Category Archives: rights

The Progressive Second Economic Bill of Rights

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Here they are, via CatholicVote.org.

1. We believe that Wall Street needs stronger rules and tougher enforcement, and we’re willing to fight for it.

Because We Know Better than you. A free market can’t possibly be as good as government; we citizens acting on our own imperatives in that free market just aren’t smart enough to act without Big Government oversight.

Certainly, a case can be made for tougher enforcement of existing law. However, we have enough such laws and rules; we don’t need more. Indeed, enforcement would get much simpler were the extraneous laws and rules—vis., Dodd-Frank’s rules regarding who is allowed to extend credit, and the requirements that must be met independently of the terms freely agreed by the participants to the contract—rescinded.

2. We believe in science, and that means that we have a responsibility to protect this Earth.

Really? Is that why basic tenets of science are violated through suppression of scientific journals that publish papers that dispute, if not refute, the “settled science” of climate change? Is that why climate models are protected from peer review? Is that why data are outright falsified?

3. We believe that the Internet shouldn’t be rigged to benefit big corporations, and that means real net neutrality.

No need for a free market here, either. Progressives know what’s “fair,” Progressives know what “neutrality” is. No one else need comment.

4. We believe that no one should work full-time and still live in poverty, and that means raising the minimum wage.

5. We believe that fast-food workers deserve a livable wage, and that means that when they take to the picket line, we are proud to fight alongside them.

Both 4 and 5 together…. Never mind that minimum wage law, that invention of FDR, originally was written explicitly on racist grounds so that white, northern union workers wouldn’t get priced out of jobs by black workers heading north to find work. Never mind that those who most need the jobs today—teenagers (especially black teenagers in the inner cities) just starting out, adults (mostly black single mothers) working the minimum wage job as a second source of income, working poor married couples taking the minimum wage job as a second source of income—now will be priced out of those jobs. Never mind that other jobs will go over to automation. Never mind that minimum wage jobs have a disparate impact on minority workers. Those jobs will be lost, as the CBO already has noted. Lost jobs get increased poverty which gets more government handouts which gets…votes.

6. We believe that students are entitled to get an education without being crushed by debt.

That would be nice, and work-study arrangements already are available, so are merit-based scholarships. Government subsidies of colleges and universities—both outright subsidies and those masquerading as “research grants” of one sort or another as well as outright grants to students—contribute heavily to the high and rising tuition prices. Cutting those subsidies would go a long way to alleviating the cost to the student. On the other hand, Progressives have yet to explain why a taxpayer in bankrupt Illinois with a child in college should contribute his tax money to mitigating the college expenses of a taxpayer in bankrupt California whose child also is in college.

7. We believe that after a lifetime of work, people are entitled to retire with dignity, and that means protecting Social Security, Medicare, and pensions.

Pick one; the two are mutually exclusive. “Protecting” means raising taxes. Increased taxes means less money in the private sector with which to run businesses, create jobs, have money to spend—which turns the cycle of running businesses, creating jobs, having money to spend anew. Moreover, there’s no dignity in living one’s own retirement by taking money away from someone else’s currently working child.

Certainly, after a lifetime of work, people should be able to retire with dignity. But that means people should be putting money aside for their own future retirement, not giving their money to someone else who’s retired now. That requires privatizing Social Security and Medicare. That requires letting bankrupt pension plans stay failed within the existing Federal pension insurance law, and moving employees onto defined contribution plans (á la 401(k)s). People with skin in the retirement game, people responsible for their own futures, will do a far better job of managing their money than the Federal government, empirically, has done.

8. We believe—I can’t believe I have to say this in 2014—we believe in equal pay for equal work.

9. We believe that equal means equal, and that’s true in marriage, it’s true in the workplace, it’s true in all of America.

These also mean actually equal work. Time off for child raising, for instance, whether taken by a man or a woman, is time not working. It’s also time, nearly universally, not staying current on the work requirements and techniques, not accruing experience in the work, etc. Paying these folks a wage numerically equal to others who’ve not taken that time off most assuredly is not equal pay.

