To all,
Just a question of perspective:
Is the Constitution a document that creates the Federal government and establishes the powers of that government, or is it a document that delegates limited power from We, the People, to the Federal government?
The answer profoundly affects the way we view constitutional authority and interpretation, and conversely how the government impacts our rights and freedom.
The follow-up news items:
-- The Obama v. Wright kerfuffle raised its ugly head again. One sentence in Barack's denunciation of Reverend Wright struck resonance with me. He said, “I see the commonality in people.” I can relate to the junior senator from Illinois, but I would add a qualifier, ‘ . . . until they harm others.’ One observation: one bathes in the hatred, division, inhumanity and injustice of the past while the other tries mightily to look to a brighter future. I prefer the latter, thank you.
-- Five year ago this week, President George W. Bush flew in an S-3 Viking to land aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) [74] and declared, "Mission Accomplished." Oddly, all these years later, the moment remains the marquee event, indicative of the administration’s naïve attitude toward the Battle for Iraq – quick, get ‘er done, walk away. They thought the battle would be hard, the peace relatively easy, and the occupation short and inexpensive, so they celebrated when conventional combat ceased.
-- Guantánamo detainee Sami Mohy el-Din Muhammed al-Hajj was released and returned to Sudan after six years of incarceration – another cause célèbre for the uber-Left. To me, this simple event represents another failure of the administration to wage war successfully.
Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newton Leroy Gingrich of Georgia, answers an important and relevant question:
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/08/gingrich/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
With the conflagration sparked by Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., the Pope's visit to the United States stands in stark contrast. Pope Benedict XVI -- Bishop of Rome and Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church -- brought a message of apology and universal peace. The Pope is perhaps the most prominent cleric on the planet. The Roman Catholic Church has done a magnificent job making sure he maintains that prominence. The Dalai Lama holds similar pre-eminence beyond his Buddhist faith. The Archbishop of Canterbury is probably the next most prominent Christian cleric. I wonder why we don’t see a face to the world of Judaism, Islam or Hinduism? The contrast is dramatic. I have listened to Anglo-Saxon Christian clergy of various flavors preach insanity and hatred just as vile as Reverend Jeremiah Wright – Reverend Fred Phelps being one. In fact, the urge to stand up in the middle of a sermon and confront a preacher spewing similar venomous vitriol nearly overcame me. Mindless religious fanaticism is not confined to radical Islamic clerics. When I hear sermonic rhetoric in the vein of Reverend Wright, I feel a wave of nausea toward the deeply flawed men enveloped in their clerical finery who profess to speak for God or even offer an opinion of God’s law. How does such anger and hatred come from these men? And, why would any rational human being listen to such obscenity? Religion, and all the practitioners thereof, does not tell us how to live our lives. Likewise, when we turn to government for such guidance or to mitigate our accountability, we cheapen our lives and more importantly our freedom. We must confront those who preach hatred, and keep religion in its proper place in our lives.
Austrian police unraveled a horrific crime scene in Amstetten and arrested Josef Fritzl, 73, for multitudinous crimes. Rosemarie and Josef Fritzl had seven children, one of whom was their daughter, Elisabeth, now 42, who had been confined by her father in an underground dungeon for 24 years. Worse, Josef impregnated his daughter at least seven times. The illness and hospitalization of Elisabeth’s eldest daughter, Kerstin, 19, opened Josef’s façade and cracked the case. The dimensions and inhumanity of Josef’s crimes defy imagination. As I have read the wide coverage of this case, I am struck by yet another example of what can happen with unchecked authoritarianism.
