and twenties and in suicides by white men over age 65 which account for 55% to 70% of all gun related deaths. Suicides are not committed with assault rifles or high capacity magazines (unless it takes eleven rounds to blow one's brain out). The country has an elder suicide problem, and legislative efforts are better addressed at solving that problem.<br /><br />
<b>8. The Legislation is a Dishonest Subterfuge that Discredits the Law</b><br /><br />
If Gun Prohibitionists want to repeal the Second Amendment, the Constitution provides them with the means to do so. The Framers made amendments difficult precisely because at issue are principles and not mere policies. Failing the ability to amend, and having their arguments rejected by the supreme judicial authority under the Constitution, the bills' proponents seek repeal by subterfuge, enacting regulatory measures that are so onerous and burdensome as to make compliance practically impossible. A parent who sets tasks or goals that are designed to insure a child's failure is guilty of abuse. So too when the power to regulate is used to destroy. Such clever subterfuges bring the law into contempt and will deepen political cynicism.<br /><br />
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©2023 WoodchipGazette </div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-44888271497276931422022-09-10T12:40:00.003-07:002022-09-16T10:24:34.455-07:00The Despicable Demorats<div style="text-align: justify;">
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I have never voted <i>Republoscum</i> and vowed that I never would; but what the<i> Demorats</i> are doing is so despicable I cannot see that I have a choice. <br /> <br />
Let the premise be clear: the Demorats do not represent ordinary Americans, whether the poor, the working poor or the distressed middle-class. The Rats as much as the Scum represent the corporate oligarchy and its coterie of vassals and hangers-on. As the British labour leader, Tony Benn, put it decades ago: “America is a One Party State; just have two of them.” <br /> <br />
The Demorats have utterly failed to deliver on any of their so-called progressive promises. In 1992, the Demorats rejected trade-unionism in favour of free-trade, gutting welfare, and law n' order. In 2008, vowing an end to a “long night of darkness,” the Demorats flooded banks with money, continued neo-con wars, and hung the middle-class out to dry. In 2016, they rejected what they disparaged as the progressive agenda in favour of something the <i>BitchWitch</i> called “incremental progressivism” -- in plain English: “chicken feed.” Again, in 2020, the Demorats and the country's Liberal Establishment, led by the <i>Slime-of-Record</i>, left no stone unturned in order to defeat Bernie Sanders; in other-words to suppress a popular groundswell that, <i>on the issues advocated</i>, commanded 60% to 70% approval <i>nation wide</i>. And “no stone” included endorsing a woman who had crash-landed in her home state's primary and a lead candidate who was so prone to walking in circles and gumbling gaffes that he was kept out of sight in the basement. At least Benjamin Harrison had the decency to run from his front porch. <br /><br />
Once again, the Demorats employed their “What-you-see-is-not-the-real-me” tactic. Somehow, Joe Biden, the college varsity football player who got himself declared 4F on account of asthma, and who, throughout his career, had been pro-bank and pro-war, was peddled as Union Man Joe -- a gruff n' tumble guy who would push large chunks of the progressive agenda through Congrease. <br /><br />
Well... (as if it were not fully foreseeable) Bernie's <i>My Friend Joe</i> strategy proved as successful as Wile E. Coyote's running into a wall. (In fact, it was so foreseeable one can be excused from wondering if Bernie wasn't pogey bait for millenials all along.)<br /><br />
Instead of putting bread on the table for working Americans, the Demorats have offered their usual cornucopia of “cultural,” “social,” and “civil rights” issues -- all of which have the primary benefit of not in any way affecting the portfolios of the party's donor class. Even Blacks were getting tired of the game, seeing as five decades of Overcoming Promises had produced, at most, a mouse. So the Demorats went in pursuit of new issues. Suddenly transphoria issues blazed into the firmament. Concededly, public <i>their-room</i> access and teaching sexual-orientation alternatives to six year olds migh be of transcendental importance to the country's 0.3% transgender community, but it is of no practical benefit to the rest of us. Not with inflation raging at an official 8.5%.
<br /><br />
Ah, but it is of great use to both the Demorats and the Republoscum. For while cultural issues are of no tangible, material, benefit to people, they have this near magickle power to get people riled up and make people forget their actual grievances.
