Corporatist, The New Honorific for Massa

If you've been around this blog long enough you'll remember that I've warned my friends in campaign finance reform that banning money and placing limits on who and where was a dangerous strategy and the SCOTUS unhappily proved me right yesterday. Cripes no, I do not confuse statuatory fictional personhood with people and I never have. My objection was that the concept of personhood was not tightly defined and limited. The absolute hell of it is that we're liable to find that the pieces that are left of McCain-Feingold are probably the ones with the worst unintended consequences.

In the realm of some things a bit more immediate than a Constitutional Amendment there may be some ways to mitigate the effects of the Supreme corporate whores' decision. Forget trying to ban or stop the money. Try to not have it pay off.

If the attribution of political ads had to occupy,say, 1/3 of the display space it certainly wouldn't bother campaigns themselves since name recognition is most of what it is about. It might be a little less appealing to Haliburton and probably at least annoying to the veiwer. It would take clever lawyers working with ad men to make it work.

Since corporations already operate under a tax regimen that is different it shouldn't be too difficult to find a way to tax the snot out of the removal of the funds from the revenue stream. This idea is akin to the machine gun tax, it doesn't prohibit or restrict speech itself, simple makes it expensive to engage in such a pilfering of assets. That is again the bailiwick of lawyers and this time really good accountants.

I know it is tempting to run around with hair afire, but an issue like this will have some very good minds working on it. It would be very difficult to plan ahead without knowledge of the language of the decision. I think this would also be a very good time for some smart lawyer to sue on behalf of a nice liberal corporation for a vote. I don't know that there'd be much point in having a prosecutor bring charges for corporate acts that would be crimes if a human did them to another human, like murder for buying out another corporation or bigamy for mergers, but it sure would be fun to watch.

I won't go into my emotional response to this court, it would be illegal and unwise to do. But that does get me to this point, those assholes were picked by...Republicans and had some Democratic votes for approval behind a flood of GOPers. Despite current appearances it does matter who the President is and (I hate to use really rude words like this) Congress is run by. OK, mismanaged by. Just for god's sake do better than Ho LIEberman.

Delay Sotomayor's Hearings?

Senate Republican "leaders" threw a fit over Sen Leahy's plan to start hearings in mid-July, it isn't enough time. It may shorten the interval for fundraising and name calling but the consensus is that Sotomayor will be approved, regardless of Republican opposition. Given that no startlingly bad thing is hidden away somewhere accessible the Republicans face the public with no meaningful ammunition and are jumping up and down screaming "NO" for no identifiable reason.

In the absence of identifiable reasons the public will fill in the blanks starting with the most obvious - she's a Democratic nominee - and move on to the really risky ones - like she's a woman and she's a Latino - in other words she's not an old white man. Her record doesn't back their claims of racism and making up laws - judicial activism is exactly what they do regardless of the negative connotations implied. They're going to come up dry and she's going to a Supreme Court Justice, the question is how to win from there.

If I were a Republican Senate leader I'd push for as quick hearings as would pass muster of due diligence. My reasoning is simple, don't be seen losing and don't be seen losing ugly. The ugly face Republicans have been presenting may play to those who will vote for them anyhow but it is really off-putting to those who make choices. Looking forward is a much better policy than digging your hole deeper. If the Republicans were to go along with this nomination with good grace it becomes less of a loss, less of an example of ineffectualism in the name of partisanship. There are elections in 2010, all House seats and 1/3 of the Senate seats, that ought to have meaning in political calculations. If the goal is to hang onto the now immaterial House seats they have and lose some more Senate seats playing to the base alone is good politics. I predicted awhile back that the course of elections was that the loon faction would be most of what was left in the House - it is. The Senate is narrowing into that same equation and 2010 may well result in an immaterial loon fringe remaining in the Senate - more than a couple of the Senate seats were won on the basis of old and now disreputable politics, things have changed.

There are a lot more voices and ideas in this country than are represented by a base Republican Congress and Democrats. This crap is not good for the country, it is not good for the only opposition to be the voices of crazy. It is, further, bad for the Democratic Party to contain Republicans with a (D) as their sole qualification for their membership - that confuses the snot out of voters and holds the seeds of discord and junk in the Party. I won't play purity police for the Democratic Party, but I'm happy to smack heck out of stupidity. These folks need someplace to go, but it needn't be to the loons.

Souter To Retire

Justice David Souter plans to retire from the US Supreme Court. Despite being picked by George HW Bush Souter has in his late career been a fairly liberal justice. Perhaps this would be a way out of the 9th Circuit for Bybee, there's a pick for you. Surely his torture memos are a pretty liberal interpretation of law, liberal with the BS brush...