As I read court rulings, I take notes to capture words, understand the legal implications, and develop my opinion. My notes for a recent case are sprinkled with simple exclamations – Wow! Last week, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of Virginia v. Moore [552 U.S. ___ (2008); no. 06-1082] – another 4th Amendment judgment (we seem to be getting quite a few of these ‘search and seizure’ decisions). Antonin the Impaler wrote the Court’s opinion. He observed, “A State is free to prefer one search-and-seizure policy among the range of constitutionally permissible options, but its choice of a more restrictive option does not render the less restrictive ones unreasonable, and hence unconstitutional.” He went on to say, “Virginia chooses to protect individual privacy and dignity more than the Fourth Amendment requires, but it also chooses not to attach to violations of its arrest rules the potent remedies that federal courts have applied to Fourth Amendment violations. Virginia does not, for example, ordinarily exclude from criminal trials evidence obtained in violation of its statutes.” And, he went on to say, “We conclude that warrantless arrests for crimes committed in the presence of an arresting officer are reasonable under the Constitution, and that while States are free to regulate such arrests however they desire, state restrictions do not alter the Fourth Amendment’s protections.” In this instance, I do not quibble with this particular pronouncement by the Impaler; to the best of my knowledge, his digestion of the law was accurate, reasonable and proper. And yet, what gives me a definite chill and pause for concern is what was not said. As the Court states, once a law enforcement officer affects an arrest, probable cause allows him additional latitude to search and render safe the arrestee and his automobile; evidence of a crime discovered during a probable cause search is admissible and the crime punishable. However, in this case, because the state chose not to examine the validity of the precipitating arrest, the Court remained mute on the originating action. What bothers me about this ruling is not that a bad man was tried, convicted and incarcerated based on evidence derived from the biased police search, but rather the increased potential and profound impact upon our fundamental right to privacy and protection from unwarranted intrusion by the State. If a law enforcement officer can arrest a citizen on a whim, and thus open up the probable cause window, what stands between us and the full impact of an authoritarian State? The War on Drugs [197], the War on Islamic Fascism, and the public dependency on the State continue to impose enormous pressure upon our civil rights. The Executive possesses tools of intrusion far beyond those envisioned by the Founders, far beyond anything imaginable outside science fiction just a few decades ago. Couple this mounting pressure and capability with the Court’s newly found penchant to reinforce the power of the State, e.g., Hudson v. Michigan [547 U.S. 586 (2006); no. 04-1360] [236], and we face unprecedented challenges to our most basic freedoms and rights. We must pay close attention to the mood of the Court, if we care about preservation of the freedoms we have enjoyed.
On Monday, the Supremes touched off the uber-Left with their ruling in the Indiana voter ID case, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board [552 U.S. ___ (2008); no. 07-21], affirming the 7th Circuit’s affirmation of District Judge Sarah Barker’s original judgment [318]. The essence of the judicial pronouncements validates Indiana’s requirement for a state-approved, photographic identification to vote in person at a polling station. As a side note, if anyone wonders why I have hung the moniker ‘Antonin the Impaler’ upon Associate Justice Antonin Gregory Scalia, part of his concurring opinion in Crawford seems to be descriptive enough. Antonin said, “That the State accommodates some voters by permitting (not requiring) the casting of absentee or provisional ballots, is an indulgence—not a constitutional imperative that falls short of what is required.” While his observation was accurate, his conveyance was rather raw. Nonetheless, the liberal Press launched into a divisive rant conjuring up images of the 2000 election and Bush v. Gore [531 U.S. 98 (2000); no. 00-949], along with foolish accusations of denying voter’s rights and disenfranchising citizens. The tragedy in such irresponsible public ruminations lays in the error of reading Crawford, if they read the ruling at all (and in some cases, there is not a hint the author read the ruling). The inverse of the dissent and opposition’s argument seems to be that any living human being should be able to show up at a polling station and vote on Election Day, albeit any qualification, registration, or identification requirement is excessively burdensome. The arguments on both extremes of the voter ID issue have us chasing our tails trying to prove a negative. One thing you learn the hard way in the engineering discipline . . . proving a negative often becomes a box canyon or an objective in the mist . . . very illusive, if not impossible to attain. Sometimes, common sense should prevail. There are a few things that strike me as quite odd in this argument.
1. When often more than half of the eligible electorate failed to vote, I have a hard time arguing against simple, positive identification for those who wish to vote.
