Repeat It: "Freedom = I Won't"

When confronted by an overbearing version of group think and increasingly instrusive political demands of power seekers, it is always an option to refuse to participate in the way demanded. Refusal to play along with the zillion gender game, the ignorance-based economic guilt trips, and the pressure to conform to rules that seem to change with the wind direction - is resistance at the highest level.

Some people talk about going "John Galt", others suggest forceful confrontation. What really infuriates the bullies is passive resistance to their demands. Simply refusing to conform to someone else's idea of how you should live and think. Passive resistance requires courage but can be extremely effective. Unlike John Galt, who disappears to make his point, passive resistance requires confrontation.

For some fun thinking on how passive resistance works, see Eric Frank Russell's "And Then There Were None"

“What does this F. — I.W. mean?”
“Initial-slang,” informed Baines. “Made correct by common usage. It has become a worldwide motto. You’ll see it all over the place if you haven’t noticed it already.”
“I have seen it here and there but attached no importance to it and thought nothing more about it. I remember now that it was inscribed in several places including Seth’s and the fire depot.”
“It was on the sides of that bus we couldn’t empty,” put in Gleed. “It didn’t mean anything to me.”
“It means plenty,” said Jeff. “Freedom = I Won’t!”
“That kills me,” Gleed responded. “I’m stone dead already. I’ve dropped in my tracks.” He watched Harrison thoughtfully pocketing the plaque.
“A piece of abracadabra. What a weapon!”
“Ignorance is bliss,” asserted Baines, strangely sure of himself. “Especially when you don’t know that what you’re playing with is the safety catch of something that goes bang.”
“All right,” challenged Gleed, taking him up on that. “Tell us how it works.”
“I won’t.” Baines’ grin reappeared. He seemed to be highly satisfied about something.
“That’s a fat lot of help.” Gleed felt let down, especially over that momentary hoped-for reward. “You brag and boast about a one-way weapon, toss across a slip of stuff with three letters on it and then go dumb. Any folly will do for braggarts and any braggart can talk through the seat of his pants. How about backing up your talk?”
“I won’t,” repeated Baines, his grin broader than ever. He gave the onlooking Harrison a fat, significant wink.
It made something spark vividly within Harrison’s mind. His jaw dropped, he dragged the plaque from his pocket and stared at it as if seeing it for the first time.
“Give it back to me,” requested Baines, watching him.
Replacing it in his pocket, Harrison said very firmly, “I won’t.”
Baines chuckled. “Some people catch on quicker than others.”
Resenting that, Gleed held his hand out to Harrison. ‘Let me have another look at that thing.’
‘I won’t,’ said Harrison, meeting him eye to eye.
‘Hey, don’t start being awkard with me. That’s not the way—’ Gleed’s protesting voice petered out. He stood there a moment, his optics slightly glassy, while his brain performed several loops. Then in hushed tones he said, ‘Good grief!’
‘Precisely,’ approved Baines. ‘Grief and plenty of it. You were a bit slow on the uptake.’

So, when someone says, "Comply or else!" There is response that defeats their goal of your submission.

On Reading Walter Lippmann's The Good Society

Thinking of Freedom of Thought and Speech and the willingness of some to believe they have the ideas to make a better world, if only everyone would conform.

Written as WWII approached, The Good Society (emphasis added):

Their weapons are the coercive direction of the life and labor of mankind. Their doctrine is that disorder and misery can be overcomeonly by more and more compulsory organization. Their promise is that through the power of the state men can be made happy.

Throughout the world, in the name of progress, men who call themselves communists, socialists, fascists, nationalists, progressives, and even liberals, are unanimous in holding that government with its instruments of coercion must, by commanding the people how they shall live, direct the course of civilization and fix the shape of things to come. They believe in what Mr. Stuart Chase accurately "describes as "the overhead planning and control of economic activity." This is the dogma which all the prevailing dogmas presuppose. This is the mold in which are cast the thought and action of the epoch. No other approach to the regulation of human affairs is seriously considered, or is even conceived as possible. The recently enfranchised masses and the leaders of thought who supply their ideas are almost completely under the spell of this dogma. Only a handful here and there, groups without influence, isolated and disregarded thinkers, continue to challenge it. For the premises of authoritarian collectivism have become the working beliefs, the self-evident assumptions, the unquestioned axioms, not only of all the revolutionary regimes, but of nearly every effort which lays claim to being enlightened, humane, and progressive.