This will be interesting to watch - especially the part where Republicans lose their collective minds.

***Breaking*** SCOTUS Conspiracy

***NEWS***NEWS***NEWS***NEWS***

US Supreme Court rejects hearing illegal space alien President-elect case. Martians will be allowed dominance over the US. Churches next. EEEEK

There might be polite words that describe these dead-enders, I have nothing like the energy to search for them.

Second Amendment Individual Right And End Of World

Heller V DC just brought civilization as we know it in these United States to an end. Really, the gun control, gun ban crowd would have you believe the streets will be awash in blood thanks to a finding in favor of an individual right. DC Mayor Fenty states that more guns means more crime, and says it with not only a straight face, he says it with conviction. So now guns will just be everywhere in DC and everybody will have one and just shoot each other to pieces?

Let's just back the train up here. DC has had a draconian handgun ban since 1976 and they still are shooting each other to pieces. DC pols blame VA for this. What they really mean is that despite a gun ban there are guns aplenty in DC. What guns there are not in DC are the ones in law-abiding hands. There can't be because it is against the law. To be sure there are probably ordinarily law-abiding people who violate this one, but is asking for all kinds of trouble. If every law-abiding citizen who wants one buys a gun that will surely result in a net increase of firearms in DC.

There evidently hasn't been much problem with the getting of a gun in DC, there seem to be plenty to go around in criminal circles. Law-abiding citizens having them will result in more crimes for what reason? People who haven't killed their neighbors or spouses will suddenly want to because they can buy a gun? Criminals in search of guns will break into houses to get them? That might actually be a side benefit of a burglary but as a motive it is a rather risky method compared to buying an illegal one. It is surely an aspect of legal ownership that burglary will become a bit more risky in DC. I qualify that statement with reason, I strongly doubt that DC will not put road blocks in the path to private ownership. They're going to have some real problems if it becomes capricious or elitist.

There are a handful of communities in the nation with draconian, capricious, or otherwise questionable firearm regulations. California and Massachusetts may have some difficulties with their laws. One thing is quite certain, owning firearms is not a universal desire in this country. The numbers of lawfully held firearms will increase but where that leads to an increase in mayhem is unclear. Most of the bloodshed pictured by the gun banners is already either a fact - in criminal circles - or accomplished with other means by homicidal bent people. Do I think firearms crimes won't increase? No, I think they will, but I don't think the number of murders will increase. The guy who beats his wife to death may opt for shooting her, the intention is the same and the result the same, simply a different means. I think firearm accidents may well increase as inexperienced people acquire things they should learn about and don't. I'm afraid our culture has mystified and mythologized firearms to the point where that is the common denominator among non-shooters.

Entertainment media and, most unfortunately, news media present inaccurate and frequently completely stupid portrayals of firearms. It is not an easy thing to hit a target with any firearm and handguns are particularly not easy, just pointing isn't likely to achieve good results without a tremendous amount of practice. Firearm lethality is exaggerated in many cases, a handgun is certainly a lethal weapon, but the bullet must hit something lethal and the body isn't that chock full of them. Entertainment depicts things that just flatly don't happen, people are not thrown or even knocked down by bullet impacts. The idea that body parts explode is a fantasy excepting large caliber high velocity bullets, or small caliber hyper-velocity bullets.

There may be some people hurt or killed by firearms that shouldn't have been as a result of this decision and there may well be people hurt or killed who should be, how that will balance I'm unsure. There will be cases where the presence of a firearm will just stop a crime without anyone hurt and there will be crimes uncommitted out of fear of running into an armed victim. These latter cases will not be documented in any meaningful way and thus not appear in the record. Gun banners are fond of citing the lack of such numbers and never bother to note that they aren't really reported.

The world isn't going to end and neither is violent crime going to disappear as a result of this decision.

Paul Helmke - Brady Campaign Liar

Paul Helmke has repeatedly stated that it is plain on its face that the 2nd Amendment is only applicable to militias and therefor the Military today. He has ridiculed arguments opposing this view, a view with no historical precedence, and made it clear that only loons saw it as an individual right. Now, ABC quotes this guy:

"We've lost the battle on what the Second Amendment means," Brady Campaign president Paul Helmke told ABC News. "Seventy-five percent of the public thinks it's an individual right. Why are we arguing a theory anymore? We are concerned about what we can do practically."

Theory? The only people engaging in something theoretical was Helmke and his ilk. The language in the Amendment cannot be twisted into the loops the Brady Campaign proposed, it flatly cannot make the case. You have got to understand this concession in real terms, "We've lost the battle," means exactly what it means, they engaged in a battle to crush a plain right.

