An attempt to cope

The Supreme Court ruled 9-0, yes even the 3 ultra-liberal justices sided with Trump, that Colorado could not remove president Trump from the 2024 ballots.  Liberal heads have been exploding everywhere, but the truth is, the Constitution won and the wackos lost. Here's one particular coping attempt that looks like it's not going well:

Nancy Pelosi can't help but be authoritarian

As long as things work out in her elitist favor, she'll stop at nothing to ensure her party retains its grip on power. Oddly, she's not ashamed to say the most ridiculous things in her efforts to do so. Constitution be damned.

More details. 

Positivity from Tulsi Gabbard

I want to start the year out on a positive note.  Here's Tulsi Gabbard recounting a positive experience and then noticing fellow Democrats didn't share her enthusiasm for the Constitution:

There is no FBI (in the Constitution)

FBI, not in the Constitution.  This is not to say there is not a need for some interstate police functionality; if a terrorist crosses the border in Texas, commits an act of terror in that state and then skips across the border to Oklahoma, there has to be a way to deal with that.  The FBI, as it exists, is not the best answer to that problem.

We're not there yet

But it's getting close to Republican's being able to hold a Constitutional convention of states. If they do so, it will be interesting to see what they can get done.

What Mueller got horribly wrong

Mueller's report was a partisan hit piece lacking substance.  The result, a laughable report that flouts the Constitution.

Saturday Learning Series - Steven Crowder's Masterclass (episode 1)

Steven Crowder has started an American Masterclass and it's great.  Here's episode 1, which focuses on the first amendment to the Constitution.  Let's hope it does not get demonitized or shadow banned by YouTube (a.k.a. Google) for some unspecified and invalid reason.

Quote of the Week

Rich Lowry writes in the New York Post, on the Left's blaming the Constitution for SCOTUS Justice Kavanaugh:

It’s certainly true that the Senate is not fully democratic and gives an outsized role to small states, since this was the price they exacted for signing on to the Constitution. This arrangement isn’t a conspiracy against the left.

The Constitution is doing what it was designed to do, prevent majority tyranny. The structure of the senate is one of the checks built into the Constitution to prevent.  It's not minority tyranny, it's minority protection, plain and simple. Not only was it a compromise designed to sew the country together, it was brilliant and needed idea to prevent mob rule.

Lowry continues:

The design of the Senate recognizes the status of the states as real governing entities with their own prerogatives under the Constitution. Like the equally hated Electoral College, the Senate ensures that flyover country isn’t ignored. It reflects the dizzying geographic diversity of a continental nation and promotes national cohesion by giving every corner of it a voice.

The Senate is also meant to be a check on the unbridled public will. Its members are elected in staggered six-year terms and, originally, they were selected by state legislatures, not in a direct vote.

The House is the more democratic body. California has 53 representatives; Wyoming has one. Yet, Democrats don’t control the House, either.

These are things leftists are willing to overlook in their greed for power. Lowry sets them straight on why they are wrong again.

Why the libertarian view on drugs has issues (for me)

A while back I proposed an alternate way to stop the flow of drugs into America. It's not a solution to the scourge of drugs in the country, it's part of the solution.  The drug problem is complex and includes prescription opioids, domestically produced drugs, and the underlying problem is actually demand, not production.  I promised at that time I would get back to my non-libertarian rationale for opposing illicit drug consumption.  First, let me outline the logic of the libertarian view of drugs as I understand it.

Is this the future you want for your country?

Government allows the consumption of alcohol and cigarettes.  In a truly free and liberated society government should not prevent people from making choices, even if those choices are self-destructive.  Cigarettes and alcohol can be self destructive, and in the case of cigarettes it's pretty much inarguable that they are.  So why should illicit drugs be any different?  The caveat that libertarians allow for, is that as long as those choices do not harm anyone else then and only then should it permissible.  For example, murdering someone is not allowable because even though it is a free choice, it harms someone else.  Parking in such a way that it blocks someone else in is an individual freedom too, but it interferes with someone else's freedom to leave their parking spot.  In other words the government should only protect it's citizens from external threats or from each other, but not from themselves. That is up to and including the option for suicide I suppose.

