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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I'm running for Idaho state senate I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
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Saturday, November 08, 2003
Humor This wandered in from a friend. The humorous aspect is the final line. Please do not explode until you get to the bottom: ADVICE FROM A RETIREE Relying More on International Law, Less on the Constitution I've been razzing Sandra Day O'Connor (and her fellow Republican leftists) for relying more on international law, and less on the Constitution. But somehow, I can't picture them giving much weight to Singapore law: SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A Singaporean police sergeant has been jailed for two years for having oral sex in a country where prostitution is legal but oral sex is not, a newspaper reported Friday.Or am I just being cynical when I assume that "giving weight to international law" is just an excuse for justices like O'Connor to throw out laws that offend them (but are Constitutional) while keeping laws that they don't find icky. Another of Those "Rare" Defensive Gun Uses This seems to have happened November 5th in Pennsylvania: COATESVILLE -- Two men armed with guns who burst into a home in the 400 block of Victoria Drive Wednesday and demanded money got a little surprise when one of the people inside the home had better aim, police said.Thanks to www.keepandbeararms.org for the link. Roy Lucas Has Died of a Heart Attack If you don't know who he is--he was one of the attorneys on Roe v. Wade (1973)--and for the last few months, he was also working on the Silveira v. Lockyer suit, attempting to overturn California's assault weapons law on Second Amendment grounds. I have had some serious concerns about this suit from the beginning, but talking to Roy Lucas over the last few months gave me some hope that because of his experience--and his reputation to the left--he might be able to pull a rabbit out of a hat if the Supreme Court decided to hear this suit. This is unfortunate. Unsurprisingly, the New York Times article talks about Lucas' work on Roe--but not his work defending the right to keep and bear arms. Essay Contest The Institute for Humane Studies (one of those libertarian organizations) is offering college students a chance to make some money writing essays in defense of liberty. The Onion Nails It Again! Read the whole thing. Here's a taste: "It's not just about Americans eating too many fries or cracking their skulls open when they fall off their bicycles," said Los Angeles resident Rebecca Burnie, 26. "It's a financial issue, too. I spend all my money on trendy clothes and a nightlife that I can't afford. I'm $23,000 in debt, but the credit-card companies keep letting me spend. It's obscene that the government allows those companies to allow me to do this to myself. Why do I pay my taxes?" What Bloodthirsty Warmonger Said This? It's quite a statement: [] advocated a swift and severe response Wednesday against those responsible for the catastrophic attacks on the United States a day earlier. “It’s not a matter of punishment, it’s got to be a matter of eradication,” he said during a news conference. “Our goal should be to eradicate every terrorist on the face of this Earth.”That was September 13, 2001. Governor Dean has calmed down so much since then. More Conversations With a Gun Control Advocate My last exchange resulted in this fresh email: So the NRA would rather see money and time spent addressing swimming pool and bathtub deaths of children? Are Americans capable of expending energy on only one cause of childhood death at a time? I'm sorry, Clayton, but that argument strikes me as a little disingenuous.My response: It's certainly the case that the energy spent pursuing accidental gun deaths of children is energy taken away from much more common causes of death. Even making an effort to reduce suicides among teenagers (where the problem is actually serious, and with both guns and other methods) makes a lot more sense in terms of lives lost and families devastated. Keep in mind that the 70 million gun owners who are not members of NRA include: 1. Those too lazy to do anything as pro-active as join NRA. 2. Those (and there are more than you might expect) who think the NRA is a sell-out to the gun control crowd. Yes, I meet people like this a lot. Maybe it's just from living in California, but I have met plenty of the radical hotheads over the years. My Congresswoman for many years was Lynne Woolsey. In 1992, she told me that if she had her way, all private ownership of firearms in the U.S. would be prohibited. "We do believe that putting hidden, loaded handguns in public places unnecessarily endangers children and others because of accidental shootings." So where is the increase in accidental shootings? There's a lot of states now that have adopted these sort of laws. Accidental shootings are so rare that this is a strawman argument. About half of accidental gun deaths are hunting accidents--so those are irrelevant to concealed