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Joe Siegel Joe and his wife Linda are both retired Air Force Officers and Joe is currently a pilot with United Airlines His wife Linda is a nurse at Tacoma General, is the secretary of the 26th District-R Secretary. A member of the Gig Harbor Repub. Women’s club, and both are long time workers for conservative causes. This is a modified version of my newest blog post: http://libertythruknowledge.com It’s raining dollars! What would Frederic Bastiat have to say about this if he could speak to us from 1848? As government regulations grow slowly, we become used to the harness – Judge Robert Bork Frederic Bastiat
NEWS FLASH! We interrupt our regular programming. The President bans windows in order to benefit candle makers; candle production, he says, will stimulate the economy as long as candles aren’t melted by sunlight. The administration also announces it will nationalize candle manufacturing, allow greedy wax suppliers only 10% of the money they are owed by the candle makers, plus grant a 30% share of Acme Candles, Inc. (thank you Road Runner and Coyote) to the UCMDWU (United Candle Mold Delivery Workers’ Union). NYT White House correspondent rushes out and wires in an editorial describing shivers up his leg after press secretary Robert Gibbs makes the announcement. I wish I could take credit for this prescient concept. I’ll admit to only my personal sarcasm in tying the philosophy of that remarkably witty proponent of freedom and liberty: Frederic Bastiat, (see link to Wikipedia entry from the right sidebar) to our current state of affairs. Frederic Bastiat was a member of what was known as the French Liberal School in the 1840s (liberal as in the classical/original free market definition), warning of the folly of government intervention in the marketplace. His parable of a fictitious petition by candle makers to the French government to eliminate windows in order to prevent candles from melting - thereby increasing economic prosperity by insuring the success of the candle industry (at the expense of the window industry...oops) - is a hilarious anecdote. It also unfortunately illustrates the genesis of the president’s belief system. Obviously above, I make reference to the bailout of GM, the perversion of the rule of law in throwing Chrysler bond holders to the wolves, and the artificial propping up of the UAW rather than normal bankruptcy pecking order. Bastiat’s fable of altruistic but ultimately damaging marketplace intervention, is echoed consistently by the current administration’s adherence to this paradigm of unlimited spending by fiat justified by its immediate/short term effects on various and sundry interest groups. In fact, Friedrich Hayek (see my previous two posts) said in a review of Bastiat that, according to 1930s economist John Maynard Keynes, the assumption of a multiplier effect (simply meaning a belief that the government can stimulate the economy by spending, producing a return greater than the cost of the stimulus; thereby increasing employment) on general economic prosperity would precisely mimic the argument of the candle makers! (Take that Paul Krugman! One for the Gipper.) Cash for clunkers (and maybe the upcoming Stimulus II cash for “cluckers” chicken farm bailout?) would most certainly fit neatly into these fallacies: money will do more good in the hands of the government, and it is the duty of government (to be specific The Office of the Assistant to Czar for the 3rd Deputy of the Secretary for Chicken and Muffler Repair subsidies) to see that all get what they “deserve”. Lastly, Frederic Bastiat’s landmark book: The Law has remarkable parallels to the economically naive entitlement philosophies of the current congressional majority. For example Bastiat says in the section The Results of Legal Plunder, “No society can exist unless the laws are respectable to a certain degree. The safest ways to make laws respected is to make them respectable.” This quote illustrates the current congress’s path towards a society in which greater than 50% of workers pay no taxes, and receive payments in the form of the Earned Income Tax Credit. Therefore, this non-tax paying majority - the receivers of public services and governmental largess - are able to award themselves through the ballot ever increasing free goods and services from the minority: the tax payers/suppliers of public services and governmental largess. I see no end to this increase in receivers, to include the resulting unconstructive inertia towards manufactured dependence. So to bring my polemic to a close (insert smiley face), I quote Bastiat one more time: “Legal plunder is identified as “… the law takes from some persons [what] belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong…The person who profits from this law… will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry…” --- Or nationality, ethnicity, income demographic, religion, color, blue collar, white collar, government employee, Woodstock museum, first time home buyer, union member, sexual preference, illegal immigrant, home in foreclosure, Wall St., Main St., small business, large business, “green” energy producer, municipality, farmer, auto parts supplier, environmentalist, “too big to fail” bank and insurance companies, student, teacher, cop, mechanic, the bicycle spoke hooker-uppers' guild, donut shop owners' amalgamated, and last but not least… Acme Candles, Inc! Comments placed on the blog pro or con (or to my email below) most welcome! Written by Joe Siegel. (Wife Linda is the Fox Island PCO-R, and the 26st District Repub. Party Secretary, and GHRW club member) Fox Island, WA
skype address: jbod. Siegel Window Live Messenger: jbodwing@live.com
Blog: http://libertythruknowledge.com Or http://libertythroughknowledge.com
“…liberty and responsibility are inseparable.” Frederick Hayek (Joe Siegel is now blogging at libertythruknowledge.com )
An open letter to Senator Patty Murray in reply to her recent email campaign on health care:
I have 10 questions for you below regarding your email to me stressing your concerns about our existing health care system and the Democrats proposed “public option”: Also, I would ask that you review the economic and political history of the effects centrally planned economies have had on the prosperity and freedom of places like Eastern Europe, Africa, Central and South America. Not to mention the non-productive and statist societies in Canada and Western Europe.
