Don't Imitate Progressives 

It would be a shame if Conservatives used the occasion of their victory at the Supreme Court today in seeing Roe and Casey overturned if Conservatives repeated the mistake of Progressives in passing laws that do not pass constitutional muster or in nationalizing state issues. Matt Walsh tweets that the next step is a national law banning abortions. I think that would be a mistake. 

It would return us to the problem we have had for 50 years--trying to impose one morality on a diverse society. In the various states there are majorities for policies ranging from abortion on demand up until the moment of birth to banning it from the moment of conception. By the mere fact of a law being national in scope it makes it inevitable that fewer people will get the policy they want, whatever that policy happens to be! 

And since we have relied on the originalist interpretation of the Constitution to effect a momentous victory, we are ill advised to, on the very morrow of victory, set about trying to enact a policy which ignores the Constitution. Where in the Constitution is the Federal government granted the power to regulate abortion? Of course, one could torture the Commerce Clause into making it confess to granting the power to regulate abortion to the Congress, but it would be a false confession. 

 

 Citizens Talk to Each Other

I link to a National Review article about the reactions of supporters and opponents of abortion. It details some conversations between people on different sides of the issue and it made me think: now those conversations matter. 

What has been so insufferable about this judicial diktat is that it has turned us into subjects instead of citizens. It has turned us into rival mobs shouting slogans at each other. The incentives are all wrong. 

There is no incentive but to make a public spectacle showcasing each side's passionate adherence to their side's most extreme position. There is no incentive to moderate one's position or to compromise. To the extent the public is involved at all, it is only to create the impression that there will be violence and blood running in the streets if the case doesn't go their way. It is a catalyst for extremism. 

In normal politics the incentives run in the other direction. It is in one's best interests to put forward a moderate proposal. It is best to deal amicably on all issues with everyone you deal with because everyone is a potential ally on some issue. 

But the most important thing is that it is a degraded condition. To live under laws that you have no hand, no voice, in making, is the office of a subject, not a citizen. 

The Internet and Property Rights

It is un-American. 

Cancelled: Colin Wright

The linked article details the cancelling of Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist who holds the controversial opinion that the sexes are different. The cancelling involves his PayPal and Etsy accounts and seriously affects his livelihood. 

The decision un-American. It violates our natural sense of justice and due process, a sense that was once commonly held in the minds of adherents of all shades of political opinion. 

It violates our belief in freedom of speech embodied in the saying, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." The belief that everyone has a right to their own opinion. 

Stop Blaming Biden 

The Republicans love to bash Biden and there is certainly a lot to criticize, but I think that focusing on Biden is both an error in tactics and an error in fact. 

It is an error in tactics because someday Biden will be gone. If you concentrate on blaming Biden it implies that if you get rid of Biden you get rid of the problem. 

But it is, more importantly, an error in fact because the problem isn't the decisions that Biden is making it is the decisions he isn't making. What we are seeing with the Biden administration is not the mistakes of one man but the effect of ceding policy making to the permanent bureaucracy and the party apparatchiks. And the problem will attend any Democratic administration. 

It is important to focus not on Biden but on the policies of the Democratic Party and the permanent Bureaucracy. This is the government on auto pilot, and so it attends everything the government does. Laws are now passed that creates an agency which actually creates the law. What is coming out of the Biden administration is what the bureaucracy wants. 

The only way the gains from the upcoming Republican friendly election is the convince people that the republican policies are the right policies. Time spent ridiculing Biden is time not spent making policy arguments to the electorate. 

Failure is a Choice

How is a nation able to police the world and project force around the globe unable to defend its border? By choice. We can send cruise missiles around the world to target the passenger side of a sedan in motion but can't stop people wading across a stream? 

Every illegal alien that comes into this country comes in because this country allows him to. And everyone that suffers the harms of illegal immigration, every low wage worker that can't get a job, every addict who ODs on fentanyl brought across our border, everyone who suffers from illegal immigrant crime, does so because someone decided that something else is more important. 

I wonder what that something could be? 

One way to end the border crisis: Hispanics voting Republican

If the prospect of perpetual Democratic majorities were to fade due to Hispanics voting the "wrong" way then, I predict, all the urgent humanitarian reasons found for letting people come freely across the Southern border will, with promptitude, go missing. All the reasons that we have to let people stream across the border in their millions will suddenly be found to be not so urgent. 