"We're expecting D.C. to lose the case," Helmke said. "But this could be good from the standpoint of the political-legislative side."

On a Court that is narrowly split on right and left Helmke expects to lose, understand the thust of that statement. Helmke has long asserted the right to strip ordinary citizens of the 2nd and he expects to lose? Every assertion that what the Brady Campaign was up to was Un-constitutional was ridiculed, Brady opponents were labeled gun-nuts and kooks for their stance. Helmke expects to lose a Supreme Court decision about the very thing he has advocated as Constitutional.

So, when was Helmke lying? This decision is not about what most Americans view as an individual or collective right, it is about what the Supreme Court views it as. If you are advocating the mangling of the Bill of Rights amendment numbered two and you have doubts...what in the hell kind of person are you? He did not state, "oh, we've had an epipheny," no he says we expect to lose.

Every time I've read this guy I've been struck by how much straighter a cork screw is than he is. I'll argue differences in policy, but I'll be damned if I'll argue against lies, I'll just call them such and prove it. I will not be polite about it, a liar is just that. Screw Paul Helmke - liar.

Scalia Activist Judge

The dissent filed by Antonin Scalia in Boumediene v. Bush was scathing concerning the dangers of releasing Guantanamo detainees.

"At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantánamo have returned to the battlefield."

It is flatly untrue. Seton Hall University School of Law calls Scalia's contention an "urban legend," based on misinformation provided by DoD to the Senate Minority Report of a year ago.

On December 10, 2007 The Seton Hall Center for Policy and Research issued a Report,
THE MEANING OF "BATTLEFIELD": An Analysis of the Government’s Representations of
‘Battlefield Capture’ and ‘Recidivism’ of the Guantánamo Detainees, which demonstrated that
statements asserting 30 detainees had returned to the battlefield were incorrect. Further
developments since then, including recent hearings before Congress at which more information
was provided by the Department of Defense, confirm that the 30 recidivist claim is simply
wrong and has no place in a reasoned public debate about Guantánamo.

This report is Senate Report No. 110-90, pt. 7, p. 13 (June 26, 2007), Minority Views of Sens. Kyl,
Sessions, Graham, Cornyn, and Coburn; easily the usual suspects when fear mongering is about. It wouldn't be quite so disgraceful if it had not been refuted by the same entity that made the claim initially:

First, a Department of Defense Press Release in July 2007 belied
both Mr. Dell’Orto’s testimony and the Minority Views relying on it. Second, and even more definitively, a Department of Defense document produced at a House Foreign Relations Subcommittee Hearing on May 20, 2008 abandons the claim of 30.

The actual number may be 12 although there exist acknowledged mistakes by DoD in identification. Of these released detainees not a single one was released by a federal judge or as a result of Habeas Corpus. These releases were the responsibility of and actions by DoD.

A recent suicide bombing by a former detainee, ISN220 has something to say to us, this detainee was captured as he attempted to escape to Pakistan from Tora Bora, the military identified him as having trained with Al Qaida after going AWOL from Kuwait and being issued an AK47 and ammunition by them. He acknowledged participating in Taliban fighting and that he wished to harm Americans and was committed to jihadism. The military did not wish him released and yet he was. The relevant documents are redacted concerning why and what action was taken concerning ISN220 or Al Ajmi.

What ever Scalia was on about:

“[the Court’s decision] will almost certainly cause more
Americans to be killed.”

certainly has nothing to do with Federal Court review of Habeas Corpus and may have everything to do with essentially capricious decisions by Guantanamo Bay and politicians. If making a dissent based on untrue information regarding unrelated activities by unrelated entities is a basis for corrupting one of the oldest English law traditions enshrined in our Constitution in incontrovertible language isn't Judicial Activism I'm real unsure what that term is supposed to mean. It would appear to be, in this case, whatever a Republican fear-monger wants it to mean.

Let me be clear about something, I understand that sometimes concepts become clearly radically wrong with the passage of time, such as a provision that a slave is 3/5 of a human, but addressing that wrong in the spirit of increasing liberty and rights maintains the spirit of limited government power envisioned in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. For the Supreme Court or a member to assert that any Constitutional provision should be abrogated to narrow personal liberty by the expansion of governmental power is plainly ludicrous.