Programs by government decree will always end up distributing privately owned capital (in the form of tax receipts) on political favoritism, the personal ethics of bureaucrats, and will without fail distort the markets. This, to paraphrase an old expression: will destroy winners and create losers. Always. The famous economist Frederick Hayek called this arbitrary coercion. I would highly recommend you read one of his books: “The Road to Serfdom”.
Here they are:
1. Are you going to vote to take yourself off Congressional medical coverage and volunteer your family for coverage under a “government option”? 2. Why is it Canada and Great Britain have cancer survival rates 15% worse than ours? 3. Why is it patients in Canada are being told they’re too old to receive hip replacements because of rationing? 4. Why is it social welfare states in Europe and elsewhere rarely produce any life saving pharmaceuticals and rely on our entrepreneurship and creativity? (And risk assumption.) 5. What will happen to this creativity under the new administration? 6. Why is it OK for college students under the influence of liberal professors, and AFL/CIO workers to parade on May Day with signs that say “Socialist Workers Unite” requiring police response because of the destruction of private property; for demonstrators to disrupt the Republican National Convention while planning to stage fake emergencies in the NYC subway system to distract the police and prevent them from responding, or for Black Panthers to try to intimidate Republican voters at polling stations, but it’s not OK for citizens to express their anger directly to their elected representatives in town meetings? And if they are organized, so what? 7. Why is it only this country with our time proven risk/reward system of entrepreneurship invents things like the internet, GPS, the transistor, modern management/industrial techniques, the airplane, the telephone et al? And by inference do you think this is going to continue, especially in the health care industry re: new drugs, medical techniques, etc without a profit motive? 8. Can you please tell me how you, MSNBC, CNN, and the rest of the main stream media would have reacted if Pres. Bush had asked people to send in others' email addresses if they detect “fishy disinformation” on a government health care proposal? 9. Can you name me one major government program, regardless of its founding altruism that has successfully and in the long run alleviated rather than initiated societal and economic regression? (Read LBJ’s Great Society initiatives.) And please don’t bring up the Federal Interstate System and the Space Program. There was no competition in these endeavors and they would have been accomplished cheaper and more efficiently in the private market. 10. And last (and obviously rhetorically) why is it about 60% of Congress never learns these lessons? I guess they’ll see it when they believe it.
I look forward to your reply. Thank you for your attention.