2. A citizen who wants to vote will do what is required to cast his precious vote.
3. The opponents point to travel costs & birth certificate copy costs to obtain the prescribed photographic identification card. If those costs are an obstacle for identification, are they not obstacles for the act of voting? And, if so, are we to provide public funds for all citizens to get to the polling station?
4. The advocates point to inflated registration records and the susceptibility of such lists to phantom voting abuse. All large registries in our mobile society exhibit that characteristic. States, like all registry holders, must have an established, unbiased method to purge and renew their records
All-in-all, Judge Barker got it right, and her judgment was confirmed by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and now the Supreme Court. I add my voice to the court’s; it is high time we face the real issue of positive voter identification.
Comments and contributions from Update no.333:
“Civility is good. This past couple of weeks our current mayor of San Diego, Jerry Sanders, was speaking at an event where an opponent/challenger who is going to run also for mayor in the next election, Steve Francis, went to shake Mayor Sanders’ hand. Mayor Sanders said: “F*** YOU FRANCIS!” and what Sanders did not know was a popular political blogger was standing right there, and someone else got the episode on a video-phone. It made news alright. Sanders was formerly the chief of police for San Diego, had been a SWAT commander, so you’d think he could handle stress. What bothers me is that the position requires leadership for one, second, what about the children who may have overheard Sanders? Besides the multitude of problems our city has (before and during the mayor’s term), I doubt that conduct will get him to much higher positions. The local news interviewed Sanders ex post facto, but he refuses to apologize. So a group has been printing up tee-shirts that show the mayor with a slogan-caption that says what I just said he said but I need not repeat it. But now we have popular radio talk hosts saying to callers “go to hell!” and hanging up on them as part of the normal day. CNN and FOX News analysts on the set arguing, yelling and over-talking each other. Cap will respond to folks but never talk down to them or call names. Character, courtesy, class, civility (4C) still go a long way! I have to remind myself of that daily, I’ve lost my cool before and found blog sites/forums are easy to that in especially. One big happy sand box on the ‘Net. All of us can benefit from Dale Carnegie’s HOW THE WIN FRIENDS & INFLUENCE PEOPLE. Every politician and politico should read that book and then Sun Tzu’s ART OF WAR.
“I've been curious too about the rates fuel prices have increased in the Bush-II term. I heard early this morning on a radio program called Wall Street Journal Report that since October 2004, fuel prices have now doubled!”
My response:
Sanders may have admirable attributes, but the paucity of self-control is a significant detractor for me. I’ve seen characters like him in the military, in business and in politics. Hopefully, the citizens choose wisely.
Another contribution:
“I've proffered some opinions on the very controversial Rev. Wright. Sadly, he is very articulate yet divisive. A good orator, yet almost too clever. People in his specific position need or should be in a role of uniting versus dividing. I did not like the shots taken at Irish and Italians (nor Jews). Strange one talks so much about differences and valuing them, while true, the style/content/subtleties, may serve to only divide further. It is the old tribal-ego, whites have practiced it, black do, part of the human condition. The last thing blacks need to do is feel victimized while they can (and should) seize opportunity.
“If it could only be that Obama had Martin Luther King as his ‘spiritual advisor.’ What a pity. King was much more the uniter.
“While I appreciate there is a bipartisan war in this election cycle timing, I think the right and far-right talk hosts might do better now by distancing themselves from the projected/perceived weakness of the opposition and associates, and focus/promote the strengths of their own candidate(s) and party.
“While the accomplishments of Secretary of State Rice prior to her role in the Bush administration appear stellar, unfortunately I think she does not have the prestige-value expected when she began. And she wants to go back to Stanford to teach. If things in Iraq and world affairs had gone better, I believe she would have made a great running-mate to McCain, and the confidence of the voters would have been likely higher than what Obama & Hillary could sum. But that is only guesswork on my part.”
My response:
As ‘Slick Willy’ Clinton so aptly and succinctly states from time to time, “Politics is a contact sport. If you’re not willing to get knocked around, don’t suit up.”