As a document the Constitution as a whole spends little time verbiage on giving the government power, it primarily breaks that power up and severely limits it. There was a very clear understanding by the Framers that governments tend to attempt to accrue power at the expense of the citizenry and their liberty and that the tendency should be stopped at certain lines. Antonin Scalia has proven himself unworthy of the robes he wears with this dissent alone. He proposes on the basis of factually inaccurate statements to be in favor of an unlimited power of the Federal Government to hold incommunicado and rightless anyone that Government states it would. It would not matter if the statements were actually true, the establishment of tyranny should be met with determined resistance. Antonin Scalia should at the very least be denied the company of all thinking individuals and shunned by the public at large. Frankly a ride on a pole clothed in tar and feathers would be more appropriate than the dignity of robes.

Boumediene V. Bush & McCain's Dishonor

One of the great things to happen at knife point, or perhaps sword point, was John's acquiescence to the nobles in 1215 that there were limits to power, the Magna Carta delineated these which included Habeas Corpus, literally Latin for "you have the body." It is a petition to a court to have it shown that one is held lawfully or be released.

George II and his lackey Republican Congress twice removed the right to Habeas Corpus from those he or the Dept of Defence declared to be enemy combatants. The Constitution clearly states that the right to Habeas Corpus shall be suspended only in the event of invasion or rebellion, neither of which seems to have occurred. The Supreme Court decided in Boumediene V Bush that the detainees in Guantanamo had the right to question their detention in US Courts. Oddly enough, that stalwart of justice and principled opponent of George, John McCain had this to say, "The Supreme Court yesterday rendered a decision which I think is one of the worst decisions in the history of this country," and echoed Robert's dissent that states the courts will be flooded with appeals. You understand that John McCain believes that the upholding of an eight hundred year old right extracted by force of arms from a petty tyrant King is the worst in history. It is an unforeseeable consequence of imprisoning and holding people for over six years might create a flood?

The right to be brought to trial is essential to governance by law, there is no law if there is no guarantee to a hearing in court, there is only tyranny. Law devolves into the exercise of physical force to imprison without the ability to challenge it, it makes the only recourse to "law-enforcement" forceful resistance, once in custody all options disappear. Understand that the word of a President is not sufficient to outweigh your inherent right to life and liberty, there is either law or there is anarchy.

John McCain has now shown his mind to have rotted from close association with the wannabe kinglet George II and he should be shunned. As an officer and gentleman he swore an oath to protect and uphold the Constitution, he has abrogated all respect due his uniform and his service. Any impulse to politeness toward him I may have felt is now gone. He is now no more than a freak of the Republican nature, better that SAM had killed him over N Vietnam when he may still have had some honor.

Hillary Diplomacy

I've watched a lot of freaking out on TV and in blogs and other reports regarding Hillary's speech preceding Obama's St Paul speech. Oh no, she didn't suspend or concede or... She did start out referring to SD as having the last word, just over an hour later MT was the last word where Obama did win. She did make a few possibly flawed arguments and patted herself on the back and managed to compliment Obama on a great campaign. She wants to look at where to go and how to care for her 18 million voters. She wants leverage.

Hillary has a very narrow window to make any plays with her leverage. All her voters are not fixed in place, some are. The some are the question, the ones who won't vote Obama per the exit polls. Those voters are a minority and not a coherent group, there are those who await Hillary's word, there are those who will ignore any unity call. Most of Hillary's supporters are Democrats who will back the Party nominee, they won't be held hostage by a losing candidate.

It is surely the case that the voters awaiting Hillary's unity call will wait for her and absent it what they would do is questionable. These people are an important piece of the Democratic vote and not to be lost lightly. But here is the rub for Hillary whatever her level of Party loyalty may or may not be, the Party has the power to destroy her. If the Party sees Hillary playing too loosely with its chances for November the warnings will be stark.

I do not buy into the school of thought that places Hillary in some totally egocentric category where the Party that has allowed her and her family to thrive has none of her loyalty. I believe that she and her advisers ran the campaign they knew how to run and that it took her very nearly to the nomination - at the expense of driving up both candidate's negatives. If you look at Hillary and the people surrounding her and their histories the campaign makes perfect sense. I may believe it was fatally flawed in strategy and tactics both for her and the Party, but it very nearly worked for the Primary. It may have been a good General Election operation, though I believe the strategy would have come up short, the tactics might have been good. She benefited tremendously in her tactics from running against a candidate who did not take off the gloves. Her campaign does not signal a Party disloyalty, it does not signal egomania, it does signal an old style attack politics.

Hillary does not want this Primary to be her swan song, she wants to be a power in Democratic politics and a player of national import. This is an important piece, what has happened in this election just created a new power bloc, Obama's. Obama should be able to win this election, with Hillary's help, but that will mean four to eight years of time for a new power center to entrench itself and begin drawing to itself the strands of power and it will not be the Clinton power bloc finding a new home beyond what Hillary can carve out. The McAuliff DNC is now officially dead. Terry McAuliff and Harold Ickes are done, they can be bit players here and there but their model of Democratic politics is done for the foreseeable future and they're not young.