There are problems with this logic as it applies to drugs, not the least of which is that switching to an unfettered allowance is to let the genie out of the bottle in such a way that it cannot be put back in.  Should there be dire societal consequences, they cannot be undone, or at least without a herculean effort.  When prohibition was implemented it was not long before it was reversed (13 years, which sounds like a long time but to reverse a Constitutional Amendment with another Amendment that is startlingly quick).  The point is the attempt to undo a freedom, once available, is a futile effort.  Yes alcohol was always available, but it provides a suitable analog.  Cigarettes, as damaging as they are will not be made illegal in our lifetime.  Similarly drugs, once legalized will not simply be made illegal again if they prove to be too detrimental to society as a whole.

More likely is the slippery slope argument - once a milder illegal drug is legalized there will be pressure to expand it to more, and harder drugs.  While there is plenty of evidence in our slide towards liberalism or even more aptly, political correctness, that there is indeed a slippery slope, I won't resort to that argument.  I have others.

The one argument that people make is that because drugs are illegal it contributes to crimes - murder and theft, for example.  The argument is that legalizing drugs will remove these problems.  The reverse is actually true.   Alcohol is legal and we still have alcohol-related deaths that are not just those who were drinking.  Cigarettes are legal and while second-hand smoke may or may not have killed anyone, it certainly, until recently, affected non-smokers.  I can attest to that personally.  Guns are legal and innocent people get shot and killed all the time.  And people still use illegal guns.  Why would some people not continue to use illegal drugs?  They might be cheaper.  Some people might not be able to get the legal drugs because they cannot afford their addiction and will still resort to crime to get what they need.

Simply legalizing drugs does not make these things go away.  And indeed, they may increase the instances of addiction and that could easily in turn increase these secondary effects of crime as more people become addicted, escalate and soon cannot afford their addictions.

The other effect that legalizing drugs has on society is the medical need to cope with the addicted. There are costs in ameliorating an addicted subset of the population. Not just the direct costs of rehabilitation, but also the opportunity costs.  If we have to divert medical expertise from cancer research to address the problem of burgeoning addiction, we could delay or miss the chance to cure cancer (for example). Doctors are not an unlimited resource - that was part of my argument on Obamacare.  Medical advances and treatment of the non-addicted are just another way that legalized drugs harm those who are not directly affected by the change in the law.

All of those issues are enough without even discussing the societal and familial impacts of decaying moral standards and families imploding because one drug user has upended the fabric of the family.

All for what?  So some people who want to do so can get high?  It's wasted potential, and morally its something we should guard against, not embrace. To embrace legalization of drugs, any drug, is nothing more than deluded Utopian thinking.

It's Freedom of association, stupid

YouGov has a poll out indicating that Americans are 'torn' between religious freedom and something they refer to as marriage equality.  It's rife with flaws. First and foremost, this is not a matter of polling, it's a Constitutional matter.  Additionally, polling should never trump common sense even though public opinion often runs counter to basic intuitive logic. That's a formula for mob rule which runs counter to democratic principals (the latter point is a debate for another day).

Here's some of the YouGov findings;

The Supreme Court is wrestling with balancing religious freedom and equal rights in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, deciding whether a baker’s First Amendment religious protections permit him to violate Colorado anti-discrimination regulations and refuse to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. Americans are torn, too. But on balance, they seem to come down on the side of religion...

But the more important distinction, perhaps, may be that a plurality sees a violation of the First Amendments religious freedom protections if someone were to be required to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. That is particularly true for Republicans, 74% of whom say this would violate First Amendment religious freedom. 47% of independents also agree, as do one in five Democrats.

