Never Teach A Pig To Sing. It Wastes Your Time And Annoys The Pig.

-----Mark Twain

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I have been reminded repeatedly of Mr. Twain's great wisdom of late. I've been perusing the posts of a group of people who have banded together on Facebook, allegedly to study the Federalist Papers and other writings by the Founding Fathers. I say "allegedly" because after reading these posts for several months, I have no choice but to come to the conclusion that their real purpose is to cherry-pick quotes, take them out of context (or otherwise misinterpret them), and to bludgeon them into unrecognizable form so that they can justify their own prejudices instead of really learning anything about America's history.

Example the first. While I do not have the exact quote in front of me, one posting from Alexander Hamilton unequivocally stated that the system will work only when everyone realizes that if they are willing to give up a little in some areas, they can get a lot in others. In other words, that compromise is the heart and soul of the system. Yet people posting to this Facebook site deny that that's what Hamilton meant, because for them, "compromise" is a dirty word. This, even though they could not explain to me what Hamilton's words meant if they did not mean that the system was set up to function when everyone involved worked to compromise, or find solutions everyone could live with, even though those solutions may not give anyone 100% of what he wants. They insisted on their "interpretation" in utter contradiction to Hamilton's words, which were plain on their face. And then they denied that that's what they were doing. But they never could or did offer any explanations for their stand--and that's a textbook illustration of prejudice.

Example he second. While they claim that the Founders didn't believe in compromise, they have no explanation for the existence, let alone the significance, of things such as the 3/5ths Clause in the Constitution. That's the clause that agrees, for purposes of determining how many Representatives each state could send to Congress, to count each slave as 3/5 of a person--for purposes of representation only. Southern states wanted to count slaves as entire persons, again for purposes of representation only, which would give them disproportionate representation (and thus power) in Congress; non-slave-holding states didn't want slaves to be counted at all, for purposes of representation or otherwise. The 3/5ths Clause was [oh, horrors!--Ed.] A COMPROMISE. Since the document itself got adopted only after including compromises such as this, it is impossible for the Founders to have been against compromise per se. To claim anything else is to deny fact.

Example the third. The most frequent posters to this Facebook page are all quite fond of quoting Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall's admonition that "the power to tax is the power to destroy." They tend to use it to justify not taxing them, at all, for anything. Ever. Marshall may have been correct, but taking that quote by itself is to take it out of context and also to refuse to recognize that while it may be true as a generality, it does not and cannot justify their unwillingness to pay any taxes. If the Founders did not want taxes at all, they'd not have given Congress the power to tax in the first place. Taxes are necessary. Indeed, as Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes noted about a hundred years after Marshall's dictum, "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization."

The people who ignore this are also fond of saying the federal government must be small, limited, and weak, and that that was the Founders' intent. They are forgetting or ignoring the Founders' collective experience under the Articles of Confederation, which was the Founders' first attempt at setting up America's national government. The Founders quickly realized that that government was too weak. It didn't succeed. Thus the impetus for creating the Constitution in the first place. Those same people also do not recognize that the same weaknesses, present in the Confederacy's Constitution, contributed mightily to the Confederacy's having lost the Civil War. Jefferson Davis's government could not compel the individual Confederate states to contribute specific funds to defray the costs of the war, to finance its own operations--in other words, to exist and to be able to defend its existence. Hence, Union victory; hence, "the Second American Revolution," designed to implement what the Founders wanted in the first place but which took a Civil War wherein over 600,000 Americans were killed, to realize.

Also note that the Founders stated the goal of creating a "more perfect Union," which phrase suggests two things: (1) perfection had not been obtained yet; (2) maybe 100% perfection would not be obtainable, but the point was, and is, to keep moving toward that "more perfect" Union. The operative idea being "movement." The Founders plainly did not want some static, stultified, one-size-fits-all-forever structure for the federal government. If they had, they'd never have said "more perfect." They'd have said "perfect." If they had, they'd never have created the process by which the Constitution can be amended. Yet the Constitution may be, and often has been, amended. The notion of "original intent" is important, but it does not slam the door against change, for the provisions for amendment, plus the compromises that were enshrined in the original document (such as the 3/5ths Clause), plus the Founders' behavior in tossing the Articles of Confederation once that document proved ineffectual, all add up to the total that life is what happens, that history changes things, and that the Founders were wise enough to build flexibility into the system so that we could cope several hundred years later.