The road to keeping a Clinton power base is not in the Vice-presidency, the office holds no actual power. Dick Cheney is an aberration (and some other things). If Hillary took the VP Obama would be forced to bury her - and more importantly, Bill. Hillary must know this, this has to have been discussed late at night where only walls could hear, she hangs with some hard ball players. The VP is a place to go and watch her power slowly drain away. Cabinet posts might give her a basis to actuate some things she cares about, HHS would put health care very much in her hands - beneath the President - but it is also an invisible position. Anything inside the Executive Branch is a place for political power to dissipate.

Her position of 34th in Senate seniority doesn't hold a lot of swat, in itself. She is now a Senator with a powerful public voice in her own right; not as Bill's wife with a so-what junior senator ship on his coattails. Majority Leader isn't in the cards, there are way too many experienced and well senior Senators between her and it. She can make a case for a Chair and with a President's backing and a grateful Party that case could be strong.

There has been speculation about the Supreme Court, her legal background is very thin in that regard, but that has not been a bar previously. With election politics removed she might well find a backbone on the matter of principles. I am not comfortable with her stance on some issues involving the Bill of Rights and I'd probably oppose her (for all that counts). I do have to admit that there would be a certain amount of enjoyment to be found in watching the wing nuts' heads explode. This would remove her and her family from influence in electoral politics, pretty completely. That might be a trade I could live with.

If Obama wins the General Election Hillary is done in Presidential politics, her power base is now falling apart - witness the DNC RBC. Alliances based on influence are beginning to wane and that process will only accelerate under Obama. Other women will begin to gain national prominence whether Obama picks one as VP or not. Even if Obama were to pick a male for VP that would not bar changing to a woman for a second term if the male were an older man.

Hillary Clinton will be an asset to Obama's campaign because she will want a Democratic victory and because strategically she has no choice. If people don't lose their minds and start throwing conniption fits this will be fine. So, let's get to work getting Obama elected.

Why the Revolution Isn't Happening

My apologies to regular readers who've been wondering what happened to posting on a regular basis; I've been ill. It is actually a bit more than illness, it also has a bit to do with my having a temper. By the time I had finished watching our Senate hand George II another piece of our rights and our protection from corporate misdeeds I was furious. The fact that the House let the FISA mess expire didn't assuage the boil over. I am ordinarily quite capable of expressing my outrage without losing my mind but the combination of a rather rude flu bug and the steady Congressionally approved erosion of American liberty finally short-circuited my thinking processes. I found myself looking at the screen and keyboard with disbelief, amazement, and fury; and no words. Just stalled and stuck in place.

It might have been mitigated if either Democratic candidate had gotten up on their hind legs and said something...anything, really. It didn't help in the least that friends I like were also losing their minds, it isn't the least calming to hear, "I guess we'll just have to meet on the village green." As furious as I am, this one just pokes all the wrong buttons. As an adamant supporter of the Second Amendment I have looked carefully at the intentions behind it and the current societal conditions and the results are not calming.

While there are side benefits to hunting and other sporting activities involved in the Second Amendment, and noted at the time of the framing debate, the purposes are the defense of a "free state." The expression "free state" was a deliberate usage, it is a universal concept rather than the narrow one of, for example, 'the United States' or 'the nation' or 'the free states.' In this usage "state" is not a geographical concept but rather one of condition, the condition of all people though most particularly the citizens of the US. That there could even be discussion of this concept, much less heated debate, makes rather definite statement about the state of the American citizenry. We all abhor the pointless lawless violence the is perpetrated in our schools, malls, streets, and homes; but a large percentage of the population seems to have forgotten that life is a very risky proposition and liberty increases the risks.

Murder and mayhem are scarcely new phenomenons in this country, for a large portion of our history it was the everyday norm for many. The frontier history is more recent for those of us in the West, but the frontier started at the Atlantic Ocean at one point. The states of Ohio and Kentucky were scenes of incredibly brutal violence, primarily between settlers and Native Americans but also including the French, later the British, and even between the settlers themselves. These conditions played out in varied degrees from ocean to ocean and the institution of law enforcement (civil or military) did not cause a cessation. Being on the leading edge of human condition is an incredibly dangerous situation.