While there appears to be a general support for the law, there is a freedom of religion implication that people are not comfortable with embedded in the law. I haven't heard anyone argue this point however; there is also a freedom of association violation within the law.

The Constitution protects both rights, though with association the protection is implicit not explicit;

Clearly, the First Amendment protects the individual rights to freely exercise one’s religion, speak freely, publish freely, peaceably assemble, and petition the government. Technically, the freedom of association is not mentioned. It is sometimes subsumed under the freedom of assembly but usually by limiting it to things such as trade unions and collective bargaining.

Legally, the freedom of association is considered to be a fundamental right protected by the Constitution. In the Supreme Court case of N.A.A.C.P. v. Alabama(1958), a unanimous Court ruled that the NAACP did not have to reveal to the Alabama attorney general the names and addresses of the NAACP members in the state because it would violate the NAACP members’ freedom of association. Writing for the Court, Justice John Marshall Harlan II said in the decision that

immunity from state scrutiny of membership lists … is here so related to the right of members to pursue their lawful private interests privately and to associate freely with others in so doing as to come within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment. [Alabama] has fallen short of showing a controlling justification for the deterrent effect on the free enjoyment of the right to associate which disclosure of membership lists is likely to have….

Freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the “liberty” ensured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The thing is, if freedom of association is protected, does it not extend to commerce?  Am I not entitled to decide with whom I want to conduct business?  I don't want to engage in commerce with the mafia, can a court order compel me to do so?  If I choose to turn down business I am using my freedom to exclude association with certain people.  Clearly that's a tenuous argument or it would have successfully been put forward before now.  I'm just not sure why there isn't a valid case to be made for the idea.

The Fundamental Flaw in the American Governmental System

I greatly admire the American political system. The way the Constitution structured government is brilliant in it's methods of addressing a major concern of the founding fathers. The Constitution is eloquent in its design. It still is, and will always be, important and necessary. But it does contain a design flaw.

The Constitution was constructed to protect the American people against tyranny. Tyranny can come in many forms but the founders appeared to have focused on two crucial forms - the tyranny of an elite rulership (a King, or a dictator) and the tyranny of a mob. Of course that the Revolution against the British Crown drove the thinking of the framers is obvious. Government was divided into three separate but equal branches - the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial branches. Each had their own mandate as to what their areas of responsibility were, and are. This was to ensure that too much power did not end up in the hands of one person, or one small group of people.

Later the Bill of Rights introduced a number of protections like the second amendment to ensure the people could protect themselves against the tyranny of a future Julius Caesar who might try to usurp power. The tenth amendment delegated any powers not specifically enumerated to the federal government to the states or the people. This was designed to prevent the slow encroachment of federal purview into every aspect of life.

But the other form of tyranny, mob rule, is a danger to a freedom too. In a representative republic, unlike a democracy, rights of minorities are less subject to the whims of the day. If for example there was a rampant culture of fear concerning Muslims today, in a democracy people could vote in some sort of referendum that being a Muslim is a capital crime and that it requires the death penalty (never mind that my example overlooks the notion of freedom of religion, the absurdity is merely to prove a point). In a representative republic, that simply could not come to pass. Two separate but equal branches of government would have to agree that the idea should become law. The third branch would arbitrate whether the law, once passed and then challenged, is actually Constitutional or not.

That all serves as a brake on mob rule and gut reactions to crises or issues of the day. Further, the Senate with it's longer election cycle, allows senators to be less beholden to the electorate than congressmen and therefore able to take a longer view on the implications for the country of each legislative vote. Again, that sober, second thought is a brake on the tyranny of mob rule. This is also true to an extent for the presidency with its inherent responsibility to sign legislation onto law.

The Constitution even protects itself from being rewritten by requiring such a high threshold for amendments that it ensures re-writes don't happen to it all of the time.

What the Constitution does to prevent radical and/or ill-considered changes at unwise speeds is brilliant. But I did mention a flaw, and it's become apparent to me that it is kind of a critical one.

