Let's Get Hillary to Answer an Easy Question

While the nation's press is kept at bay from Hillary Clinton, roped off like swine in a pen, we are obliged as a citizenry to get answers only when Her Majesty deigns to allow it.

This obstinacy has led a few columnists to produce pieces of the "What I would Ask Hillary if Only She Would Talk to the Press" type of thing.  Those are really amusing, sometimes -- I've been doing some of those pieces myself.  It should probably frighten us to think that if she becomes the nominee of the Democrats, and ends up in a debate with a Republican candidate, her "people" would never, never, ever allow as the moderator, anyone who would ask her any of those questions.

That part should frighten us.

Now, as a columnist or whatever this is, I'm sorry, but I can't help but to have those kind of questions myself, and want to put them in a piece like this.  I'm sure that, like me, you would like her to answer a lot of things related to her email server, and Benghazi, and that sort of thing.  But there are congressional committees for that.  Far more powerful folk than I are going to ask that sort of thing, and if they don't, well, Her Majesty will not be answering them of a debate moderator, at least not one her lawyers would pre-approve.

So I'm going to confine myself to one topic, one question, and really, really hope that someday she will be put in a position to have to answer it.  Because the answer -- or the effort she makes to try not to answer it -- will tell the USA all it ever needs to know about her.

Mrs. Clinton, today's top income tax rate is just under 40%, so with Social Security (FICA), Medicare, state and local taxes, a person paying that rate is turning over more than 50% of their earnings to Government.  What, in your view, is the highest income tax rate that the Federal government should ever ask a citizen to pay, and why?

Now, daily readers of this site know that I actually raised this question myself back in January.  I had seen it asked of Valerie Jarrett, the Wizard of Oz behind Barack Obama's Scarecrow, and watched her spend well over a minute of rambling and dissembling in an effort not to answer it.

But here is Hillary Clinton, making speeches about how the "middle class", whatever she defines that as, needs to have more spending money and that, if only they did, they would spend more and that would lift the economy out of the stagnant pool that the Scarecrow calls a "recovery."

Of course, her "solution" is simply for business, including small businesses on razor-thin margins, to just "pay them more."  I'm reminded of Kramer, on the Seinfeld show, talking about "write-offs" with about the same level of economic understanding and business acumen that the former first lady shows.

If she wants the middle class to have more money to spend, the easiest way is to take the step that government actually has the power to do, and that's to tax less.  So that's where the question kicks in.  Because once she answers what the actual numeric maximum rate that any American should have to pay in income tax out of what they earn, then we cap the rate and assume that the "middle class" should pay even less.

There is so much that we would learn about Hillary Clinton if she were ever asked that question.

If she rambled around like Valerie Jarrett without putting a number on it, and the reporter pressed her for a number but she still wouldn't give one, we know (or confirm) that she has no principles relating economics to reasonableness.  We would know that she does not want to answer the question, because it is a number that would become an immediate campaign topic.  We know it would expose the fact that she innately believes that all individual, private income innately belongs, not to the worker earning it, but to the Government that deigns to allow him or her to keep some of it.

If she actually answered the question, with some absurd figure like 40% (yes, anything over 25% of income seized by the government is absurd, including the rates of current law), the Republicans could conceivably hammer the heck out of her -- if they had the cogliones to do so.  I'm sure that, say, Carly Fiorina or Donald Trump or Ted Cruz could do a splendid job forcing her to explain why someone should be forced to pay that much.  I'd pay to hear that.

Hillary Clinton will never even be asked that question, of course.  There will be no press conferences at which the press will be allowed to ask questions not pre-screened, or that will include reporters not equally pre-screened, nor will there be a debate moderator approved by her lawyers who would ask that question.

But I'm asking it here, not because I want to know what she thinks, because I already do.  Rather, I want her to have to say what she thinks, so we can have an actual, national debate on the maximum reach that the Federal government should have into our wallets.  How much of one's own earned income is an American entitled to keep?

Hillary needs to say.  But she won't.  Liberals never want to give answers.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
 Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."

Taking (a shot at) The Fifth Amendment

This is the fifth in a series of pieces contemplating the Bill of Rights and its implications and consequences in a free society that has existed for over two hundred years protected and guided by its precepts.

Today we continue our Bill of Rights musings with the Fifth.  I will set aside as quickly as possible the puns and humorous comparisons.  Yes, I have never had to testify to where I had to be concerned about incriminating myself, I've had a pretty ordinary life.  I've diminished a lot of fifths, being a professional and casual singer for many decades.  I've diminished a much smaller number of the other kind of fifths, especially since college.  Never was that much of a drinker.

OK, puns aside.  Let's take a look at the Fifth Amendment in its original text:   

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same [offense] to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

So while we have in our mind that the Fifth Amendment is the one that Lois Lerner pleads when she's trying to avoid admitting to Congress that she abused the living heck out of her position, there's more:
-- Capital crimes (in civilian settings) need a Grand Jury to decide if there is evidence to hold a trial
-- No one can be tried for a crime after being acquitted of it once
-- No one shall be forced to testify against himself
-- No one shall be executed, enslaved or have property taken without due process
-- No government, Federal, state or local, can seize property for its own use without paying fairly.

Wow.  That's a lot of content and a lot of protection for one amendment.

So let's note a thing or two, especially in the context of the fact that the Framers chose to put this disparate set of rights, not all that contiguous, in one amendment.  First, it is not specific to actions of the Federal government at all.  In fact, the applicability of these rights appears to be predominantly associated with state and local governments -- capital trials, executions, self-incrimination.  The prohibition against uncompensated seizures applies in practice as much to Federal cases, and the due-process clause is common to all shapes of government.

The other is the double jeopardy text -- "put in jeopardy of life or limb."  I confess to a few things.  First, I hadn't memorized the Bill of Rights, so it shouldn't be a surprise that certain phrases in the text are going to surprise me.  The other is that no one pays me for this (though advertisers are welcome to contact me), so there is only a tiny bit of research that I'm willing to do.

Given that, I feel free to muse about the limitation of the double jeopardy clause to "life or limb."  By my reading of it, if you were charged in, say, Idaho, for an offense like embezzlement, and acquitted, the state could turn around the next day and try you all over again.  There is no capital punishment for embezzlement; the punishment is imprisonment and/or fines.  Even if you make the reasonable interpretation of "life or limb" to be "death or physical harm", you are not at that kind of risk of punishment for embezzlement.

Has that ever been tested?  Has a State or a local government ever pushed that issue?  You know, losing an acquittal in a non-capital trial and turning right around and trying again?  Would a jurisdiction with an axe to grind -- say, the State of Missouri pushing a politically-driven prosecution of the cop in the Michael Brown shooting for second-degree murder -- keep trying the guy, claiming that the prison term is not "life or limb"?  When that logically got to Federal court and the Supreme Court, what would they say?  Moreover, what would the rock-block left-wing four justices rule?

Of course, we all know the Fifth Amendment primarily for its protection against testifying against oneself.  But -- shall we look at the text and punctuation: "...  nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; ..."  As I look at the punctuation, I'm noting where the commas and semicolons are.  And I did check several renderings of it to make sure the punctuation is clear.

What I see is that the protection from self-incrimination is not its own phrase, delimited as the others are by semicolons, but it is actually part of the subsequent text, the due process clause.  And as I read it, given that the government affords the person "due process" in a way that passes constitutional muster, it can indeed force someone to testify against themselves!

Don't you read it that way?  I mean, it is clear to me that testimony that could lead to self-incrimination can absolutely be demanded.


I'm ready for Congress to haul Lois Lerner back in front of the applicable committee and figure out something that passes for due process -- they're full of lawyers, that shouldn't be hard -- and then demand that she testify in the IRS scandal about targeting conservative groups.  She should then be told that she will be incarcerated until she testifies.

Again -- before we can blink, this one goes to the Supreme Court.  I don't know what kind of precedent resides in past case law on the Fifth Amendment, the self-incrimination phrase and the due process clause, but I can see some really interesting coalitions forming in the decision.  The Court is not supposed to look at the implication of its decisions, but this one is a Pandora's Box for sure.  I'd love to see how that one would turn out.