‘Public option’ would negate competition in health care fieldJoe SiegelSpecial to the GatewayPublished: 02:50PM September 9th, 2009 An open letter to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray in reply to her recent e-mail campaign on health care: I have 10 questions for you, stressing your concerns about our existing health care system and the Democrats’ proposed health care “public option.” Also, I would ask that you review the economic and political history of the effects centrally planned economies have had on the prosperity and freedom of places like Eastern Europe, Africa, Central and South America. Not to mention the non-productive and statist societies in Canada and Western Europe. Programs by government decree will always end up distributing privately owned capital (in the form of tax receipts) on political favoritism, the personal ethics of bureaucrats will without fail distort the markets. This, to paraphrase an old expression, will destroy winners and create losers. Always. The famous economist Frederick Hayek called this arbitrary coercion. I would highly recommend you read one of his books: “The Road to Serfdom.” Here they are: Are you going to vote to take yourself off congressional medical coverage and volunteer your family for coverage under a “government option?” Why is it Canada and Great Britain have cancer survival rates 15 percent worse than ours? Why is it patients in Canada are being told they’re too old to receive hip replacements because of rationing? Why is it social welfare states in Europe and elsewhere rarely produce any life-saving pharmaceuticals and rely on our entrepreneurship and creativity? (And risk assumption?) What will happen to this creativity under the new administration? Why is it OK for college students under the influence of liberal professors and AFL/CIO workers to parade on May Day with signs that say “Socialist Workers Unite,” requiring police response because of the destruction of private property; for demonstrators to disrupt the Republican National Convention while planning to stage fake emergencies in the New York City subway system to distract the police and prevent them from responding, or for Black Panthers to try to intimidate Republican voters at polling stations, but it’s not OK for citizens to express their anger directly to their elected representatives in town meetings? And if they are organized, so what? Why is it only this country, with our time-proven, risk-reward system of entrepreneurship, that invents things like the Internet, GPS, the transistor, modern management/industrial techniques, the airplane, the telephonem et al? And by inference, do you think this is going to continue, especially in the health care industry, in reference to new drugs and medical techniques — without a profit motive? Can you please tell me how you, MSNBC, CNN and the rest of the mainstream media would have reacted if President Bush had asked people to send in others’ e-mail addresses if they detect “fishy disinformation” on a government health care proposal? Can you name one major government program, regardless of its founding altruism, that has successfully and in the long run alleviated rather than initiated societal and economic regression? (Read LBJ’s “Great Society initiatives.”) And please don’t bring up the Federal Interstate System and the space program. There was no competition in those endeavors, and they would have been accomplished cheaper and more efficiently in the private market. And last (and obviously rhetorically), why is it about 60 percent of Congress never learns these lessons? I guess they’ll see it when they believe it. Joe Siegel is a retired major in the U.S. Air Force and is a United Airlines pilot. He lives on Fox Island.
Strange sounding phrases: what they mean to us as conservatives, and how they demonstrate the new President’s outlook
Occasionally, in the constant non-stop literary culture war, we come across phrases that occasionally result in a head scratching pause. Here’s a few examples accompanied by my personal understanding of the intent from a conservative point of view, and how they so wonderfully describe the liberal mindset.
Moral Relativism: Comparing two political, religious, or moral systems, without regard to the actual results on human rights and freedoms and how often these results (and depredations) occur. This is also known as non-judgmentalism as in: “we have no right to judge other cultures”. Or non-absolutism as in: “there are no verifiable moral positions in this world- everything is grey, there are no black and white absolutes. What these relativistic positions boil down to is: “we have no right to hold opinions of others, for that would constitute a morally superior attitude on our part.” In other words, the moral relativism thought process goes: “even though radical Islam with its accompanying depredations on liberty and human rights is mired in a medieval mindset fostering the fervid goal of a worldwide Caliphate, since the U.S. is not perfect, then what right do we have to judge”? Example: The new president recently made a typical relativistic comment when visiting Israel by speaking of the killing of six million Jews in the holocaust, and Israel’s “occupation” of Palestinian territory in the same speech.
Moral Equivalency: A cousin to moral relativism, but with a slightly different flavor. Basically, instead of moral relativism’s “we have no right to judge”, moral equivalency’s modus operandi is: “we’re no better than they are.” Example: The new president just said that the old Soviet Union to include Eastern European countries (held by the force of arms and the secret police) stood up and ended the cold war. -- I'll hold off on the adjectives and let this mind boggling sentence speak for itself. Example: The new President also said (in one sentence no less!), this time in Cairo, that Islamic countries’ have problems with their treatment of women (read flogging, stoning, executing, suppressing), but the U.S. also has problems with women’s rights.