10. We believe that immigration has made this country strong and vibrant, and that means reform.

Of course. But what the Progressives elide here is that “reform” to them means open, uncontrolled borders with, as Attorney General Eric Holder demanded, a “civil and human right” to enter our country illegally and without consequence. But with grave harm to what it means to be a nation.

11. And we believe that corporations are not people, that women have a right to their bodies. We will overturn Hobby Lobby and we will fight for it. We will fight for it!

These are two separate items. Corporations aren’t people—OK. In that case, I assume Progressives are fine with having to get sales approvals from each of the several tens of thousands of individual owners of General Electric in order to buy one of their washing machines. More to the point, as even Progressives are wont to say (when it’s convenient to them), it’s the law of the land. Moreover, it’s settled law. Corporations are people; the courts have long ruled so.

Finally, of course women have a right to their bodies. What they don’t have is a right to OPM for paying for their contraceptives. What they don’t have is a right to overrule the religious beliefs of others in order to force those others pay for women’s stuff.

Amnesty and Rights

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Attorney General Eric Holder now is claiming amnesty to be both a civil and a human right. In his rambling way, he makes says this [emphasis in the cite]:

Creating a pathway to earned citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in this country is essential. The way we treat our friends and neighbors who are undocumented—by creating a mechanism for them to earn citizenship and move out of the shadows—transcends the issue of immigration status. This is a matter of civil and human rights.

I’ll leave aside the distinction and lack of overlap between civil rights and human rights, except to note that a distinguished lawyer such as our Mr Holder should know better.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R, AL) has a response in a larger speech on the Senate floor. The part relevant to this subject begins at around 0+50.

The Obama administration officials have gone so far as to describe amnesty as a civil right. That’s an argument against the very idea of a nation state and the idea of a nation’s borders. Of course, there can be no civil right to enter a country unlawfully and then to demand lawful status and even citizenship. Of course, there’s not. How can this possibly be that the Attorney General of the United States would assert that people have a Constitutional right to enter unlawfully and be given amnesty? That’s the kind of thinking that’s got us into this fix, and it’s encouraged the unlawful flow of immigration. The actual legal rights that are being violated here, today, I suggest are the rights of the American citizens, and as Civil Rights Commission Member of the US Commission on Civil Rights, Peter Kirsanow, warned, our African American citizens often are the ones that are hurt the most and also recent immigrant arrivals and working Americans. So what about their rights? … What about the right of every citizen to the protection of immigration laws that we have in America today?

One small part of this larger question, as an aside: the Attorney General asserts that people have a Constitutional right to break the law? Well, that is consistent with this President’s cavalier attitude toward American law, even toward the supreme Law of our Land.

Another Failure in Foreign Policy

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The United Nations Security Council called for an immediate halt to fighting in the Gaza Strip at an emergency session Sunday evening….

And

A press statement issued by the Security Council expressed “serious concern at the escalation of violence,” called for the protection of civilians under international humanitarian law, and said it was troubled by the growing number of casualties.

This is disgusting, and it’s…sad…that the Obama administration approved this—recall that the US could have vetoed this travesty.

There can be no useful cease fire with terrorists—the PA will simply use the time to regroup, rearm, and resume raining rockets on Israeli civilians and children. The PA will simply use the time to replace its combat casualties, retrain them, and do a better job of tunneling and then infiltrating under the Israeli border to wreck mayhem in Israeli kibbutzim and towns and cities. The PA will simply use the time to better target their rockets to resume their efforts at nuclear terrorism.

Furthermore, the crocodile tears over the Gazan civilian casualties wholly ignore the fact that the Israelis are at pains to avoid civilian casualties, using a three-step process to attack a target where civilians may be at risk. First, the IDF makes phone calls to the civilians in the target building, and it drops leaflets in the area, warning of the impending attack. The second step is to fire a small explosive onto the roof of the target building—a roof knock—to warn that the attack has become imminent. Only then is the building targeted with operational rounds. Further, the IDF waves off missiles in flight when civilians are discovered to be in the area after launch.