Of course, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and any government that can compel its citizens to testify against themselves may sail perilously close to the totalitarian state we so want not to be.

So the musing on the Fifth Amendment has wandered toward a few Supreme Court cases of interpretation that will never happen, but theoretically could.  If there is never to be such a case, I'd love for the justices to pour a good chardonnay, sit around a table and look at where the commas and semicolons are.  Maybe one will slap his or her hand against his or her forehead and say, "Holy crap, that's a comma!  What are we going to do with that?"

Maybe the chardonnay might have improved some of their decisions this year.   Or caused them.

 Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
 Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."

Would Ed Henry Please Pose This Question?

I suppose you have seen the usual White House press conferences.  The press secretary, Josh Earnest, just like those before him, has to figure out how to defend the typically indefensible positions of the Obama administration in response to queries of the press corps.

As often as not, it is only partially about the questions that are asked by the correspondents. The major networks and the CNNs and MSNBCs of the world have a vested interest in not embarrassing this president.  So if they do ask a question that might be a bit on the provocative side, you can bet that it is because someone told them to try to act a bit more like they're actually, you know, journalists and not auxiliary members of the administration.

You can also bet that there will not be a follow-up question on any lead-in query that was the least bit provocative.  I mean, just look at any recent Hillary Clinton interview, of which there has been just one (by a person tight with the family with a job in the media, of course).  You could sit there and make up, in real time, the follow-ups you'd love to ask -- which of course did not get asked.

That's what a White House press briefing is like.  Ovine reporters, mendicant press secretary.

Of course, there is an exception and, as you would expect, it is the Fox News correspondent, a fellow by the name of Ed Henry.  Ed Henry asks challenging questions, and follows up -- or tries to, if Josh Earnest lets him, when the answer from the podium is deserving of having layers of it pulled back.

All that is by way of leading up to a question that desperately needs to be asked of  Barack Obama or, in the more possible case, of Josh Earnest earnestly fielding those questions.  And none of the sheep in the press corps will ask it, so I suppose I have to beg.

Ed Henry, would you please ask this question as phrased here:

Mr. Earnest -- right now, Kate Steinle is dead because San Francisco's "sanctuary city" practice prevented its law enforcement personnel from turning her murderer over to DHS ICE.  Other cities have done the same, and others have died or been victims of other crimes by illegal aliens who were not turned over to ICE.  San Francisco's actions violate Federal law, as do those of the other sanctuary cities.  Barack Obama is the ultimate overseer of the administration of Federal law.  So if Congress were to pass a law that stated only that the establishment of a sanctuary city is a Federal crime, and that failure to properly turn over illegal aliens to DHS is punishable by imprisonment of the local officials responsible, would the president sign it?  And if not, why not, and what provisions would comprise a bill to penalize sanctuary cities that he would sign?

It might take Mr. Henry a few tries to get that whole thing answered.  But he needs to. Barack Obama has been so frighteningly silent on the Steinle murder -- #illegals'victimslivesmatter -- that he needs to be put on the spot, or at least his press secretary does.

The difference here is that the sanctuary cities violate Federal law, and Federal law comes under the jurisdiction of the president (and his attorney general, but the AG doesn't "make" law).  San Francisco violated Federal law when it passed the sanctuary-city law, and it violated it further, and fatally, when it failed to release Miss Steinle's killer to ICE.

Apart from the liability for a whopping lawsuit of the City by the Steinle family, there is the matter of accountability by a jurisdiction that violates Federal law.  Federal law is not arbitrary and capricious, and it's not flexible either.  If the existence of sanctuary cities is not adequately perceived by this administration as illegal enough to warrant even a comment, then Congress can write the punishment into Federal law.

Will this president sign it?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Ed Henry, please inquire.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
 Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."

Are We Americans or Hyphenates?

We certainly do seem to be being bombarded with protected classes and victimized groups these days and while I could give you a long list of them, why bother.  You already know who is trying to be treated separately; you know who is portraying themselves as having suffered abuses in the past for which they are owed some kind of reparations -- even though the actual victims are long gone and the proposed provider of the reparations did not commit the offense.

But at the same time, the left preaches "inclusion", and decries "discrimination."

Those poor illegal immigrants coming over the border are "dreamers" (I'm wondering what the illegal who murdered Kate Steinle was "dreaming", but I digress).

Heterosexuals can't be the only ones getting married; we have to extend what is as much a religious construct as a civic one to homosexuals as well.  That is even when it violates the religious nature of that construct, in the religions practiced by a majority of the residents of Earth.

Bruce Jenner will receive the Arthur Ashe award for "courage" in his new attire as "Caitlyn" and, whatever my tolerance level for what he's doing (which is actually pretty high; I truly understand that he has had a very tormented lifetime with his struggles), we're told by the media that we have to accept this.  So much must we accept this, that we already have TV reality shows featuring kids figuring out if they're boys or girls.  I kid you not.

Baltimore and Chicago are having unprecedented rates of murder in their black communities that is apparently being written off and ignored by the media.  We can only assume that the lack of interest by the media is because the murderers and their victims are black, and therefore have -- what, a right? -- to kill each other in the privacy of their own neighborhoods.

They are either different from other Americans or they are not.  They are Americans, or else they are gay Americans, or Italian Americans, or black Americans, or Hispanic Americans or Martian Americans -- but not both.  We are either a melting pot, or we're a stew with lots of ingredients each prominently there, sort of like a good paella.

So here's my point.  Being American is a good and honorable thing.  It is a thing to be appreciative of (I'm not as much inclined to say "proud of", because I was born here and happy about it, but I had no choice in that).  It is the nature of the USA that we are many peoples.

But it is also the nature of the USA that being an American supersedes our ancestry, our gender, our religion, our national origin.  You have to set a lot of that a bit behind you to be an American, because being in America means that we're all able to assimilate; we can practice our own ancestors' culture a bit, but being American means that it is less important - else we can return to our ancestors' land (and likely be very constrained in what we can or cannot practice culturally).

Our candidates for the presidency want to be "uniters, not dividers", as we hear all the time.  Well, we're really unlikely to come to massive agreement on the path forward as far as "uniting" is concerned; we've been mightily polarized by this administration's selective view of the applicability of law.  But we can be more united by shedding some of our knee-jerk allegiance to our distinctive background or gender or ancestry or anything else that the guy over in the next house doesn't share.

Do you remember the last time we were really, really united as a country?  That would be after 9-11, and that was when we faced, as a country, a common enemy in Islamic terrorism.  Is it possible that we can take a deep breath, and try to be "Americans" a bit more, and "ethnic whatevers" a bit less, without having to have airplanes fly into our buildings to get us to do so?

I know I could really feel a lot better about the joy in being American, if I didn't qualify my encounters with other people by thinking "Well, he is Hispanic, so I need to be careful not to talk about borders, or how much I like/dislike tacos, or mention that Ariana Grande actually is not Hispanic, or ..." or "She has her hair cut like a lesbian, so I should mention the WNBA and the women's World Cup team" or, well, you get the idea.

We need to be more like those places (Finland)? where everyone is pretty much the same, and just stop looking for what group -- particularly aggrieved group -- we are in.  The USA is a better country when our commonality is as Americans but our only distinction is our individuality -- when we stop trying to identify with this aggrieved group or that one.

I live in a neighborhood of really pleasant people.  The neighbors on one side are Korean, the other side Italian.  Opposite us is another Korean family, and next to them on either side are a Sikh family and a black family.  When I'm asked about my neighborhood, though, the first thing I say is that everyone is really nice to each other, they snowplow for the neighbors and would lend sugar if people did that anymore.  Ethnic origin only comes up if someone asks; we're not a hyphenated community.

What distinguishes us needs to be our accomplishments as individuals, and not what has happened to our "group", for which the government obviously owes us some kind of compensation.

I'm an American.  No hyphens need apply.  

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
 Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."

All-Star "Voting" and Recognizing Deserving Performance

This Tuesday, Major League Baseball will present, to its adoring fans and loyal lemmings, a wonderful spectacle called the All-Star Game, which has been a feature of the midsummer since the early 1930s.  All major USA sports have them (the NFL has its game after the season).  Baseball was once so enthralled with the concept that, for a short time in the early 1960s, it actually had two All-Star Games.  The idea didn't last.