My very best wishes to all. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap :-)
Just a question of perspective:
Is the Constitution a document that creates the Federal government and establishes the powers of that government, or is it a document that delegates limited power from We, the People, to the Federal government?
The answer profoundly affects the way we view constitutional authority and interpretation, and conversely how the government impacts our rights and freedom.
The follow-up news items:
-- The Obama v. Wright kerfuffle raised its ugly head again. One sentence in Barack's denunciation of Reverend Wright struck resonance with me. He said, “I see the commonality in people.” I can relate to the junior senator from Illinois, but I would add a qualifier, ‘ . . . until they harm others.’ One observation: one bathes in the hatred, division, inhumanity and injustice of the past while the other tries mightily to look to a brighter future. I prefer the latter, thank you.
-- Five year ago this week, President George W. Bush flew in an S-3 Viking to land aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) [74] and declared, "Mission Accomplished." Oddly, all these years later, the moment remains the marquee event, indicative of the administration’s naïve attitude toward the Battle for Iraq – quick, get ‘er done, walk away. They thought the battle would be hard, the peace relatively easy, and the occupation short and inexpensive, so they celebrated when conventional combat ceased.
-- Guantánamo detainee Sami Mohy el-Din Muhammed al-Hajj was released and returned to Sudan after six years of incarceration – another cause célèbre for the uber-Left. To me, this simple event represents another failure of the administration to wage war successfully.
Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newton Leroy Gingrich of Georgia, answers an important and relevant question:
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/08/gingrich/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
With the conflagration sparked by Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., the Pope's visit to the United States stands in stark contrast. Pope Benedict XVI -- Bishop of Rome and Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church -- brought a message of apology and universal peace. The Pope is perhaps the most prominent cleric on the planet. The Roman Catholic Church has done a magnificent job making sure he maintains that prominence. The Dalai Lama holds similar pre-eminence beyond his Buddhist faith. The Archbishop of Canterbury is probably the next most prominent Christian cleric. I wonder why we don’t see a face to the world of Judaism, Islam or Hinduism? The contrast is dramatic. I have listened to Anglo-Saxon Christian clergy of various flavors preach insanity and hatred just as vile as Reverend Jeremiah Wright – Reverend Fred Phelps being one. In fact, the urge to stand up in the middle of a sermon and confront a preacher spewing similar venomous vitriol nearly overcame me. Mindless religious fanaticism is not confined to radical Islamic clerics. When I hear sermonic rhetoric in the vein of Reverend Wright, I feel a wave of nausea toward the deeply flawed men enveloped in their clerical finery who profess to speak for God or even offer an opinion of God’s law. How does such anger and hatred come from these men? And, why would any rational human being listen to such obscenity? Religion, and all the practitioners thereof, does not tell us how to live our lives. Likewise, when we turn to government for such guidance or to mitigate our accountability, we cheapen our lives and more importantly our freedom. We must confront those who preach hatred, and keep religion in its proper place in our lives.
Austrian police unraveled a horrific crime scene in Amstetten and arrested Josef Fritzl, 73, for multitudinous crimes. Rosemarie and Josef Fritzl had seven children, one of whom was their daughter, Elisabeth, now 42, who had been confined by her father in an underground dungeon for 24 years. Worse, Josef impregnated his daughter at least seven times. The illness and hospitalization of Elisabeth’s eldest daughter, Kerstin, 19, opened Josef’s façade and cracked the case. The dimensions and inhumanity of Josef’s crimes defy imagination. As I have read the wide coverage of this case, I am struck by yet another example of what can happen with unchecked authoritarianism.