As James Madison put it,<br /><br />
<blockquote>
So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. Fed. Paper No. 10.</blockquote><br />
Poor Madison! He never thought that he was writing a political manual for our two major parties. A pox on them both.<br /><br />
But the Demorats havetaken the matter a step further - a step which requires me to speak truth to subversion. This far, and no more!<br /><br />
As I have commented on before, in pursuit of their <i>Woke Agenda</i>, the Demorats have launched an assault on the First Amendment, getting their henchlings in Social Media to flag and block speech that is “violent,” “racist,” “sexist,” subjectively “offensive” “false” and “misleading.” These were always the rallying cries of censors and the favourite bugaboos of tyrants. Nothing more need be said.<br /><br />
Not content with eviscerating the First Amendment the Demorats are now going after the Second. The rallying cry in this crusade is to put an end to something called “<b><i>gun violence.</i></b>” The term, like most labels-of-convenience, is prejudicial to clear thinking. The term implies that guns=violence, or better yet, guns=death. But what is really at issue is violent acts committed by humans armed with guns. Why don't the <i>Gun Prohibitionists </i>speak of “human violence”? Because to do so would -- God forbid! -- point to the true cause at issue; and if it's anything the Demorats hate it's true causes.<br /><br />
With that caveat in mind, let us examine how much violence committed with guns there is. According to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/">Pew Research</a>, in 2002 45,222 people died from gun-related injuries. Of these, 54% were suicides (24,292), while 43% were murders (19,384) In 2020, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. "gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters." Switching between "gun" and "firearm" murders does not make for clarity, but the Pew report is unequivocaly clear that: "Rifles – <i>including so-called assault weapons</i> – were involved in 3% of firearm murders." Using the 19,384 number that stacks up to 581 deaths. (The Gun Violence Archive, calculates 518.) <br /><br />
Right off the bat, these Pew Research statistics, betray what an utter canard the hysterical campaign against <b><i>military assault!!!!</i></b> rifles. They, and their “high capacity” magazines are responsible for <i>at most</i> 581 deaths; and actually less given that not all rifles are "military assault style" guns. Of course while any death is sad, and while the occasional mass shooting event presents a horrible spectacle, policy decisions are based on gross phenomena, on major trends. From a statistical and policy point of view “<i><b>MILITARY STYLE ASSAULT RIFLE VIOLENCE!!</b></i>” is a non-existence category. <br /><br />
Aristotle wrote that the role of spectacle in drama was to use suspend judgement; to dull the mind the shock or awe. The same is true in politics. <br /><br />
Getting the mind back into gear, the real issue is (and always has been) hand-guns. Of course, the Demorats don't want the issue framed in that way, because to outlaw hand-guns would unequestionably void the Second Amendment. So instead, they shift gears and complain about “high capacity magazines.” <br /><br />
Once again, let us examine the statistics. How many bullets does it take to blow one's own brain out? Answer: “high capacity magazines” are not at issue in 54% of all gun-relate deaths. <br /><br />
Of the 43% of gun-related murders, how many involved the use of “high capacity magazines.” Typically, “high capacity magazines” are those which hold 20-30 rounds. But with a few rare exceptions, most pistols sold in the United States come equipped with magazines that hold between 10 and 17 rounds. Those holding 10 rounds are generally compact or subcompact models. Recent anti-gun legislation has defined a high capacity magazine as one holding more than 10 rounds. Thus, the question that has to be asked is: how many of the 43% gun-related murders have entailed the use of more than 10 rounds? <br /><br />
Or: how many times did you shoot your wife? <br /><br />
I have not found an answer. Common sense tells me that most single-person murders do not require ten or more rounds, presuming the shooter can shoot straight. One has to imagine the types of scenarious in which homicides occur: deliberated murder of a person, heated spousal quarrels, drunken fooling around, liquor store robberies and car-jackings. Most of these can be, and most likely are, accomplished with under 10 rounds. The situation in which the perpetrator will even be carrying an extra magazine in his pocket is most likely gang-related “missions.” <br /><br />
All of which brings us to the last question: how many shootings are mass murders anyway? The standard defintion for some years was: four or more victims. Needless to say, Gun Prohibitionists, have wratcheted the number down to three. The FBI defines “active shooter incidents,” as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” Using the FBI’s definition, 38 people – excluding the shooters – died in such incidents in 2020.<br /><br />
Wikipedia contains a list of mass shootings in the United States since 1949. Since year 2000, the vast majority of these “mass” shootings have involved under 10 deaths per incident. Where more have been involved, there were usually other circumstances which painted a more nuanced picture.<br /> <br />
For example: in 2002, 17 people are listed as being killed in the so-call <i>D.C. Sniper Attacks</i>. However, the attacks occurred over a ten month period. In the 1987 <i>Flight 1771</i> killing, 43 persons are listed as being killed; three shot the cockpit, the rest when the plane crashed. Also in 1987, the <i>Dover Arkansas</i> mass shooting involved eight shot by pistol, seven by strangulation and one by drowning. Turning away from creative statistics, a perousal of these incidents show that, on average, most of these mass shootings involved between 3 and 7 victims <i>of shooting</i>. <br /><br />
Thus, to conclude, the prohibition of 10+ magazines is solution in search of a problem.