What made it hard to change the system makes, it hard to change the system when bad decisions have become institutionalized. The welfare state. Obamacare. Public education. Common core. Byzantine tax code as a tool for social policy. Redundant government departments sucking up taxpayer money for repetitive and overlapping social programs. Ever-thickening red-tape that is grinding industry in America to a standstill. All of these have become ingrained in the system and are perpetuated by government after government.

Reversing those bad decisions that have snowballed from small problems into major ones is proving to be as difficult as getting them going was initially. In fact in some cases, even harder. The government is set up to minimize change.  When the bad ideas are part of the institution, they cannot just be wished away. Worse still, there are also institutionalized practices that are not even law -- crony capitalism, lobbyists, and government and big businesses being in bed together to stifle potential competitors and enrich the big companies and the politicians who support them. In the case of these unseen 'institutions' there are no public accountabilities. There is no policing them as it were.

Yet we are asking politicians to change these things, to fix these problems. Government is part of the problem. What we see among voters is a reaction to bloat. Conservatives view the solution to this as reducing the size of government. Liberals see the same problem but believe the solution is to grow the government to keep these large evil companies accountable. That they do not see that asking one thief to watch the other is a bad idea, is comical. But the conservative position is also flawed. Yes, government bureaucracies are too large and not accountable. But the bigger problem than their size is how they operate, and how they are also not held to account for their actions.

Is America stuck with bad systems that cannot be changed? No. Paradigm shifts are possible, but the longer this bloat remains, the more they require incremental momentum to make that happen. We've gone from having to move a house to having to move a mountain. Adding to that mountain no longer makes sense. We're moving ever closer to complete stagnation in the name of progress. It's time to chip away at the stone, not add more stone. A new intelligent mechanism is required for dealing with the size, scope and relationships of government - one that is beholden to the ideals of the Constitution and not the government itself. The details of that are important and it must be given a great deal of thought. Just like the framers of the Constitution did in their day.

SCOTUS lets down the Constitution in favor of constituency

There is a problem here BUT...

Let's not have a cow about gay marriage, there is a more important issue at stake in light of the Supreme Court's decision on the subject.  Firstly, no one is forcing you to get married to a gay person.  No one is forcing your church to officiate a gay marriage (yet at least) even if it goes against your church's or temple's or mosque's teachings.  No one is going to make you or your children attend gay weddings.  Is it an ideal ruling?  Far from it, but the real issue, is that this is supposed to be a conservative leaning court by a count of 5-4 justices.  Clearly, it isn't.

At least Chief Justice Roberts did not sell out on this issue by putting opinion before the Constitution:

"This court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in dissent. Roberts read a summary of his dissent from the bench, the first time he has done so in nearly 10 years as chief justice.

"If you are among the many Americans - of whatever sexual orientation - who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today's decision," Roberts said. "But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it."

With the original decision to allow for Obamacare's constitutionality and the more recent upholding of the constitutionality of the federal tax credits portion of the ACA, the Supreme Court is not a conservative body.  That should frighten conservatives - a lot. It becomes even more imperative to ensure that a Republican wins office in 2016 so the erosion of the tenets of the Constitution is stopped.  Liberals and progressives will continue poke holes in the levy protecting the Constitution until America is no longer what it was, or what it is ultimately capable of being.  You take your eye off that levy and your mind off of its importance and the country is doomed.

Perhaps you believe that outcome is inevitable anyway.  That would make you part of the problem, because America was not founded on defeatism, nor did it grow under that premise as much as it did not grow under the welfare state mentality.  Unless you want to follow in the footsteps of Greece - from enlightened democracy, to entitled socialists on the brink of economic collapse - wake up and take pride (no pun on gay marriage intended) in your country.

NOTE:  As an aside on how I feel about gay marriage, see this post (if you care).