Let me dwell, though, on process.

The 2015 Game, like pretty much every other one, is suffering mightily from a disparity between the generally accepted "best players" at each position, and the ones who will, in fact, be representing the (particularly) American League on its team.  The reason is quite simple.

The selection process is a steaming pile of elk dung.

That "process", such as it is, consists of online and in-stadium voting by so-called "fans", wherein they're given a list of predetermined candidates at each position and select one of them for as many positions as the voter chooses, but only one of each.

Now, I can't tell you how many times I've written that if the process -- on whatever topic -- isn't designed best to reach the desired end state, you've got a recipe for failure.  I don't know what your end state is, and I'm really not sure what Baseball's end state is, but I'd really like to think that we could collectively agree that we would be happy if the end state were this:

The best players at each position start the All-Star Game.

Yep, that's it.  That simple.  Now, we can kick around whether "best players" means the best over the current (half) season, or the best in the year since the last All-Star Game.  We can kick around how much value is placed to offense vs. defense, or whether that varies by position (maybe catchers and shortstops have defense weighed more).  We can kick a lot of things around.

But we want the best players.  We all know that even an imperfect system that tries to deliver the best players is one that would beat one that is not designed that way.  Yet, sure enough, Baseball, in its inimitable way, has a system that places zero value on competence.

The fans vote.  Yes, the "fans" vote.  And not "vote", in the sense that you go to the polls on Election Day, validate your right to cast a ballot, and cast it -- one time.  No, in baseball-speak, "vote" means check a box, and check a box, and check a box ..., ad nauseam.  What rocket scientist decided that Baseball would get a good lineup of the best players by asking fans who those players are, and then allowing them to vote as often as they wanted?  That was going to get the best players?

Let us remember this:
(1) Fans typically see their own team constantly, but others only rarely if at all -- so they can't possibly be familiar with the entire league and all the players
(2) There are far more fans of teams in large metropolitan areas than of teams in smaller places -- so there is an innate bias in the voting bloc that requires shenanigans (like this year's Kansas City ballot stuffing) which, in turn, is exacerbated by the fact that ...
(3) Multiple voting by individual fans completely skews the equation toward those teams, and their players, supported by certain fans who are willing to sit and vote hundreds of times, or create hacking tools to vote in huge numbers.

All of those are characteristics of the current system.  Each characteristic has in common the fact that it mitigates against selection of the best performer, and toward the player with the uniform favored by the voting fan.  And the teams just dive in, with their "Vote for your favorite Tiger/Padre/Astro ..." campaigns, when it is in everyone's interest not to do that.

Now, if there were indeed a best way to do the selection, it would already be in place.  OK, that's just a joke, but I don't see how Baseball loses by trying to home in on better ways.

After all, there actually are people in a position to evaluate player performance fairly -- the baseball press, for example; the general managers who are constantly evaluating talent and performance as part of their job; and the managers, coaches and other players (who suffer from problem (1) as much as the fans do, but at least in preparing to play those other teams, have to evaluate them as well).

There's also room in the selection for team statisticians, or for some incorporation of an analytical component to the selection.  I really like that, not just because I'm an MIT grad with an appreciation for unbiased analysis, but because it removes prejudices -- with good numbers, we have a brake against just assuming something contrary to fact (which, for example, made fans think Derek Jeter could actually field his position), and are forced to recognize outstanding performances from far less-heralded players, perhaps on losing teams.

I mean, if "Dancing with the Stars" can actually offset their own fan vote by giving equal weight to the scores of expert dance judges (at least when they don't use knowledge-free guest judges), then can't Baseball see the need?

Baseball commissioners and others have, in the past, used an inane argument that, in their words, "the game is for the fans" as a rationale for using fan voting.  That, Mr. Retired Commissioner Bud Selig, is also a steaming pile of elk dung.

Not that the game is not "for the fans"; in fact, it is.

But there is zero connection between whom the game is for, and what the people the game is for actually deserve to see.  In other words, fan voting not only does not produce a game that is "for the fans", it actually works in conflict with producing the game that the fans want to see!

I truly hate the multiple-vote concept that has permeated our society.  "Vote early, vote often", whether it is for ballplayers or dancers or America's Got Talent contestants.  Now, I am a Southern Baptist, and we have only five core principles in our faith -- one of which is "one man, one vote" in our churches.  So maybe I've got a built-in bias where voting is concerned.  But as far as I'm concerned, on any issue up for a vote, you get a vote.  A vote.  Not ten votes.

Today, there is a second fan ballot, this time to add the last player to the All-Star team roster for each league.  I went online to try it out and cast a vote.  The screen then asked if I wanted to vote again just by typing in one of those five-digit "Captcha" codes.  I did.  Then I did it again.  I could have voted dozens of times -- in fact, I did just to see how long it took to get tired of it, which kicked in at about 50-60 votes or so.

Do you think that the decision as to whether Xander Bogaerts of the Red Sox or Mike Moustakas of the Royals more deserves to be on the team, should be affected by how long my addled brain can keep typing Captcha codes?

No, me t'either.

This year, Baseball barely avoided having a starting lineup almost entirely made up of Kansas City Royals, based on a well-organized ballot-stuffing program out there in the Heartland.  There is a lesson to be learned, but it remains to be seen if Baseball is simply too stupid to see it.

You want the best players on the team.  The fans want that.  They want an All-Star Game played by actual All-Stars, the best players in the two leagues.

Figure it out -- and leave voting to Novembers and Baptist churches.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
 Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."

Shutting Off Debate -- Thou Shalt Think Like Us - Or Else

I am really, really sorry to start of a piece with an unattributed quote, especially when it is necessary to confirm the point I'm going to make and, in fact, is what got me thinking about it.  But at least believe me when I say that I tried hard to find it online and even Al Gore's Amazing Internet didn't help me.

On Tuesday I was driving back from picking up a birthday cake for my Best Girl, when the news came on at 1pm.  This was the day that the South Carolina legislature voted to decommission the Confederate battle flag from official positions on its flagpoles.

The news snippet concluded with a clip from a female South Carolina legislator that scared the heck out of me, innocuous as the words might have been.  While I can't quote her precisely, and sorry, I can't find a clip or a copy online, what she said was essentially this -- that this was all well and good, but unless we changed the hearts and minds of a lot of people, it was just a symbolic act.

I don't know about you.  I don't pretend to know about you.

But I would like to think that when someone with the imprimatur of being an elected legislator feels the need to change hearts and minds, we are in a heap of trouble.

It's like this.  People think the way they do because of the environment they grew up, the things they have been exposed to, and a genetic underpinning that predisposes them to certain reactions.  You can't just tell them to be different; you have to accept their differences from you and create an understanding of each others' views that leads to tolerance.

Aside -- I find it ironic that it is demanded of us, by the left, that we accept the differences of people who are of different races, ethnicities, creeds, religions, handicaps, sexual orientation, age, education, number of freckles and hair color, but God forbid they accept people who actually think differently from them -- or at all.

I don't know the word for it, maybe "totalitarianism", but it is frighteningly wrong when we take the leap from having won an argument in the legislature (as here) or the courts, to having to change the opposition, and mandate that they now think that your position is right, darn it!  I'm scared.  I really didn't have much of a dog in the Confederate flag fight, and I only happened to be listening to the radio, which I rarely do.  But I was frightened by the notion that, having won the legislative fight to remove the flag, this lady with power was saying that now she needed to force people to agree with her!

Here's the analogy.  I have friends from India; there are many in my profession who live in northern Virginia.  I like them, the same I like most people.  But every once in a while I would get dragged with them and other friends and colleagues to one Indian restaurant or another, it matters not which.  I simply don't care for Indian food.  I don't care for it a lot.  I don't like leaving a restaurant with my clothes smelling of curry that I dislike (nor from Mexican salsa and chili, which I really do)

I have lost the battle there.  I think it is impolite to impose my views on where to eat. on a majority who were dead set on curry.  They won.  My friends barely know my views on Indian food, because I'm a gentleman and don't complain, and they like it.  But can you imagine them trying, seriously, to argue me into liking Indian food?  I mean, it isn't like I dislike the stuff because I dislike Indians since, well, I don't dislike them.  How could they possibly change my mind about curry?