Further, most of the people who claim they want to "restore" the federal government to what the Founders "intended" are not thinking through the consequences of doing that (allowing, hypothetically, that that presumption were correct, which we've already seen is not), which would be largely to destroy America's primacy and security in the world. It would turn the United States into the Balkans. Yet the people who insist that they want to "restore" America are always claiming America is the best, most powerful, most prosperous, most freedom-embracing place on Earth -- "rah-rah, we're Number One!" They always want America to be first in everything they think is good, but they won't recognize the fact that infant mortality rates in this nation are disgraceful, that high school graduation rates in this country are abysmal, that we are falling behind in the creation of new technology and in the education of our future generations . . . I could go on and on, but in short, that we are increasingly ill-prepared to meet the challenges of the future and thus are at grave risk of losing our presently privileged place on this planet. If they get their way, America will become the ultimate example of The Law of Unintended Consequences, because none of them seem to be able to see what the end result of what they say they want actually will be. [A perfect illustration of my contention that we have to stop trying to teach our children WHAT to think and that we must start teaching them HOW to think, but that topic deserves full exploration in its own post.--Ed.]

The saddest thing of all is that the people who advocate these positions do not seem to realize that if they get their way, they're still going to pay. It may be paying into a different pot, and it may even be more than they are paying now. But they'll be paying, because one way or another, the services their taxes now support will still be in demand, will still be needed for the country to function. Consider this: President Reagan's budget "cuts" were not so much cuts as they were redirecting whence the tax money would come. Infrastructure maintenance comes immediately to mind. The federal government used to provide assistance to the states to maintain our roads, bridges, and other transportation channels. Once Reagan's budget eliminated that assistance, the needs didn't magically go away. Their burden shifted to the states, which varied widely in their ability to take on that burden unassisted. The long-term result? Our bridges and roads are now falling apart, and we're going to have to pay far more to fix them than we would have had we just kept maintaining them with small but regular infusions of federal assistance in the first place. Yet instead of recognizing this and implementing a simple, straightforward plan to do that fixing, we're all pointing fingers and laying blame . . . and the repairs and upgrades we desperately need are not getting done. Maybe the Second Law of Thermodynamics really does apply to human behavior and governmental systems as much as it does to gaseous bodies [you may thank me for that straight line as soon as you use it to make some editorial comment about the Congress.--Ed.]

Unfortunately, recognizing all this does not solve the larger problem. If you consider what many Tea Partiers say about ending government hand-outs to Wall St. banks and protecting Medicare, you'd think those people would be making common cause with Democrats, not Republicans. But the GOP has managed to tie conservatism on social issues so tightly to its financial agenda that there's a knee-jerk reaction in the Tea Party: Democrats = liberalism, liberalism = bad. They are so locked into this way of thinking that they do not see the real facts, which contradict such presumptions. And as long as we're locked into that filtration of facts, we are living in a world much more like George Orwell's 1984 than in the America the Founding Fathers envisioned.

It All Depends On How You Look At It

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One of the things that bugs me the most about the people yammering for us to get the country back in line with the Founding Fathers' original intent for the Constitution is this: their lack of perspective. They seem to believe that there was a brief, Golden Age in our American past wherein the Constitution was implemented 100% perfectly according to the Founders' intent, and that there also is NO question as to what the Founders' intent was. [The fact that their interpretation of the Founders' intent fits the failed Articles of Confederation more closely than the Constitution is a topic for another post.--Ed.]

I do not condemn them for wishing for "the good old days." All humans seem to have the tendency to think of the past as being a more idyllic, happier, easier time than the present day. [Though in my own defense, I will say that my "good old days" have to do with things that have happened in my own lifetime and thus are formed not just out of my own desires or even my own memories, but are measurable against objective records and facts as corroborated by other living people's memories.--Ed]

I do condemn them for their vision of a "good old days" that can be proven never to have existed except in their own minds. I also condemn them for asking the wrong question to begin with and misusing the principles of logic in answering same. They hold that the Constitution according to the Founders' original intent had (and has) one and only one clear, specific, unambiguous meaning . . . and they point to assorted writings of the Founders to justify their saying so. They conclude that nowadays, the Founders' true original intent has been not just ignored, but positively stomped on . . . mostly by progressives and other evil liberals. They are unshakably rigid in these beliefs.

The problem is, they are not asking the correct question. It's not the case that the Founders had a single, clear, unambiguous original intent, which we sinners have abandoned. The question is: What actually was the Founders' intent in the first place? The Founders' original intent could well have been to create a framework for the government that was strong enough to stand (unlike the already-proven worthless Articles of Confederation), yet flexible enough to let people of the future deal with the problems of the future, problems that not even the Founders could predict. That is, the Founders' original intent could well have been to create a strong yet flexible framework for government, not dictate some unchangeable, perfect, set-in-stone proclamation.