carry of firearms. At least the non-hunting accidental deaths that I read about are very disproportionately teenagers showing off or otherwise engaging in unsafe practices with a gun. Teenagers don't qualify for concealed weapon permits under these laws, so it's hard to see how guns being carried concealed by adults are going to make much of an impact. "We also have a philosophical view of life and society that doesn't include carrying guns around in public." Didn't you say in the first email that you had no problem with open carry? Why indeed, you did: As for the question (raging debate) of concealed carry weapons in Ohio, I agree with you that those who claim a need to carry a loaded handgun in public should observe the current law. Carry openly. The current law provides Ohioans with abundant opportunities to protect themselves, both at home and in public."Besides, so few people in CCW states carry that it doesn't have much impact on crime." If that is so, then why do you object to the law changing? Crimes involving guns (which are overwhelmingly committed by those who don't qualify for permits because of prior felony convictions, age, mental illness problems) outnumber accidental shootings by several orders of magnitude. Friday, November 07, 2003
Racism: The Latest Excuse for Suppressing Inconvenient Truths The Stanford student newspaper ran an ad from a pro-Israeli group: The ads, which have run in many college newspapers nationwide, have attracted campus attention over the past two weeks for claims some students say are anti-Palestinian. One ad depicts Israelis lighting candles in remembrance of Sept. 11 victims, under the words, “On September 11, 2001, Israelis mourned in Tel-Aviv.” Next to it is a photo showing Palestinian men and children cheering, beneath the text, “On September 11, 2001, Palestinians celebrated in Lebanon.”Now, some Islamic students at Stanford are trying to get the editor removed: “The advertisement suggests that all Palestinians are inhumane and they revel in the shedding of innocent blood,” wrote the group, called the Coalition for Justice, in a letter that members of the Stanford community signed.Hmmm. It seems to me that the ad casts aspersions based on a savage and inhumane response to a terrible atrocity. Now, I can see why Palestinians and their friends would like people to forget about this. I can even see why some might argue that not all Palestinians celebrated what happened on 9/11. The fact is, however, that there were a lot of Palestinians celebrating that day. Yet Palestinians expect the U.S. to pressure Israel into treating the Palestinians better? I have never been happy with Israeli policies about the Palestinians. The Palestinians who chose to celebrate 9/11, however, shot themselves and their movement in the foot. They demonstrated that the Palestinian terrorists who have hijacked airliners, murdered an old man in a wheelchair and shoved him over the side of the Achille Lauro, who murdered athletes at the 1972 Olympics, who attack civilians with suicide bombs, are not aberrations. They indicate a fundamental sickness in that culture. There's an argument for pressuring Israel to behave in a civilized way towards the Palestinians: brutality tends to generate more brutality, and provokes more excuses from the left, who are looking to make excuses for terrorism. But the Palestinians destroyed what little moral high ground they had with those celebrations on 9/11. Another Reminder That "Integrity" and "Judge" Seldom Belong in the Same Sentence Missouri's legislature passed a law licensing concealed carrying of handguns--and by a 2/3 majority in both houses. The governor vetoed it, and was overriden by the legislature. Then, the antigunners filed suit, claiming that the Missouri Constitution prohibited concealed carry, and therefore, the law was unconstitutional. This was nonsense. The provision in question was to clarify that the right to keep and bear arms was not a right to carry concealed. The state legislature has since provided for some to carry concealed (police, of course, as well as process servers, and a few others). There has never been any question as to the validity of these statutes. (Read here for a previous post about this, with citations to earlier decisions of the Missouri Supreme Court.) The judge who heard the case granted a temporary injunction--and has now granted a permanent injunction against the law. There is no serious question on this matter. Many states have similar provisions to clarify that concealed carry may be regulated, licensed, or even prohibited, and yet had no problem passing concealed carry licensing laws. Missouri has granted the right to concealed carry to some Missourians, so there's no question about whether the legislature may grant concealed carry privileges if it so chooses. It so chose in this statute. The left is losing its hold--but it will rely on its control of the organs of unelected power as long as it can. Shout "Fire" in a Crowded Theater This is the example that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., used in Schenck v. New York (1919) of free speech that isn't protected. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.Although the ACLU would certainly win today if they were defending Schenck--he was distributing anti-draft literature. Here's a case, however, that doesn't involve shouting fire, but actually setting them: I am so surprised. Not Dog Bites Man, but Dog Shoots Man From Reuters: A French hunter was shot by his dog after he left a loaded shotgun in the trunk of his car with two dogs and one of the animals accidentally stepped on the trigger, police said Wednesday.Just to be clear on this, in case you wandered over here from Democratic Underground, "French hunter" doesn't mean some American good ol' boy was out hunting Frenchmen, but the hunter was a Frenchman. Yeah! Not even some Southerner named Jethro, but from the country that is, to some Americans, the center of sophistication, culture, and intelligence! Great Understatements in Web Commerce From the Astronomics web page: FCT-200 8" f/8 fluorite triplet apo, EM-3500 mountYeah, something in this price range definitely qualifies as "special order." A New Iraqi Blogger Another one pops up, and describes himself as "ONE MORE IRAQI VOICE OF THE SILENT MAJORITY". Very interesting. Is "silent majority" really an obvious phrase, or has Nixon's phrase achieved immortality that crosses cultural lines? Like many Iraqi bloggers, he is engaged in a campaign to remind Americans that many Iraqis are glad that we are there. Thursday, November 06, 2003
Is The Confederate Flag a Racist Symbol? I had one reader complain that I had bought into the Democrats' nonsense about the Confederate flag being a racist symbol. What about that? I recognize that for a lot of Southerners, the Confederate flag is a symbol of pride in their region--a region that is the victim of a lot of vicious and inaccurate stereotyping. Just say the name "Jethro" and you'll see what I mean. For a lot of blacks in the U.S., that flag is a symbol of segregation and slavery. For some of us who lost ancestors in the Civil War, that flag is a symbol of treason, as well as a symbol of slavery. Make no mistake about it. Slavery was the reason for secession. Here are the official statements of several of the states that led the movement. From Georgia's official statement--starting in the second sentence: For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic.Mississippi, again, starting in the second sentence: Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.South Carolina requires you to dig a little deeper, but there is no mistaking the purpose of it: But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress.For Texas, in the third paragraph: Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.Slavery is dead. It's not coming back. I know that for every Southerner who flies the Confederate flag as an expression of racial hatred, there are probably thousands of Southerners for whom that flag is a symbol of what they love about their region of America: NASCAR; hospitality; hunting; the right to keep and bear arms. It is a crude and vicious stereotype to treat the Stars and Bars as a symbol equivalent to a burning cross, but do not forget that as much as you may see that flag in a positive light, there are many others who recognize it as a symbol of a system of evil, one that broke up families, legally tolerated the rape of slave women, suppressed civil liberties of whites, and degraded poor whites who had to compete with slave labor. UPDATE: Since I have received a number of notes on this subject: yup, the Stars and Bars are not the Confederate battle flag. I'm not saying that you need to feel any shame about your expression of Southern pride--but is there perhaps another symbol that doesn't have the baggage? I will admit, the Krispy Kreme logo just doesn't have the same positive tone to it, and it is a trademarked symbol.... And yes, for those who grew up watching <>The Dukes of Hazzard, I agree, the primary reason to watch it was Catherine Bach. I am reminded of the response of the producer when the actors complained about the lack of meat to their lines: "This isn't Shakespeare we're doing here." Another of Those Supposedly Rare Civilian Defensive Gun Uses From the Virginian-Pilot, describing an incident apparently August 9th: PORTSMOUTH — Somewhere between a Food Lion and home, Temesha Greene noticed a van following her.Really interesting is that the gun was a recent addition to the young lady's fashion accessories: The incident happened Aug. 9, shortly after Greene bought a house alarm system and her first gun.Talk about someone being ready just in the nick of time! Read This For Some Insight About Iraq Lt. Smash is now Citizen Smash again after his little all expenses paid tour of Iraq--but he has a powerful essay about the challenges of the situation in Iraq: WE ARE ENGAGED in a military occupation of a foreign land. Such occupations are always bloody and troublesome. This war may appear to some to be a hopeless quagmire, with no end in sight. It’s especially important, therefore, for us to remind ourselves what we are trying to accomplish – and to remember who