Objectivism: This is a term that comes from the famous philosopher and author Ayn Rand’s book: The Virtue of Selfishness”. Objectivism refers to the moral principle of self-interest, meaning that the furtherance of one’s abilities and self-worth through intentional moral virtue (vs. seeking to further the standard of living of others) is most productive to a successful and ethically principled society. For us as conservatives, the best example is our fundamental belief in self-improvement and independence via personal responsibility, vs. the liberal “victicrat” view that government’s responsibility is to dispense welfare to all that claim an entitlement. Example: This principle is best illustrated by comparing the President's “stimulus” package, best described (facetiously) by a statement famous economist Milton Friedman once made when describing government stimulus attempts as “dropping money from helicopters”. This being contrary to conservatives’ view that self reliance and the protection of life, liberty and property (also known as the pursuit of happiness) should be the only purpose of government. Everything else should be dependent on personal virtue and fortitude.
Post-modernism: This one’s my favorite. Post-modernism, a relative to Moral Equivalency as described above, is basically a philosophy that says truth is only in the eye of the beholder. Modernism, or modernity (as opposed to antiquity) sprang from the period known as the Enlightenment, beginning about 1750. The main concept that blossomed from this period is that of reason and rationality, and its relationship to a universal truth. The assumption of modernism is that through rational and scientific exploration of the truth, we can create order out of chaos, and draw a parallel between rational thought and what is universally known as the Good and the Right. So therefore post-modernism considers itself “superior to and above all this” by rejecting these principles. So how does this apply to conservative vs. liberal thought? Conservatives’ belief in an absolutist philosophy of black vs. white/good vs. evil would match the Enlightenment’s concept of universal truth and goodness. Liberal ideology (post-modernism), however, centers on the importance of the here and now, with no “modernistic” (or inconvenient) concepts of an all encompassing morality. Post-modernists have no recognition of universal truth or reason and its stabilizing affect on society. They celebrate insubstantial “liberal/feel good” ideologies such as diversity or multiculturalism, but no actual hard concepts of right and wrong. Example: The new President's mindset might go: “Islam’s attempt to impose Sharia law and a worldwide Caliphate is an acceptable ideology, because modernistic concepts of truth and right are old fashioned, (soooooo passé) and a more appropriate post-modernistic concept of, ‘we shall not judge others’ is more open minded and tolerant. (And politically correct.)” I hope I’ve managed to make some sense of these occasionally used (or misused) phrases and how they apply to our current culture wars. They’re a bit on the esoteric side, but I think they really embody the concepts that define our conservative ideology. Comments? jbod@comcast.net How to Debate Liberals, Socialists, and Democrats. (Not to be redundant.)
When approached with left wing talking points, many times one’s first reaction is to stare in disbelief at the superficiality and staggering lack of informed reasoning. That won’t work. You have to use dispassionate (difficult sometimes!) reasoning, or you won’t convince anyone of the folly of their position. Due to the extreme bias in the media and academia, people of this mindset are used to living in their own “little personal echo chamber”. Even if you don’t end up changing anyone’s mind, show them that not everyone lives in a CNN/MSNBC/NYT bonding session and sees the world the way they do. Try it, you’ll like it! So to quote Jackie Gleason: “And awaaayyy we go.”
Sound bite: “Unions create jobs and raise their members’ wages and benefits”. Response: Only 8% of non-government employees belong to unions. Most workers understand that forcing non-market wages/benefits, ridiculous contractual agreements like job banks and artificially reduced productivity on an employer reduces competitiveness. This means fewer jobs; no jobs if it forces the company to fold. Toyota workers e.g. earn less than GM workers, but don’t suffer continuous rounds of layoffs, and have a good working relationship with a company not in bankruptcy. Look at the labor strife and long term employment picture in the highly unionized steel, auto and airline industries. Unions are incredibly corrupt and use their members’ dues, often illegally, for partisan political purposes. The most highly unionized (and high tax) states like Michigan are worse off economically. The least unionized (and low tax) like Texas have higher standards of living.