Of course, any “gun violence” is a problem, but there is not a gun-violence problem in the United States. Not when contrasted with the 38,824 vehicle deaths or the 71,238 deaths in 2021 from fentanyl and the 32,856 deaths from meth. In terms of policies one might think there are more important priorities than banning an “assault style” weapon that is used in 1% of gun deaths (452). To be sure, possession of fentanyl or meth is already outlawed but that only serves to show that outlawing things doesn't work. <br /><br />
But the prohibitionist mentality is implaccable. The alcohol prohibitionists would not be deterred until they effected a constitutional amendment and <i>eo instante</i> created the mob, interstate crime and gun violence such as never before had been seen. Gee thanks. But at least Carry Nation (or her successors-in-rage) bothered with an amendment. The <i>Gun Prohibitionists</i> prefer the snake-in-the-grass. They are trying to eviscerate the Second Amendment with a thousand “reasonable regulations.”<br /><br />
There is nothing reasonable about them at all. One call all but hear them cackling with glee as they scribble out section after section after paragraph, after sub-paragraph, after item, after item, of pre-requisites, prohibitions, limitations, fees requirements. They are proceeding thus because they know that they cannot repeal the Second Amendment at the ballot box; and so they proceed by stealth and back of hand. It is despicable in its cunning and dishonesty.<br /><br />
This sort of thing might achieve the object of desire but it does so at the price of destroying law. Law, we might well remember, is simply a form of speech. It requires a certain good faith. Or as Thucydides said, “simplicity of speech is the mark of a noble man.” Just as speech is destroyed by sophistry and by the perversion of meaning, so too law is destroyed by devices such as are being employed by the <i>Gun Prohibitionists</i>. They should be forwarned. For if we are turned from a nation of law into a nation of mere devices then we are undone. <br /><br />
In the name of equal contempt, I am constrained to say that the <i>Republoscum</i> gerrymandering devices are also depicable. The difference is that what the <i>Demorat Gun Prohibitionists</i> are doing goes one step further and targets what the Framers felt was important enough to be enshrined as the second most fundamental of all rights, and they are doing so by means of vicious technicalities the sole purpose of which is to make compliance with the law impossible. Think about that: <i>make compliance with the law impossible.</i>
<br /> <br />
For shame.<br /> <br />
Had the Demorats delivered on their vaunted promise of social welfare and economic equality, one might at least feel that the price was worth the basket of fish. But they failed at even that. Throughout history, most dictators have taken away freedom but given bread. Not them. It is a stark choice indeed between two parties each of which is comprised of narcissistic, millionaire pricks who whore themselves out to a plutocratic oligarchy and who do absolutely nothing for the average working person. But when one of those wretched parties takes after two of the three most fundamental rights in our constitution, my choice is clear.
<br /><br />
</div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-91761952400188801342022-09-03T13:23:00.001-07:002022-09-13T13:38:06.633-07:00Ortrud of Albany connives again.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Speaking to an adoring crowd of anti-speed activists, Governor Ortrud of Albany made it clear that she would not accept a Supreme Court ruling for an answer. “We are ready for 'em” she said. <br /><br /><blockquote>
“There is no rational reason for people to posses and drive fast cars,” Governor Ortrud said. “It is an absolute fact that the faster a car goes the more likely it is to be involved in an accident and the more likely the accident will be FATAL ... to INNOCENT people, children and cats crossing the street”</blockquote><br />
Ortrud continued: “No person needs to drive more than 25 miles per hour. Our Founding Persons never envisioned <i><b>VEHICLES OF MASS DESTRUCTION</b></i> that could travel over even 10 mph. When they authorized Congress to regulate interstate commerce they never imagined sixteen wheelers carreening destructively down the road at 70 mph.<br /><br />
“A High Speed Capacity ASSAULT VEHICLE in the hands of oversexed teenage boys and frustrated menopausal women represents a CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER to society, she said. “Only police, firemen and ambulance drivers need High Speed Capacity Assault Vehicles. Everyone else can either walk, bike or drive low voltage e-carts.” <br /><br />
To achieve these laudable goals and evidently relishing her own cleverness, Ortrud of Albany proposed a laundry list of licensing requirements that would make it burdensome to the point of impossibility to qualify for an open road HSCV permit. Among these requirements were <br /><br /><blockquote>
“an in person interview,<br />
“household member contact information<br />
“social media viewing information...”<br /></blockquote>
<b> WHOOOA!!!</b> “<i>social media viewing information</i>”? What kind of information? That you have a Facebook account? Well, that's nice but that doesn't tell you much, just about everyone has some kind of social media account. What the bill obviously seeks is the content of those accounts: who your friends are, what topics have interested you, what feelings or opinions you have expressed on various topics.<br /><br />
Don't Turn Around -- The Kommisar's in Town.<br /><br />
To be free is to be free from surveillance. Anything less is a prison. Apart from the grotesque and outrageous violation of all <i>truly</i> liberal norms, this requirement is paradigmatic of tyrannical absurdity. By <i>what</i> standard shall social media “information” be evaluated? What specific kinds of things should a license examiner look for and how should he factor them in with other criteria? <br /><br />
Given the number of feelings, the number of attitudes, the number of opinions people have about the number of things it is possible to have opinions, attitudes and feelings about, such criteria would necessarily be infinite. Any possible “list” of “red flags” to focus on would still be as thick as a telephone book. <br /><br />
Nor is it simply a question of quantity. Words, emotions, opinions are not just numbers. They are qualitative things and these are always subject to nuance and context. And supposing the “nuance” is grasped, how then is it to be connected to the causal likelihood of any supposed conduct? <br /><br />