More to the point, they wouldn't want to change my mind, at least not very much.  Who does that?  They might joke with me, "Hey, our food is good, you just have an American palate", but not seriously.

Not so the left.  The Supreme Court squeaks through a gay-marriage ruling on a 5-4 decision, and the left bathes the White House in rainbow colors, and we are told -- I heard it today, on a talk show -- that anyone who disagrees with the ruling needs to be morally fixed, because they (we) are wrong.  Presumably, that includes the four Supreme Court justices who dissented.

I, frankly, don't want to hear that kind of thing.  When you win in the legislature, or you win in court, you have to remember that there was an opposition that was equally convinced its view was right and, when there's a 5-4 SCOTUS decision, it's about as likely that they actually were right.

It is a clear tactic of the left, whether the left in the USA, or the leaders in North Korea, China or Nazi Germany, not to let a favorable court decision or legislative victory stop there -- no, the hearts and minds of the losers have to be changed, and they must think like we do, or else.  And our wrath will be upon you otherwise.  They would readily trot out Cambodian-style reeducation camps from the 1970s (another gift to history from the determined left).

Today it is the Confederate flag, that I don't really care that much about (but don't try to tell me how I should feel about it; I'm a grown-up and can figure it out myself just fine).  Today it is the Supreme Court seizing authority to make law from the States and deciding for them what "marriage" is in their State.  Today it's the White House trying to get me to believe that Obamacare is "settled law" even though it was passed unconstitutionally; I'm supposed to accept that and believe in it being a wonder (as I shell out double the premium I paid last year).

Is it any wonder why it's the schools that the left wants to control first?  Why the teacher's unions are pushed so far left of the actual teachers?  They want to control thought, and that starts with the mushy minds of youth.

Who knows, tomorrow they'll make me think curry is palatable.  Good luck.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
 Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."

Seizing on the Fourth Amendment

As I write, lovingly and fearfully, this series on the Bill of Rights, there is a theme that keeps coming out.  Whether it is evident or not, I keep getting scared, more and more scared, that the blatant contempt this administration has for the Constitution threatens the basic rights the Framers guaranteed to us all in these amendments, and the sacred trust established between the people and their Government explicit in their words.

We think of the Fourth Amendment as "the one the IRS hasn't heard of", meant to protect the citizenry against an intrusive and overly powerful government taking property from them without judicial due process; that, absent a court order demonstrating "probable cause", it just can't walk in and seize property from citizens.

Here is the text:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

Let's make note of one element by its omission here (and inclusion elsewhere in the Bill of Rights): this Amendment does not confine its reach to acts of Congress.  That means that neither Federal, state or local governments can violate this right; it is the law of the land ("settled law" in the usual Obamaspeak).

In each of the Amendments, we are looking at the consequences to a free society, and the obligations cast upon both the citizen and government.  Surely the burden here is upon government at every level (it is a protective right  for the citizenry) to follow judicially-blessed due process.

Of course, given the propensity of this administration to ignore whatever it find disposable in the Constitution, we have to look at where the cracks are.

What is "unreasonable"?  Does the reasonableness test simply mean that a search or seizure is reasonable as long as a complaining officer presents evidence under oath to a judge, who finds it reasonable to proceed?  The answer, of course, is "yes".  That means that the burden sits with the judiciary to recognize the citizen's constitutional rights and make sound decisions on such requests - and with the police (or, frighteningly, Federal entities with police powers, like the IRS) to present fair rationales for warrants.

Do we trust the judiciary?  Actually, I do.  Admittedly, I also have little interaction with them personally, save a couple turns on juries and a peculiar incident with a car that I had long-since sold, that the records of the Commonwealth of Virginia still thought I owned (the judge cleared all the tickets).  However, despite the occasional story that reflects a pretty broad spectrum of opinions on USA benches, I have no reason to doubt their respect for their office and the citizenry they protect.

Do we trust the Justice Department?  This particular Justice Department sends representatives to the funeral of a convenience-store robber, but sits idly by when the mayor and Council of a USA city -- in this case San Francisco -- willfully defies Federal law (i.e., the law that Justice is supposed to worry about) by releasing an illegal immigrant and multiple felon without notifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement as the law requires.

This particular Justice Department apparently thinks that the killing of a police-assailant robber in the normal course of police action is worthy of their attention, but the murder of an innocent citizen because of the direct defiance of immigration law by a city government is not.  Loretta Lynch, where the #%&#$% are you?

And we trust the Justice Department not to knock on our doors and take our furniture (or our raisins, as you'll see)? 

The Fourth Amendment is absolutely central to the trust that Americans have that they will be protected as much from government as by government.  It is up to that government to show that it can be relied upon to do so.  Kathryn Steinle's murder, and the immediate inaction by Justice in regard to it, and their inaction toward the City of San Francisco, suggest otherwise.

I believe that the infamous raisin seizure case just decided by the Supreme Court -- even most of the liberal rock-block on the Court saw reason on this -- reflects both the protective nature of the judiciary in regard to the Fourth Amendment (happily) and the lack of such concern on the part of the executive branch (a lot less happily).  The executive, particularly this one, will keep taking until the courts tell him no (yes, I know this seizure process predates this administration, but they fought the case).

There are consequences in a free society, the kind that is willing to legislate, in its very framework, the citizens' right to keep government outside their door and governmental hands off their property barring reasonable criminal suspicion.  We have to have an honorable judiciary willing and prepared to serve as the protector of the citizen from its perch in the middle of the process.  I feel pretty comfortable there.

However, where my possessions, my papers, my houses and my effects are subject to protection from a lawless administration that makes its own rules and calls them law, that makes executive proclamations that invite abuse, that sanctions disobedience even by governmental entities, I am considerably less optimistic.

If my doors weren't locked, would this administration protect my family?

I'm unconvinced.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
 Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."

Trumping Macy's Right Back

How tired we are of people "talking past each other".  Person X makes a point, which Person Y argues by saying something that is not even close to the point that Person X was making.  And that, friends, is just one of the things that makes Americans utterly fed up with politics and politicians, and likely with America Ferrera as well.

You remember her, possibly from the rather odd TV show "Ugly Betty", set in a fashion magazine but completely irrelevant to this piece, other than that, absent it, even fewer people would take seriously anything that she said.  Her relevance is simply of being a Latina, and semi-famous, which means that in the contemporary world, she had to say something about Donald Trump.

That would be "Remarks like yours will serve brilliantly to energize Latino voters and increase turnout on election day against you and any other candidate who runs on a platform of hateful rhetoric."  Now, what Trump said, if she had taken time to listen and not just let her knee jerk, was that the stream of emigrants across our non-existent borders were poisoned by the slimy types that take money to escort people to the border and get them over; that the females among the emigrants are often raped along the way, and that it was often the criminals and drug cartel folk who are getting across with the decent (though still illegal) Mexicans crossing the border.  Nothing racist, nothing about innately hating Mexicans or anyone else not a criminal.

But no, she took the strawman approach and decided that he had said something that he hadn't actually said, talking right past him.  But don't hold your breath waiting for CNN to take her to task.

Of course, since Trump isn't getting the nomination anyway, I'm not sure what "election day" she thinks all those Latinos are coming out for.  Or even which Latinos -- the Cubans who left to flee Castro and communism aren't exactly enthralled with Mexicans who are given a free pass, when they, the Cubans, had to escape on boats decades ago at the risk of their lives. 

The murder last week of a very innocent young woman at the hands of a Mexican -- who had illegally crossed the border several times, had already been deported multiple times, had been convicted on five felony charges -- doesn't exactly help her case.  What might Miss Ferrera say to the father of the young woman who was right there when this scummy fellow who should never have crossed the border, even once, killed his daughter, if she were to meet him?  Worse, what might he say to her?  Perhaps "I'll be going to the polls myself on election day, and I'm guessing we won't be supporting the same candidate."


