Tag Archives: ethics

Projecting

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The Democrats are at it again.

Projection is an unconscious defense mechanism by which a person attributes to someone else unacknowledged ideas, thoughts, feelings, and impulses that they cannot accept as their own. Or, as the Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health puts it,

It’s often called the “blaming” mechanism because in using it the person seeks to place the blame for personal inadequacies upon someone else.

It’s also a broader, more innocent thing: the attribution of one’s own attitudes, feelings, or suppositions to others. Which is to say, in the latter case in particular, the assumption that everyone else is just like the one making the attribution.

Here’s Hillary Clinton, with that in mind.

Clinton said that laws requiring voters to show identification at polls were part of “a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people, and young people from one end of our country to the other.”

And

Clinton even made it personal, saying potential general election foes Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and Rick Perry were “deliberately trying to stop” minority voters from participating.

It takes a racist to manufacture a racism beef where there plainly is no racism involved (for the particular record, black voter turnout is the same or higher in those states with relatively stringent voter-ID laws than in those states without, and it’s the same or higher in those states with them than it was before those laws were enacted in those states). But then she’s a leader in the party of the racist KKK, she’s a leader in the party of racist Jim Crow, she’s a leader in the party of racist and sexist affirmative action.

She’s projecting.

A New World “Order?”

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This still is President Barack Obama’s problem, and it seems to be Hillary Clinton’s as well.

The causes of war as discerned ever since Thucydides’ time are three: wars of ideology, of fear, and of gain.
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Thucydides traced the war that ruined ancient Greece to Sparta’s fear that Athens’ growing power was crossing the line where it would be impossible to contain. Israel faces that threat from Iran, as today’s international structures for the maintenance of international security have failed to halt Iran’s drive, propelled by religious ideology, to possess nuclear weapons. Israel, bereft of its traditional sense of American support, is making ready to act against Iran’s menace to its existence. President Obama’s priority must [be to] repair relations with Israel by…convincing its leaders that the US understands Israel’s uniquely dangerous position.

And there now grows a deepening appetite for gain. America, perceived as eager to shed the burdens of world order in order to be “fundamentally transformed” through European-style social commitments, talks of engagement even when Iran’s “diplomacy” is a form of protracted warfare.

Three years later, we’re nearly at that end, and still with no serious effort by Obama—or Clinton—to repair relations.

The Money Still Isn’t There

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The Illinois Supreme Court struck down the state’s 2013 pension overhaul, unraveling an effort by lawmakers to rein in benefits for the consistently underfunded public-sector system.

The current pension shortfall is estimated at $111 billion, one of the largest nationally.

So now the citizens of Illinois must act. It is, after all, their Constitution, not the judges’. Assume that the judges of Illinois’ Supreme Court aren’t partisan hacks (they’re politician-lawyers who are elected to 10-year terms by the citizens of Illinois) and have correctly interpreted the state’s Constitution: they ruled correctly, ruling in accordance with the text of the state’s constitution.

Get to work, folks. Nobody else is going to bail you out, nobody else has an obligation to bear the expense of your own foolishness in repeatedly selecting politicians to represent you in Springfield like those who got you into this mess.

Specialized Judges, But for Whom Do They Work?

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Joel Shapiro faced an uphill battle when he fought the Securities and Exchange Commission in an Atlanta court last year.

The investment-firm chief executive came before an SEC administrative law judge who has never fully cleared a defendant. In August, the judge found Mr Shapiro had violated securities law, showing “reckless disregard” for his duty to investors.

Shapiro’s outcome isn’t unusual. Shockingly, neither is that SEC admin judge’s record. Appeal? Don’t bet against the house [emphasis added].

The odds are once more against Mr Shapiro as he challenges this ruling. His appeal will be decided by the SEC’s five commissioners, the same body that decided the case against him should go forward in the first place.

Indeed,

The SEC won against 90% of defendants before its own judges in contested cases from October 2010 through March of this year, according to the Journal analysis. That was markedly higher than the 69% success the agency obtained against defendants in federal court over the same period, based on SEC data.

There’s nothing wrong with using judges specialized in an aspect of the law: we get faster results that more closely align with the law and with justice. That’s what bankruptcy judges do, for instance.

Specialized judges though, regardless of their specialty, need to be Article III judges—judges who are part of that third branch of our Federal government, like bankruptcy judges—not Article II judges. An Article II judge—that SEC judge, for instance—is created by the Executive Branch, and he works for the agency bringing the complaint.

No, the critical item here is the judge’s employer. With the SEC, for instance, it’s an Executive Branch judge, an SEC judge, adjudicating a case brought by a part of the Executive Branch, the SEC. That’s like the cop bringing his own judge to traffic court. Or a Federal prosecutor bringing his own judge to criminal court.

Maybe Shapiro has a case, and maybe he’s guilty as sin. It’s impossible to say in an SEC court. Can you say, “Conflict of interest,” boys and girls?

How Crass

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Hillary Clinton has figured out a way to monetize Mother’s Day—inviting supporters to enter a contest where she’ll ring up Mom just in case you forget to send flowers.
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Entering is free, but those who sign up get directed to a page where they get the chance to “increase your odds” by giving cash to Clinton’s presidential campaign. Contribution amounts are listed at amounts ranging from $5 to $2,700.

There is no second prize listed….

Of course there’s a second prize: a campaign seasonful of duns from Clinton for more money.