The whole foundation of this sort of legislation is an illusory falsehood: the idea that we can predict aberrational behaviour. We cannot because by definition the behaviour deviates from norms; i.e. from that which is predictable. So we are left with the small beer of “correlations” and “associations.” As Mark Twain said, “there are lies, damned lies and statistics.” <br /><br />
Even assuming the veracity of the damned lies, rights accrue to individuals not to abstractions. Not only that, but the whole of our legal system is based on the assumption of free choice. It is for that reason that we do not bar poor people from entering stores based on the statistic that “shoplifting has been associated with lower socio-economic status.” Nor, until now, have we banned people from buying High-speed Capacity Vehicles on the ground that their Facebook page showed an “inappropriate” or “troubling” interest in race cars and bungi chord jumping. <br /><br />
Thus, the very kernel of Ortrud's licensing process is pure, undiluted arbitrariness, leaving it up to the examiner whether he or she or they likes your “in person appearance,” your “attitudes,” your opinions, your sarcasm, your likes and disklikes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXnPRhhNhvX4wdYWsJODmJpNgtZAViRZVneYHLqMfiVxoCAaDse8vAJdFWW9r7rW5Syvqb3lw7vB2p3RAfB-Ayt8TerxXRHcZ4u5OvfURs-BoVptXAY6DqFtjMZ3nYgXSmwXvsESwIGeS_r-Y6H-kkkz1Pc8fm6PTML1RNlgCQv9YSb65wAp-FGh-HbQ/s598/220904-Ortrud%20IMG.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="578" data-original-width="598" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXnPRhhNhvX4wdYWsJODmJpNgtZAViRZVneYHLqMfiVxoCAaDse8vAJdFWW9r7rW5Syvqb3lw7vB2p3RAfB-Ayt8TerxXRHcZ4u5OvfURs-BoVptXAY6DqFtjMZ3nYgXSmwXvsESwIGeS_r-Y6H-kkkz1Pc8fm6PTML1RNlgCQv9YSb65wAp-FGh-HbQ/w320-h309/220904-Ortrud%20IMG.png" title="Ortrud of Albany enjoying Her Legislative Triumph" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ortrud of Albany enjoying her Legislative Triumph</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"></div>
“<i>A tyrant knows no law but her own caprice</i>.” (Voltaire.) What Ortrud's caprice ignores is that privacy is a fundamental constitutional right. It is axiomatic that the exercise of one constitutional right cannot be conditioned on giving up another. You know, as in “we'll give you a jury trial, alright; so long as you give up your right not to testify.” <br /><br />
The hypocrisy of so-called liberals on this score is nauseating. We have no doubt that Governor Ortrud is of the “my body my choice” persuasion. We would be astonished if she felt anything less than that a woman's right to “dispose” of her fetus should not be “limited” or “conditioned” by intrusive consent and consultation requirements or waiting periods. Aha... but when it comes to something she doesn't like, then the reverse is the case. Shameless. <br /><br />
Ortrud's Plot to ensnare Lohengrin in an electric go-cart deserves to ignominiously fail.
<br /><br />
</div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-20861034464657607472022-07-29T17:30:00.001-07:002022-08-02T05:05:25.677-07:00Peelousy's Lust<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Nancy Peelousy, the chocolate bon-bon queen, is hell bent on stopping off in Tawain during her mid-summer tour of the Orient, despite Pentagon and White House urgings that she can the visit. But what does Peelousy care if it sets off a heightened stand-off between China and the United States -- a China that, thanks to the neo-liberal ghouls in Washington, supplies so much of what the U.S. needs?<br /> <br />
Is she insane? Is she stupid? She may corrupt, morally bankrupt and deluded with self-importance but stupid, not. <br /> <br />
So why is she willing to heighten tensions between China and the U.S. -- between a China that could always declare another Covid lockdown on her main port of overseas export?<br /> <br />
The ever sagacious BBC opines that Peelousy just has always had a penchant for "poking" China in the eye. You know like her other penchant for designer chocolates which she publicly delighted in consuming as people lined up at food banks for miles two years ago. <br /> <br />
Despicable as Peelousy is from every angle viewed she is not going to Taiwan just to poke Xi Jinping. She is going to Taiwan to poke Xi Jinping in order to gain votes.<br /> <br />
You see, weighing in at 247,000 residents San Francisco's Chinese population accounts for near 30% of the city's total population. And the Chinese are very politically active. The community is not as staunchly opposed to the mainland government as it was 20 years ago. The nationalist flag is not as ubiquitous in Chinatown as it once was. But San Francisco's Chinese community remains a pro-Taiwan bastion. <br /> <br />
No. Peelousy is not stupid. Along with her lust for chocolate, her lust for money, her greatest lust is her boney clutch on power, and for that over-riding obsession she is willing to risk confrontation with the one kid on the block that can seriously kick our ass. <br /> <br />
</div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-15114390853126455882022-07-04T12:00:00.004-07:002022-08-08T13:50:05.819-07:00Arma Virumque (synopsis)<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<blockquote>
<i>A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.</i><br /></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmXO1GKSn37gRPTGqFvM-wcRS866JG-IUuMzcTB_aPq25nO3vD1vFRkwSwYTXhe39jIGVhZsJZyrn5nGErhxkRceqFykr8s7P8Si_FE_auiTRaD_eaz5C1LcZhrhCXH-eVYwhKYO5uQJ8F4dX8aWfCYhKVKAMfg348AdGonz_r58V5kpRWrJkaaSUi_w/s650/ar15-colt-mod01-1-TAN.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="165" data-original-width="650" height="51" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmXO1GKSn37gRPTGqFvM-wcRS866JG-IUuMzcTB_aPq25nO3vD1vFRkwSwYTXhe39jIGVhZsJZyrn5nGErhxkRceqFykr8s7P8Si_FE_auiTRaD_eaz5C1LcZhrhCXH-eVYwhKYO5uQJ8F4dX8aWfCYhKVKAMfg348AdGonz_r58V5kpRWrJkaaSUi_w/w200-h51/ar15-colt-mod01-1-TAN.png" width="200" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div>
The Supreme Court's decision in <i>New York State Rifle Assoc. v. Bruen</i>, has reopened old wounds and calcified opinions regarding the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms. The entrenchment can be summarized by saying that gun rights advocates point to the word <i>people</i> insisting that the amendment guarantees a personal right; to which the gun control advocates reply by pointing to the word <i>militia</i>, insisting that the right to bear arms is only guaranteed within the context of serving in the militia. <br /><br />