The problem with the court's decision is the 10th amendment and the notion of states' rights.   Every state already had a position and legislation on the matter already (pro or con).  That's good.  By homogenizing the law nationally, you are taking away the idea of multiple laboratories.  I call it the 50 Experiments Theorem.  The more variability among the states in terms of policy, the more like there are outcomes that will thrive.  The less that legislation is nationalized the more chance (in fact 50 times more) there is that a successful legislative formula(s) will be found.

It's on of the greatest unheralded advantages the United States has over other so many other nations who have centralization as their governing philosophy. And the Supreme Court is enabling those who wish to purposefully or inadvertently abolish that competitive advantage. It's quite sad to see.  This is what a liberal court has allowed for decades and its effects, even if reversed will take decades to recede.

Is Obama skirting the Constitution?

The guys at Trifecta talk about it:

Obama statement vs. the Constitution

The president issued a statement yesterday regarding gun control, or as the president put it, gun violence.  Let's for a second disregard the fact that a gun is incapable of violence, it's just a tool that can be used for violence just as it can be used for defense and security.

We've entered the matrix?

Here's the president's statement in full.  I've added the emphasis for discussion purposes.  It is not emphasized in the original.

I thank the Senate for taking another step forward in our common effort to help reduce gun violence by advancing a bill that would reinstate and strengthen a ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons and set a 10-round limit for magazines. These weapons of war, when combined with high-capacity magazines, have one purpose: to inflict maximum damage as quickly as possible. They are designed for the battlefield, and they have no place on our streets, in our schools, or threatening our law enforcement officers.

The Senate has now advanced legislation addressing three of the most important elements of my proposal to help reduce the epidemic of gun violence in this country. Now the full Senate and the House need to vote on this bill, as well as the measures advanced in the past week that would impose serious penalties on anyone who buys a gun as part of a scheme to arm criminals, improve school safety, and help keep guns out of the hands of criminals, people with a severe mental illness, and others who shouldn’t have them. Each of these proposals deserves a vote.

The highlighted section sounds powerful at first blush, but not as powerful as this, the Second Amendment to the Constitution:

AMENDMENT II

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.

The part people tend to focus on is "shall not be infringed".  Infringed: Act so as to limit or undermine. Seems like the president's proposal (notice he takes credit for a liberal plan but won't take the blame for his own liberal failures?), tends to infringe the public's second amendment rights.

But what about "being necessary to the security of a free state"?  It is quite necessary that weapons that are in fact designed for the battlefield be available to the people.  Whether the framers were arguing that the security is to face an external threat or to the face an overbearing domestic government, does not matter.  The intent was to allow people to both keep and bear (carry) arms.  Further, if the purpose is to raise a militia when needed, then should not the arms suitable to a battlefield be not only available but indeed required?

The president seems to view the Constitution, at best, as malleable or unequally applicable.  At worst he sees it as archaic and not up to snuff.  He did  say at one point that the Constitution was a document of negative rights.

“We still suffer from not having a Constitution that guarantees its citizens economic rights.” By positive economic rights, Obama means government protection against individual economic failures, such as low incomes, unemployment, poverty, lack of health care, and the like. Obama characterizes the Constitution as “a charter of negative liberties,” which “says what the states can’t do to you (and) what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn't say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf.”

Disdain for the Constitution is unbecoming for a Commander-In-Chief.  The president is as agenda driven as he is political, and as much as he is eager to take credit and eschew blame.  This simple release, shows once again each of those first three points.  He's attempting to sound-bite himself into convincing the public to support his 'perfectly reasonable' position.  He is eager to take credit for the work being done by Senate Democrats.   And finally his agenda is a pure liberal agenda.  Rolling back gun rights is a progressive liberal wish list item, and Obama is fully on board with it.

As for eschewing blame - he's had over four years of track record showing that.

Still down on Roberts decision

Bill Whittle sums up his thoughts, and mine on the decision on the constitutionality of Obamacare.

Krugman - still in a tinfoil hat

Photo via Death by 1000 Papercuts.