All of this, of course, allows terrorists to escape among those civilians in order to try again. Those crocodile tears also ignore the fact that the PA actively use their Gazan civilians as shields to protect their terrorists and their weaponry, concealing rockets in homes and mosques, preventing the civilians from leaving the area when warned, and so on.

The UN resolution also ignores UN complicity in the PA’s terrorism: 20 PA rockets were found secreted in an “unused” UNRWA school.

But President Barack Obama approved that UN resolution.

The Democrats Don’t Like Speech?

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At least when it’s not been approved by them. This Constitutional Amendment passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday on a straight party line vote:

                       JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United

States relating to contributions and expenditures intended

                       to affect elections.

1 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives

2 of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two

3 thirds of each House concurring therein), That the fol

4 lowing article is proposed as an amendment to the Con

5 stitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all

6 intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when

7 ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several

8 States:

1                          “ARTICLE—

2 “SECTION 1. To advance the fundamental principle

3 of political equality for all, and to protect the integrity

4 of the legislative and electoral processes, Congress shall

5 have power to regulate the raising and spending of money

6 and in-kind equivalents with respect to Federal elections,

7 including through setting limits on—

8          “(1) the amount of contributions to candidates

9 for nomination for election to, or for election to,

10 Federal office; and

11         “(2) the amount of funds that may be spent by,

12 in support of, or in opposition to such candidates.

13 “SECTION 2. To advance the fundamental principle

14 of political equality for all, and to protect the integrity

15 of the legislative and electoral processes, each State shall

16 have power to regulate the raising and spending of money

17 and in-kind equivalents with respect to State elections, in

18 cluding through setting limits on—

19         “(1) the amount of contributions to candidates

20 for nomination for election to, or for election to,

21 State office; and

22         “(2) the amount of funds that may be spent by,

23 in support of, or in opposition to such candidates.

1 “SECTION 3. Nothing in this article shall be con

2 strued to grant Congress the power to abridge the freedom

3 of the press.

4 “SECTION 4. Congress and the States shall have

5 power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate

6 legislation.”.

Sections 1 and 2 are identical other than Sect 1 addresses Congress’ power, and Sect 2 addresses States’ power. The key phrase is this: shall have power to regulate the raising and spending of money and in-kind equivalents with respect to Federal elections, including through setting limits on together with its applicability to limiting contributions. It’s open-ended. A party in the majority would be fully empowered by this Amendment, were it to pass, to set the limit at zero regarding candidates of the opposing party. Even were the limits found required to be applied equally to all candidates, the incumbents would have the critical advantage of already having, for instance, name recognition and the bully pulpits of their elected offices to spread their messages—advantages denied the other candidates by their inability to purchase air and newspaper time, or to stump.

This is a guaranteed incumbency amendment, and nothing else.

The EU, Immigration, and National Sovereignty

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Germany can’t require the spouses of Turkish immigrants to show a basic knowledge of the German language before granting them visas, the European Union’s top court ruled on Thursday, overturning a condition aimed at preventing forced marriages and at promoting integration.

Foreigners, after all, shouldn’t be expected to assimilate into the culture and country to which they emigrate; they should continue to live apart from their new community, leading in the aggregate to the fractionation of their new “country.”

There are complications in this particular case (there always are when law is involved), but that’s the thrust of this ruling. The court went on:

A new restriction might be permitted if it were justified by an overriding public interest, and didn’t “go beyond what is necessary in order to attain it,” the court said.

However, Germany’s language requirement didn’t meet those conditions, the court said.

Because assimilation and integration into the host society, the host and sovereign nation, isn’t an overriding public interest. But then, the EU doesn’t want its constituent members to be unified and sovereign countries, anyway—fractionation facilitates the current push for political union of the European Union into one nation by weakening government’s ability to resist the push.