Tag Archives: government

We Win the Elections

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Bruce Gilley, Portland State University Professor of Political Science and New College of Florida Presidential Scholar in Residence, asked an important question in his Sunday Wall Street Journal op-ed:

What Do Democrats Mean by “Democracy?”

Then he answered his question:

What Democrats and leftist activists mean by a “transition to democracy” is a transition to permanent Democratic Party rule.

He’s right, except for one misconception: the Democratic Party no longer exists; it has been replaced by the Progressive-Democratic Party, whose adherents subscribe lock, stock, and barrel to the basic tenets of the founders of the modern Progressive movement. Those tenets are, first, the nationalization of our economy, from Teddy Roosevelt’s effort to nationalize one-sixth of our then national economy, our railroads, through Woodrow Wilson’s attempt to seize all of our factories east of the Mississippi to force them to produce what he wanted produced in the amounts and at the prices he wanted, to Harry Truman’s attempt to seize our iron industry because he didn’t like the way a strike was going, to Barack Obama’s successful nationalization of one-sixth of today’s economy, our health care provision and health care coverage industries.

The second Progressive tenet is the utter racism of the movement, from Wilson’s rank consideration of blacks to be intrinsically inferior and thus needing the “protections” of segregation, Franklin Roosevelt’s refusal to integrate our military, through to today’s Party and Leftist supporters demand for special treatment of blacks and women, ostensibly to make up for past wrongs inflicted on them, but really an acting out of Party’s and Leftists’ belief that blacks and women are intrinsically incapable of competing in our economy without special treatment, and through also, to Party’s and Leftists’ identity politics which is overtly racist and sexist.

The third tenet is Party’s utter contempt for us average Americans, from Herb Croly’s bland statement that the average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to a serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities as a democrat, to Progressive-Democrat politicians dismissing the Tea Party movement as Astroturfers and as just bitter Bible-toting and gun-clinging denizens of flyover country to be disregarded, to a Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate dismissing millions of us as irredeemable and deplorable, to a Progressive-Democratic Party President averring that 15% of us are just no good.

Thus: what the Progressive-Democratic Party’s politicians mean by democracy is, indeed, straightforward: “We win elections and run the country our way.” This is empirically demonstrated over the last few years by Party routinely shutting down our government every time its politicians can’t get their way through elections or otherwise politically while being the minority party in the Senate.

Party politicians’ promise—not threat—to eliminate the Senate’s filibuster ranks right up there as concrete demonstration of their definition. They know full well, that eliminating the filibuster will destroy the republican democracy structure of our government and replace it with the tyranny of popular democracy, with them in charge. That destruction is not a bug in their ideology; it’s the end game.

It Hinges on the Meaning of….

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Missouri’s Attorney General, Katherine Hanaway, has gone to court to

bar the federal government from counting immigrants living in the country illegally when determining congressional representation and federal funding….

She added,

We are confident that the Census Bureau is going to start to plan for a census in 2030 where we don’t count illegal immigrants….

None of us American citizens believe illegal aliens should be allowed to vote. Counting their presence in apportioning 435 seats in House of Representatives among the several States is a different matter, though, and it’s not entirely up to the Census Bureau. Here’s what our Constitution has to say on House representation:

Article I, Section 2: The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative….

And

14th Amendment: Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion….

Every thirty thousand what, though? Citizens? Residents, which would include legal aliens? Anyone present at the time of enumeration, which would include illegal aliens?

The question hinges, also, on the definition of other crime, and here’s where things get truly serious. Illegal aliens, wherever present have committed the wrong of entering our nation illegally, and they compound their wrong-doing by remaining here in their illegal status. Are either of these crimes?

Title 8 US Code § 1325 – Improper entry by alien has this:

Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

Our courts usually count illegal entry to be a misdemeanor, while illegal reentry is counted a felony. In this context, though, it’s a meaningless distinction: both misdemeanors and felonies are crimes in the legal sense. So it is, too, in our American English dictionaries. Merriam-Webster Online defines “misdemeanor” as a crime less serious than a felony.

With the 14th Amendment clarifying Art, Sect 2, and the Title 8 paragraph clarifying the nature of entering the US illegally, the case for not counting illegal aliens when apportioning Congressional representation should be straightforward.

A Rhyme in History?

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In the ongoing rise of tension between the US and Iran, which latter includes ties with Russia and the People’s Republic of China, The Wall Street Journal had this bit:

Iran is an important partner for Moscow and one that it wouldn’t want to lose, especially after the US deposed Nicolás Maduro, an ally of Russia, in Venezuela last month. At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t likely to come to the aid of Khamenei if US strikes appear on the verge of bringing him down.
“These relationships are highly pragmatic, highly transactional,” said Alexander Palmer, a fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, on Tehran’s security ties to Russia and Iran. “They don’t have a sufficient strategic interest in Iran to be willing to go to war with the United States over the country.”

