Category Archives: rights

A Conservative’s Thoughts on Rights and Duties, their Duality, and some Implications

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I have a new pamphlet out, A Conservative’s Thoughts on Rights and Duties, their Duality, and some Implications; a link to the Kindle version of it (the only version, currently) has been added to the sidebar at right.

I touched on rights and duties and their duality in my book A Conservative’s Manifesto, but only tangentially to a larger discussion of Conservative principles.  However, an understanding of individual rights and individual duties, especially their nature as individual endowments rather than as attributes of groups of men or as grants from some men acting in a “government’s” name, forms a critical part of Conservative thought.  Now, with us Americans broadly divided on what our rights and duties really are, or even whether the government should have them instead of us, is the time to expand on that peripheral discussion and to address the matter directly.

My central thesis is this: our inalienable rights and our inalienable duties, as endowments from and by our Creator, and as duals of each other, are a part of the fabric of our existence—both as individual rights and duties and in the capacity of those duals.  Further, just as importantly, our inalienable rights and our inalienable duties are in each of us as individuals; they are not in groups of us, they are not in the whole of us as a nation.  Each one of us is possessed of them entirely in ourselves.

This, of course, has implications for the role our government, and especially for the roles of “civil law” and “civil rights,” in our lives.

I hope you enjoy the pamphlet.

Anti-Religion Mendacity

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Pinellas Park, FL, has a bible that sits on a dais in its city council chambers.  This bothers Randy Heine a very great deal.

The Bible must go.  It doesn’t belong in a government meeting.  Every time I speak, it makes me feel awkward.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has taken up the cause.

Not only is the city council sending a message of endorsement for Christianity over other religions and nonreligion [a letter of theirs to the city council asserts], but display of this King James Bible sends a message of endorsement of one particular Christian sect over all others.

Of course it does no such thing, no more than the ubiquitous references to God in our government documents and on our currency and…does any such thing, nor does our Congress and our Supreme Court opening sessions with prayer does any such thing.

FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel complained that he has written four letters to Pinellas Park, and

They’ve just refused to even deign to answer our issues, so I think that says something about their mindset.

A mindset with which I heartily agree: gangs like FFRF aren’t worth the trouble of answering, except in court to swat down their plaints.

Also, Americans Atheists Inc is bellyaching because there’s a Ten Commandments monument outside the capitol building in Oklahoma City.  In part, their complaint asserts

While at the state Capitol, ([individual plaintiff Aimee] Breeze) is confronted by the Ten Commandments display, which she views as hurtful and exclusive and therefore avoids the area of the display while at the Capitol[.]

Nah.  There’s no push to require Breeze to believe or to think or to behave in a particular way.  There’s no endorsement of any religion.  The only exclusion going on here is Breeze’s exclusion of others’ beliefs.

In fact, the Constitution is not silent on government’s role in matters of religion:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….

Both of those clauses apply, not just one convenient to anti-religionists.  And they mean that, in a political arena, anti-religionists don’t get to infringe free exercise, either, morally, if not strictly legally.

Of course there’s also no pressure emanating from a Bible or a Ten Commandments monument pushing members of other religious faiths, or atheists, to believe—or not—in a particular way.  Unless there’s something emanating from the Bible or the monument because they’re real.

These anti-religionists know this full well.

Another Judge and Free Speech

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On Friday a Wisconsin judge struck a major blow for free political speech when he quashed subpoenas to conservative groups and ordered the return of property to the targets of a so-called John Doe campaign-finance probe.

Wisconsin John Doe “investigations” are secret, star chamber probes into prosecutorial targets in which even the targets are forbidden to speak publicly.  In this case, the targets were conservative organizations who had supported Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in that state’s recently concluded recall election (which Walker won by a larger margin than his original election).  This secret fishing expedition was being conducted by special prosecutor Francis Schmitz at the behest of Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf.

Wisconsin Judge Gregory A. Peterson tossed most of Schmitz’ subpoenas, generally gutting the Landgraf/Schmitz job action.  Peterson was blunt in his ruling:

[The subpoenas] do not show probable cause that the moving parties committed any violations of the campaign finance laws.