As I read court rulings, I take notes to capture words, understand the legal implications, and develop my opinion. My notes for a recent case are sprinkled with simple exclamations – Wow! Last week, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of Virginia v. Moore [552 U.S. ___ (2008); no. 06-1082] – another 4th Amendment judgment (we seem to be getting quite a few of these ‘search and seizure’ decisions). Antonin the Impaler wrote the Court’s opinion. He observed, “A State is free to prefer one search-and-seizure policy among the range of constitutionally permissible options, but its choice of a more restrictive option does not render the less restrictive ones unreasonable, and hence unconstitutional.” He went on to say, “Virginia chooses to protect individual privacy and dignity more than the Fourth Amendment requires, but it also chooses not to attach to violations of its arrest rules the potent remedies that federal courts have applied to Fourth Amendment violations. Virginia does not, for example, ordinarily exclude from criminal trials evidence obtained in violation of its statutes.” And, he went on to say, “We conclude that warrantless arrests for crimes committed in the presence of an arresting officer are reasonable under the Constitution, and that while States are free to regulate such arrests however they desire, state restrictions do not alter the Fourth Amendment’s protections.” In this instance, I do not quibble with this particular pronouncement by the Impaler; to the best of my knowledge, his digestion of the law was accurate, reasonable and proper. And yet, what gives me a definite chill and pause for concern is what was not said. As the Court states, once a law enforcement officer affects an arrest, probable cause allows him additional latitude to search and render safe the arrestee and his automobile; evidence of a crime discovered during a probable cause search is admissible and the crime punishable. However, in this case, because the state chose not to examine the validity of the precipitating arrest, the Court remained mute on the originating action. What bothers me about this ruling is not that a bad man was tried, convicted and incarcerated based on evidence derived from the biased police search, but rather the increased potential and profound impact upon our fundamental right to privacy and protection from unwarranted intrusion by the State. If a law enforcement officer can arrest a citizen on a whim, and thus open up the probable cause window, what stands between us and the full impact of an authoritarian State? The War on Drugs [197], the War on Islamic Fascism, and the public dependency on the State continue to impose enormous pressure upon our civil rights. The Executive possesses tools of intrusion far beyond those envisioned by the Founders, far beyond anything imaginable outside science fiction just a few decades ago. Couple this mounting pressure and capability with the Court’s newly found penchant to reinforce the power of the State, e.g., Hudson v. Michigan [547 U.S. 586 (2006); no. 04-1360] [236], and we face unprecedented challenges to our most basic freedoms and rights. We must pay close attention to the mood of the Court, if we care about preservation of the freedoms we have enjoyed.
On Monday, the Supremes touched off the uber-Left with their ruling in the Indiana voter ID case, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board [552 U.S. ___ (2008); no. 07-21], affirming the 7th Circuit’s affirmation of District Judge Sarah Barker’s original judgment [318]. The essence of the judicial pronouncements validates Indiana’s requirement for a state-approved, photographic identification to vote in person at a polling station. As a side note, if anyone wonders why I have hung the moniker ‘Antonin the Impaler’ upon Associate Justice Antonin Gregory Scalia, part of his concurring opinion in Crawford seems to be descriptive enough. Antonin said, “That the State accommodates some voters by permitting (not requiring) the casting of absentee or provisional ballots, is an indulgence—not a constitutional imperative that falls short of what is required.” While his observation was accurate, his conveyance was rather raw. Nonetheless, the liberal Press launched into a divisive rant conjuring up images of the 2000 election and Bush v. Gore [531 U.S. 98 (2000); no. 00-949], along with foolish accusations of denying voter’s rights and disenfranchising citizens. The tragedy in such irresponsible public ruminations lays in the error of reading Crawford, if they read the ruling at all (and in some cases, there is not a hint the author read the ruling). The inverse of the dissent and opposition’s argument seems to be that any living human being should be able to show up at a polling station and vote on Election Day, albeit any qualification, registration, or identification requirement is excessively burdensome. The arguments on both extremes of the voter ID issue have us chasing our tails trying to prove a negative. One thing you learn the hard way in the engineering discipline . . . proving a negative often becomes a box canyon or an objective in the mist . . . very illusive, if not impossible to attain. Sometimes, common sense should prevail. There are a few things that strike me as quite odd in this argument.
1. When often more than half of the eligible electorate failed to vote, I have a hard time arguing against simple, positive identification for those who wish to vote.
