Tag Archives: rights

Dismembering Government?

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If the advance word leaks about President Donald Trump’s upcoming budget proposal can be believed, it would appear that his swamp-draining and Government downsizing are about to get start.  And “news” outlets like CNN are getting their panties bunched over the prospect.  This is from this outlet’s piece, tellingly headlined Trump’s plan to dismember government:

It would codify an assault on regulatory regimes over the environment, business and education bequeathed by former President Barack Obama, and attempt to halt decades of steadily growing government reach.

And this:

Slicing up government power is part of a deeper antipathy towards institutions and the political establishment that runs deep in the Trump White House.

Yewbetcha. And among us poor, dumb, gun-toting, Bible-clinging, irredeemably deplorable denizens of flyover country, too.

And this from The Washington Post, albeit a bit less strident than CNN:

President Trump’s budget proposal this week would shake the federal government to its core if enacted, culling back numerous programs and expediting a historic contraction of the federal workforce.

And this from the Post‘s cite of Robert Reischauer, of an earlier time’s CBO:

These are not the kind of cuts that you can accommodate by tightening the belt one notch, by shaving a little bit off of a program, or by downsizing a few staff here or there.  These are cuts that would require a wholesale triage of a vast array of federal activities.

Dismember government: ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished.

A Circular Judge-Made “Law”

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A jury can’t deliberate impartially and independently if its deliberations are going to be overseen by the presiding judge or any other government representative.  Such government oversight smacks of Bushel.  Yet that’s what the Supreme Court has decided must be in certain cases.

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled courts must review typically secret jury deliberations when a juror relies on racial or ethnic stereotypes to convict a defendant.

The 5-3 opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy found the Constitution’s call for a colorblind justice system outweighed traditional interests in promoting robust jury deliberations and protecting verdicts from challenge.

In an all too typical case of lawmaking from the Bench, Kennedy wrote

A constitutional rule that racial bias in the justice system must be addressed—including, in some instances, after the verdict has been entered—is necessary to prevent a systemic loss of confidence in jury verdicts….

And so, with his opinion, Kennedy usurped the authority of We the People and legislated on his own (lack of) authority.  It may be that such a statute, even an Amendment to our Constitution, is necessary, but that’s a political decision, and so it’s exclusively for us to decide, not a lone judge (or five lone judges in the present case).

Note that Kennedy’s “constitutional rule” is not, in itself, a direct attempt to amend our Constitution or otherwise to legislate.  It is, instead, a backdoor attempt, by creating a judicial rule that directs how the Constitution or a State’s law must be applied from outside of the plain text of the thing.

Aside from that, in order to legitimize (arguendo) such a penetration of the secrecy of jury deliberations, the existence of racial bias must first be shown.  Yet how that bias can be shown without penetration the cloak of secrecy has been elided by the five justices.  Kennedy centered his new rule on a juror in the present case voluntarily speaking up, but this is a thin reed, indeed.  Not all jurors will come forward, and of those that do, not all can be believed.  Especially with the former situation extant, under Kennedy’s rule there no longer can be equal protection under law—only “protection” when it suits a juror, and hopefully a juror with no axe to grind.

No, the answer is a proactive one, and it’s one that already exists: pre-trial juror selection.  A suitably qualified lawyer—and so are they all, all qualified lawyers—can tease out bias in a juror while the juror still is only prospective, and exclude him.

Constitutional Carry

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That’s the term currently in vogue for the permitless carrying of handguns, whether openly or concealed; it’s the concept that the 2nd Amendment is all the permit an American citizen needs to carry his handgun.

New Hampshire has become the 12th State eliminate the need for a State-issued permit for concealed carry; it already had permitless open carry.  With the bill signed into law by Governor Chris Sununu, a New Hampshire citizen is allowed

the unlicensed transport or carry of a firearm in a vehicle, or on or about one’s person, whether openly or concealed, loaded or unloaded…if that individual is not otherwise prohibited by statute from possessing a firearm in the state of New Hampshire.

[Aside: it’s too bad Federal laws can’t be this brief and to the point.]

Of course, the Progressive-Democrat gun control persons are up in arms about this.  Raymond Buckley, New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman, for instance:

New Hampshire has imminent issues that need the Governor’s attention, but further relaxing the state’s notoriously lax gun laws is not one of them[.]

Never mind that there have been zero school shootings in New Hampshire since 1990.  California has had 19 school shooting deaths just since 2010.

DC had at least 32 incidents of gunfire within 500ft of a school, during school hours, in 2011-2012; the District still has one of the tightest gun control régimes, even after Heller.  Chicago, also with one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation, averaged 82 shootings per week in 2016 through August of that year.  And on and on.

“Notoriously lax”—read: Progressive-Democrats can’t impose their rule asserting government control over the matter.

Free Speech for Me; You Shut Up

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University of Chicago pupils (I can’t call them even students in the scale of pupil-student-scholar) are objecting to non-Left speakers being allowed on “their” campus.

The [pupils] objected to the school’s Institute of Politics’ invitation to former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. They claim that allowing him to speak “normalizes bigotry” and provides a platform for fascism.

These precious ones are actively ducking away from a clear opportunity to “denormalize bigotry” by running away from him.

The coalition of students from U of C Resists, Graduate Students United, Students Working Against Prisons, and UChicago Socialists claim that the school’s “commitment to free expression doesn’t require the institution to host him….

Speech should be free only for the Left, they claim.  They are the epitome of the fascism and bigotry these wondrous ones pretend to oppose.

Alternatively, these precious ones are just so terrified of a different view, just so unconfident of their own reasoning faculties, that they’d rather run screaming for the Midway and avoid debate rather than face the alternatives and demonstrate with rational discourse, logic, and fact the suboptimality of their opponents’ viewpoints.  Or they’re aware of the fragility of their own and so of their own inability to mount a coherent, reasoned demonstration of the superiority of their own.

A Hidden Thought from the Republic of China

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Buried at the bottom of a Japan Times piece on the history of the Island of Taiwan that purports to recount the politics since 1947 of the island and then of the nation on the island was this bit:

On May 20, 2016, Tsai Ing-wen, the chair of the Democratic Progressive Party, was inaugurated as president of Taiwan. During her inauguration speech she said that the “goal of transitional justice is to pursue true social reconciliation, so that all Taiwanese can take to heart the mistakes of that era.”

As [postdoctoral research fellow at Academia Sinica, Ian] Rowen argues, Tsai’s call for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) “was a sharp contrast with the deafening quiet across the Taiwan Strait, where Chinese government officials and state media marked the 50th anniversary of the violence and depredations of the Cultural Revolution with muted and terse statements.”

According to Rowen, the TRC “signals a departure from Taiwan’s authoritarian past and draws a distinction from China’s authoritarian present, while demonstrating adherence to international norms of human rights, democracy and self-determination.” He adds, “Taiwan’s truth commission will no doubt further highlight these differences between its political culture and that of China. This distinction, which posits Taiwan as a democratic nation capable of admitting the state’s role in past violence, appeals to Taiwanese nationals, realigns Taiwan regionally, and legitimates Taiwan internationally.”

Tsai also is a staunch advocate of the RoC’s independence from the People’s Republic of China.  I have to wonder, then, whether there might be an additional, longer-ranged motive for her insistence on this TRC.  A motive to (finally and thoroughly) unite native Taiwanese and RoC Chinese (and the factions within those Chinese) to strengthen the RoC domestically in preparation for a later more overt push for independence.