Early in WWII, the UK and Russia invaded Iran and occupied most of the country. The two had agreed to leave Iran six months after the war against Nazi Germany had ended. At the end of those six months, the UK began withdrawing, and Russia indicated it intended to stay for control of Iranian oil. It was only under pressure from the US that the Russians ultimately withdrew.

These days it’s another contest between Russia and the US for controlling influence in Iran. Should the current Iranian government fall, there will ensue two questions: one is whether a stable government be quickly formed and installed. In that event, there likely won’t be much Russia can do, especially as bogged down as the barbarian is in Ukraine.

The other question flows from the political chaos that will develop if no national-capable government is quickly formed. In that event, Russia will move to gain overt control over Iran’s domestic affairs, particularly with regard to Iran’s oil, of which Russia’s primary need is denial of the oil to the world market in order to prop up the prices Russia can get for its own oil, and with regard to Iran’s war materiel production, especially its drone production. From this, the question expands to include the US response to Russia’s moves for control and the contest between Russia and the US over that control.

Constitutionally Questionable

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The subheadline lays out the problem:

Refusal of older officeholders to cede stage to younger faces is prompting fresh calls for a limit on how long they can serve

Statutory limits on how long Congressmen and -women can serve in Congress are constitutionally highly questionable. Here’s what Article I, Sections 2 (on Representatives) and 3 (on Senators) of our Constitution says about eligibility to serve in Congress:

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

And

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

Our Constitution places a floor on age, but it places no ceiling on age, nor does it place any limit on the length of service or number of terms an individual may serve. In many venues, it’s possible for lower jurisdictions to tighten standards of higher jurisdictions, but with our Constitution, such efforts have been routinely disallowed under the Supremacy Clause, which unequivocally states, along with Marbury v Madison, that our Constitution is our supreme law, and Congressional statutes are subordinate to it. It’s most likely that imposing an upper age limit would require an Amendment to our Constitution.

In any event, limiting by age for how long a congressman might serve is a decidedly suboptimal solution to this perceived problem. A much better solution is the term limit that was used in our erstwhile Articles of Confederation. That document’s Article V limited a Congressional delegate to three terms out of six, with no bar on serving further in subsequent six term runs.

The Articles were written for a unicameral Congress, but it’s easily adaptable to our present bicameral Congress. This also would require an Amendment to our Constitution, but it would be a better one that makes medical improvements to the abilities of aging citizens irrelevant.

No, and Yes

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NIH director Dr Jay Bhattacharya:

As far as the NIH, we’ve paused every single project that even is anywhere within the vicinity of something that could be gain of function, and the White House is working on a policy…(that) will make it so that it never happens again.
Nowhere in the United States Government will we invest in a project that poses a risk of catastrophic harm to the American people ever again[.]

No. We should continue, and perhaps accelerate, gain of function research across a variety of viruses, and not only those living in animals. We don’t necessarily need the research for our own biological weapons, and such research needs to be done within the most stringent safety protocols. The reasons we should do the research are two, primarily: one is that our enemies are conducting such research; the canonical example being the People’s Republic of China with its efforts that include its lab leak (from incompetent safety execution more than from proximate enmity) of the Wuhan Virus. We need our own gain of function research in order to be better positioned to counter deliberate spreads of successfully weaponized viruses. The need for this is demonstrated by PRC agents recently caught smuggling into our nation a variety of biologic weapons that would poison our nation’s food supply when released.

The other reason is the need to anticipate, understand, and produce effective responses when the inevitable event of another pandemic occurs and threatens national and global economies as well as national and global populations. A short list of examples of this includes the costly and deadly outbreaks of plague, smallpox, Spanish Flu, and the recent Wuhan Virus. All of these were far worse than they could have been had effective remedies been available or more quickly available due to ongoing gain of function research. That gain of function research technologies and methods didn’t exist for most of those cataclysms doesn’t alter the fact that such technologies and methods would have been beneficial then. We have the basics of such technologies and methods today.

I think I can tell you that the appetite for lockdowns in this administration is basically zero. So I don’t think we would have the same kind of approach. …
…
We saw during COVID every single person’s life was affected in some, mostly for the worse. ” …I’ll tell you under my watch, I will never advocate and the NIH will not be advocating for lockdowns ever again.

Yes. The lockdowns not only harmed our economy and isolated adult Americans far too much, they severely damaged our children and not only by losing years of education that still have not been recovered. They also severely damaged our children’s social development, that damage came at ages where our children are their most vulnerable, and in far too many cases the damage will be life-long.