Justice Clarence Thomas, on the matter of judicial precedent, as quoted by Myron Magnet in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal:
“Stare decisis is not an inexorable command,” Justice Thomas observes in [Franchise Tax Board v] Hyatt. He has said elsewhere: “I think that the Constitution itself, the written document, is the ultimate stare decisis.”
What he said.
Or, perhaps they’ve been routed by the forces of Government Knows Better.
This incident occurred last January, but there’s no evidence since that the Brits—their government, anyway; there are pockets of concern, as this incident also indicates—have regained their spine.
A man has been fined after refusing to be scanned by controversial facial recognition cameras being trialled by the Metropolitan Police.
The force had put out a statement saying “anyone who declines to be scanned will not necessarily be viewed as suspicious”. However, witnesses said several people were stopped after covering their faces or pulling up hoods.
Here’s Detective Chief Superintendent Ivan Balhatchet, Scotland Yard’s lead for facial recognition:
The technology used in Romford forms part of the Met’s ongoing efforts to reduce crime in the area, with a specific focus on tackling violence.
As with all previous deployments the technology was used overtly.
That’s utterly disingenuous. Being open about dragooning citizens to give up their privacy for the convenience of Government does not at all mitigate the fact of being forced to surrender individual privacy to Government for no reason other than that Government is…curious.
A man declined to be tracked by a warrantless government, and he was punished by that government for his effrontery. Never mind that warrants and the requirement to have them were invented by the English centuries ago.
The Chinese Communist Party, through its provincial organ in Henan Province, says so.
The Hebi Municipal Radio Administrative Bureau [hosted] a presentation titled “Christianity’s Enormous Harm on China’s Security,” to party members in the city of Hebi….
Instructive title, that. The seminarists insisted that the “correct view” is that Christianity (and, I suppose, religion generally), are bent on undermining the Communists’ rule. Never mind that “render unto Caesar” bit.
Of course, Christianity’s central tenets of conscience, free will, individual responsibility do work out to threats to tyrannical societies like the PRC’s because these fundamental positions are threats to the power of the tyrants that reign over those societies. Hence the need for the CCP to work so zealously to suppress Christianity and along the way to lock Muslims up in concentration camps and jail Falun Gong followers.
Keep in mind, too, that this is the People’s Republic of China that Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden says is no threat to us.
Carol Roth, in her op-ed for FOXBusiness, said that Socialism begins with good intentions.
No, socialism does not. Perhaps the first attempts did, but with its unbroken history of wealth concentration, power concentration, and utter failure—even for those in the concentrated top—before us and well known, that much is clear. On the contrary, those proselytizing for and instigating socialist regimes have as their sole goal the accretion of wealth and power to themselves—and this time it’ll be different, this time they’ll pull it off.
Roth’s piece had a number of internal contradictions that illustrate the origins of socialist regimes, even though she seems to have missed them.
The first is her quote from Margaret Thatcher:
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.
Those pushing socialism know this a priori, though. They have no concern for the future, just the current seizure of all that OPM. They’ll get theirs, and to hell with anyone else.
Then she wrote,
Socialism is quite like robbing Peter to pay Paul….
That’s not starting out with good intentions. Unless it’s a Good Thing to rob someone, especially if it’s someone you don’t like.
And this bit:
Socialism starts out with noble intentions, preying on the envy of the population….
It’s noble to “prey on” the base instincts of the poor? It’s noble to take advantage of others’ envy, to encourage the weak immorally to act out that envy? How does that “logic” work, exactly?
Socialism, in each of its iterations over the last 100 years has not started with good intentions. It has started with the greed of the few with the skill to peddle snake oil. Socialism accelerates downhill from there.
In the ongoing saga of the Progressive-Democrats, and others, to get their hands on President Donald Trump’s personal and business tax returns, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Congressman Richard Neal (D, MA) requested demanded the IRS surrender several years of those documents to him by 10 Apr. The deadline came and went as IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said they needed more time to study the Neal-cited law to be sure they could turn over the returns. After all, other laws demand that tax records be kept private, as the personal information they are, for all Americans, and the cited law only permits tax records to be given to the House Ways and Means Chairman (and/or to two other Congressional positions) and only under tightly circumscribed conditions.
Since neither Rettig nor Mnuchin said, “Yes, Sir” and meekly and unquestioningly submitted, Neal now has sent a letter to Rettig giving a 23 April deadline or he, Neal, would yank Rettig into Federal court over the latter’s disobedience. That letter says, in part,
It is not the proper function of the IRS, Treasury, or Justice to question or second guess the motivations of the Committee or its reasonable determinations regarding its need for the requested tax returns and return information[.]
Because the Executive Branch is not a coequal branch of our Federal government with the Legislature and the Judiciary. It, together with its subordinate Departments and Agencies, are the obedient servants of Progressive-Democrat committees of the House of Representatives. The Executive is not permitted to make its own determination of the legality of complying with Neal’s demand. They’re supposed merely to shut up and deliver.
Law be damned. Constitution, especially, be damned. These are just more-or-less guidelines to be ignored whenever they show themselves inconvenient to the Left and their Party.