we are. It Figures This Guy Would Blame the U.S. For Iraq's Problems... From an AP news story: WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush called Thursday for democratic reforms in the Middle East, saying that "freedom can be the future of every nation." Confusing Diversity with Perversity; Simulated Rape Should Not Be Funded By A University From the Des Moines Register: Iowa State University student leaders voted 21-9 Wednesday to grant funds to a student organization that teaches about bondage and other sexual fetishes.Back in the 1970s, feminists liked to say that rape wasn't about sex, but about power. They were making a false statement in order to redirect attention from the sexual aspect of rape, to the violence and power aspect of rape. Rape is about sex: it's about really messed up guys using sex as a way of asserting dominance, power, and control over an individual woman in some cases, and control over women in general. Is there anyone besides me that is troubled by bondage's mixture of sex, dominance, restraints, and power? Think about it for a minute, and you can see that bondage and discipline fetishism is a form of simulated rape. What does it say about the participants in this type of behavior that they are interested in being the dominatrix or the dominated? Bondage and discipline fetishism isn't really so different from sadomasochism; there's no bright line dividing the more aggressive forms of B&D from the less extreme forms of S&M. Mixing power, sex, pain, and humiliation together with pleasure--am I the only person who finds this abhorrent and worrisome? What does it say about a university when, instead of actively telling these people to go find therapy, it gives them funding instead? Wednesday, November 05, 2003
Make Sure You Read This Blog Entry From Iraq It's an Iraqi, frustrated at how Western news media are misrepresenting the situation in Iraq, and he has a very angry message that needs to get through to the left: You see a handful of teenagers dancing in front of the camera celebrating dead Americans, and you judge an entire people, you start whining about pulling the troops out of Iraq and giving the Iraqis what they deserve. Are you people really so close-minded? It is the fault of your news agencies that show you what they want, its certainly not ours. If you want us to go out and cry for your dead soldiers and wave American flags, then don't count on it either. We are losing way too many innocent Iraqis daily to be grieving over dead soldiers who have actually made a decision to come here. What about the thousands of dead Iraqis who were not as lucky to have a choice? Did you cry for them? Texas Really Is Different, Isn't It? I found this amusing description of a Texas courtroom over at packing.org: I was called for Jury Duty in Dallas County recently. I had the priviildge of being called to the court of Judge Manny Alvarez in the 5th District Criminal Court. As I walked in for the Voir Dire, I noticed the standard silhouette target used in the Texas CCW qualifications taped to the wall behind the Judge's bench. The head portion was folded down behind the torso portion, but it was unmistakeable. It displayed a VERY nice tight center-mass grouping. Interesting Rhetoric About Partial-Birth Abortion Law I have some concerns that this statute, because it attempts to prohibit nationally something that is properly within the police powers of the states, may not be constitutional. It is nonetheless interesting to read the rhetoric of some of the opponents: On Capitol Hill, critics urged the courts to declare the ban unconstitutional at a news conference outside the Supreme Court.Hmmm. Let's rewrite this a bit, and see if liberals are still interested in playing this libertarian game. Perhaps after the assault weapon ban was passed in 1994: "President Clinton and Congress have no business inserting themselves between American gun owners and their manufacturers."Or perhaps, since the Lochner decision is the basis for Senate Democrats trying to block California Justice Brown's appointment to the DC Court of Appeals: "The New York State Legislature has no business inserting themselves between bakers and their employers."Oh, but this is different? Well, yes, every law is different. If liberals want to be taken seriously about their claims, then they need to become libertarians. I could disagree with them, but at least not retch at their pretense of supporting liberty as some ideal, instead of just an excuse to get what they want. Yeah, when pigs fly! UPDATE: One of my readers points out that the left didn't mind the federal government "inserting themselves" between women and their plastic surgeons when it came to breast implants. Labels: abortion Probably Not Interesting To Most of My Readers... I worked on Voyager telemetry software back in 1975-76, and it holds a sentimental spot in my heart, so this article about it reaching the heliopause--maybe--caught my attention: The Voyager 1 spacecraft, the most distant human-made object, has reached the end - or perhaps just the beginning of the end - of our solar system, scientists