So if you are an hispanic concerned about border security you choice is clear. Vote Republican. Not because of what the Republicans will do, but because of what it will make the Democrats do. 

 Rejoin the civilized world

That is my new slogan. Some of the things that progressives push in America are just unknown outside of America in other first world countries. 

Open air drug markets/homeless camps

Voting without photo id.

Prohibit mail in voting. 

No abortion on demand up until the moment of birth (ok, it's not prohibited in North Korea or China, but I did stipulate the civilized world). 

Having to get a prescription for birth control pills, update.

Undemocratically determined laws on abortion.

Do not give education ministers SWAT teams.

Pass a basic privacy law like all the nations of Europe (Snowden interview with John Stossel). 

Do not mandate the covid vaccines for children. 

Make individuals the owners of their personal data and require interoperability of platforms in line with the European data law. 

Restrict transgendered care. 

Don't provide health insurance through employers. 

Continuing updates

 Virtue Signaling and Mass Shooting

There is an aspect of the issue of mass shootings that doesn't get much attention. Almost invariably the places where mass shootings take place turn out to be gun free zones. 

Suppose you are a budding mass shooter on your way to make your first and last appearance on the world stage playing God, deciding who lives and who dies, and you notice that the venue for your debut has a sign saying that no guns are allowed on premises. Do you A, turn around an go home or look for another place to carry out your plan or, B, ignore it? If you answered A I have nothing to say to you. But if you answered B we are entitled to ask what good can come of such signs? 

The only people that will heed such signs are the law abiding. To an incipient mass shooter who wants to have scores of helpless people begging for their lives it means one thing: victims. 

Pelosi's responsibility 

One thing that I don't think has gotten enough emphasis in the controversy about the January 6 riot/insurrection is Pelosi's responsibility for security at the Capital. It was her responsibility to call in troops or the national guard or extra police, not the Presidents. The reason lies in the Constitution. 

The Constitution provides for three separate branches of government, each with authority over their own security. The reasons are obvious to anyone familiar with history. The example of the Roman Republic. The emperors would surround the Senate with troops and then ask them their opinion on some matter. 

Their opinion was, naturally, favorable to the emperor. Such examples could be multiplied. 

The point should be obvious to anyone worried about Trump's dictatorial tendencies. Image if, instead of just inciting an unarmed crowd (unarmed. An unarmed insurrection. In the most armed country in the world.), he had been able to send troops under his control. The President can make troops available but they must be invited in and under the command of the leaders of Congress, mainly Ms. Pelosi. 

We have gotten into the habit of expecting all things to be taken care of by the President. The Founding Fathers were wiser men. 

Bill Maher hosts Cornell West 

Why doesn't Bill press this guy for a straight answer? The guy is allowed to bloviate and obfuscate with nary a peep from courageous contrarian Maher.

Bill asks can math be racist. West answers something about my brother...speaking truth...universal love, even for Trump...whatever. Why does Maher put up with this? 

A Modest Proposal

On the other hand Maher's closing monologue was great and brought up an issue that I don't recall thinking about. Hollywood is careful to not give encouragement to smoking, fat shaming, racism, environmental destruction--the list goes on--but glorifies gun violence and revenge. It is gun violence and revenge that is at the heart of school shootings. He makes the point that Hollywood will not show an actor smoking because it might make smoking look cool, but positively glorifies actors committing the most fantastical acts of revenge using guns. To call this hypocrisy is an understatement. 

Why, when we are admonished to consider every possible factor in the cause of preventing school shootings, is this one totally ignored? And it calls to mind what might be an effective gun control measure that might pass both constitutional muster and be consistent with concern for gun rights. Why not raise the age at which one is permitted to buy a semi-automatic rifle, especially those that resemble military weapons, from 18 to 21? 

Unlike many gun control proposals that come in the wake of mass shootings, this measure would possibly have stopped some of the crimes they are meant to prevent. The disturbed young men who committed these atrocities seem to be attracted by the idea of gunning down the defenseless with a military looking weapon. They could use pistols to the same effect: their victims are defenseless and at that range aiming is not really an issue, especially when you don't care who you kill. Why, then, do these young men choose to use so called 'assault rifles'. For the same reason so many Hollywood shoot outs involve rifles. Because they are acting out a fantasy. A fantasy that involves being all powerful and playing God. A pistol would do the job but it doesn't fit with the image. 

Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe they would get just as much satisfaction from using a pistol. But it might. And in the case of school shootings, even if it stops only one, isn't it worth it?