Category Archives: culture

A Bit on the Citizenship Question

Posted on by
Reply

The Electronic Privacy Information Center sued Commerce and the Census Bureau in Federal court over the inclusion of a citizenship question in the upcoming census.  EPIC centered its case on the premise that these agencies must explain the impact on privacy of such a question prior to

initiating a collection of new information

when that collection involves electronically stored, personally identifiable information.

The DC Circuit correctly tossed the case on the grounds that EPIC had suffered no harm, so it had no standing to sue.

That’s too bad, though, because EPIC also was wrong on the facts.  Between 1970 and 2010, the Census Bureau, in addition to a short-form census form sent to everyone present in the US, sent a long-form census form to a significant subset of that population, and that long-form version contained the citizenship question.  As recently as 1950, the census included the citizenship question on every form sent out.  As recently as 1960, the census asked after place of birth—which clearly is a citizenship question, since being born under US jurisdiction (vis., in the US, on a US military installation on foreign soil, etc) makes one a citizen.

The conclusion is obvious.  Nor Commerce nor the Census Bureau have any obligation to conduct a “privacy impact” assessment and publish any statement of that impact: Census isn’t collecting new information; it’s merely attempting to resume collecting information it routinely had collected in the recent past.

Separately, I won’t go far into how the 14th Amendment makes the question an absolute necessity, except to point out the following.  Section 2 of the 14th says this [emphasis added]:

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 which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

While representation is apportioned according to the number of persons present in each State, the sanction for abridging the right to vote is based on citizenship, not mere presence.  (Lest anyone get their panties in a bunch over that “male citizens” part, the 19th Amendment cleared that.)  It’s impossible to carry out that sanction without knowing the number of actual citizens in each State.

And with Progressive-Democrats constantly bleating about voter suppression, the ability to apply that sanction clearly is necessary.

Free Speech

Posted on by
Reply

…Progressive-Democrat style.  Here’s Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D, FL):

people who are “making fun of members of Congress” online “should be prosecuted”

Because, she went on, making fun of Congress intimidates Congressmen.  In fact, she went on in that vein for more than 40 seconds, just in the recording.

Wow.

Hong Kong Protests

Posted on by
Reply

And the People’s Republic of China threatens.  Hong Kong citizens have been protesting a PRC-endorsed law proposal that would allow Hong Kongese and others resident in or visiting Hong Kong to be extradited to the mainland for trial in the PRC’s government-run court system.

[The PRC’s] government signaled its fraying patience with protesters in Hong Kong after they stormed the city’s legislature, calling the violent turn a direct challenge to Beijing’s authority and suggesting it would have to be answered.
Public statements from Beijing marked a shift in Chinese leaders’ attitude toward the crisis in the semiautonomous territory, indicating they may be forced to step in….

Consistent with that, the PLA’s Hong Kong garrison has begun “emergency handling” exercises.

And this:

The [PRC] government’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office called the protests a “blatant challenge to the bottom line of ‘one country, two systems’….”

Hardly.  The PRC’s proposed extradition law for Hong Kong is a deliberate threat to the two systems part.  Yet, here’s Zhang Jian, Associate Research Fellow at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies:

The suspension of the bill is tantamount to a withdrawal. There is no more room for backing down, no more ground for retreating.

This, of course, is nonsense. Suspension is not withdrawal, it’s a deliberate attempt to keep the extradition bill alive for later, quieter reconsideration and for enactment out of site of the peasantry. There’s plenty of room for continued action: the actual withdrawal of the bill.

Beijing has often appeared tolerant in the face of mass protests in mainland China and Hong Kong—and when passions and attention fade, authorities detain, attack, or otherwise punish ringleaders to prevent a recurrence.

To be sure, that’s a faux patience, and the tanks may well roll across the bridges, just as they rolled into Tiananmen Square not so very long ago when another bunch of uppity peasants demanded freedom.

“The Trump Doctrine”

Posted on by
Reply

That’s the title of The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial last Sunday about President Donald Trump’s general foreign policy.  They’ve misunderstood it, though, beginning with their subheadline:

With this President, the diplomacy is always personal.

Well, of course it is. Just as all politics are local, so all diplomacy is personal: the principals must know who each other are and the degree to which they can trust each other.

And this:

President Trump believes in personal diplomacy and showmanship above all in foreign policy….

Well, no. Trump sees personal diplomacy and showmanship as necessary early, if not first, steps in foreign policy.  Establishment diplomats and policy “experts” are too used to conducting matters quietly and behind the scenes—and they have an unblemished record of failure in serious policy matters in areas, for instance, related to Iran, the People’s Republic of China, and northern Korea. Starting things out in a highly publicized—showman-ized—manner prevents those diplomats from hiding behind their comfortable gentility as they perpetuate their useless chit-chat.

And finally this:

But Mr Trump’s public canoodling with Mr Putin is still a sorry spectacle.

It’s amazing that journalists of the NLMSM—including those of the WSJ—still, after all these years, remain so self-absorbed that they can’t recognize when they’re being trolled.

Nike Fail

Posted on by
2

Nike has signified its agreement with Colin Kaepernick‘s assessment that Nike’s planned Betsy Ross-flagged shoe, intended to be released for Independence Day celebrations, was offensive to some by canceling the release.  Kaepernick’s claim was that

he and others felt the Betsy Ross flag is an offensive symbol because of its connection to an era of slavery

Never mind that, were it not for those evil slavers who founded our nation and fought for our independence, we’d still be dealing in slavery and indentured servitude—and guess what would be the lot of current immigrants, legal and illegal.

Kaepernick knows all of this, he’s a K-12 graduate, and he attended college while he played semi-pro football before joining the NFL. He’s just in his current game for his ego now, and out of his desperation to be relevant.

On the other hand, the members of Nike’s management team have not just shown their pretense of ignorance, they’ve demonstrated—at the very least—their cowardice, both individually and as a group.

Arizona’s Republican Governor, Doug Ducey, has taken a proper response, canceling State-originating tax breaks for a planned Nike factory in the State.  He went on:

Instead of celebrating American history the week of our nation’s independence, Nike has apparently decided that Betsy Ross is unworthy, and has bowed to the current onslaught of political correctness and historical revisionism,

It seems to me that Nike’s decision to cancel the Betsy Ross flag shoe is offensive to many.  Nike should respond by reissuing the shoe at a discount.

Nike won’t.  That leaves it up to the rest of us.

All of us should stop doing business with Nike.  Its management team has rendered the company useless and a party to racism. All at the behest of a…person…who’s not only not on Nike’s board; he’s not even a shareholder.  He’s just an endorser—which means Nike is paying him to make the decision to cancel an Independence Day celebration that honored a key player in our independence struggle.

Our current national flag, as an evolution of the Betsy Ross flag, also is “connected to an era of slavery”—maybe we should cancel it, too.  Oh, wait—Kaepernick already is trying for that, with his shameful knee-taking while our national anthem plays and our flag is raised.

None of us should pay any further attention to Kaepernick: his is just another example of cynically manufacturing a racist beef where no beef exists.