Whenever I get bored by the political landscape - we're in a gap between GOP primaries right now - there are a few places I can go to get inspired to write something.  I've been busy of late and I haven't been doing that, but today I have some bandwidth and I went back to one I haven't in quite a while: Paul Krugman.  For a Nobel Prize winner, he rarely fails to bring a tinfoil hat perspective to the table.  With the Supreme Court taking a look at the Constitutionality of Obamacare, Krugman has decided that he needed to scold the Supreme Court on their lack of understanding of how health care is different from broccoli.

In case you thought the war on religion was a hoax, read this.

Those who think the administration's recent war on religion is just a right wing conspiracy theory should read this via Gateway Pundit:

Last week Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan lashed out at the Obama Administration for forcing religious organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience. The rule would force Christian organizations to provide free contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion drugs to workers even though this violates Catholic Church teaching. The new rules are so strict that most Catholic institutions will not qualify for an exemption.

Even Pope Benedict warned of the “grave threat” to religious freedom in United States before the Obama Administration approved the new rules.

Now the Obama Administration is forbidding Catholic chaplains from reading a letter from the leader of the US bishops. 

Business Insider reported:

The emerging conflict between the Catholic Church and the Obama administration may have a new front: in the U.S. military itself.

The Catholic Church is fighting mad about an HHS ruling that would have them buy insurance for things they consider sinful–contraception, sterilization and abortion.

All the bishops in the country sent out a letter to be read in their parishes promising that the Church “cannot-and will not-comply with this unjust law.”

Even Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who is in charge of Catholic military chaplains sent out the same letter.

But after he did, the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains sent out another communication forbidding Catholic priests to read the letter, in part because it seemed to encourage civil disobedience, and could be read as seditious against the Commander-in-Chief.

Having alienated Jewish people over his disrespect of Israel, it seems Catholicism is next on the Obama radar. Along the way, the Constitution, the First Amendment all seem to have lost any relevance.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi has either sold her soul to the devil or else lost her marbles;

“First of all, I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the administration on this. I think it was a very courageous decision that they made, and I support it.”

I think what she meant to say was this:

I am going to flout my Catholic beliefs in supporting the administration on this.  I think it was a very secular decision that they made and I support it.

There. Fixed it for you Nancy.

Good years start badly. (GOP Edition)

Through anecdotal evidence from my own life, I have noticed that if a year starts out well it turns out poorly and if it starts out on a bad note, it turns out to be a great year.  Hopefully that turns out to be true for the GOP as the year is starting out pretty poorly for them.  Let me catch up on a few items as evidence.

President Obama is working his way around the Constitution on what he and the media are positioning as recess appointments (for example Richard Cordray) - except the Senate is not in recess, it's in session, pro-forma.  A technicality perhaps, but there are now legal questions that the GOP will probably avoid raising for feat of being portrayed as petty obstructionists rather than upholders of the Constitution.  Wonderful.

The FEC's upcoming blunder

Courtesy of www.oftwominds.com

This might be off the beaten path of electoral politics, but it still seems unnecessarily wrong.  As a full disclaimer this is not in any way related to birtherism, but is a legal matter related to an FEC ruling. 

While the FEC may be technically correct in it's narrow band of responsibility, the disconnect from practicality exemplifies the problems with bureaucracy.

A Repeal Amendment? Not A Bad Idea, A Terrible One.

Amendments? Who does that?

The United States Constitution is an incredible document.  It even established protocols for its own future modification. A discussion has arisen, about adding an amendment that would allow a method for states to repeal  acts of Congress (HT: Ed Morrissey).  Ironically, the Virginia legislature idea got an endorsement from the libertarian think tank The Cato Institute.  They've both had and supported a lot of good ideas.  This isn't one of them.

There's a lot of appeal to the idea of having a method to put the brakes on a runaway government, bent on imposing its will on the people.  The idea also allows for a balance between states' rights and federal power.