Tag Archives: freedom

A Destroyer Sailed

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Lu Kang, Director-General of the People’s Republic of China Foreign Affairs Ministry’s Department of Information, complained about the USS Lassen’s passage through the waters surrounding the Spratly Islands in the southern part of the South China Sea.

The warship, USS Lassen, illegally entered waters near relevant islands and reefs within China’s Nansha Islands without permission from the Chinese government. To this the Chinese side expresses its strong discontentment and resolute opposition.

No, no permission was necessary for an American naval vessel—or any other nation’s vessels, military or civilian—to sail through the international waters surrounding the Spratlys.

To this the Eric Hines side expresses its strong contempt and resolute opposition to the PRC’s naked sea grab. After all, those islands and their surrounding international waters do lie within Brunei’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

The Chinese side strongly urges the US side to negotiate seriously with China, immediately rectify its mistakes, and not to undertake any risky and provocative actions that threaten Chinese sovereignty and security interests.

Sure. When will the PRC begin to negotiate seriously, immediately rectify its mistakes, desist from its ongoing risky and provocative actions that threaten the sovereignty and security interests of the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, and the other nations around the South China Sea?

Oh, and withdraw its military equipment from those international waters and return them to PRC territory?

“The Law Must Change”

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There are a couple of cases before the Supreme Court in this session involving questions of excessive punishment. One case involves a defendant on death row in a case where a jury rendered a majority advisory verdict applying the death penalty on the defendant’s conviction of murder, with the judge having the final say. The argument here is that this

violates a 2002 precedent that defendants are entitled to have a jury, rather than a judge, determine a death sentence.

The other case, though, is the one that interests me. In this case, a 17-year-old, a juvenile under the definitions extant at the time, was convicted in 1963 of murdering a sheriff’s deputy and given a life without parole sentence. His appeal asks the Court to make retroactive its 2012 ruling that

juveniles cannot automatically be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

The government agrees with the defendant in this case, which may or may not be an appropriate thing to do in such matters, depending on the facts of a particular case.

What’s of critical importance here, though, is the government’s argument in supporting the defendant. Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben argued

The law must change to accommodate the compelling interests in having the characteristics of youth that mitigate culpability considered in the sentencing process[.]

That’s absolutely true. Laws passed by our elected representatives must change to accommodate society’s changing compelling interests. But the courts cannot do that. The courts’ role is strictly limited under our social compact to striking a law down if it violates our Constitution and to applying the law as it is written if the law is Constitutional. The task of making law, or of modifying existing law, is solely within the province of our legislature, our elected representatives, since making or modifying law is purely a political matter and not at all a judicial one.

The Supremes, if they’re to be true to their oaths of office, must reject the appeal. The Justices certainly can, in their published opinion(s) on the case, advise the Congress to make changes the Justices individually or collectively think appropriate, but they may not legislate from the bench.

Black Lives Matter

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Plainly, though, as this image (via the StarTribune) from the Black Lives Matter Die-In which the BLM movement staged at Minneapolis, MN’s Twin Cities Marathon clearly demonstrate, only black lives matter. Notice: in this BLM demonstration, white guys are dead. Black lives are thriving and enjoying the scenery.BlackLivesMatter

Or it’s a satire on the whole BLM bigotry foolishness, and BLM got punked.

 

h/t Power Line

Democrats’ Habit of Ruling by Fiat

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Keep in mind President Barack Obama’s penchant for Executive Orders and Executive Actions whenever he can’t get his way with Congress, our elected representatives—and so whenever he can’t get his way with us. He issues these EOs and EAs, sometimes strictly legally and sometimes unconstitutionally, but nearly always in contravention of the will of Congress—of us.

Now we get Hillary Clinton’s (Democratic Presidential candidate) plans for when she’s President. Using gun control, that long-time Democratic Party attack on our 2nd Amendment, as her venue, Clinton intends to “use executive authority”—EOs and EAs, governance by fiat in the finest Democratic Party tradition—as the centerpiece of her Presidency.

Recall that Clinton has identified herself as a Proud Progressive.

Recall the words of one of her movement’s founders, Herb Croly:

To be sure, any increase in centralized power and responsibility, expedient or inexpedient, is injurious to certain aspects of traditional American democracy. But the fault in that case lies with the democratic tradition; and the erroneous and misleading tradition must yield before the march of constructive national democracy…. [T]he average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities as a democrat.

Recall all of this in the fall of 2016.

Mass Shooting and Gun “Control”

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President Barack Obama, in his crocodile tears speech after the Oregon shooting, called for some statistics on gun control and gun deaths. Here’s one under a surprisingly misleading headline by The Wall Street Journal.

The researchers counted 23 mass shootings in 13 European nations plus Russia from 2000 to 2014, with a total of 203 deaths. During that time, the US saw 133 shootings and 487 dead….

Twenty-three mass shootings averaged almost nine deaths per mass shooting. In the US, the 133 mass shootings averaged a bit over three and a half.

When a gun is hard to get, you have to make it count. Or, just maybe, good guys, who are able to have guns, are able to cut short the mass shooting events.