Consider what objective evidence and untwisted logic reveal. First, the mere existence of the copious Federalist Papers, Anti-Federalist Papers, and other articles, essays, correspondence, and publications by the Founders proves that the Founders were NOT of one rigid and united mind-set about the Constitution's meaning. In all these writings they frequently, often vehemently, disagreed with one another about what the Constitution meant and would do once ratified. The sheer physical quantity of the documents establishes that, even without reading all the competing claims those documents actually make.

Second, these "originalists" cherry-pick from all these documents to support their point of view. The opinions of every one of the men considered the Founding Fathers is given equal weight [as long as they agree with it, that is--Ed.]. James Madison, however, has long been recognized as the primary author of the actual Constitution. One would think that he'd have a better idea of what he meant when he wrote any particular phrase or clause than would anyone else. His words explaining what he wrote thus should be given more weight than the words of someone who, even though considered a Founder, did not have a large or even direct role in the Constitution's authorship. Yet Madison is ignored or even actively condemned by these same people when they don't like what he says he meant.

[I have the same problem with the way a lot of people who claim to be Christians interpret the Bible. Excuse me, but not only should the New Testament be given precedence over the Old, Jesus' own words should matter more than anyone else's in either the Old OR New Testament. "Whatsoever you do unto the least of My brethren, you do unto Me" (Matthew 25:40) is the essence of God's New Covenant with humanity, and thus should guide our behavior a lot more than the fire and brimstone, Us against Them, tales of a vengeful Old Testament God.--Ed]

Third, the Founders were no dummies, and they of all people knew the only constant throughout history has been change. Heck, the enormous changes they'd seen just during their own lifetimes at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution illustrate that. Their world was moving from a rural, agrarian social structure to an urban, industrialized one. Enormous improvements in the standard of living for an emerging middle economic class had been seen in just the length of one average lifetime--which was shorter in those days than it is now, remember. While the concept of government by the consent of the governed was not new [don't forget the Magna Carta, dating back to the early 13th century--Ed.], the definition of which "people" were included was broadening, dramatically, as more and more people became economically better-off than their forebears had been. [It's most amusing that many of these "originalists" wouldn't have been considered qualified even to vote, let alone to take a turn at governing, by the standards of the 13th-16th (rich, white, male, titled nobility), 17th (rich, white, male owners of large pieces of real property) and 18th (white, male, property owners)--and 19th (black and other minority males), and even 20th (women)--centuries . . . even the more enlightened, dare I say "revolutionary," standards expressed by some of the Founders.--Ed.]

Individuals no longer had to spend every waking moment providing the bare necessities of food, shelter, and clothing for their families. They had the money, and thus the power, to begin to accumulate goods. They had the time to pay attention to "the larger issues of the day." They could take more control of their own lives than could have any generation before them. [People like Abigail Adams (our first feminist) and the abolitionists just pushed the concept to its logical extremes. But someone has to be on the "far left," as it were, or else what is truly the "center" will appear to be the "far left" to those on the "far right." Again, a topic for detailed exploration on another day.--Ed.]

Fourth, the Founders knew full well that no one could predict the future. They knew that problems would arise; they had no way to anticipate exactly what those problems would be. That's why they were willing to scrap the Articles of Confederation when that framework for government proved impotent. If they could have predicted the future, they'd never have made the mistake of writing the Articles of Confederation--instead of the Constitution--in the first place. They'd have started with the Constitution to begin with. History happens; reality "is." The Founders' miserable experiences under the terms of the weak, states'-rights-oriented Articles of Confederation demonstrated for them that they needed to create something with more teeth. They weren't married to some rigid and unchanging concept of what the right formula for the government would be. Under the terms of the Articles of Confederation, they could not fix the problems of weak government created by those same Articles of Confederation, so they started over with the Constitution. I daresay their experiences with the Articles suggested to them that they needed to build not only teeth, but some measure of flexibility, into the Constitution. But one never hears any of these "originalists" talking about the Articles of Confederation and the actual history that happened while it was in effect . . . most likely because they recognize (at some level) that doing so would demolish their entire argument about the Constitution's meaning and scope.

Fifth, as far as I know, at least, none of the Founders ever claimed to be perfect. And isn't it axiomatic that imperfect beings cannot create perfection? The Founders clearly knew this. Remember, the Preamble to the Constitution says "to create a more perfect Union" and not "to create a perfect Union."