So universal is the dominion of this dogma over the minds of contemporary men that no one is taken seriously as a statesman or a theorist who does not come forward with proposals to magnify the power of public officials and to extend and multiply their intervention in human affairs. Unless he is authoritarian and collectivist, he is a mossback, a reactionary, at best an amiable eccentric swimming hopelessly against the tide. It is a strong tide. Though despotism is no novelty in human affairs, it is probably true that at no time in twenty-five hundred years has any western government claimed for itself a jurisdiction over men's lives comparable with that which is officially attempted in the totalitarian states. No doubt there have been despotisms which were more 'cruel than those of Russia, Italy, and Germany. " There has been none which was more inclusive. In these ancient centres of civilization, several hundred millions of persons live under what is theoretically the absolute dominion of the dogma that public officials are their masters and that only under official orders may they live, work, and seek their salvation.

But to those who Lippmann describes, there is this:

Saturday Is Old Radio Day: Cavalcade of America "The Declaration of Independence" (1936)

A DuPont presentation, for the Fourth and our founding document:

This is how you get more Trump: "Duke Prof in Trouble for Calling Diversity Training a Waste"

Duke Prof in Trouble for Calling Diversity Training a Waste:

Frankly, the reported actions of those taking issue with Griffiths' criticisms serve as an ideal case study in how social justice warriors work. First, they push out their ideology in the form of "diversity training," which is really nothing more than SJW propaganda. Then, should anyone dare to criticize it, they try to punish the person for having a dissenting opinion on the topic, up to and including prison if they can get away with it.

If I were Professor Grifith, I'd make 'em take me to trial and I'd publicize the heck out of it. Every. step. of. the.way.

I'd demand an open trial and if that is rejected, I'd publicize that.

The only way to stop this garbage is to call it that.

Because "freedom of speech" and "academic freedom" need it.

Update: Professor Griffith's open letter re this witch hunt can be found here:

Intellectual freedom – freedom to speak and write without fear of discipline and punishment – is under pressure at Duke Divinity these days. My own case illustrates this. Over the past year or so I’ve spoken and written in various public forums here, with as much clarity and energy as I can muster, about matters relevant to our life together. The matters I’ve addressed include: the vocation and purpose of our school; the importance of the intellectual virtues to our common life; the place that seeking diversity among our faculty should have in that common life; the nature of racial, ethnic, and gender identities, and whether there’s speech about certain topics forbidden to some among those identities; and the nature and purpose of theological education. I’ve reviewed these contributions, to the extent that I can (some of them are available only in memory), and I’m happy with them and stand behind them. They’re substantive; they’re trenchant; and they address matters of importance for our common life. So it seems to me. What I’ve argued in these contributions may of course be wrong; that’s a feature of the human condition.

My speech and writing about these topics has now led to two distinct (but probably causally related) disciplinary procedures against me, one instigated by Elaine Heath, our Dean, and the other instigated by Thea Portier-Young, our colleague. I give at the end of this message a bare-bones factual account of these disciplinary proceedings to date.

These disciplinary proceedings are designed not to engage and rebut the views I hold and have expressed about the matters mentioned, but rather to discipline me for having expressed them. Elaine Heath and Thea Portier-Young, when faced with disagreement, prefer discipline to argument. In doing so they act illiberally and anti-intellectually; their action shows totalitarian affinities in its preferred method, which is the veiled use of institutional power. They appeal to non- or anti-intellectual categories (‘unprofessional conduct’ in Heath’s case; ‘harassment’ in Portier-Young’s) to short-circuit disagreement. All this is shameful, and I call them out on it.

Heath and Portier-Young aren’t alone among us in showing these tendencies. The convictions that some of my colleagues hold about justice for racial, ethnic, and gender minorities have led them to attempt occupation of a place of unassailably luminous moral probity. That’s a utopia, and those who seek it place themselves outside the space of reason. Once you’ve made that move, those who disagree with you inevitably seem corrupt and dangerous, better removed than argued with, while you seem to yourself beyond criticism. What you do then is discipline your opponents. The contributions to our common life made by, inter alia, Chuck Campbell, Jay Carter, and Valerie Cooper exhibit these tendencies. I call them out too. I hope that they, together with Heath and Portier-Young, will reconsider, repent, make public apology to me and our colleagues for the damage done, and re-dedicate themselves to the life of the mind which is, because of their institutional location, their primary professional vocation. That life requires openness, transparency, and a willingness to engage. I commend all these things to them, and hope devoutly that they come to see their importance more clearly than they now do..

Yes, name the names.

Upadate2: Not a libel lawyer, but I wonder if describing a professor's email this way "The use of mass emails to express racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry is offensive and unacceptable, especially in a Christian institution" comes under libel per se?