Still, far fewer people care very much about what America Ferrera thinks than what more well-known entities like, say, Macy's says.  That would be the Macy's that holds that big parade in New York on Thanksgiving, and which is so big it actually has two stores in the same mall, near where I live.  I'm not kidding.

And ... the Macy's that, until this flap, had a line of menswear (ties) representing The Donald Himself.  In a sadly unsurprising act of talking past its opponent, Macy's put out this statement:

“Macy’s is a company that stands for diversity and inclusion.  We have no tolerance for discrimination in any form. We welcome all customers, and respect for the dignity of all people is a cornerstone of our culture. We are disappointed and distressed by recent remarks about immigrants from Mexico. We do not believe the disparaging characterizations portray an accurate picture of the many Mexicans, Mexican Americans and Latinos who have made so many valuable contributions to the success of our nation. In light of statements made by Donald Trump, which are inconsistent with Macy’s values, we have decided to discontinue our business relationship with Mr. Trump and will phase-out the Trump menswear collection, which has been sold at Macy’s since 2004.”

Talk about missing the point.  Now, I suppose that at this point I should say that I come down pretty close to the remark by Gov. Rick Perry, another presidential contender.  Perry said that Trump's original remarks were a bit broad-brush and could be too easily taken, although only by those with an axe to grind, the wrong way. Of course, there are far too many unground axes out there, leaving many to enjoy bashing The Donald for words he never said.

Let's look at the Macy's statement:

- "Diversity and inclusion" -- Trump's words made zero mention of anything like that.
- "Discrimination" -- Nope, none of that, either.  Trump has probably given more jobs to Mexican immigrants than the number of Mexicans that America Ferrera knows personally.
- "Disparaging characterizations [don't portray Mexicans and Latinos]" -- Trump's characterization was not of Mexicans per se (and therefore were not racist) but of elements of those crossing the border illegally -- there are drug types and rapists and murderers, and likely ISIS types who aren't Mexican, crossing the border.  He took pains to say that he liked Mexicans, but wasn't a fan of their leadership, whom he felt were dumping their human trash over the Rio Grande along with the good, innocent emigrants, and making them our problem -- if you remember, Castro did the same thing, emptying his jails years back.

In essence, Macy's made a statement which not only didn't refute the essence of Trump's words, but talked to principles not really relevant to what he said.  They called him a racist and no longer will carry his products, all based on a reading of his statement that wasn't even correct.

I'm pretty well thinking that Trump's lawyers are as good as Macy's, and someone's going to get sued.  That will be a pretty neat court case to watch from afar.

But if I decide never to shop at Macy's again, and I'm thinking about it, it is not because of what I think of Mexicans (I like them; they're usually a lot happier than half the people I meet).  It certainly won't be because of what I think of Donald Trump (he's interesting and often amusing, but I'm not planning to vote for him in the primary if he stays that long).

It will be because talking past your opponent is annoying, and using that as an excuse to break a written contract is contemptible.

I'll still watch the parade on Turkey Day, but I'll buy my ties from a store a bit less knee-jerk PC.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
 Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."

Amendment the Third

This is my essay site, darn it.  So if I want to digress from my own point to call out something really important to me, I will.  So ...

Congratulations to the Instant Classic quartet from Indiana, for having won the International Barbershop Quartet championship in Pittsburgh Saturday night -- in a bit of a surprise.  They gave a fantastic performance in the final round, including a ballad that just nailed the audience -- and the judges.  Me, too.  Google the heck out of these guys and listen to them.

 
OK, back to the Bill of Rights, which is almost as important. This is the third in a series of musing on aspects of the first ten amendments.
                                                                 _  _  _

As we come off the holiday weekend, spending time watching fireworks, steering clear of ISIS and crowds as well (at least we stayed away from crowds), it's the perfect time to relax and ponder the least controversial of the Bill of Rights -- the Third Amendment.

It is so obscure or, at least, little-mentioned, that if you don't look it up, you might have forgotten what it is by number, and maybe, if pressed, you might admit that you pretty much forgot that we even had a constitutional provision for this.

So here goes -- the one Amendment that has not even once been the basis of a Supreme Court decision:

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Do you remember how we have been hacking through some really odd Supreme Court decisions recently, where the intent of the Framers has melted a bit in favor of recognition of what we can only term "contemporary mores"?  Well, given the rather uncontroversial nature of the Third Amendment, perhaps we should just let our mind wander to hypothetical cases and amuse ourselves with what this Court might do.

After all ...

What is "peace"?  In the 1780s, we had a much more comfortable definition of what "peace" means.  You have a war when country A attacks country B, and you have peace after one of the two surrenders with peace terms, and that's it.  Poof -- peace.

Are we at war now?  We have soldiers deployed around the world.  Until the bizarre self-subjugation policy of the current White House, we had become an effective force around the globe in defense of the rights of free nations.  We have had, in the past twenty years alone, actions and engagements in Bosnia,Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya ... at what point were we in "time of war" as written in the Amendment, and at what point in those years were we in "time of peace"?

I do not know, but perhaps we ought to talk about that.  You see, all of the assumptions that I grew up with, about the role of the USA in the world, that sort of thing, have now been blown away by this administration.  So what's to say that they might not decide that, since in the view of some -- and there's only one who appears to matter -- we are "at war"?

That could become very interesting.  I read the text of the Amendment as saying that in time of war, soldiers can be forcibly quartered in my house if "in a matter prescribed by law."  Not "prescribed by law passed by Congress, mind you.  What has the force of law anymore?  SCOTUS just made gay marriage the law of the land, by judicial fiat.  Is that a "law" as contemplated by the Third Amendment?

What is a "soldier"?   The Amendment is interestingly silent on that.  Surely we all accept that members of the Army count, right?  Do active-duty members of the Navy count?  Surely they don't think of themselves as "soldiers", but could we imagine SCOTUS regarding them as able to be forcibly quartered in my house in peacetime, since they are not mentioned?  After all, there was a navy in the nascent USA; why was it not acknowledged in the Amendment -- No soldier or sailor ..."?  And if we assume in the Navy, what of members of the Marines?  What of the Air Force, not even contemplated 225 years ago.  The National Guard?

And if we are so expansive in our definition, would the Court also grandfather in those entities devoted to keeping domestic peace, like the FBI -- or your local police force.  Can you imagine having your house taken over forcibly by the FBI as a command post, at the direction and order of the president, without your consent?  Forget whether the Court deems such an action as lawful under the Third Amendment -- can you imagine a president deeming his executive orders to be law, and doing something like that?

I would never imagine a president with enough contempt for his people to do so.  But I think we have one now, and if we have one, we could have another -- or this one could pull such a stunt before his term ends.

And you thought the Third Amendment was innocuous.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
 Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."

No More to Fear from Our Candidates

I certainly go back to the 1964 presidential campaign, as possibly many of you do.  The Democrats that year created an aura of fear around the concept that Barry Goldwater, the Arizona senator and Republican presidential candidate, was someone to be scared of.  He would push the "button", as we regarded it then, and drop A-bombs, as we called nukes then, on the Soviet Union, as we ... OK, you get the idea.

There certainly was a climate of fear then to be tapped into by the Democrats.  We had gone through the Cuban missile crisis a couple years since, and we still had air-raid drills and Civil Defense activities and, well, we were scared of the Soviets.  Khrushchev, you know, and those guys.  Kennedy had been killed by a communist, Lee Oswald, and there was tension.

The Lyndon Johnson campaign tried to take advantage of Goldwater's hawkish posture with commercials like the one with the little girl playing with a flower, followed by an exploding bomb and a mushroom cloud.  I think there's no doubt that, though it only played once, its iconic nature amplified what fears the electorate may have had of that posture.

I'm thinking that our "friends" in the Hillary Clinton campaign and, perhaps, in the campaigns of some of the more establishment-type Republican candidates are looking at that old commercial, and wondering if they'll need to use something like it to tap into 2016-era fears.

I am not talking about tapping into fears of nuclear war, but of something far more challenging -- the truth.  But now, the truth no longer needs to be feared.