argue in two new studies.If you are wondering how I could have been working on the telemetry software almost 30 years ago--I went to work for a contractor to Jet Propulsion Labs at 18. I had run out of money to go to college, and I couldn't get a job at Jack-in-the-Box or McDonald's. The only job I was qualified for at that age was software engineer. More About Substantive Due Process I've received some very useful emails about this. It turns out that part of the problem is that while the idea of substantive due process appears at least as early as Justice Field's dissent in Munn v. Illinois (1877) (and perhaps earlier), the phrase "substantive due process" isn't used. Justice Field doesn't ever directly say that certain rights are, regardless of whether procedural due process has been followed, outside of the realm of government regulation, but that's certainly his intent: The business of a warehouseman was, at common law, a private business, and is so in its nature. It has no special privileges connected with it, nor did the law ever extend to it any greater protection than it extended to all other private business. No reason can be assigned to justify legislation interfering with the legitimate profits of that business, that would not equally justify an intermeddling with the business of every man in the community, so soon, at least, as his business became generally useful.My concern about substantive due process is that it has been used by the courts to strike down not just laws that are explicitly contrary to the Bill of Rights, such as the free speech doctrines that have grown out of Gitlow v. New York (1925). It has also been used to strike down laws that are implicit under the Ninth Amendment, such as Connecticut's ban on contraceptives for married couples (although even there, the Supreme Court wasn't prepared to do this right, and admit that this is from where the right comes). Even worse is that the Supreme Court is now using this open-ended notion of substantive due process to strike down laws that can't even be implied by the Ninth Amendment, such as homosexual sodomy statutes. Adding a New Blog To My Links I'm very impressed with Michael Williams -- Master of None. He thinks a lot like me, it appears! Suppressing Free Speech Eugene Volokh's sympathy for homosexuals often frustrates me, but he doesn't ignore serious problems when they occur. He has recently blogged about a judge ordering a woman in Colorado not to expose her child to any 'homophobic" religious teachings. Needless, to say, there's a serious freedom of religion and freedom of speech issue here. How Big a Tent? Howard Dean explains his philosophy of expanding the Democratic Party: It's a racist symbol but I also think the Democratic Party has to be a big tent," Dean said Tuesday night, refusing to recant his statement that the party must court Southerners who display the symbol of the Confederacy in their pickup trucks.Gee, is Dean's Democratic Party tent big enough for pro-lifers? I didn't think so. Big enough for those who don't approve of homosexuality? I didn't think so. So why is it big enough to include people with racist symbols on their trucks? Is the Democratic Party returning to its roots? Or has Dean just fatally shot himself in the foot, and won't admit it? Tuesday, November 04, 2003
Another Self-Defense Shooting By a Civilian Okay, a retired cop, but still a civilian now. She first tried to hold two robbers for police, but when they nearly ran over one of her employees, she fired a single shot that killed both robbers. The robbery and shooting happened early Sunday or late Saturday at Adela's place on the city's southwest side.Pretty obviously, this wasn't trick shooting, but utter luck that a single shot killed both robbers. Irony Alert! You remember Linda Tripp? She's the woman who tape recorded Monica Lewinsky's conversations about her "affair" with President Clinton. (I put "affair" in scare quotes because that word normally implies romance and passion--the evidence reveals something vastly lower and more degrading.) Someone leaked confidential information about her in an effort to discredit her during the Lewinsky scandal. While no one is going to prison for this violation of law, she has received a very large settlement of a lawsuit because of this. The ironic part of the article was the description of what Linda Tripp did at the Pentagon when all this tawdry news broke: She earned nearly $100,000 a year when she was a public affairs specialist for the Defense Department.Well, it certainly turned out to be a public affair, that's for sure! Substantive Due Process: A Gift of the Roswell Aliens? One of the great mysteries to me has always been how selective incorporation through the due process clause of the 14th Amendment has been used to impose some of the guarantees of the Bill of Rights onto the states, but not others. (Of course, my interest is why the Supreme Court has imposed most of the guarantees, but not the Second Amendment). I've been digging through the decisions of the Supreme Court, trying very hard to understand the reasoning, and I am