The amendment unmistakably conjoins two distinct concepts and the argument is not satisfactorily resolved by wrangling over grammar or the text of the amendment in the abstract. As a result, the protagonists seek to interpret the amendment within the context of legal precedents and end up arguing over <i>those</i> texts as well. There are two fronts in this regard: (1) legal precedents <i>after</i> ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791, showing how the amendment <i>has been</i> understood, and (2) legal precedents <i>prior</i> to 1791, casting light on how the Framers understood and thought about the question of Men and Arms in society.<br /><br />
It is in this way, judges and legal commentators in the 21st century have ended up wrangling over an English law enacted in 1328 known the <i>Statute of Northampton</i>. Needless to say, the battle lines were predictable. The statute, which was still in effect in the 18th century on both sides of the Atlantic, prohibited “riding about with arms to the terror of the people.” Right advocates argue that the statute presupposed a right carry arms and only prohibited their misuse. Control advocates argue that the statue was a blanket prohibition against carrying arms in public or at least “dangerous and unusual ones,” this latter phrase being used in 18th century commentaries on the statute. <br /><br />
As I explain, the gun-rights advocates win the day. The Norman-French, in which the statute was originally written, uses the word <i>chivaucher</i> which means to <i>ride about raiding and pillaging</i> - which is what the phrase “<i>to the terror of the people</i>” was meant to convey.<br /><br />
As I further explain, English and American statutes following the <i>Statute of Northampton</i> did impose “time and place” limits on the use of arms but there was no general prohibition on private ownership or carrying. On the contrary, since Saxon times there was an expectation that free men would have and be versed in the use of arms; and various statutes, such as the <i>Assize of Arms</i> (1181), the <i>Statute of Winchester</i> (1285) and later Tudor legislation, required freemen to have and practice the use of arms by which was meant <i>weapons of war</i>. <br /><br />
Such laws were obviously framed with military and policing purposes in mind; however, gun control advocates make the anachronistic mistake of projecting. the structure and practice of today's military reserve on to English and Colonial militias of old. Men did not get issued arms only upon joining the militia, rather the “militia” was called up and assembled from men who were already indivi-dually armed. Often times, the militia “self-assembled” and just as often “self-disbanded.” Obviously, over the course of 900 years there were variations in both technology and practice. For example, it is clear that by the late 17th century, if not before, local authorities kept stores of powder, ammunition, weapons, and <i>engines of war</i>. Nevertheless, the operative concept was of a society comprised of men who were both armed for their self-defence, responsible for public safety and obliged to come to the defence of the realm. <br /><br />
That much said, the debate over statues requires us to ask a preliminary question; namely, what are we about when we “look to the law” for an answer? What is the purpose of looking backward before moving forward? Does past experience have anything to say to us given the radical technical and social changes of the past 200 years? <br /><br />
One answer is that we should do what we have always done and therefore all we need to do is look to the those relevant texts which tell what was allowed and what was not. The other answer is that none of this is relevant to the present day and we need be guided only be our own best assesssment of what is just and expedient. This latter view was adopted by Justice Bryer in his dissent, in <i>New York Rifle</i>, in which he stated: <br /><br />
<blockquote>
“In my view, when courts interpret the Second Amendment, it is constitutionally proper, indeed often necessary, for them to consider the serious dangers and consequences of gun violence that lead States to regulate firearms.” <br /></blockquote>
Although framed in terms of deference to State prerogative (aka “states rights”), there can be little doubt that Breyer's view is that states ought to be allowed to do what he thinks is necessary. In my view, Justice Breyer's opinion is untenable; it is destructive of the very concept of law. What he was saying, in effect, is that the law will mean what <i>he</i> wants it to mean. In that case, why bother with written law at all? “Just ask Bryer.”<br /><br />
Bryer's dictum ought to give us serious pause. In 1934, an influential German legal scholar postulated,<br /><br />
<blockquote>
“We do not determine what National Socialism is according to a pre-existing concept of the constitutional state, but rather the reverse; the constitutional state is determined according to National Socialism. ... Every interpretation must be an interpretation according to National Socialism.” (Carl Schmidt, “Nationalsocialismus under Rechstaat,” <i>Juristiche Wochenschaft</i> 63 (1934), pp. 713, 716; cited in Ingo Müller, <i>Hitler's Justice</i>, Harvard University Press, (1991), p. 71.)<br /></blockquote>
Of course, to be very clear, Justice Bryer was not a Nazi. But what is at issue here is the peril of a particular <i>legal methodology</i>. Objectively viewed, National Socialism was simply a set of adopted social, economic, and political policies; and, so condsidered, Schmidt's formulation could be restated as: “We do not determine our [social policies] in accordance with a pre-existing concept of the constituion, but rather the reverse; the meaning of the constitution is determined according to [our chosen policy].” <br /><br />
In American legal parlance making a text mean what you want it to say is known as “outcome determination” and what it basically means is that the law does not act as a constraint or guide but simply serves as store of verbiage with which to gussy up desire.<br /><br />
The balance between law and expediency was the fulcrum of the debate between Justice Bryer and Justice Scalia who repeatedly criticised his colleague for reading his own preferences into the law, and thereby doing violence to words or at least to plain and straightforward thinking. The danger of a method which is, at bottom, one of desire is that expediencies can veer off in any direction precisely because they do not admit of textual constraint. One may agree with the outcome, in this case gun-control, but what of the day when someone else desires to read another outcome into the law? <br /><br />