The mistake people make is in thinking that law was and is the operative concept, it is human behavior that is in operation. Giving human beings liberty is not a safe sort of thing to do, humans are incredibly variable in behavior as a species. They are given to all kinds of extremes and law does no more than punish the behaviors. Laws do not stop behaviors, moral and ethical judgements do. The judgement may come down to no more than a weighing of possible consequences, but legal sanctions are only an add on, not the determinant. Committing robbery, for example, has always had possible negative consequences which may in fact have been more serious and more sure in the absence of law. It is a fallacy to believe that the law stops people who are willing to ignore consequences. The Framers decided that the benefits to the citizenry far outweighed the risks, risks they were fully aware of.

Today, many believe that we are or should be much more secure and safe now than then. Why people believe that armed bands of depredation have disappeared or would disappear simply in the face of Law is an odd question. Behavior is linked to much more than simple legal consequences, those considerations are really at the end of the line of behavioral determinants. This attitude of safeness leads to considerable outrage when it is proven unfounded. Certainly we would rather be safe than at risk, but druthers have little to do with reality, and this is aggravated by our Founders ideas.

The Constitution sets out a framework of how to govern, the Bill of Rights sets out specified human conditions that government is not allowed to trespass on, specifically prohibited governmental behaviors because these states of being are assumed to be precedent to government. Not allowing the government to attempt to interfere in these areas was at the time the leading edge of political science, it was essentially untried and acknowledged as dangerous. It is still the leading edge of political science, there is no government on the face of the earth with stronger prohibitions of interference with human rights. There is a reason this is true, it is damned dangerous. And we're throwing it away in search of illusionary security.

This is the populace of today, the one that is willing to ignore the simple language of the Bill of Rights in order to secure the non-existent safety promised by political organizations. Contrast that desire with the at any cost defense of liberty and see which is most prevalent. The idea that Revolution could now occur on the basis of the intangibles of the Bill of Rights is awfully optimistic. The simple reason the Second Amendment is within the Bill of Rights is the ability to secure a free state of being, the ability to withstand foreign or domestic assaults on that state of being. In the face of a national military, the final ends are personal security from others and citizen security from our own government's depredations.

Inherent in the inclusion of the Bill of Rights in the Constitutional document is the acknowledgement of governmental inclination to abridge the natural rights of citizens and its final dissuasion is the right to keep and bear arms. You have to look at the entire document to understand that it is essentially a blueprint for Revolution. Freedom of religion, speech, and press allow the breeding of and dissemination of Revolutionary thought. Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure allows the infrastructure of Revolution. The keeping and bearing of arms allows the physical means of Revolution. Follow on through the Bill of Rights with this state of reasoning and each will reveal a tool of rebellion, and why not? These were the instigators of a Rebellion against a lawfully constituted government to whom they had historical and societal ties, deep ties. We were given all the tools needed to physically "throw the rascals out."

This is what the government is in the process of dismantling to limited citizen outcry. There is good reason why the outcry is limited, it is natural to crave security and materialistic success. Those cravings are exactly what is at risk with the form of Liberty the Framers envisioned and we are so far from the obvious frontier requirements of personal responsibility and risk that the depredation of Liberty goes almost unnoticed. This is the citizenry that we could expect to hold responsible for their own Liberty? One of the reasons guns become such a flash point is that they are an actual physical and materialistic expression of liberty, it is easier to hold in your hands a Colt than it is to wrap your mind around governmental snooping, or the funding of chosen religions. The immediate bark of a Winchester is more obvious than the whimper of corporate media in the face of governmental misdeeds. But that does not a Revolution make.

The American people sat on their hands when RICO was passed, it was not a matter of their house payments or grocery bill, even though the depredation on the Fourth Amendment was clear. It was touted as a tool applicable to the Mafia, a feared and despised minority. The problem is that however feared and despised and nastily criminal the Mafia is, they are also by definition, us. What is applicable to the Mafia is equally applicable to ordinary citizens, if the government doesn't like what you and some associates are up to you can easily find yourselves designated a criminal conspiracy and subject to some truly draconian outcomes. All it takes is a few more little baby steps like The Patriot Act or Military Commission Act to make it so. In the time of the Framers, instigators of actions allowed by RICO would have found themselves at best tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail, and today almost nobody notices. This is the bunch somebody expects to build a Revolution on?

The political appellation of authoritarianism is not Party determined, it is an outlook and desire for a type of political action. The mindset seems more prevalent in the Republican Party, but that is, perhaps, due to the more heated rhetoric of the extremes of the Party and the out of control just past Republican Congress. RICO was passed by a Democratic Congress, and the more egregious offenses on the Second have been at the hands of primarily Democrats. The current Democratic Presidential candidates are both notorious gun banners and supporters of blatantly un-Constitutional gun activities. It is not a Party affiliation that is dangerous to this nation's Liberty, it is the mindset of those we elect and our refusal to hold them accountable. Authoritarians should be opposed at every pass, at every opportunity, whether their stated ends match our own or not. That is not the case, not for the ordinary gun owners, press, religions, or even speech advocates, they ignore what does not impact their pet idea. This is what Revolutionary thought has to contend with, figure a considerably larger chance if the issue was economic and materialistic. Short of another Great Depression or the grinding plutocracy of the Robber Barons expect more of the same. Toilet paper and the Constitution's parts respecting Liberty have a lot in common, in DC, Statehouses, and your houses.