beginning to wonder if "substantive due process" came off the same saucer in Roswell that gave us the little green men and all our modern technology. :-) I have been trying to find where the notion of substantive due process was first articulated by the Supreme Court. Gitlow v. New York (1925) accepts that First Amendment freedom of the press is protected speech through the Fourteenth Amendment (although Gitlow's conviction was still upheld, because materials inciting overthrow of the government aren't protected speech). Hurtado v. California (1884) refused to impose grand jury indictment against the states. Twining v. New Jersey (1908) refused to impose the Fifth Amendment's self-incrimination ban against the states. (Justice Harlan's dissent in Twining at least correctly recognizes that the "privileges and immunities" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment should have imposed the right against self-incrimination against the states.) Snyder v. Massachusetts (1934) refused to impose the right to confront one's accusers against the states. There are a whole of Lochner-era decisions that strike down state laws for violating right of contract, and on the very nebulous grounds that these are fundamental rights--with no clear statement of how the Fourteenth Amendment imposed these rights. Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) struck down the law prohibiting the teaching of German because it violated the right of parents to decide how their children will be educated--but there's no reference to due process or the Fourteenth Amendment--and this right of parents would seem to have been a Ninth Amendment reserved rights argument. Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) struck down a KKK-inspired Oregon law prohibiting private schools on essentially the same grounds, as well as using what seems to be substantive due process as a protection of property rights (in this case, the property rights of a Catholic order that operated parochial schools). The relevance to the Second Amendment should be obvious; what is the reasoning by which this notion of substantive due process came to be used, and where is the first application? I am befuddled trying to find its first use. If you can answer this question, feel free. Labels: gun rights Monday, November 03, 2003
Oh Yeah, The Aurora Cam Updated every ten minutes, it shows energy distribution across the Northern Hemisphere of the charged particles that cause aurora borealis displays. Solar Output Increasing News item that the global warming crowd seems to have missed: In what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun's radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s. Labels: global warming More Evidence That The Weapons Of Mass Destruction Lies Came From Iraq It's from a Washington Post article: As the hunt for major finds of chemical or biological arms has turned cold, U.S.-led investigators increasingly seek to understand why Hussein might have acted as he did if he truly had no sizable arsenal of contraband weapons. From their digs in looted factories and sprawling ammunition dumps, they are moving more and more to an exploration of Hussein's mind.There's still a sea of confusion about this, but if Hussein's own generals believed that Iraq had WMDs, it is somewhat understandable if the U.S. was similarly confused. Labels: Iraqi WMDs Powers Of Ten For those who grew up in an era when we watched the Powers of Ten video in science classes--take a look at this website! Lochner and Its Reversal David Bernstein observes: I am getting quite a bit of flack in the Blogosphere for my post last week pointing out, in the context of the controversy over the Janice Brown nomination to the D.C. Circuit, that it's not at all clear why the Lochner decision and its progenywere so terrible that saying some nice things about these decisions should disqualify Justice Brown, or anyone else, from a seat on the DC Circuit.For those who haven't been following the controversy, California Supreme Court Justice Brown had some good things to say about Lochner v. New York (1905)--a case that has become to many liberals a symbol of all that was wrong with the Supreme Court at the beginning of the 20th century. The Lochner decision struck down a New York State law that banned bakers from working more than 60 hours a week, along with a number of workplace regulations. Professor Bernstein points out that many of the decisions using the Lochner notion of right of contract were, by the standards of modern liberalism, very good decisions: Buchanan v. Warley (invalidating residential segregation), Meyer v. Nebraska (invalidating a law banning the teaching of German), Pierce v. Society of Sisters (invalidating a law banning private schools), Gitlow v. Connecticut (recognizing for the first time that freedom of expression is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment against the states), Stromberg v. California (invalidating a law banning display of the Communist flag), the Scottsborough Boys cases (recognizing a due process right to a government-provided attorney in capital