Scalia has been unfairly caricatured as espousing a theory of “original intent” pursuant to which the name of the game is to figure out what the drafters of a law or a constitution were intending. Such a motivation-oriented approach was clearly rejected by Scalia. “What I look for in the Constitution is precisely what I look for in a statute: the original meaning of the text, not what the original draftsmen intended.”<br /><br />
Thus, whereas Bryer's approach is sociologically driven by present day utilitarian considerations, Scalia's was guided by a sociological understanding of how words were used in the past and what their reference points were. <br /><br />
In my view, Scalia's approach is the better of the two, but it is still incomplete. Statutes and constitutional provisions must also be <i>historically</i> contextualized by which I mean that they must be understood in terms of how they reflect a nation's experience. This is what Justice Holmes meant when he said that the life of the Common Law was not logic but experience.<br /><br />
Legal texts of course tell us what the <i>official</i> practice was with respect to any given subject matter. But legal texts also are sociological evidence of a peoples' custom and usage in dealing with particular problems as they arose. It is by balancing textual meaning with historical events and the development of custom and usage that we are able to allow the experience of our forebearers to speak to us and offer us guidance, if not always mandates, as to how we should best proceed apace. It is with this in mind, that I have undertaken this brief and inadquate review of English law and history prior to the adoption of the U.S. Constitution.
<br /><br />
In the Western tradition, an individual's ability to bear arms has always been deemed essential to his survival, protection and independence. This was so universally accepted that early English law felt no need to belabour the obvious. Instead the law, from time to time, imposed prohibitions against the <i>misuse</i> of arms. At the same time medieval English law imposed duties on the citizenry to be armed with designated weapons of war, to train themselves in their use, and to be on call for both local policing and national defence. In 1688, when England became a liberal constitutional monarchy, the expectation and obligation to keep and bear arms was reformulated as an individual right. At the same time, that right was now explicitly associated with the ability of the people in their primordial sovereignty to guard against subversion and resist tyranny. <br /><br />
In drafting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the Framers were drawing upon a thousand years of English statutes and experiences. From and after the Norman Conquest in 1066 the near consistent theme of English history is one of baronial (and at times peasant) resistance to government over-reach. This is what <i>Magna Carta</i>, due process, and <i>constitutional</i> monarchy were all about. In search of a rooted justification for their revolt, the Colonists went back into the recesses of medieval history. Above all they returned to Lord Coke's brash finger wagging at James I that the monarch was subject to none “but God and the Law” -- the verbal salvo that initiated the English Civil War and ended with the Glorious Revolution. The Colonists were completely correct in regarding their revolution as being in the best of English tradition.<br /><br />
Contrary to prevalent myth, the U.S. Constitution was not a product of the Enlightenment. It may have been buttressed by 18th century political philosophy -- by the ideas of Locke and Montesquieu -- but the structure itself was steeped in medievalisms. And just as a cathedral is not comprehended by looking at this arch or that column but by intuiting the vaulted space enclosed, so too the Bill of Rights is not a collection of legal provisions that can be understood in and of themselves as isolated objects. What matters is the space that together they shape and enclose. <br /><br />
The dry ink on the Bill of Rights is animated with the sound and clamour of history, of real people “great and small,” doing things small and great, in conflict and in cooperation. If there is a singular theme that coalesces out of this experience it is the idea that the best check on government over-rule was routine, popular participation in the ordinary affairs of government<br /><br />
The rights of speech and assembly, the right to bear arms and the right to trial by a jury of ordinary citizens are a triad of rights that were meant to insure popular control over the affairs of government. It is true, that the right to bear arms is “related” to the participation in the militia; it is also the handmaiden of the obligation to render jury service. <br /><br />
So when it is asked what good is served by “looking to the past,” my answer is: a lot. I am not hearkening to the “spirit of the law” in some vague and romantic sense, like Justice Bryer decked out in flower-garments. The Framers were pragmatic men, dealing with practical problems and trying to bring order out of looming chaos. In doing so, they had the experience of Athens and Rome before their eyes, and this made them distrustful of direct democracy. But they also had their experience as Englishmen at their backs and this made them appreciate the importance of individual rights and popular input. The Constitution was their attempt to strike a social and political balance between the one and the many, between liberty and order, between chaos and oppression. The Constitution is not just a mechanism but represents, in broad strokes a social vision. I do not say it is Holy Writ; I say only that it is worth letting it speak to us. <br /><br />
In reading their wants into the Bill of Rights both sides of the present debate mistake the tree for the forest. The Second Amendment is not a guarantee of mere personal rights. Nor is it a guarantee of an optional right to join the militia. It is both an individual right and its corresponding obligation. What the amendment points to is not just a right to bear arms, and not just a prerogative to of the state to maintain militia's but an expectation that ordinary citizens will be actively involved in maintaining order and in the defence of country. It presupposes a citizen's army and a citizen's police force; and it reflected a deep rooted fear of their opposites: a standing professional police force and army. Rather than seeking to suppress weapons, familiarization and training in their use ought to be extended coupled with programs to incorporate the citizenry into policing their own communities. <br /><br />