And

There is no evidence of express advocacy [as required under Wisconsin law in order t oshow a violation]…the subpoenas fail to show probable cause that a crime was committed.  …the State is not claiming that any of the independent organizations expressly advocated.

Despite disgruntled Wisconsin Democrats’ best efforts (this is the party, remember, that a couple of years ago ran out of Wisconsin en masse, thereby shutting down the state’s government, when they couldn’t get their way on labor law) to continue their attempts to intimidate those of whom they disapprove and to prevent them from speaking, a judge has intercepted their plans and disrupted them, for a time.

A New Phase

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…in the Obama administration’s war on education.

The DoJ and the Department of Education have sent out another of their Dear Colleague letters, this time concerning the disparate impact of punishing minority students in our public schools.  Investor’s Business Daily summarized the letter,

Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan Wednesday issued “recommendations” urging schools to find ways to avoid suspending or expelling students who act out.  …

The two Cabinet members argued that suspensions deny minority students time in the classroom….

And suspensions of “majority” students don’t have the same effect?  No, that’s not Eric Holder’s and Arne Duncan’s argument.  They argued in their 32 pg letter that “minority” students get the treatment disproportionately—disparately.  Never mind that these students misbehave…disparately.

The danger of applying this pernicious and racist disparate impact meme is clearly identified by Commissioner Gail Heriot of the United States Commission on Civil Rights in her remarks on the Commission’s School Discipline and Disparate Impact report:

There are two sides to the “disparate impact” coin.  Secretary Duncan focuses only upon the fact that, as a group, African-American students are suspended and expelled more often than other students.  By failing to consider the other side of the coin—that African-American students may be disproportionately victimized by disorderly classrooms—his policy could easily end up doing more harm than good to the very group he is attempting to help.

Indeed.  This disparate impact policy on school discipline will have a disparate impact on minority students’ ability to get an education in a classroom full of disparate impact-protected misbehavers.  All while carefully ignoring the underlying causes of one group having a higher misbehavior rate than another group.

More, a footnote in Heriot’s remarks also hints at the fundamental lawlessness of the Obama administration [emphasis added]:

4 [page 98 of the report, the same page as the portion of Heriot’s remarks quoted above] I agree with Commissioner Gaziano that Title VI simply does not permit the Department of Education to proceed against schools on a disparate impact theory and that the Department’s regulation nonetheless adopting that theory, 34 CFR sec. 100.3, is therefore unauthorized by law.  It requires actual discrimination.  See Section 601 (Title VI) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 USC sec. 2000d (No person shall “on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance”).  See also Alexander v Sandoval, 532 US 275 (2001). I also agree with Commissioner Gaziano that the problem with disparate impact analysis is not simply that it goes beyond what Congress authorized in Title VI; it actually contradicts Title VI.  If one group receives more school discipline than another because (for whatever reason) its members violated more school rules than the other, race-conscious efforts to alter the “disparate impact” are usually themselves discriminatory.

Sadly, this phase, in addition to denying minority students access to their education, is also another example of the unconscious racism of the Left.

Property Rights, Local Version

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Winona, MN, has decided it has the right to determine what a man can do with his private property and do so without such trivial acts as seizing it under eminent domain and paying “just compensation” for it.  The 5th Amendment doesn’t apply to this town’s City Council, it seems.

Winona’s “government” has decided that only 30% of the homeowners on any city block will be allowed to rent their homes, and the city will decide which 30% will receive this boon.

Aside from the legal question of this property taking, there are practical effects.  Winona is a university town, and many of its city blocks are within student-commute of the university.  Renting a house by groups of students, or renting a room or two in a house by a student (letting a room counts the whole house against the 30% limit), was a way for a student to find cheap housing.  No more.

Renting a house, or a room or two, was a way for a homeowner to pick up some additional income, an especially valuable thing in this economy of ours.  No more.

Renting a house when it was for sale, but not selling, was a way for a homeowner to pick up some extra income and perhaps relocate to a new job and be able to afford housing in the new location.  No more.

The Winona City Council members have decided they will make these decisions—mere homeowners are unequal to the task—and they will limit to whom they grant their blessing.

It’s a twofer: arrogant and unconstitutional.