cases), and more, are the foundation of modern civil liberties, and, to a lesser extent, civil rights jurisprudence....Minor nit: It's actually Gitlow v. New York, not Connecticut. What I find interesting, however, is the cases that overturned Lochner. Liberals should be terribly, terribly embarrassed by these decisions now. West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937) overturned the right of contract, and upheld a Washington State law that set minimum wages for women and minors--but nor for adult men. Reading the majority opinion and the dissent should embarrass the heck out of any liberal today. Here's some tidbits from the majority opinion, by Chief Justice Hughes, defending why such a law applied to women, but not to men: We emphasized the consideration that 'woman's physical structure and the performance of maternal functions place her at a disadvantage in the struggle for subsistence' and that her physical well being 'becomes an object of public interest and care in order to preserve the strength and vigor of the race.' We said that 'though limitations upon personal and contractual rights may be removed by legislation, there is that in her disposition and habits of life which will operate against a full assertion of those rights. She will still be where some legislation to protect her seems necessary to secure a real equality of right.' Hence she was 'properly placed in a class by herself, and legislation designed for her protection may be sustained, even when like legislation is not necessary for men, and could not be sustained.' We concluded that the limitations which the statute there in question 'places upon her contractual powers, upon her right to agree with her employer, as to the time she shall labor' were 'not imposed solely for her benefit, but also largely for the benefit of all.'Justice Sutherland's dissent then expresses the full reactionary sentiment: The Washington statute, like the one for the District of Columbia, fixes minimum wages for adult women. Adult men and their employers are left free to bargain as they please; and it is a significant and an important fact that all state statutes to which our attention has been called are of like character. The common-law rules restricting the power of women to make contracts have, under our system, long since practically disappeared. Women today stand upon a legal and political equality with men. There is no longer any reason why they should be put in different classes in respect of their legal right to make contracts; nor should they be denied, in effect, the right to compete with men for work paying lower wages which men may be willing to accept.So why is the "liberal" position that women are incapable of looking out for their economic interests? Because these laws mandating a minimum wage for women and minors were not based on concern for their interests, but were an attempt to force women and children out of the workforce, to increase the number of jobs available to men. If you think this is a good idea, then perhaps such laws make pragmatic sense--but why are liberals so intent on defending such blatant sexism? Only because it opened the door to arbitrary and unlimited government control of the economy. UPDATE: Here's a speech that Justice Brown gave several years ago. Eric Muller thinks it is a little unhinged. I don't think so. It makes me wonder how someone this smart and familiar with history managed to get appointed to the California Supreme Court. Odds & Ends For Sale The weird collection of optical stuff is sold. So is the video capture card. This, however, is still available: Motorola Vanguard 65 IDSL Routers I've got a couple Motorola Vanguard Model 65 IDSL routers ("Premium Model," which I think means it includes data compression to get effective 200 kilobits/second). The first one was installed and in service for a bit more than a year; the second one was in service as a replacement for a couple of months. (QWEST hasn't the faintest idea how to debug IDSL problems; they just sound out a new router to see if that solves the problem or not.) I know that the second one works perfectly, and I suspect that the first one works perfectly as well. Whatever was wrong with the first one was wrong with the second one--and the second one's problems went away after a couple weeks, suggesting that the problem was upstream of these routers. I don't need them anymore--I'm on cable modem now. I would be very happy to get $25 each for them (I see them being offered for $88 used, and they cost about $300 new), but I'm willing to listen to reasonable offers. Snow We had the first real snowfall of the season here in Boise overnight. A few days ago, there was something that looked like heavy frost on the north slopes of some roadsides, but this is real snow--flakes falling from the sky, and a layer of snow on every rooftop and lawn. For those of you who have lived in snow your whole life, this may seem a bit silly of an event to get excited about, but this is only my third winter in Boise, and the second winter had only the lightest dusting of snow. It's still pretty cool! |