It is a mistake to say that Founders could not have anticpated fully or semi automatic assault rfiles, or that they never envisioned New York subways. These are superficialities. As shall be seen they understood perfectly well the problem of weapons of war in crowded spaces. It is equally misfocused to think that the Framer's only wanted to enshrine an individual right. They enshrined an individual right within a social context in which the individual was socially responsible. <br /><br />
It is argued that constitutional experience is all very well and good but that expecting ordinary citizens to police their own communities in vast post-industrial mega cities is a unrealistic. Similarly the idea of a citizen army is outdated in a military environment that requires a year or more of training just to achieve basic proficiency. These tasks, it is said, are best left to professionals. <br /><br />
The same argument has been made, by Justice Bryer in fact, regarding the jury. Best not to tax it with too much; better to leave technical evidentiary and sentencing issues to the “discretion” of professional judges. Better to carefully tailor its independence with “instructions” aimed at “insuring” a “just” result. To this Justice Scalia replied that a "just" result is the one the Framers envisioned: a verdict reached by ordinary men who were not agents of the state. <br /><br />
The Bill of Rights was also a Bill of Expectations that the country would be able to fill that space enclosed by the Constitution with active participation in the triad of politics, justice and defence. What is unconstitutional is our alienated, fragmented, increasingly lumpen society almost devoid of civic capacity. <br /><br />
The Framers would have been horrified at our standing army and militarized police forces. The latter in particular would have been deemed an insult to honour and a degradation of freedom. What the text, spirit and experience of the Second Amendment call for is a root revamping of how the “security of a free state” is provided for. <br /><br />
Given the imperialist monstrosity the United States has become, it is hard to see how any of our fundamental rights can be maintained in the vivid colours originally imagined. But we might at least rethink where we have come to and try. <br /><br />
©2022, Woodchip Gazette.
<br /><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">[<a href="https://wcg-features.blogspot.com/2022/07/arma-virumque.html">FULL FEATURE</a>]<br /><br /><br /></div>Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3741181208458449205.post-64184624916096036542022-06-28T16:43:00.002-07:002022-06-28T17:19:40.719-07:00SUPREME COURT ANNOUNCES "BRIEF LULL" DOCTRINE<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Even though he was a publicly employed high school coach; and even though he
was at a publicly sponsored school event; and even though the event took place
on public school property; <i>COACH KENNEDY'S</i> personal private
<b>kneel n' pray</b> during a lull in the game did not violate the
<i>Establishment Clause</i>, but came under the protection of the
<i>Free Exercise Clause</i>, because he did not offer his prayers during the
"scope" of his employment.... <br />
<br />
OR.. <br />
<br />
as Alito, J. put it, he offered his prayers "when a brief lull in his duties
apparently gave him a few free moments to engage in private activities."
So.....lessee here. At five minutes to bell, Ms. Simpleswaithe, answers a
little ringtone on her cell phone (to the tune of Guide us, Thou, Oh Great
Jehovah) and in her personal lulling capacity, says: <br /><br />
<blockquote>
...Oh Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, only Son of God Creator of all things,
and Great Guide to us Thy humble, faithful Servants, we thank Thee for this
opportunity, following in your footsteps, to guide these young minds
entrusted unto us in the ways of knowledge and righteousness, to the glory
of Thy Your Holy Name.<br />
</blockquote>
AMEN/RRRRRRIIIIIIING.<br />
<br />
So, what will follow now is a string of "case-by-case" jurisprudence defining
the content and contours of "<i>brief lulls.</i>" How brief is brief how lull
is lull. And if you think lawyers can't turn this into several volumes of blah
blah blah, think again. <br />
<br />
As Sotomajor, J., pointed out in her dissent, the majority's opinion was cavalier with the facts. (I'm not sure that was the word she used...) So what were the facts on the ground?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg46PqB0QSEic_Nwj2B5PSsq2q_oEkoZmocMJx2rejOmZm0yYMCHtQuh_IT7HI40zyfZsBe3rFQBlbgfedU59B3Hur0auJBuYZAlrS1cd2qVXBOVilb-aozzi6hKo9qCkZ3NkF1Hcz2DSQYAAeVBSG6huwN7MsIWOD8CdPT_2R3gg9tBs75QqHAmdjVHQ/s839/The%20Lull.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="839" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg46PqB0QSEic_Nwj2B5PSsq2q_oEkoZmocMJx2rejOmZm0yYMCHtQuh_IT7HI40zyfZsBe3rFQBlbgfedU59B3Hur0auJBuYZAlrS1cd2qVXBOVilb-aozzi6hKo9qCkZ3NkF1Hcz2DSQYAAeVBSG6huwN7MsIWOD8CdPT_2R3gg9tBs75QqHAmdjVHQ/s320/The%20Lull.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
Coach Kennedy made his kneel-and-pray at the <i>end</i> of the game, giving thanks to the Almighty Ruler of the Universe for his team's victory. Let us assume without futher ado that this nonsense qualifies as "religious practice." Far be it from us, etc., etc.. The point is, he did the thing at when the game was over, not at half time, not during a break to change players, not during the pause between national anthem and concession announcements.<br /><br />
<b>Lull</b> 1. n 1. Abatement of noise or violence; momentary calm; subsidence of tumult. (<i>Funk & Wagnalls Standard English Dictionary</i> (1937), New York/London. p. 1472) <br />
<b>Abatement</b>. 1. The act or process of abating; or the state of being abated; decrease, amount of reduction. SYN. decline, decrease, diminish, ebb, lower, mitigate, moderate, reduce, subside. (Id. p. 3.) <br /> <br />
(I always use old dictionaries because modern dictionaries take their definitions from the nearest potted out hippie or bro on the block.) <br /> <br />
It will be noted that a "lull" is not the same thing as a "break" or a "pause." So it was not as if the <i>kneel n' pray</i> took place while there was a time out for everyone to go get hot dogs or take a pee. The game (which Kennedy was hired to coach) was still <i>on</i>. It was just <i>on</i> at a lesser intensity. But how can that be? The game was over. So what was the "lull" in? If not in the game then what else was left other than "time-on-the-job." But nothing in the opinion indicates that Kennedy's duties were over at that point or that he had clocked out. He was <i>praying on the job</i> pure and simple.
But that's not what the majority opinion stated. It said very clearly that "he did not offer his prayers during the scope of his employment."<br /> <br />
Without resorting again to <i>Funk & Wagnalls</i>, the word scope has definite, special legal meanings. In the context of employment it can refer either to (a) clock time on the job or (b) the performative duties envisioned in the job (what most people know as their "job description." <br /> <br />
If the Court meant "scope" in the second sense, then the opinion would be circular nonsense. It would be tantamount to holding that because Kennedy's prayers were not part of his job description his praying was not within the scope of his job and were OK when done on the job. If this is the case then any government employee can pray loudly anytime because the prayer, after all is not within the "scope" of his job. <br /> <br />
Giving all benefit of doubt to the highest judges in the land, they could not have meant scope in this sense. Indeed, the fact that they used the word "during" indicates that they meant "scope" in the sense of clock-time. That is at least something; but the indisputable fact is that coach Kennedy was still on the job. He still had to to shepherd his minions into the locker room, de-brief them, give them pep talks and whatever. There is no indication that Kennedy did not bill and was not paid for the 30 seconds he took to pray. So, indisputably he was praying loudly and ostensibly while on the job; something that was not and could not be within the performative scope of his employ.<br /> <br />
So, yes "cavalier." But does it matter? One ripple in the highway of flawless jurisprudence surely does not matter. Actually it doesn't. <br /> <br />
The rule of law governing precedents is pretty clear and long established: the holding of a case, the rule it promulgates is "bound by the facts of the case." To give a very simply example. If a decision announces a rule about "animals" -- ("We hold that animals must be..." etc.) -- but the facts show that only a pig was at issue before the court, then the rule of the case is limited to pigs. One can argue that the rule should be extended to horses or goats, but the rule itself is about pigs and pigs alone. <br /> <br />
So in this case, the Court decided an abstraction. The majority told us that the kneel-in-pray was not done while on the job. Alito told us that it was done during a lull in the job, by which he obviously tried to insinuate that it was done during a break in the job. Okay. Since the Court says that those are the facts on which it is basing its rule, what's the problem? None. Absolutely none. Can anyone have a problem saying that individuals in public employ can pray while not on the job? Not in my view. On the contrary, I would say that of course they can. Anyone should be allowed to pray on their break. So the case is no big deal. <br /> <br />
Except... does the Supreme Court really take up cases that are "no big deal" ? One might think they had better things to do. And indeed, whether they are better or not, they are doing it. This is how it works. It is called laying the groundwork. <br /> <br />
This case goes to stacks (of law books) standing for the principle that a public employee can pray during a "lull" or "break" or "off time" in his job. Forget all the other facts. They don't "exist" because the Court ignored them and did not craft or base its ruling on them. <br /> <br />
Two years down the road, a case comes before the Court, in which Ms. Simpleswaithe begins the class (after the bell has rung) with the above recited prayer. All breaks are over and the only thing that is scheduled is her instruction in sixth grade grammar. ("Give us Oh Lord, the light to see the difference between a noun-gerund and a participle. Amen.") the present Court will decide that this is permissible. The opinion will read something like this: <br /> <br />
<blockquote>
"Although in Kennedy, we held no more than that a public employee could pray so long as the prayer was not undertaken during the scope of his duties, the facts of the case showed that the petitioner in that case had only prayed during a lull in his duties but was otherwise still performing work he was hired to do. We see no reason now to draw an artificial distinction between... " etc. etc., blah, blah, blah. </blockquote><br />
In other words, the facts that they now ignored, will become the "backdrop" for extending the rule at a future date. That's how judges do these things. They've done it like from time immemorial. It's what makes the law such a cavalier profession <br /><br />
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Chipsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17236068118310501365noreply@blogger.com0