Sound bite: “Bush lied, people died”. Response: Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and many others claimed Saddam Hussein had WMD and had to be removed based on CIA and British intelligence just for a start. Only Bush had the courage to act. After the first Gulf War the CIA was shocked at how far his WMD program had progressed. Saddam Hussein would never have allowed his arch enemy Iran to develop nuclear weapons without a parallel program, and nuclear, biological and chemical weapons capability would have been passed down to his insane sons Uday and Kusay. Saddam was responsible for killing over a million people including the Iran/Iraq war and was continuing to gas, murder and torture many thousands every year. Contrary to popular myth, a parliamentary democracy has been set up in Iraq, in a historically very short period of time. Where were the protests when Bill Clinton was bombing Serbia for human rights violations that paled in comparison? Iraq was in clear and verifiable defiance of a ceasefire agreement, U.N. resolutions, and President Bush had authorization by Congress to use force as necessary. The current uprising in Iran surely got some of its impetus from free elections across the border in Iraq.
Sound bite: “What right do we have to throw our weight around selectively imposing our values on other countries”? Response: Sovereignty, understood as a state’s uninhibited right to make laws and govern its citizens, is common ground for international standards of civility. Question is, do countries that use intimidation and violence against their own citizens, support international terrorism and other illegal activities fit the definition of sovereignty, or are they illegitimate rogue entities? It depends on your standards: If you believe medieval authoritarianism and genocide are a state’s own business, and that these behaviors will not affect countries who have graduated into modernity, then by inference you don’t believe we need a strong and at times interventionist foreign policy. (This also applies if you subscribe to the current liberal moral equivalence nonsense of “we’re no better than they are”.) If you reject rogue states as illegitimate, then you might consider the logic of intervention and pre-emption. Without the help of the Europeans and Commonwealth countries (good luck), we can’t do it all. But what we can do at times has a synergistic effect, as evidenced by Muammar al-Qaddafi giving up his WMD when Saddam Hussein was captured. Americans have died for the cause of liberty all around the world, and the only land we’ve kept has been for our soldiers’ graves. The world is either going to be better off dominated by our culture of freedom, democracy and free markets, or worse off dominated by the “thugocracies” of Russia, China, and many Islamic nations. It is what it is. Take your pick.
Sound bite: “Religion has been a force for evil and wars throughout history. Values are best promoted through secularism”. Response: Organized religion had a rough go of it pre-Reformation, and certainly wars were fought for religious hegemony. However, the stabilizing influence of the Judeo-Christian ethos and its emphasis on education, literacy, humility before a higher power, and its attempt to rise above basic human instincts has promoted mankind’s welfare and better nature. Regarding secular values, where do people think the concepts of charity towards your fellow man, respect, good citizenship, and lawfulness come from? They come from the Bible. Ever heard of the Ten Commandments? In ancient Rome, murdering someone was only wrong if you killed a senator. Stealing was fine as long as not from a male landowner. Which country had the most moralists and philosophers at the turn of the 20th century? It was Germany. Which country was responsible for the greatest holocaust in human history 39 years later? So much for ethical secularism! Stalin and Mao, both “social engineering secularists”, and other communist dictatorships according to the Ayn Rand Institute, have been responsible for over 100 million deaths plus uncountable depredations in the 20th Century. China, N. Korea and other secular socialist states like pre-war Iraq continue the parade. As far as the ravages of Islam go, that religion bears no resemblance to Judeo-Christian moral principles.
Use the above ammunition and keep your powder dry. (Unless you’re unwilling to show up to a gun fight with an unarmed opponent!) Good luck and happy hunting. jbod@comcast.net “Global Warming” and “Scientific Consensus”
During the 2007 holiday season, Seattle Mayor Nickels, in a presentation to grade school children, told them Santa may not come sometime in the future if we don’t do something about Global Warming-- as it will cause flooding due to rising sea levels, and prevent Santa from showing up. Putting aside this ominous lockstep preaching to children, what the mayor was basing his opinion on is a term widely used called “scientific consensus”. Normally intended to imply established scientific principal, it also bears the more negative connotation of acceptance of scientific theory as established fact. If there was ever an example of runaway scientific consensus, global warming is it. Widely published data show that the earth has warmed about .08 degrees centigrade in the last century, resulting in three questions: 1. Does global warming exist? 2. If it does are humans the cause? 3. If it does, what can we do about it? An international survey of climate scientists revealed intriguing answers. · Regarding question one: when asked “how much has the uncertainty regarding climate change been reduced over the last 10 years”, only 8.3% responded that uncertainty on continued warming has been reduced by a significant amount.
· On question two: more scientists “strongly disagreed” than “strongly agreed” that climate change is the result of human activity. · On question three: a panel of eight economists including four Nobel Prize winners reviewed this issue in 2004. They rank-ordered the results of return on spending on 17 “challenge areas” to global society, in other words, bang for the buck. At the top rated “Very Good”, was preventing/treating AIDS, improving dietary supplement availability, trade liberalization, and preventing malaria. The bottom three, rated “Poor”, were areas related to spending on global warming involving carbon taxes and Kyoto protocol. (This concept is explained in detail in distinguished economist Bjorn Lomborg’s book, “The Skeptical Environmentalist.”) In other words, even if global warming truly exists, and if it is the result of man made causes, our efforts still are far better spent on other issues for our overall benefit. According to Patrick Michaels, senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato institute, for those who subscribe to calamity theory such as massive sea level rise, the evidence doesn’t support the claim. He states that Al Gore’s prediction of a 20’ sea level rise, based on melting of the Greenland ice cap, exceeds by approx. 2,000% the now already superseded U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) prediction of 8” to 17” in the year 2100. I say superseded, as Science magazine reported in November 2005 that Greenland’s ice loss, one of the bases for the IPCC’s sea level rise prediction, was .04 per century, preceding the same magazine’s report in February 2007 explaining that the recent acceleration of ice loss has reversed. (Additionally, the 17” figure is already 30% lower than the same panel’s 2001 prediction.)
Mr. Michaels goes on to explain that: “The Kyoto Protocol, if fulfilled by every signatory, would reduce global warming by 0.07 degrees Celsius per half-century. That’s too small to measure, because the earth’s temperature varies by more than that from year to year.” So, before anyone I haven’t yet convinced that this is a debatable issue fire up Google and type in “proof of global warming”, here are a couple questions: With just as many scientists/Nobel Prizewinners doubting the current hysteria as those who advocate massive human intervention to reduce C02 levels, should we be taking the current “scientific consensus” for granted? Given this controversy, should we risk demanding massive spending on C02 level reduction at the expense of eradicating diseases such as AIDS and malaria, when spending on the latter would have so much more potential to yield benefits to mankind? Lastly, why has the mainstream media almost solely adopted such a one-sided viewpoint given the current controversy about the issue by leading experts in Meteorology and Atmospheric Studies? (Well, if this sounds like a rhetorical question that’s because it is, and I’m guessing you’ve figured out where I’m going with this.) Hyperbole makes good press, and at the same time advances an anti-capitalist agenda. Given that the Bush administration (as did the Senate under Pres. Clinton) rejected the Kyoto Protocols, I’m not surprised to see most big city newspapers jump on this bandwagon. I close with two quotes from John Christy of the U.N.’s IPCC, co-recipient with (and not a great fan of) Al Gore of the Nobel Peace Prize: “As a scientist… I always thought that …prizes were given for performance and not promotional activities.”, and, “For example, I suppose that CNN did not announce two weeks ago that the Antarctic sea ice extent reached its all-time maximum, even though the Arctic reached its all-time minimum.” So back to Mayor Nickels: Scaring and brainwashing children to serve the left’s anti-capitalist ideology? You decide. P.S. I welcome questions, debates, comments, criticisms and catcalls on my articles! Judicial Activism and the Left’s living-breathing interpretation of the Constitution. Great consternation exists today, and rightly so, of the concept of activist judges, and strict interpretation of the Constitution vs. viewing it as a “living and malleable” document. In the “progressive” approach to justice, it’s acceptable to bend and shape the Constitution to meet personal morals and ethics. (Someone’s self esteem hurt by their own tattoo? Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara obtained federal dollars to pay for removal. Would this pass constitutional muster?) Indeed, if the Constitution is open to so much tinkering and interpretation, why bother to have one at all? The new President has already made comments pertaining to the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy, indicating that he is troubled about a Constitution that he determines as insufficiently empathetic. In a paean to judicial activism, his qualifications now include a litmus test for candidates conforming to his view of the Constitution as described above. (Read living and malleable.) As he quotes: “I will seek someone who understands that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book.” Does this statement send chills up your spine? If not, it should. Now that we have identified the Chief Executive’s position on constitutional interpretation, let’s quote a few of the Constitution’s sections and review their relevancy to the current political and cultural climate. This is best viewed through a paradigm of strict constructionism vs. the President’s view that interpretation should be something more than “just abstract legal theory”. Article 1, Section 9. “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus [show proof and evidence] shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” Assuming most clear thinking adults would agree that 911 represented an invasion threatening the public safety, then President Bush had constitutional authority to suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus. He never came close to doing that, but cries reverberated throughout the main stream media about the supposed violation of the Constitution regarding airport security, putting mosques under surveillance, wiretapping suspected terrorists’ internet traffic from overseas, etc. Additionally, regarding concerns about showing proof and evidence for holding Guantanamo detainees, the Constitution applies to American citizens, not foreigners; for example, Amendment VI: “the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial…”, The Left’s “situationally relevant” interpretation of the Constitution would allow this to apply to not only foreigners, but also non-uniformed foreign combatants on a battle field…it doesn’t. (For that matter, nor does the Geneva Convention.) In addition to our current security situation, judicial activism has also been blossoming around other issues for decades. Most of these activist interpretations are best described by conservative constitutional scholars as at best tortured. For example, the 14th Amendment states that: “…nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws.” This along with the 13th and 15th Amendments freed the slaves and guaranteed them due process, and is considered the Equal Protection Clause. The courts over the last few decades have used this clause to invent a “right to privacy” that doesn’t exist in the Constitution, and then used a distorted interpretation of these amendments to legislate from the bench everything from gay marriage to forcing the Virginia Military Institute to recruit women students. (Before I raise the eyebrows of my friends in the WFRW’s clubs, note that no constitutional mandate has been invented to force Howard University or Smith College to recruit white male students, public or not.) To make abortion a “right to privacy”, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor actually (and bizarrely) referred to the Due Process Clause in the 14th amendment (also written and intended to allow former slaves access to the courts) when deciding in favor of Roe v. Wade. This represents a tortured interpretation of constitutional principles if anything does. Judicial activism at its finest. I could continue on about activist courts’ interpretations of the Constitution and what seems like the daily intrusion into our personal freedoms and State’s rights, but I think you get the picture. I’ll finish with a restating of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution followed by a troubling quote: Amendment X. “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” --- Now compare this amendment to the following statement by a current Supreme Court justice that should make all of us worry about activist interpretation of the Constitution’s principles: “We must never lose sight of the fact that the law has a moral foundation, and we must never fail to ask ourselves not only what the law is, but what the law should be.” - Justice Anthony Kennedy A Supreme Court justice who actually believes it is up to the nine members of the court to make decisions that would create or change laws, as opposed to the above amendment which relegates law making powers to the legislatures where it should be, leaves me concerned. The real job of the courts is to decide the constitutionality of our lawmakers’ decisions, not create or modify legislation based on current social trends. Since Justice Kennedy’s vote many times is the swing vote that moves the court to the left, this should be especially disconcerting given a new Chief Executive who distances himself from Amendment X, and who gravitates towards positions like Justice Kennedy’s.
Sonia Sotomayer has just been nominated to replace Justice Souter. In one ruling, she overturned a lawsuit filed by non-minority firefighters against New Haven, Ct., when the city threw out the results of a promotional exam when no minority candidates passed. She has also been identified by the President as someone who will make decisions based on “compassion”, and has stated herself that her decisions will be based on her lifetime experience as a female Hispanic. (As opposed to the blind folded woman with the scales reference the conservative strict constructionist interpretation.)
It appears the hole our Founding Fathers original intent is disappearing into is getting deeper every day. God save and protect the USA.
Look up the connection between Equal Protection Clause and Right to Privacy based on their logic. This causes confusion. |