The Right To Vote And The Right To Political Speech

The Supreme Court is hearing the case regarding Indiana's voter ID law, and the NYT's Editorial Observer feels confused. Earlier this year the Supremes struck down the section of the McCain Feingold campaign financing bill that limited 527's attack ads in the last couple days of an election and shows signs of upholding Indiana's law. Adam Cohen notes that when it comes to corporate and wealth speech the Court rules the Constitution “requires us to err on the side of protecting political speech rather than suppressing it,” and yet in a case where no evident pattern of voter fraud exists John Roberts says it is no great concern since the trip is not “very far” to travel 17 miles by bus to a clerks office to fight over whether a vote is valid.

No, in John's world 17 miles isn't much, and anyhow, nobody would challenge his vote. The right to vote has been under sustained attack since 2000 in Republican dominated states and, once BushCo got the Justice Dept straightened out, at the Federal level. These are the same people who cheer lead foreign democracy, trying hard to eradicate it at home. Be under no illusion that I think restrictions on speech regarding money are in danger - or should be. But also understand that efforts to disenfranchise voters infuriate me no end. There is little doubt that as groups both the young and the poor have rotten rates of participation, any action to further discourage their participation means that this government will less reflect the reality of its citizenry than it does now.

The domination of political discourse by corporate interests and wealth is largely the fault of the citizenry, it takes a desperate level of poverty to not be able to afford a $20 political contribution. That $20-200 contribution made by the percentage who do not now contribute anything would equalize or overwhelm most other sources. It is the one way an ordinary citizen can make their political will felt - if they avail themselves of it. In Oregon you get a straight up tax credit matching up to $50 in political contributions. Even if you're pretty poor, and you pay at least $50 in state income taxes, you can send it to the political cause of you choice instead of the State, it's gone either way... The truly egalitarian part of it is that the number is that low, the state is encouraging lesser incomes to participate rather than rewarding participation by wealth. The point is that it is not an action of the government that creates speech primarily for the wealthy, it is abdication by the rest of us. Not so with voter disenfranchisement, that is a direct action of the state.

The idea that the state needs more power and reach is ludicrous. The citizen, minus great personal wealth, is already out gunned and over manned by the state. The citizen does not have fleets of lawyers and troops of investigators, he has himself. The mechanics of voting are already in the state's hands and the advantage lies with the state's incumbents, the citizen is at the lowest level of power, despite all the rhetoric denying it. There are - or were - some hamstringing qualifiers on the state, the BOR and following Amendments along with some Constitutional directives. For the Supreme Court to question the right to an unencumbered vote, much less rule against it is elitism at its very worst and contrary to the spirit of democracy of the latter half of the 20th Century. It is also counter to the need for a government reflective of its own citizenry, one of the overarching arguments for the Revolution. The tenor of the questions posed by the Court make me fearful for our State.

The Supreme Court and the Second Amendment

It has been since 1939 that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Second Amendment case, that one was US vs. Miller regarding a sawed off shotgun. The case had been decided against Miller in appeals court and the Supremes agreed to hear it, Miller in the mean time died, leaving no appellant, a moot case. The Court has aggressively avoided hearing cases involving the 2nd, and for the most part firearms rights organizations have preferred legislative fights. This has of course lead to quite a bit of speculation regarding why this issue has stayed out of Court for so long. The Washington DC case may end this long dry spell.

A lawsuit sponsored by Robert A Levy was filed against Washington DC by Dick Anthony Heller a security guard at a building which houses the federal judiciary administrative offices. Heller carries a handgun at work, he had applied for and was denied a permit to keep the gun at home. This denial gave him legal standing as an appellant to contest an arbitrary denial of 2nd Amendment rights. The lawsuit alleged that the Second Amendment is an individual right while Washington DC takes the stance that the Second only applies to state militia service, that the limitations only apply to the federal government, and finally that a handgun ban is a reasonable restriction in the interest of public safety and health. The three judge US Court of Appeals for DC disagreed 2/1, asserting that the 2nd is an individual right which allows for reasonable restrictions on people such as felons but that DC's outright prohibition and refusal to grant permits is unconstitutional.

Both sides have been spoiling for this fight, now the Supreme Court will decide whether to hear the case or not, known now as District of Columbia v. Heller, No. 07-290. The Second Amendment:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The Framer's attempt to keep things simple with a single sentence did not anticipate the narrow arguments around language that has changed over the years and changes in culture. At the time the population could be described as primarily rural, in today's world most of the urban areas of the time would be regarded as rural, having a distinct effect on cultural outlooks. Another cultural aspect was the recent history of the Revolution and the rule of George III. The populace was quite familiar with the concept of a government expected to behave in one manner usurping the "ancient rights" of Englishmen. What the language of the time meant, what the writings surrounding ratification say, and what the English law antecedents say are not much in debate, the debate around the Second devolves into modern interpretation and agenda. This is a case where the use of specific language has caused confusion and the use of grammar rules well understood now opens the door to revisionism.

"Well regulated" was a military term meaning well equipped and turned out, today the term no longer is used in regard to military units, in fact only a single word "regulated" is used and that is in regard to bureaucratic rules being applied. Language has changed. The section of the 2nd regarding militias is a dependent clause which is used as a descriptive or explanatory phrase in a sentence regarding the independent clause which is the definitive meaning of the sentence. This usage is still recognized as proper grammar usage and sentence structure. This has not stopped the argument from being made that the dependent clause gives the states the right to arm their militia - the National Guard. Disregarding the incorrect grammatical interpretation of this clause as the operative wording this stance also ignores the definition of militia which was nearly all able-bodied free white men, not a State sanctioned military unit.

Over the years the Supreme Court has managed to avoid ruling on the Second, Miller was sent back to the Appeals Court and stood with the narrow definition of the Second being that the arms were of military utility and denying that a sawed off shotgun was such. Congress sidestepped the issue regarding full automatic weapons by passing a law which required a tax stamp, issued on payment and the meeting of essentially background check and also allowing Federal inspection of the weapon at the government's discretion - essentially a voluntary surrender of 4th Amendment rights. While this law is a discouragement to the ownership of that sort of firearm it is also not an infringement in the sense that an absolute ban is. An uncomfortable status quo was achieved. Firearm rights groups avoided having to take a criminal case to the Supremes, such a case has legal standing but would come to the Court from an uncomfortable direction, the current case involves a sympathetic appellant with legal standing.

The Supreme Court is now in a difficult position, if it refuses to hear the case the Appeals Court ruling stands and DC's handgun ban is overthrown, if it hears the case it must rule on the issue of individual right which has been the gun ban lobby's one refuge, unless the Supremes are willing to rule that public health and safety is so universally and inevitably at risk so as to trump a Constitutional guarantee. That is an extremely high hurdle to make and a demonstration that legal ownership is such a threat will be statistically very difficult. This is not a venue where the gun banners' media fueled emotional appeal based on the small percentages of devastation wreaked by legal possessors will carry much weight. This has obviously worked within legislative bodies and with a fair sized segment of the general population, but the Supreme Court is a bit different.

There are a multitude of reasons the Court has avoided this issue, public opinion and the interference with legislative bodies are all dissuasive reasons and rulings on very basic rights are of tremendous import, not ground the Supremes really care to tread. This is going to be interesting, and the fallout will be even more interesting.

The Supreme Court, Torture, and Secrets

If you were not scared of what the government could do to you and get away with it, there's a new dodge in town - it's called states secrets privilege. Exactly right, the government, according to the Supreme Court can kidnap someone and have them detained and tortured and there's no civil remedy if the Administration asserts that it is a state's secret involved. Apparently kidnapping and torture aren't bad enough, they also managed to get the wrong guy.

Kahled al-Masra, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, was kidnapped in Macedonia and taken to Afghanistan by the US were he was tortured. He was held for five months and then released in Albania after apparently having been mistaken for someone with a similar name. He sued the government and lost today in the Supreme Court on the basis of the state's secrets doctrine established in 1953 to keep lawyers for survivors of three civilians killed in a secret plane test from getting the official accident report which contained design elements. What the specific design elements of an airplane not being handed out has to do with kidnapping and torturing a guy seems to miss a whole bunch of legal observers. Me too.

What this really seems to say is that the government can do just exactly as it wishes to you and walk away scott free as long as it says the magic words - secret secret secret. Makes you wonder about a few things, like pursuing redress of grievances. You see my real problem with this kind of crap is that by making the government legally unaccountable you encourage an account taking of another sort. There are people who if treated in this fashion wouldn't take "tough" for an answer, they might decide they wanted just a bit more. I can assure you that in my case ever letting me go would not be particularly smart. Very much not smart. You make your own call.