Tag Archives: government

Listen to Those Who’ve Been There

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Escapees—those whom some call defectors—from northern Korea are starting to take an active role in Republic of Korea politics.

…former North Koreans are throwing their hats into the ring to push South Korea to take a harder stand against the latest Kim to rule the North, Kim Jong Un. Among them is a one-time North Korean diplomat, Thae Yong-ho, who is running with Mr. Ji [Seong-ho] for South Korea’s conservative opposition party.

In particular,

Mr Ji will now campaign across South Korea, laying out his objections to the Moon administration, which he says has made too many concessions to North Korea and doesn’t take a strong enough stand on the Kim regime’s human rights abuses.

The rest should listen to those who’ve been there, suffered that, know first-hand what it is that sits just north of the DMZ.

The Equal Rights Amendment

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The Wall Street Journal‘s Editorial Board noted in their Valentine’s Day editorial that the time limit for ratifying the ERA has long passed its expiration date and that Virginia’s lately “ratification” of the Amendment, which might have put the thing over the top for national ratification, came much too late to have effect.

On the whole, I agree with the Editors.

However, on this, I strongly disagree:

The ERA also isn’t necessary today. America in 2020 is a very different place for women than it was when the ERA was written. Laws bar discrimination against women in all walks of life, and women are CEOs, Senators, and the Speaker of the House.

Laws are nearly as easily undone or allowed to go fallow as they are enacted. Our Constitution is much harder to ignore or change–as it must be. Principles that are enacted as statute aren’t, at bottom, principles; they’re merely today’s view of things. On the other hand, principles need to be written into the Constitution if they’re to have lasting effect.

Back to the ERA: it was unnecessary when it was proposed in 1972; that it’s unnecessary today is irrelevant. Article I of the 14th Amendment does the job just fine, especially in the hands of textualist judges and Justices.

Happy Valentine’s Day, a few days after the fact.

Disappointing

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Senator Joe Manchin (D, WV) is defending his vote to convict President Donald Trump during the impeachment and trial fiasco of the last several weeks. In the course of that defense, Manchin says he wanted to see more information from Trump and his defenders. In the course of that, he tweeted [emphasis added]:

I’ve read the transcripts thoroughly & listened to the witnesses under oath. Where I come from a person accused defends themselves with witnesses and evidence. Where I come from a person accused defends themselves with witnesses and evidence.

No, Senator Manchin.  Where I come from—the United States of America—a person accused doesn’t have to do that; it’s on the accuser to prove his accusations.

Full stop.

Manchin should know better.

Government Knows Better Than Owners

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That’s what the SEC is claiming with its latest shenanigan.

[T]he Securities and Exchange Commission wants to make it harder for small shareholders to get resolutions onto company ballots, known as proxies.

After all, the SEC says, with some accuracy,

responding to resolutions can pose an undue burden on companies, costing tens of thousands of dollars apiece for research, and printing and mailing of ballots.

However.

Corporate by-laws are set by the owners of the company, and the owners can, via their by-laws, set the parameters surrounding shareholder resolutions and thereby manage their own costs just fine, thank you.

Every one of the ills imagined by the SEC are capable of being handled by each business in its own way, whether by doing things the SEC wants to impose on all company owners, or with steps each company’s owners deem best for their specific situation.

Or they would be able to, did Government regulations, existing as well as proposed, not interfere so extensively with the way in which owners manage their property.

“I Have Seen Dictatorships”

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Ex-US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, says so. And she insisted, in her op-ed, that she and her colleagues had no obligations to her bosses:

When civil servants in the current administration saw senior officials taking actions they considered deeply wrong in regard to the nation of Ukraine, they refused to take part.

They, and she, also refused to resign. All of them simply presumed to disobedience and to a veto authority over their bosses’ instructions.

She went on:

We need to stand up for our values, defend our institutions, participate in civil society and support a free press.

Indeed. But in order for Yovanovitch and her fellows to do so, they need to consider the Progressive-Democrat mirror into which they stare, and to think about the Progressive-Democratic Party’s communications arm, our NLMSM masquerading itself as an independent press, for which Yovanovitch is writing her… apologia pro vita sua.

And this cri de coeur:

I have seen dictatorships around the world….

I suppose that, for a woman so timid she’s intimidated by an unfavorable job performance review, any government might look like a dictatorship.