This has all come about thanks to the heavy level of buzz associated with a couple recent entries into the race -- Donald Trump and Chris Christie.  Now to clarify, I do not have a dog in the fight.  My car is not sporting Trump or Christie bumper stickers, and frankly I haven't heard enough on some issues important to me to have a clue about whom to vote for in the primary.

But that's not my point.  Trump and Christie, and to some extent a few others like Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina, are rather pointed in their willingness to tell things as they actually see them.  There are a lot of criminals coming over the border with Mexico, along with other illegals, and there are a lot of emigrant females being sexually assaulted on the way.  There is a thriving black market in border-jumping and all its attendant disasters, and it is because of Obama's anti-American policies.  That's the truth.

Christie has told people to shut up, and it's when they need to be told that, in the interest of that rational dialogue that the left always asks for (but never really wants).  Fiorina has dogged Hillary Clinton around trying to get her to answer actual, unstaged questions.  And Ted Cruz has been willing to bring national attention to government overspending in dramatic ways.

So here's the thing ... maybe back in 1964 the threat of nuclear war was real, and the concern over Goldwater's views, while wildly over-dramatized, reflected an unknown about the threat of war for the USA.  But this is 2015, going on 2016.

What is there to be afraid of that hasn't already happened?

I'm not talking about things we should fear, like ISIS and $18 trillion in debt and open borders and Al Sharpton.  We certainly should fear those.

But candor?  We should celebrate that.  People like candor -- there's no question why Trump has soared to the upper ranks of the GOP field in polling, and it's not because of Celebrity Apprentice or his bank balance.  It's because he is absolutely clear in his convictions, and people are hungry for a person to act more unlike a politician, and say what's actually on his or her mind.

My main point is that we have had six-and-a-half years of a president who has dragged the image of the USA to depths it has not known since our ascent in world stature a century ago.  Our enemies do not fear us, our allies do not trust us, and no one loves us.  We celebrate convenience-store robbers.  It's only a testament to how atrocious other countries are that we even have an immigration nightmare and not a brain drain outward.

Donald Trump does not strike more fear into the USA than what is our existing fear of more of what Barack Obama has done.  Chris Christie cannot make us worse by plainly calling out our enemies -- they already laugh at us.  Carly Fiorina can only bring a better USA by recognizing the real content of the hearts of the leaders of our enemies and declaring what she sees.

In other words, the Democrats cannot scare us any more by trying to spook us and exaggerating fear of Republican leaders.  We have seen what they have to offer, and it has nearly destroyed us -- an execrable image around the world, and the inability to live within our means and defend or borders, let alone those of our allies.

Mrs. Clinton, we are certainly not afraid of Donald Trump. 
Mr. Obama, we do not fear Gov. Christie, either.

We are afraid of you.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
 Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."

The "Loaded" Amendment

In this second installment of my ramblings on the Bill of Rights, we get into one whose debate is most based on the fact that the rationale for its existence is put right there in the text, and has led to endless discussion as to what it "really" means.

We refer, of course, to the Second Amendment, which reads:

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.

Of course, there is always that "well-regulated militia" line that trips everyone up, for two reasons -- first, we have a 21st Century idea of what a "militia" actually is, which we try too often to apply to 18th-Century text, and second, because it is really not that important -- rationale or no, the rest of the Amendment is where the "shall" lays, and where the right is defined.

I say it is not important, because the Framers didn't just dream that one up like "Well, George, we need to be able to raise a militia once in a while; perhaps we should put something in about letting the citizens have guns."  In fact, the right to keep and bear arms derives from a much, much earlier concept in British common law, which was the basis for the words.  Importantly, that concept is well-described and documented there as relating to a natural right to self-preservation and armed resistance, when laws alone do not help.

In the context of this piece, the rationale is not relevant either, as we are discussing the implication.  We have a right to bear arms; the Constitution has enshrined that essential right, and we need to consider the consequences, good and bad, of existence of that right in a free society.

As I wrote recently, I am one of those folks who has shot competitively all his life.  I've never hunted, or fired a weapon at anything other than an inanimate target.  I did not serve in the military (though I went 1-A in the draft while in college, they never seemed to want me).  So I don't even think of firearms necessarily in a "weapon" sense as much as the tool of a competitive sport.

When, however, we allow an uninfringed right to possess arms, we have to recognize that the common-law dictate grants an innate, understood expectation that a citizen of the USA can defend himself or herself, armed, and that the government will not interpose with "infringing" actions that prevent the law-abiding citizen from doing so.

That interposing includes, as I noted in the earlier piece, failing to issue (or deny) a firearm-purchase permit in a reasonable time, "reasonable" meant to include the local authorities complying with their own laws.

So the consequences are many, but the principal ones actually are that we have granted our citizenry the right, and the obligation, to defend ourselves properly with deadly force.  We talk of the obligations of a free people, but those of an armed free people are beyond that.

Most particularly, an armed free people must find, somewhere, a moral code that drives them to be properly able to defend themselves and, at the same time, apply the knowledge of right and wrong to an understanding of deadly force.  Seems like a lot to ask.  But that's the price of freeing a people and granting them their due right to stand for their property and their family.

How do we feel about the consequences when people lacking that moral code arm themselves as they have in, well, the South Side in Chicago, and determine that they are at some kind of war?  Well, those are indeed awful consequences.  But there's no real conflict between disarming criminals, or preventing them from bearing arms, and the Second Amendment.  It's the disarming of the law-abiding that is the problem -- and the fear.

Because at the same time the citizen must take the right and properly bear arms when arms are borne, the government which granted the right must manage it with the real balance between the rights and needs of its citizens.  With fifty States, a District, a handful of territories and a commonwealth here and there, that's a lot of governments to get it (the administration of firearms transactions and possession rules) right.  But the essential right in the Second Amendment doesn't vary -- whatever the waiting periods may be, or the ID requirements, or the proof of residence, in no way can the implementation "infringe" on the right for civilized citizens to bear arms.

The British, in putting that principle in common law before there was a dream of a USA, understood the role of personal defense.  After all, what do dictators do as soon as they gain sufficient power?  They confiscate the firearms of their people.  Hitler did it; there would appear to be no better evidence that opposition to the armed citizen is a sign of corruption than that it being a tactic of that fellow.

America glorifies the individual.  We are allowed to possess property, to create businesses, to deal at home and abroad, to travel freely, to worship as we please.  It is absolutely consistent that we are individually free to defend our property, our business and our person.  The Framers not only knew that, but they clearly felt it so fundamental that it was incorporated before almost every other right in the first ten.  Think about that, where this Amendment sits in he Bill of Rights.  It was no accident.

The right to keep and bear arms is awesome in the true sense of the word.  I recall the very first thing my dad taught me when I started to shoot around age twelve -- "A gun is always loaded" -- in other words, treat arms with the respect due a loaded weapon and assume it to be so.

The Second Amendment, in its own way, is also "loaded" -- we must treat it with respect and deference, and remember that both the government that created it and the citizenry to which its right is granted are obligated to act properly toward it.  It was given to us as protection for the civil rights of the citizens of a free nation.

When we "cling to our guns", as our current president so inartfully said, we are clinging to our position as free Americans.

Do not mess with it.

  Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
 Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."

Contemplating the Bill of Rights: The First Amendment

One of the happier circumstances of this column and this site is that people actually absorb the thoughts of the writer, and decide that there are indeed more things, more topics and some nifty ideas that they would like me to write on.

Now, understanding that I work for a living, that this column is not my profession and that I earn no money at all from it (unless you would care to advertise), it is of necessity a home of stream-of-consciousness essays.  I can contemplate the topics, but extensive research, well, there is not a lot of time for that.  What is here is, well, what I think about.

I did, however, get a very-much appreciated request to ramble on in a series of pieces devoted to the Bill of Rights, a sacred emblem to many of us and, I imagine, to most readers of this site.  Would I write, the reader asked, a series on each of the enumerated rights (in the Bill of Rights), and particularly contemplate the good and bad consequences that we must live with in a free society, driven by each.  But you have to write it off the top of your head.

Well, sure.

So let's start at the very beginning, and over the coming weeks, I'll sneak in Amendments 2-10 as the events of our world allow me to do.  Here, friends, is the First:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The First Amendment has consequences aplenty, and there is no better time to write about it. After all, the Supreme Court has just this past week ruled that a religious-cum-political ceremony -- marriage -- is no longer the legal province of the States to regulate, but it is the law, such as the Court can make them (which it can't, but now apparently has), that the States can not even decide for themselves and their citizens who is permitted to enter into it.

But I digress, if only a little.

We are probably the first, certainly the most important nation on earth, to have ever established itself with a specific organizational principle that we are not a country founded on (any one) faith.  Founded on "faith in general", well, not that either.  No amendment sets any principle like it -- the USA, having been founded almost totally by Christian citizens, goes so far as to make its first promulgated freedom that of being free not to practice a faith mandated by the nation's legislature, or even the one practiced by practically all its citizens.  Moreover, that legislature could never subsequently oblige its citizens to practice a specific religion, or practice none at all, nor could it prevent its free exercise.

Oh, what our Founders have left us.

One has to concede that as the world has shrunk, and as we have become a grand melting pot for immigration by practitioners of all this world's denominations, it is almost silly to think that Congress would any longer be tempted to "establish" a faith -- even absent the establishment clause.  We are less Christian a nation than we ever have been; more Muslim, more Jewish, more Buddhist and Baha'i and probably more atheist -- OK, almost certainly more atheist.

But no, the consequences of the First Amendment most of interest are not those of the establishment clause, but rather of the subsequent phrase -- prohibiting the free exercise thereof.  How much discipline it must take for us to remind ourselves that the Amendment refers only to banning actions of Congress -- Rhode Island is perfectly free to set itself up as a Muslim caliphate if it so chose, and not only are they perfectly free to do so, but Congress cannot do a thing about it -- they are barred from interfering in what would be a "free exercise" on the part of the state.

For Congress to stay out of religion -- and we must always retreat to the text, as it clearly and specifically is only talking about Congress -- is truly difficult.  What, for example, will happen when some state passes a law that protects bakeries from being sanctioned for declining to cater gay weddings?  Or a law that protects a church like, I don't know, the Roman Catholic one, from being sued for declining to perform gay weddings on religious grounds?  Or a gynecologist from declining on religious grounds to perform an abortion? 

In none of these cases can Congress intervene legislatively.  And we will live with that.  But how do we act when the Supreme Court, as it did last week, acts in loco Congressis and makes a decision that we can only regard as a law that should have been developed and acted on by Congress?

I think that the most difficult attribute of the establishment clause, the most disciplined we must be, is to avoid taking the notion of "separation of church and state" and reading that into text where it does not exist.  We are a nation that is supposed to allow the free exercise of religion, and Congress can defend that freedom, and shortly, I believe, it will be asked to. 

I also would like us to have a real dialogue, maybe with dueling latter-day Federalist Papers, about whether the Framers intended to confine the prohibition on Congress messing with religion just to Congress, in the sense of asking what the States may or may not do.  No, I think we are not in fear of Rhode Island becoming a caliphate, but would the Framers have allowed it, or thought it a legitimate act of a State?  They had to have discussed it, since at least some of the colonies were indeed denominationally oriented at their individual creation.

I ask that because of the rest of the First Amendment -- what do we think the 2015 version of "peaceful assembly and redress of grievance" is?  That's one where I think there is a great deal of risk of individual states meddling in a fundamental right.  Do we not think that if UC-Berkeley, an institution that is a part of the State of California, sets up those inane "free speech zones", that by extension they have limited the right of peaceful assembly elsewhere on campus?  Congress can't create those, but they could forbid them -- they can pass laws declaring them in violation of the First Amendment.

Why did the Framers not extend the prohibition on preventing assembly to the States?  What are we to take from the fact that they didn't?

So many consequences, so little time.  And so many discussion points.  Forgive the rambling, but it's a free country and we are allowed that right.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
 Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."

Did SCOTUS Give Us a Gift -- a Tip from "Frozen"

OK, I'll be very candid.  I care a great deal about winning the presidency in 2016.  There will be Supreme Court slots to fill, no doubt, and I sure as Hades don't want Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders nominating the candidates.  And we have to concede the possibility that the Senate may be lost back to the Democrats, given that the number of seats to be defended by the Republicans offers a challenge much like the one that turned the Senate Republican in 2014.

So listen on this one -- it is very possible that the Supreme Court of the United States has actually done something that will help the Republican candidate next year, if only he or she is able to take proper advantage of the SCOTUS ruling.

I'm referring to the ruling that effectively legalized gay marriage in the USA, regardless of state laws barring it and, well, the will of a large percentage of Americans.  No, I'm not saying that it is such a contentious issue that anti-gay-marriage voters will rise in a tsunami of public opinion and votes and drive the Democrats out of the White House in force.

Quite the opposite, actually.

No, I think that SCOTUS handed the Republicans a gift in that, essentially, they have taken an issue that was a polarizing one, with the capacity to drive Democrats to the polls and split Republicans, and utterly removed it from the national debate.  Yes, in that, according to five unelected Ivy League lawyers, marriage can be between two (or three or more) of pretty much anything, there is nothing more to fight.

Can we -- and our presidential candidate -- take advantage?  Well, it beats the heck out of me.  But I've written over and over and over that the Republican candidate should focus on defending the USA, balancing the budget, creating jobs in the private sector, protecting our borders and other things that are like, actually, important.  So if our desire is to shift the chatter away from contentious moral issues -- at least during our campaigns -- and run on what really matters, then isn't that a good thing?

I know there is a real reluctance on the part of a lot of us to do as the song from "Frozen" tells us, and just, you know, "Let It Go."  Many of us find the idea of wilting the traditional definition of marriage to be a contemptible act on SCOTUS's part.  [Aside -- I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, but whether gay couples have a piece of paper or not is not going to cause me to lose a lot of sleep -- they're still going to be together either way]

But there is only one fix to this, and it is a legislative one.  A legislative one, it should be pointed out, that is not going to happen, at least anytime soon.  That leaves the gay marriage issue as, for all intents and purposes, "settled law" as they like to say around the White House -- and the Kremlin.

So fine.  Let it go. Maybe some day the moral tide will turn, and maybe it will never turn.  Let's get real.  Are not the things I wrote above that the Republican candidate should focus on -- and which are winning platform planks -- far, far more important?

If a Republican wins the White House, and the Republicans hold both houses of Congress, is the first thing that you want them to do to pass a law banning gay marriage?  Seriously?  For me, it is so far down the line of what needs to get the attention of the legislature, that it's not even on the event horizon.

We have been handed a great opportunity for which we should, perverse as it may sound, be at least a little bit thankful to SCOTUS.  They have removed a distraction from the 2016 debate -- the correct Republican answer to any question on the gay marriage topic is now "Well, that would appear to be a moot point now, eh?  Let's talk about $18 trillion that we've borrowed and can't pay back."

I know we're not too happy, most of us.  But you know what?  There's a silver lining to all this, as the Court decisions and others like them gradually take silly distractions off the table and leave the real, important issues to the serious debate -- debate that Democrats cannot win, at least without a great assist from the ovine, simian press.

Let it go.  Let it go.  Turn away and slam the door.  It just is not that big a deal, by comparison.

 Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
 Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."

Let the Candidates Fix What the SCOTUS Wouldn't

I suppose that by now, we all have our opinions on the Supreme Court decision last week that somehow left in place the unaffordable Affordable Care Act.  I'm not a lawyer; I don't play one on TV and only a few times played one on stage.  So I hesitate to make a blanket statement as to whether the Court acted properly in reading the Government's view in King v. Burwell and taking their side as the correct answer.

I know that I read Justice Scalia's explosive rebuttal in the form of a dissenting opinion.  In it, I found the selfsame logic that one would have reached on one's own -- that the version of Congress which shoved through Obamacare absolutely meant to punish states that did not set up insurance exchanges.  The penalty was that their citizens would not be able to get taxpayer-funded subsidies to pay for their insurance.  Its loudest architect, Jonathan Gruber stated as much.

So if Justice Scalia saw it that way, and it was the same way we saw it and interpreted it after Gruber's admission, then what are we to make of the fact that other members of the Court saw it opposite to that?  How do we decide what is "right" if part of the Court feels one way and another part feels passionately contrary?  Are we, as Justice Scalia wrote (and also Justice Thomas the next day in dissenting from the gay-marriage ruling), to be subject to nine "east and west coast lawyers all educated at Harvard and Yale, none a Protestant"?

The answer, apparently, is "yes."

We will not fix that.  We can, however, fix the law that they ruled on.  There are Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, and it is certainly possible that the White House may be occupied by a Republican as early as January 2017.

I would encourage all 14 announced Republican candidates for the presidency, and the others who may jump into the fray shortly, to declare precisely what they would have Congress do with Obamacare if elected.

Here's why: the left and the press (I repeat myself) have set the agenda and the talking points among the public as far as Obamacare.  Repeal the law, they say, and millions of people will lose health insurance, and that would be a tragedy.  Never mind that that's a fallacy, and never mind that most of those people only recently even got coverage, many did not want it, and no one was going without actual care anyway.

We on the right need to focus on the law itself.  By citing the parts of it that we would change, and how we would do it, we could move the public debate.  Instead of the left getting to say "No, you can't do that; people would lose coverage", they would be forced to defend the onerous provisions, one by one.  If we make a list of what we would change, and remove the word "repeal"from the debate, we force the left to be on the defensive.

Republican candidate: "As of now, the law requires people as old as 64 to pay for maternity coverage.  We will change that to a lower age, and we will allow couples who have undergone sterilization, such as vasectomies and hysterectomies, no longer to have to pay for such coverage.  Mr. or Mrs. Democrat, you have to agree with that, right?"

Republican candidate: "As of now, the law requires that people with no children, or with no dependent children in their household, pay for pediatric dentistry coverage.  We will change that to remove the requirement for such coverage from any adults with no children.  People should not be paying for insurance for non-existent children.  Mr. or Mrs. Democrat, you have to agree with that, right?"

Republican candidate: "As of now, the law sets mandatory minimums for coverage that forces healthy people to buy expensive plans with low deductibles.  This is silly.  Grown Americans can decide for themselves how much risk they are willing and able to take on.  If they want to get a plan with a high deductible and a much lower cost, we should let them.  After all, if they have to pay for heavy coverage, they're going to feel obliged to use it, and those increased doctor and hospital visits will drive up costs.  Mr. or Mrs. Democrat, you have to agree with that, right?"

So you get the idea.  Let's get our candidates to start addressing what they would do with Obamacare by picking off, one by one, the stupid, the pernicious, the inefficient and ineffective parts of the law.  By doing so, we stop talking about the nicey-nicey parts and can make the narrative about the stupid, pernicious and inefficient.  Let's see Hillary Clinton try to explain why I am paying dental insurance for children I don't have, but don't get dental coverage myself.

The Supreme Court didn't do the USA any favors last week.  It remains for the Republican candidates to take up the task and explain the legislative remedies that they will propose.  First, of course, they need to set the narrative.

And I just gave them the first talking points.  Available for hire, anytime.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
 Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."

Getting Over It -- John Hinckley and Another Guy

In a story that certainly doesn't appear to be getting much in the way of headlines, John Hinckley, Jr., the attempted assassin who shot several people in 1981 including Ronald Reagan, is the subject of some legal processes this week.  His lawyers and government lawyers are negotiating terms of an agreement under which he can live outside of the mental facility he has been assigned to for over 30 years.

I remember the date quite well, as the night before, which was Easter, my wife went into labor with our second and last child; he would be born the next day, the 30th of March 1981.  We spent our first day in the hospital with our son watching the TV reporting of President Reagan's condition, surgery, the condition of the others who had been wounded, and praying for their recovery.  In those grand, Twitterless days, we relied on network TV to give us the facts, and waited for them to correct their own errors hours later.  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. 

Digression aside, let us return to Mr. Hinckley.  He is 60 now, but back in 1981 he was a young man with what was diagnosed by psychiatrists as some type of personality disorder.  Trying to get the attention of the actress Jodie Foster (in what turned out to be a terribly misdirected affection), he fired at the group including the president, thinking it would give him a platform to declare his feelings for her.

As you recall, or can look up on Wikipedia (which also did not exist then, nor did PCs to any extent, or laptops, or wireless, or the Web), Hinckley was charged with various crimes but was ultimately found not guilty by reason of insanity, and was remanded to St. Elizabeth's Hospital for treatment after being released from prison custody.

Now, I don't have much use for the "not guilty by reason of insanity" verdict and wrote a few months ago on the subject.  But that's what it was for Hinckley and that's where we are now.  So 34 years after a young man with psychiatric issues tried to kill the president of the United States, he is probably going to be released from living primarily at a mental treatment facility.

Have we forgiven him?

That's really the question at hand.  My gut reaction is to applaud efforts to keep him confined, principally because anyone who tries to kill someone else, let alone the president, ought to be put away.  In Hinckley's case, if his punishment has to be lifetime institutionalization rather than incarceration, well, so be it.  Crimes are to be punished, not treated, at least that's my gut reaction.

The more I think about it, the less I care, and the more I would like to rely on the professionals treating him to decide whether or not there is a shred of residual threat -- at least I would if I trusted psychiatrists all that much.  If they all agree that he is not likely to try to impress Jodie Foster any more, then OK, let him out, maybe check in with him once in a while.

What I don't know because, at least at the publication date of the article I referenced, there were zero comments, is what the nation thinks.  Anyone?  Bueller?   Bueller?

I do indeed care, because I'm looking for hypocrisy, as usual.  I went back to some earlier articles about Hinckley but wasn't really able to glean whether liberals or conservatives were more or less likely to want Hinckley locked up for good based on their own political leaning.  So, with every effort to avoid this becoming a strawman, here is my point of comparison.

He committed an act a number of years ago that is universally condemned.  He is much older now than he was at the time of the incident, especially relative to the state of his development and maturation since.  His victims have either forgiven him or have long since moved on, especially relative to the incident and their association of him with it.  His actions at that time do not reflect the person he now is.  There is almost no likelihood or expectation of him committing it again.

At this point, you can easily be thinking that the italicized paragraph above was a summary of the situation regarding the aforementioned John Hinckley, Jr., all of it being obviously an accurate description of him and his status.  But it isn't.

I'm talking about Josh Duggar.

Yes, all the above is every bit as legitimately said in regard to the eldest child of the 19 Kids and Counting family, as it is to John Hinckley.  May we please, each of us, look into our hearts and decide where we innately come down on whether:
(A) John Hinckley, Jr., now 60, should be given his release from residing at a mental treatment facility and allowed to live a normal life; and
(B) Josh Duggar, long past his early teens, should be given back his job, apologized to by the press, and allowed to live a normal life.

What we appear to be told is that Hinckley is no longer a threat to anyone, he has grown out of, or been treated out of, his illness and we are prepared to accept that as the truth.  We are also told that since the age of at least 16, Josh Duggar has not made improper actions toward girls, and in his entire adulthood he has behaved perfectly normally, and we are prepared to accept that as the truth.

So tell me if your feelings on this, whether you are liberal or conservative, are different relative to the two men.  I haven't been able to find enough data to see whether, say, the same people who would like to see Hinckley jailed forever are quick to give Duggar a pass.  I haven't been able to tell whether those who got their ear lobes in a knot about Josh Duggar are ready to forgive and forget as far as Hinckley is concerned.

It's just that the more I think about it, the harder it is to come up with a moral stance that doesn't treat the two situations pretty much the same way.  The arguments for feeling one way or the other toward one of the two play pretty strongly toward the other guy.

I guess I'm one of those who figured that, while what Josh Duggar did as a teenager was pretty bad, he grew out of it and no longer needs to be defined by it or repeatedly punished for it.  So if that's the case, then John Hinckley, if he has grown out of the disturbed person he was in his 20s, and specifically given that he does not have a conviction to deal with, should get the same view from me.

I still think he should have been judged "guilty by reason of insanity" and his treatment assigned to the state (or District in this case), but I guess I have to be morally consistent and equally willing to concede the possibility of his having long since grown out of his issues.

Moral consistency ... perhaps a platform plank for someone in 2016.  Bueller?

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
 Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."