2. A citizen who wants to vote will do what is required to cast his precious vote.
3. The opponents point to travel costs & birth certificate copy costs to obtain the prescribed photographic identification card. If those costs are an obstacle for identification, are they not obstacles for the act of voting? And, if so, are we to provide public funds for all citizens to get to the polling station?
4. The advocates point to inflated registration records and the susceptibility of such lists to phantom voting abuse. All large registries in our mobile society exhibit that characteristic. States, like all registry holders, must have an established, unbiased method to purge and renew their records
All-in-all, Judge Barker got it right, and her judgment was confirmed by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and now the Supreme Court. I add my voice to the court’s; it is high time we face the real issue of positive voter identification.
Comments and contributions from Update no.333:
“Civility is good. This past couple of weeks our current mayor of San Diego, Jerry Sanders, was speaking at an event where an opponent/challenger who is going to run also for mayor in the next election, Steve Francis, went to shake Mayor Sanders’ hand. Mayor Sanders said: “F*** YOU FRANCIS!” and what Sanders did not know was a popular political blogger was standing right there, and someone else got the episode on a video-phone. It made news alright. Sanders was formerly the chief of police for San Diego, had been a SWAT commander, so you’d think he could handle stress. What bothers me is that the position requires leadership for one, second, what about the children who may have overheard Sanders? Besides the multitude of problems our city has (before and during the mayor’s term), I doubt that conduct will get him to much higher positions. The local news interviewed Sanders ex post facto, but he refuses to apologize. So a group has been printing up tee-shirts that show the mayor with a slogan-caption that says what I just said he said but I need not repeat it. But now we have popular radio talk hosts saying to callers “go to hell!” and hanging up on them as part of the normal day. CNN and FOX News analysts on the set arguing, yelling and over-talking each other. Cap will respond to folks but never talk down to them or call names. Character, courtesy, class, civility (4C) still go a long way! I have to remind myself of that daily, I’ve lost my cool before and found blog sites/forums are easy to that in especially. One big happy sand box on the ‘Net. All of us can benefit from Dale Carnegie’s HOW THE WIN FRIENDS & INFLUENCE PEOPLE. Every politician and politico should read that book and then Sun Tzu’s ART OF WAR.
“I've been curious too about the rates fuel prices have increased in the Bush-II term. I heard early this morning on a radio program called Wall Street Journal Report that since October 2004, fuel prices have now doubled!”
My response:
Sanders may have admirable attributes, but the paucity of self-control is a significant detractor for me. I’ve seen characters like him in the military, in business and in politics. Hopefully, the citizens choose wisely.
Another contribution:
“I've proffered some opinions on the very controversial Rev. Wright. Sadly, he is very articulate yet divisive. A good orator, yet almost too clever. People in his specific position need or should be in a role of uniting versus dividing. I did not like the shots taken at Irish and Italians (nor Jews). Strange one talks so much about differences and valuing them, while true, the style/content/subtleties, may serve to only divide further. It is the old tribal-ego, whites have practiced it, black do, part of the human condition. The last thing blacks need to do is feel victimized while they can (and should) seize opportunity.
“If it could only be that Obama had Martin Luther King as his ‘spiritual advisor.’ What a pity. King was much more the uniter.
“While I appreciate there is a bipartisan war in this election cycle timing, I think the right and far-right talk hosts might do better now by distancing themselves from the projected/perceived weakness of the opposition and associates, and focus/promote the strengths of their own candidate(s) and party.
“While the accomplishments of Secretary of State Rice prior to her role in the Bush administration appear stellar, unfortunately I think she does not have the prestige-value expected when she began. And she wants to go back to Stanford to teach. If things in Iraq and world affairs had gone better, I believe she would have made a great running-mate to McCain, and the confidence of the voters would have been likely higher than what Obama & Hillary could sum. But that is only guesswork on my part.”
My response:
As ‘Slick Willy’ Clinton so aptly and succinctly states from time to time, “Politics is a contact sport. If you’re not willing to get knocked around, don’t suit up.”
My very best wishes to all. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment