Update no.1102

Update from the Sunland

No.1102

20.2.23 – 26.2.23

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

 

To all,

 

The societal and political question of representation continues to appear in our public debates about redistricting and gerrymandering. The latest U.S. Supreme Court relevant decision—Evenwel v. Abbott [578 U. S. ____ (2016); No. 14–940]—raised some interesting aspects. Plaintiffs Sue Evenwel and Edward Pfenninger sought the Court’s dictum in forcing the State of Texas to abandon total population as a basis for redistricting and adopt a voter-equality mandate based on eligible or registered voters. In Evenwel, the Court rejected appellants’ claim and validated the total population basis of one person – one vote that has been in place since the 1960s.

When the original claim was filed, Susan W. ‘Sue ‘ Evenwel was the chairperson for the Titus County (Texas) Republican Party, and Edward ‘Ed’ Pfenninger was a Christian fundamentalist security guard in Porter, Montgomery County, Texas, who operates a YouTube channel to express his pseudo-Christian, parochial, antisemitic opinions. They both lived in separate Texas congressional district that had proportionally high numbers of people that were eligible and registered to vote, which is precisely why they sought to re-define voting districts in Texas based of voter-eligible population rather than total population. Evenwel and Pfenninger claimed that Texas’s districting based on total population as opposed to the voter-eligible population diluted their votes in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The district court dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim, and the United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction. In the Court’s Evenwel decision, the Supremes affirmed the district court’s ruling and thus the total population basis for redistricting.

The debate over total population versus registered voters versus voter eligible population versus citizen-voting-age-population with respect to congressional and voting districts and jurisdictions represents the heart of the societal question before us and the contrast in the political motivations among We, the People.

The Court is dancing on a thin tabletop, but I appreciate the majorities reasoning. Logically, the only reasonable and acceptable basis for apportionment is total population since that is representation. An elected congressional representative represents all the people in his/her district regardless of how they vote. Voters decide their voting choices at every election. Whether eligible voters decide to vote is their choice and private business. That basis means there may be more or less voters in other districts, but that is a private, happenstance matter unrelated to representation. Equalizing voter or eligible voter populations is NOT reasonable. 

Beyond the intellectual question above, Associate Justices Thomas and Alito wrote opinions concurring in the judgment. To a lessor degree, it was Thomas’s opinion that hit a dissonant chord with me. Justice Thomas cherry-picks his history citations to support his view of constitutional law. In his argument for the federal government to remove itself from the apportionment and representation debates ignores the entirety of the sordid history of Jim Crow discrimination. He implicitly assumes the general goodwill of people. He refuses to acknowledge or even recognize that there are bad men within all levels of government that seek to deny the right to vote, suppress voting, and deny representation of those who do not agree with them. Justice Thomas is nothing if not consistent. In this dancing through sophisticated sentence construction and selective recitation of his view of history, he remains a devoted states-rights advocate, who appears quite comfortable with states defining basic individual rights. I reject and condemn such attitudes by anyone up to and including Supreme Court justices.

 

In my lame and miniscule effort to keep track of the myriad prismatic colors of the far-right factions, a particular message from Hillsdale College, a right-wing pseudo-university, triggered my interest. They asked a stimulant survey question. “Do you agree that the role of the Supreme Court is to apply the Constitution as it is written and NOT to make laws or advance a particular policy agenda?”

Prima facie, I think every informed or knowledgeable American citizen would say, yea verily! The question is straight forward and direct enough. The only problem is, as with so many such questions, the devil is in the details. Behind the question is the fact that they assume it will be strict constructionists like Thomas and Alito who will “apply the Constitution.” The pinnacle decision illuminating this particular issue is Roe v. Wade [410 U.S. 113 (1973); 22.1.1973] [319] that overturned by the new conservative Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization [597 U. S. ____ (2022); 24.6.2022] [1067, 1068]. The social conservatives on the bench declared that substantive due process was not explicitly written in the words of the Constitution, therefore Roe was decided incorrectly. The whole sequence brightly illuminates the outright fallacy of the whole Roe-Dobbs sequence.

The Roe-Dobbs couplet represents fundamental legal and social matters. To the strict constructionists, the Constitution is solely and singularly a document of federal governance, while the liberals see the Constitution in a broader context, i.e., the sole shield to protect the rights and privileges of all citizens of the United States of America against the transgressions of federal, state, and local governments.

So, when I see a conservative university ask such a benign question, I see our precious privacy, freedom of choice, and all the other unwritten fundamental rights of every citizen being left to the whims of state legislatures. Therein lies the difference between strict constructionists and more contextual interpreters of the U.S. Constitution. To me, the former refuses to recognize a citizen’s right to privacy because it is not explicitly written in words in the Constitution, while the latter places the Constitution in the greater context of life and We, the People. I choose the latter, thank you very much.

This one question is precisely why I reject that bunch at the far right of the political spectrum—call them GOP, Republicans, MAGA bunch, conspiracists, or whatnot. I will not vote for someone, anyone, who looks backward and absolutely refuses to look forward, or who prefers ignorance over knowledge. That’s it, full stop! I will not look back.

 

Comments and contributions from Update no.1101:

Comment to the Blog:

“The Know-Nothings are clearly afraid of the voters, as well they might be. (I guess we could call them the Grubby Old Party.) The people as a whole are not suckers.

“I agree with you about the underlying cause of the disasters you mentioned and many more: deregulation. Corporate desire to avoid liability, often cited in support of deregulation, means nothing if the government won’t hold them liable or will bail them out. If corporations are people, we need the death penalty for them.

“Sydney the chatbot may have been ‘trained’ with romance novels or something, but they scare me just the same.

“The spy community now disclaims any knowledge at all about the three objects they announced they shot down after the one that might be Chinese. No matter what actually happened, that’s a serious failure of communication.

“In re 45POTUS, justice delayed is justice denied.”

My response to the Blog:

Well said and agreed. We can call the former GOP a lot of things across a very wide range. Desperate times lead desperate people to do desperate things . . . and that bunch is desperate. We must vote them into the oblivion they deserve. We need viable political parties in opposition, but we do NOT need that MAGA bunch.

Exactly and spot on correct. We need the proper balance of regulation. After all, regulation is quite akin to taxation, they are the power to destroy. We need railroads; we must not destroy them. Yet that said, corporations have too often proven that self-regulation in a capitalism environment is not and never can be effective. We need government to regulate, but we must find balance to achieve the minimum level of regulation to achieve safety for the common good to avoid stifling innovation, advancement, and progress.

You are not alone in your view of AI chatbots. Far too close to going haywire. To me, it is a very short step from such ludicrous reasoning and that thought process having actionable ability. We have a very long way to go. In such conversations, I am reminded of the scene in the movie “2001 – A Space Odyssey” when Dr. David Bowman [Keir Dullea] attempts to return to their spaceship after retrieving his dead compatriot. HAL (the mission computer) and Bowman exchange thoughts.

Bowman:

Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

HAL:

I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.

Bowman:

What’s the problem?

HAL:

I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.

Bowman:

What are you talking about HAL?

HAL:

This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.

Bowman:

I don’t know what you’re talking about HAL.

HAL:

I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I am afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.

Bowman:

Where the hell did you get that idea, HAL?’

HAL:

Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.

Bowman:

Alright, HAL, I’ll go in through the emergency airlock.

HAL:

Without your space helmet, Dave, you’re going to find that rather difficult.

Bowman:

HAL, I won’t argue with you anymore. Open the doors.

HAL:

Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Good-bye.

Bowman:

HAL. HAL. HAL. HAL! HAL!

That scene depicts our mortal fear . . . when AI can act to out prioritize human beings.

I do not know why the USG has taken the position they have, but I agree, just the look alone does not reflect well on the government. Shades of the Roswell reaction, if you ask me.

Quite so, and I hope the prosecutors eventually nail his ass. He has gotten away with far too much already. He absolutely does not deserve such deference. He belongs in prison . . . in isolation and incommunicado, if it were up to me.

 . . . Round two:

“We pretty much agree. One quibble: when do we need to nationalize, rather than regulate, railroads similar to highways?

“I read the book 2001: A Space Odyssey and had the same response to it. Isaac Asimov wrote the I, Robot series to address the same issues in more depth. I haven't seen anything since that would reassure me about artificial intelligence.”

 . . . my response to round two:

Excellent Q! The USG subsidized the construction of railway track beds, bridges, and supporting infrastructure in the mid to late 19th Century. Those tracks are quite analogous to the roadways of the Interstate highway system or the controlled airspace (>18K feet). Nationalizing the track system and charging a toll would be appropriate. Locomotives and railcars are more akin to an aircraft or tractor-trailer. Some degree of regulation of the operating machinery would also be appropriate similar to maintenance supervision of commercial aircraft. As we are learning, a “Hotbox” detector picked up the failing axel 13 miles before it failed, but detection was not do much good if no one is watching or there was no means to alert the engineer. That said, regulation of the railway track system would not have prevented the East Palestine accident. I am not sure even the federal maintenance supervision would have detected the failing railcar axel, but it would have had a better shot than the present laissez-faire approach we have today. 

SkyNet of Terminator fame was another AI gone wild movie rendition. I see AI in comparable terms to children. It takes 5 to 18 years to teach children the rules of society and respect for others. We have the same responsibility for AI entities like ChatGPT and Sydney. The teachers of HAL failed to teach the computer to respect human life. To HAL, the mission was paramount, above all else; humans were expendable.

 . . . Round three:

“Preventing the East Palestine train wreck would have required enforced regulation of crew size, inspection procedures, and required maintenance. (All of that would fulfill some of the union demands.) East Palestine got national attention because of the hazmat failures, but many other accidents occur on U.S. railroads.”

 . . . my response to round three:

Quite so . . . all the way around. There are many failures on this event; it was not just the wheel bearing on railcar no.23. Hopefully, we will see the necessary changes to help prevent future similar events. We are probably going to get a demonstration of lobbying power. Semper vigilans.

 . . . Round four:

“That's rather optimistic. Had Biden and Congress not broken the rail workers' strike, these issues would have been addressed. John Russell (The Holler) is still reporting on this and has been since the strike failed. He and I are convinced that political corruption and "Precision Scheduled Railroading" underlie this and many other disasters. Others are beginning to report on the purchase of politicians at the state and national levels. I don't think ordinary voters have that loud a voice.”

 . . . my response to round four:

Perhaps so, but we will never know. We must figure out how to learn and apply what we learn from this incident to prevent future events. This tragedy represents more than a few important aspects to our political situation. Far too many voters do not do their homework before voting, and we see the consequences in the form of George Santos, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, et al. They sure as hell are not going to do their homework to vote intelligently about railroad safety provisions. That is precisely why we have a representative democracy—a republic.

From my limited knowledge of railroads, I see many painful lessons learned by the aviation industry that appear to have not been applied to railroads. If so, that is a failure of government to apply proper oversight and supervision for the public good. I expect that to change after the East Palestine, Ohio, accident. The event is very much in the public, common good domain and well within the government’s jurisdiction.

 

My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                  :-)