One definition:

libel per se
n. broadcast or written publication of a false statement about another which accuses him/her of a crime, immoral acts, inability to perform his/her profession, having a loathsome disease (like syphilis) or dishonesty in business. Such claims are considered so obviously harmful that malice need not be proved to obtain a judgment for "general damages," and not just specific losses.

Perhaps a jury should decide or at least suit be brought. It really worked out well for Duke in the lacrosse players' cases, perhaps to the tune of $100 million.

Ring Out a Warning

A few of us who spent much of our lives working to ". . . defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic . . ." either on a full time or part-time basis have undertaken blogs and other activities to share our concerns over the dangers facing the country to which that Constitution belongs.

You will find some of the few of these "milbloggers" and fellow travelers over there on the right side of this blog. Some great milbloggers have moved on, others have taken up the torch.

Some of these concerns we discuss are over the actions, both potential or actual, of foreign nations. North Korea, Iran, China, and a couple of others come to mind.

Some anxiety arose with the increase in trans-national groups who have declared "war" on the United States and its form of government. Or, perhaps, on the "life style" of its people. Some more came with the increase in sea piracy off failed states - a threat that should have pointed out the vulnerable nature of sea-going global commerce and the need for strong naval forces to keep the sea lanes open and free. People simply don't know or forget how much commerce flows by sea.

Other concerns crop up because of what former and current military and civilian planners see as disconnects between the tools provided to war fighters (weapons systems - ships, airplanes and ground-pounder stuff) and the needs of the end users and the cost to the country. E.g. Is the F-35 worth the cost? Is the LCS worth anything as a warship? Three Zumwalt-class "destroyers" the size of a WWII battleship? Really? What about the A-10? Can bombing bring something like ISIS to its knees?

Questions are raised about the priorities of the Defense Department. CDR Salamander has a regular Thursday feature Diversity Thursday in which he documents the problems arising from a "diversity industry" which has levered its way into the DoD and made appearance seemingly more important than performance. Want a discussion about the failure of naval leadership and lack of trust in that leadership? See what the Skipper wrote.

Given this, it is with a great deal of interest that I read Sarah Hoyt's Ring The Bell about another question of priorities of the media and the powers that be. In her world, "ringing the bell" was to, in the words of the old "progressive" (read "coomunist") song, If I Had a Hammer:

... ring out danger,
... ring out a warning . . .

Which song,according to the link at Wikipedia, was

The song was first performed publicly by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays on June 3, 1949, at St. Nicholas Arena in New York at a testimonial dinner for the leaders of the Communist Party of the United States, who were then on trial in federal court, charged with violating the Smith Act by advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government.

The irony, as you will see, is that Ms. Hoyt nails the media:

Our media by and large learned Marxism in their “best colleges” and therefore are blind to the dangers of totalitarian regimes of the left. And therefore haven’t been very good at sounding the alarm, even when the world-divorced philosophies of the left destroyed our society. They would have delivered us hand-tied to the Soviet Union if only the Soviet Union had been coherent enough to win.

Balked of their victory, they’d happily deliver us to ISIS even though, REALISTICALLY, they should oppose everything ISIS stands for, including oppression of gays and women.

BUT our elites REALLY don’t like us. They’re not going to ring the bell.

Sort of like listening to "For What It's Worth" in light of today's PC world:


Only it's step out of line and get an IRS audit. Or a bunch of protesters demanding your firing and proposing "re-education" for those who disagree with them and their world view.

Which gets me back to the defense of the Constitution including its amendments.

We need to stand up against those who would attempt to transform things like freedom of speech and independence of thought into something that the "government" has graciously bestowed on us and which can be taken away if our thoughts and speech displease some crowd. Freedom of religion - not granted by the government - but protected from the government (and the mob) by the First Amendment. Gun ownership? Not granted by the government, but protected from the government by the Second Amendment. Freedom of speech? Not granted to us by the government, but protected from the intrusion of government.

In sum, we need to continue to fight back against those who would "happily deliver us to ISIS." One of the best weapons is mockery of their self-righteousness, their priggery and their exceptionally shallow understanding of either freedom or the threats to it.

So, if the right to bear arms is important to you, engage in your First Amendment right to associate with others to reject efforts to restrict that right. Join the NRA. Write letters to your elected representatives. Call lying politicians liars.
Oh, and more of this:


Don't let up. Never surrender a point.

The bell is ringing.

Freedom to Enter into Marriage Contracts

Why do we care about who gets married and how they choose to live?

The history of marriage is not one of love but of contract relationships, all the way back into the mists of antiquity.

Government involvement seems to have been initiated as (1) a means of generating revenue and (2) a means of controlling people (as in forbidding interracial couples from marrying or first cousins or adult/child marriages or group marriages). Sort of like those laws that allowed "eugenic sterilization" back in the early 20th Century.

Far better if it had been left a matter of private contract law. Let the parties set up their own terms and get government out of the way. Of course, the right to contract may be limited by age - as in "no one under the age of 18 can enter into a legally binding marriage contract." Leave it to marriage contract lawyers to work out terms as they do now with prenuptial agreements. I suppose there can be certain legal minimums in each contract and required terms like, "It is a breach of contract for one spouse to strike another." Penalties for such breaches can be spelled out in the contract.

The law governing all the benefits conferred on married couples/groups can be adjusted so that the benefits only flow if the parties involved produce a valid contract of marriage.

On the other hand, such law as there is on this topic should allow anyone to discriminate as they see fit against such marriage contract arrangements as they find repugnant. This ought to allow all parties maximum freedom to contract as they will without the fear of some government agency forcing them to act counter to their right to believe as they will. As one of my favorite science fiction works put it: F = IW

Or, as was written in Let’s Divorce Marriage from the Government

The best solution always has been the separation of marriage and state. If my priest decides to marry gay people, then my fellow parishioners would have every right to be upset about that based on their cultural traditions and understanding of Scripture. If your pastor wants to marry gay people, then it’s none of my business. The terms of marriage should be decided by religious and other private organizations, and the state shouldn’t intervene short of a compelling reason (i.e., marriage by force or with children).

Liberals were more open to this "separation" idea back when conservative pro-family types were ascendant. Now, some conservatives are understanding its merits as a more liberal view is ascendant. Conservatives should have listened when they had some bargaining power, but everyone wants to impose their values on others by using government.

Government neutrality -- or the closest we can get to it -- is the best way to ensure fairness and social peace on this and most other social issues. Marriage is too important of an institution to be dependent on the wiles of the state. Do we really care if the state validates our marriage licenses?

What Happens When the Bill of Rights Gets Trampled

A stunning article from David French at National Review, "Wisconsin’s Shame: I Thought It Was a Home Invasion":

Yet no one in this family was a “perp.” Instead, like Cindy, they were American citizens guilty of nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights to support Act 10 and other conservative causes in Wisconsin. Sitting there shocked and terrified, this citizen — who is still too intimidated to speak on the record — kept thinking, “Is this America?”

An extremely partisan prosecutor, a remarkably compliant judge and out the window go the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and the Sixth Amendment.

Further, as noted in the article, the "chilling effect" on others by the acts described reach far beyond those actually assaulted by law enforcement agencies.

What that old Buffalo Springfield song (written about a different set of circumstances, but still valid):

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
***
t's s time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

Why isn't this song being sung on college campuses today? Go back to that first verse.

Those first ten amendments to our Constitution are important.

James Madison

UPDATE: Another good read Myron Magnet's piece in City Journal Free Speech in Peril:

. . .  I think Madison right to say that the proper response is not criminalization but argumentation. In a remarkable foreshadowing of John Stuart Mill’s 1859 classic, On Liberty, Madison wrote in 1800 that it is to free speech and a free press, despite all their abuses, that “the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity, over error and oppression.” Only out of freewheeling discussion, the unbridled clash of opinion and assertion—including false, disagreeable, and unpopular opinions, Madison believed no less than Mill—can truth ultimately emerge. So it is troubling to see that the camel of repression has gotten his nose under the Constitutional tent by a law allowing the prosecution of bosses for tolerating speech by some employees that allegedly creates a “hostile environment” for others. The Court ought to squelch such an affront to the First Amendment. And it is equally troubling that state and federal laws have created such a thing as a “hate crime.” All that should matter to the law is whether the perpetrator of a crime acted with criminal intent, not whether that intent rested on an outlandish opinion.
***
Equally wrong are campaign-finance laws, which, happily, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has begun to undo. In the American political system, based on man’s natural right to life, liberty, and property, money should talk. The core of Madison’s worry about the “tyranny of the majority” in Federalist 10 was that the unpropertied many might vote themselves the property of the rich few—whether by disproportionate taxation, abolition of debts, inflation to erode savings and investments, “an equal division of property, or . . . any other improper or wicked project”—which the Founders believed would be no less a tyranny than an absolute monarch’s expropriation of property. Madison argued in Federalist 10 that the clash of many competing interests in such a big republic as America would prevent such democratic tyranny from occurring; but he proved wrong. . .

On the Deaths of the Members of the French Humor Magazine

History teaches us things - not the least of which is that attempts by people who fear ideas to squelch differing opinions and especially to squash those who would poke fun at their ideas are founded in the weakness of those ideas.

As previously set out here, whether the tyranny is in one man - like Hitler, Stalin or Mao - or in a mob, these thugs are terrified of ideas. Ideas that threaten their comfort zones.

Evidence? The killings at Charlie Hebdo:

In the latest attack, terrorists armed with guns and shouting "Allahu akbar" murdered several of the publication's staff and two police officers at its Paris office. At the time of publication, the terrorists are still on the run.

Pertinent thoughts from a previous fight against fascism:

They are afraid of words and thoughts; words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home — all the more powerful because forbidden — terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words; they are afraid of the workings of the human mind.
Winston Churchill, in "The Defence of Freedom and Peace (The Lights are Going Out)", radio broadcast to the United States and to London (16 October 1938)

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.

Robert A. Heinlein

And when a radical element of a religion undertakes to control those who are not its members?

Welcome to the 15th Century.

The Slippery Slope of Thought Crimes: 'Sentence first - verdict afterwards.'

The estimable Victor Davis Hanson offers up a peek in to the slippery slope of "Who Among Us Will Cast the First Bid for Donald Sterling’s Clippers?" :

punishing words and deeds without trials and on the basis of outraged public opinion

If the NBA establishes the precedent that it can force the sale of an owner’s property because of one’s illiberal speech, however odious, what now is the new standard of behavior? A sort of descending French Revolutionary justice, predicated on the sound and fury of the mob?

Harry Reid believes the Washington Redskins owner should be targeted next for his insistence on keeping the Redskins logo. Should he too be forced to sell and by whom—his fellow morally superior owners? Should the Orlando Magic owner, Doug DeVoss, be hounded out of the league—as was recently suggested—because he opposes gay marriage? How many owners don’t believe in the idea of man-made global warming? Oppose illegal immigration? Doubt the wisdom of affirmative action? Can we scour their emails, tap their phones, or ask the public for their private indiscretions?

And who will police the police? Oddly, some of the very public officials who weighed in on the Sterling matter themselves have a sorry record of racist speech—and in the public, not illegally taped private, realms. Could any of them in their retirement pitch in to buy the Clippers?

Reminds me of the trial Alice in Wonderland:

At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in his note-book, cackled out ‘Silence!’ and read out from his book, ‘Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.’

Everybody looked at Alice.

‘I’m not a mile high,’ said Alice.

‘You are,’ said the King.

‘Nearly two miles high,’ added the Queen.

‘Well, I shan’t go, at any rate,’ said Alice: ‘besides, that’s not a regular rule: you invented it just now.’

‘It’s the oldest rule in the book,’ said the King.

‘Then it ought to be Number One,’ said Alice.

The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily. ‘Consider your verdict,’ he said to the jury, in a low, trembling voice.
***
‘Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first — verdict afterwards.’

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. ‘The idea of having the sentence first!’

‘Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.

‘I won’t!’ said Alice.

‘Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.

I hold no brief for Donald Sterling.

Except, of course, those concerns all of ought to have about mob rule egged on by those with the loudest mouths. A "pack of cards" indeed.

Fighting Fascism: The Oath I Took and the Wrongness of an Obscure Law Professor

 Some time ago I swore an oath:

“I, Mark Tempest, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

It was the same oath my father swore before he went off to fight the Germans. The same oath my older son took before he flew his first Navy aircraft, the same oath my younger son will take (God willing and the creek don't rise) in May before he, too, continues the steps to earning his "wings of gold."

At every promotion we take this oath again, to remind us that we serve the Constitution, not a person, not a political party, and not even "the people" except as their will is set out in the Constitution.

Over the years, I have had the privilege to take the Texas Lawyer's Oath:

"I Mark Tempest do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and of this State; that I will honestly demean myself in the practice of the law, and will discharge my duties to my clients to the best of my ability. So help me God."

The Georgia Attorney's Oath:

"I do solemnly swear that I will conduct myself, as an attorney or counselor of this court, truly and honestly, justly and uprightly, and according to law; and that I will support the Constitution of the State of Georgia and the Constitution of the United States. So help me God."

The North Carolina Oath of Office as Attorney at Law:

I, Mark Tempest, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States; so help me God.
I, Mark Tempest, do solemnly and sincerely swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the State of North Carolina and to the Constitutional powers and authorities which are or may be established for the government thereof; and that I will endeavor to support, maintain and defend the Constitution of said state, not inconsistent with the Constitution of the
United States, to the best of my knowledge and ability; so help me God.
I, Mark Tempest, do swear that I will truly and honestly demean myself

So it really frosts me when a law professor, a molder of young legal minds, suggests something that is just so wrong as, "Let’s Give Up on the Constitution" in the name of some form of political expediency:

As the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.

Well, Professor Seidman, I may be a little ole practicing attorney far removed from the halls of academia, but I know this - far better men than you will ever be have died defending that Constitution you find archaic and, in part, "downright evil." When you write:

As someone who has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years, I am ashamed it took me so long to see how bizarre all this is. Imagine that after careful study a government official — say, the president or one of the party leaders in Congress — reaches a considered judgment that a particular course of action is best for the country. Suddenly, someone bursts into the room with new information: a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action. Is it even remotely rational that the official should change his or her mind because of this divination?

I am agog with the pure simple idiocy - dangerous idiocy at that- of a man who claims to have taught "constitutional law for almost 40 years."

While the path we take by having a Constitution means we follow an often winding trail to reach the right result, that path has put an end to slavery, has put an end to most forms of racial discrimination (even when, after careful consideration the Supreme Court found that "separate but equal" was just fine), has put an end to the seemingly "considered judgment" that provided for anti-miscegenation laws, has put an end to forced sterilization of "undesirables," has provided indigents with legal representation, has opened the vote to women and has led to a million other things that make us what we are - the beacon of hope in a world filled with dictators, absolute monarchs and others, who often have made "a considered judgment that a particular course of action" was best for their country and that led to horrible crimes against humanity.

It was a "government official" (or perhaps a gaggle of them) that decided on a "considered" solution to the Jewish problem in Germany. It was a "government official" who decided that internment camps for Japanese citizens and legal residents in this country was a necessary course of action. As you note, "John Adams supported the Alien and Sedition Acts, which violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech." Was he acting on a "considered judgment?"

Yes, it is a slow and often ponderous process to get things right.

Tough.

What you offer up instead is - what? The belief in some sort of "good neighbor" policy that, untied from the Constitution, will allow us to "respect" the institutions of our government based on "tradition?" When you write:

This is not to say that we should disobey all constitutional commands. Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution. We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation.

Nor should we have a debate about, for instance, how long the president’s term should last or whether Congress should consist of two houses. Some matters are better left settled, even if not in exactly the way we favor. Nor, finally, should we have an all-powerful president free to do whatever he wants. Even without constitutional fealty, the president would still be checked by Congress and by the states. There is even something to be said for an elite body like the Supreme Court with the power to impose its views of political morality on the country.

What would change is not the existence of these institutions, but the basis on which they claim legitimacy . . .

Good luck with that.

What you are proposing seems a fantasy of a law professor too long stuck in academics and frustrated with the rough and tumble world of real people.

Is the Georgetown faculty lounge such a civil place to serve as a model for the rest of society?

No, Professor, take your pipe dream elsewhere. Those of us who take our oaths to support and defend the Constitution seriously may argue for improvements to our Constitution and for a more prudent Congress to argue and pass laws that will sustain Constitutional challenge, but we stand by the Constitution and its amendments and the genius of the idea it represents.

What we fear, sir, is someone like you - well-meaning but totally wrong - trying to govern by "a considered judgment that a particular course of action is best for the country."

Is it today's "considered judgment" that no one should have printing presses except for those approved by a "government official" or a "party leader?" That certain types of books deemed by "considered judgment" immoral be banned, perhaps? That ordinary citizens should not be allowed guns and ammunition in our homes? That all that we "own" really belongs to the state and the state gets to decide it highest and best use? Perhaps our religious beliefs are getting in the way of progress - can they be "condemned" by "considered judgment?" Perhaps the right of the "Tea Party" and its members to assemble and protest should be constrained after a "considered judgment?" Oh, and, of course, why bother with warrants and probable cause - especially when some "government official" has made a "considered judgment" that, say, some outspoken Tea Party member may have things like weapons or anti-government literature at home?

No, Professor, no thanks to your vision of the United States unfettered by the Constitution.

You know, if I hadn't taken all those oaths, I might be tempted to laugh at your thoughts - sort of like laughing at the Emperor who bought that new "special" suit, I suppose.

Let me leave you with a couple of things:

1. Do away with the Constitution and I am certain that the United States of America, as it currently exists will dissolve. Whether the split will be "Red States" and "Blue States" or some other combination or permutation, it will come. One of the groups will hold on to the old U.S. Constitution as its guiding document, flaws and all. The other - well, they are welcome to your vision of how things should run. I know where my allegiance will lie.
2.  From the Amendments to the Constitution:

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Perfect? Not yet. But far, far better than your idea.

Sunday Reading Fun for the New Year: "Mind Your Own Business"

CNN headline: Hoyer compares GOP debt limit tactics to hostage taker threatening to shoot child

When a Congressman from one party compares members of the other party who are in vigorous disagreement with the direction the national government is taking to "hostage takers" it is time to take a look at where this sort of politics takes us (and, yes, Mr. Hoyer is not the first politician to use such language - members of both major parties are guilty of demonizing their political opponents).

A piece on what the politicization of everything means to us at Human Events "The bitter wastes of politicized America":

The rest of us should consider the contemptible behavior of people like Hoyer as we watch the expansion of politics into every area of our lives. The government grows; the private sector diminishes; everything becomes a political act. Soon you will see the phrase “none of your business” become an antique aphorism, as quaint as telling someone to “dial” a telephone number. Everything is everyone’s business now. That’s what Big Government means.

I'm no anarchist, but John Hayward has put his pen exactly on the problem with "nanny-statism" and the old theory, espoused back in my college days that "everything is political" and "the personal is political" (linked to C. Wright Mills and The Sociological Imgaination).

It is time to revisit the social contract. As Clint Eastwood said at the GOP convention:

We -- we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.

In a society founded on protecting dissenting views, it is remarkably autocratic to suggest that only your view is the proper view and that is the "duty" of citizens to get in line.

Once again I invoke an old piece I read years ago,
Eric Frank Russell's planet of Gand, which introduced me "MYOB" - and you can read about it here:

‘A man has duties. He has no right to refuse those.’

‘No?’ She raised tantalizing eyebrows, delicately curved. ‘Who defines those duties—himself or somebody else?’

‘His superiors most times.’

‘Superiors,’ she scoffed with devastating scorn. ‘No man is superior to another. No man has the slightest right to define another man’s duties. If anyone on Terra exercises such impudent power it is only because idiots permit him to do so. They fear freedom. They prefer to be told. They like to be ordered around. They love their chains and kiss their manacles. What men!’

Do not allow our political class, nor other slavish followers of any would-be autocrat to decide for you where your duties lie. In this time, facing these enemies of republican government, reasoned dissent honors freedom of speech and thought.

Do not be cowed into silence.

Freedom and "The Eternal Inequality of Man"

From Owen Wister's The Virginian

It was through the Declaration of Independence that we Americans acknowledged the ETERNAL INEQUALITY of man. For by it we abolished a cut-and-dried aristocracy. We had seen little mere artificially held up in high places, and great men artificially held down in low places, and our own justice-loving hearts abhorred this violence to human nature. Therefore, we decreed that every man should thenceforth have equal liberty to find his own level. By this very decree we acknowledged and gave freedom to true aristocracy, saying, "Let the best man win, whoever he is." Let the best man win! That is America's word. That is true democracy. And true democracy and true aristocracy are one and the same thing. If anybody cannot see this, so much the worse for his eyesight.

On the Path to Understanding "American Exceptionalism"

Perspectives Of A Russian Immigrant: Elena Kagan And "The Urge To Alter"

No individual or business can harm another as much as powerful and unaccountable centralized government. The reason people of all ethnicities, religions and backgrounds come to and succeed in America more than anywhere else is that America has a Constitution that limits the power of government.

Photo by Dennis Mulligan, from the NPS website.

The Declaration of Independence

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

So it began . . .

Fighting Words

Words like "freedom," "the rights of the individual" ... "living free meant a lot more to them than cowering in security."


Remember the Alamo? I have enough Texan in me to do just that.

Health Care and Egalitarianism

Victor Davis Hanson:

I understand the reasoning behind Obamism and am familiar with the feel-good, this-is-our-moment rhetoric of egalitarianism. But please at least spare us the fictions and simply be honest: Obama wants a state-run America, somewhere to the left of France or Denmark, a United States unexceptional and merely one of many nations at the UN. This vision follows an existing, decades-long encroachment of government. And it requires all sorts of highly credentialed overseers monitoring and at times justifiably attacking the upper middle class for its deplorable treatment of those below it.

This new America is ultimately predicated on the notion that we were born equal and must die absolutely equal as well. And this is entirely within our grasp, if we just understand that individual responsibility, talent, natural endowment, chance, merit, luck, tragedy, and a dozen other variables far too complex for government to imagine, much less solve, in fact, are not the real obstacles to ensuring equality.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote a nice piece on perfect equality in Harrison Bergeron.

Oh, by the way, the geniuses in Congress managed to create a mini crisis for those 9+ million AMERICANS covered by Tricare, the military health care plan:

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) says he will include a provision in the FY2011 Defense Authorization Bill to amend national health care reform legislation to explicitly state that TRICARE “meets all requirements for individual health insurance.”

Committee staff members indicate this is a technical correction to make doubly sure TRICARE beneficiaries don’t suffer any inadvertent penalties under the language of national health care reform legislation currently pending in the House.

According to staff, the new House language cites Medicare, TRICARE For Life, and VA care as meeting the requirements, but didn’t explicitly include TRICARE.

Skelton tried to amend the bill to include TRICARE, but House rules governing reconciliation bills like the national health reform bill bar amendments that don’t involve funding.

But the lack of funding issue means Skelton will be able to make the fix in the defense bill instead.

While it would be incongruous in the extreme to consider TRICARE as failing to meet any reasonable requirements for health insurance, the technical fix will make doubly sure TRICARE beneficiaries won’t be subject to financial penalties applicable to people who don’t obtain qualifying insurance.

It would also require that TRICARE make a change to allow continued coverage of non-dependent children until age 28 if they don’t have qualifying employer-sponsored coverage. Details on how to accomplish that would have to be worked out in the defense bill if the national health reform legislation passes.

UPDATE: Of course, including TRICARE might have caused the bill, which the Democrats assure us will save us money, to appear to cost too much, as noted over at Castle Argghhh!.
UPDATE2: Although I probably wouldn't call them "death panels" there will eventually be something akin to "decision trees" to sort out who will receive certain medical treatments.UPDATE3: "Decision Trees" will take the onus off individuals and "panels" deciding on who gets what. "It's not our fault, we ran it through the decision tree and determined that with your age and probability of living only another 3 years you just barely missed the cut. So sorry. Next!"

You know, the same sort of process that real insurance companies used to be able to apply is selecting who to insure and for how much. I remember the days when my SCUBA diving caused them to raise my life insurance rates, for example. Sky diving? "Raise the rates." Amateur sports car racing? "Raise the rates."

Now, let's assume you engage in high risk behavior like drug abuse and needle sharing - why, my goodness, you are now covered. Got AIDS or HIV positive as a result of needle sharing? Why, now you have a "preexisting condition." Covered.

Too stupid and selfish to practice safe sex? Whatever you get - "Covered."

Questions? Will the new system mandate genetic testing of wannabe parents and in vitro babies to decide whether or not the child will be a burden on the taxpayers? What about "sickle cell" genetic carriers? What about "Factor 5 Leiden" genetic carriers? Autism? And so on...

Our Mission is Finally Accomplished… Anyone Care? | David Bellavia

Our Mission is Finally Accomplished… Anyone Care? | David Bellavia


Yes, more than you know.

The people whose voices are not found in the editorial columns of Washington or New York.

People with purple fingers.

People with free speech.

Thank you.

Blow Up Your TV, Throw Away Your Paper

If you don't like Fox News or Larry David, here's a couple of ideas:

She was a level-headed dancer on the road to alcohol
I was just a soldier on my way to Montreal

Well, she pressed her chest against me
About the time the jukebox broke
She give me a peck on the back of the neck
And these are the words she spoke

Blow Up Your TV, throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home

Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try and find Jesus on your own

I sat there at the table and I acted real naive
Cause I knew that topless lady, she had something up her sleeve
She danced around the room awhile and she did the hoochy cooch
Yea sing a song all night long tellin' me what to do

Blow Up Your TV, throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home

Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try and find Jesus on your own

But I was young and hungry and about to leave that place
Just as I was going she looked me in the face

I said "You must know the answer"
She said "No, but I'll give it a try"
And to this day we've been livin' our way
Here is the reason why

We blew up the TV, threw away the paper
Went to the country, built us a home

Had a lotta children, fed 'em on peaches
They all found Jesus on their own

Or, use this to change the change the channel:


Free speech is free speech. Even if it's speech you disagree with.

But you don't have to listen if you don't want to. That's freedom, too.

Not in My Country, Senator

Somehow the braying jackass image fits this Democrat: Leahy calls for truth commission:

South Africa used one to try to get past apartheid after the end of white-minority rule.

Now, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont is proposing one to sift through all the wreckage of the Bush administration.

Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a speech today at Georgetown University that a "truth and reconciliation commission" could investigate abuses of detainees, politically inspired moves at the Justice Department, intelligence before the Iraq war, and other matters, according to the Associated Press.

Leahy said the primary goal of the commission would be to learn the truth rather than prosecute former officials. "I'm doing this not to humiliate people or punish people but to get the truth out," he said.

Human Rights First, which has been calling for an investigation of US detention of terror suspects, applauded Leahy.

Show trials do not belong in my country and I will fight them to the end of my strength. Further, if I have to move to Vermont to vote against Senator Leahy, I will do so.

Count me in as defense counsel and, I promise, that there will be a hell of fight before my services would be needed at that table, Senator.

Vice-President Chaney was right on with respect to Senator Leahy.