The logic is inescapable. The problem is, none of the people decrying our alleged lack of adherence to the Founders' presumed "original intent" care a whit about logic, though they'd like us to think they do. If they cared about logic, they'd not be so het up about the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York City. They'd recognize that the First Amendment's protections for religious freedom and the Constitution's overall respect for the concept of private property trump any raw emotional reactions of individuals. They'd also be equally upset that there are many fundamentalist Christian churches close to the Alfred P. Murrah building site and memorial in Oklahoma City, but we've heard nary a peep from any of them about that. They'd also recognize that just as a putative Christian killed Christians in Oklahoma City, so did Muslims kill Muslims when the Twin Towers were attacked. There were two mosques at the World Trade Center, one in each of the towers, remember.

I do hate to sound like a broken record, but this is the same reason I get mad when people claim Ronald Reagan was the greatest president the USA has ever had "because he ended the Cold War." That's not the right question. The right question is whether ending the Cold War was such a good idea in the first place. Admire the Soviet Union or despise it, you cannot deny that the USSR kept the lid on its allied Muslim states, and when it had problems, it was the USSR's money and precious manpower that were put in harm's way, not ours. Thus, ending the Cold War was not a bad idea just from the standpoint of what it did in ballooning our own budget deficits. It was a bad idea in terms of what it loosed on the rest of the world in the decades subsequent.

I have the same reaction to people who won't accept blood transfusions or other modern medical procedures because "God will provide." Maybe the doctors and the modern technology ARE how God has provided. Consider this little morality tale: one March, a frail old man found himself trapped atop the roof of his house during extreme springtime floods. A neighbor came by in his rowboat and offered the old man a lift to the rescue shelter on higher ground, but the old man declined, saying "God will provide." Shortly thereafter, Coast Guard personnel came by in a motor boat and offered their assistance. Again, the old man declined. "God will provide." Still later, a National Guard helicopter crew flew by and prepared to lift the old man to safety, but again, he said no. "God will provide," he said, serenely.

Well, the old man drowned that night. After his orientation tour of Heaven he raised his hand. "I have a question," he said. "I had faith. I was sure that God would provide, and I said that, repeatedly--so why am I here?" St. Peter answered, somewhat sadly, "God provided you a rowboat, a motor boat, and even a helicopter. What were you waiting for, the Titanic?"

If you don't ask the correct question, you'll never get the correct answer, even when it's under your nose or next to your flooded house.

The Two Most Basic Errors Of Libertarian Thought

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US Senate candidate Rand Paul has been saying in public since at least 2002 that his Libertarian beliefs mean that while he personally would abhor anyone who ran his/her business by discriminating against others on the basis of race or skin color, the government should not be able to stop them from doing so, all for the sake of the sanctity of private property rights. So even though he says he supports the aims, goals, and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, if it had been up to him, the title in that act which ended the ability of businesses engaged in interstate commerce to discriminate would never even have come up for a vote, let alone get passed.

And this perfectly illustrates the first basic error in Libertarian thinking [and I use the term "thinking" loosely--Ed.]--for what it does is elevate the rights inherent in property ownership above and ahead of the rights of individuals. That is exactly backwards. Since the earliest days of the English common law, the rights of people have trumped the rights of property. While you are allowed to use deadly force to protect yourself [or someone else--Ed.] against the use or threat of deadly force against you, you most assuredly are NOT allowed to use deadly force to protect your property from someone posing a threat to it. And if you should choose to use deadly force to protect your property, you will be held responsible for the consequences of your actions, be it under criminal OR civil law. People matter the most under the law. Period.

It is also tempting to go into a long diatribe about how that's in essence the same objection to the entirety of "states' rights" claims, but I'll leave those details for another post. And even if my assertion technically were not true, the outcome of the US Civil War decided it contrary to the Libertarian/states'-righters position anyway. I raise the same argument to those who cite carefully selected excerpts from the Federalist Papers to support such views, by the way. Maybe some of the Founders did intend such topsy-turvy interpretations to be the law of the land. Nonetheless, the outcome of the Civil War [including the passage and ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments--Ed.] changed everything. We no longer live in an eighteenth-century, rural, locality-based world and economy. While the intent of the Founders is important to discern, it is literally impossible to implement 100% of that intent in the 21st century. I, for one, think the Founders would recognize that, were we able to ask them.

Thus the second basic error in Libertarian thinking: they have taken the adage, "the government that governs best, governs least" as their own, but too often have used it to force the government not so much to "govern least" as to "govern not at all." If they were pressed, I think most Libertarians would admit that at least SOME government is necessary. But they seem to have an abiding faith in either the notion that individuals will do the right thing or the notion that whatever anyone does is no one else's affair. The whole of human history illustrates the folly of both those notions.

I confess to having some sympathies favoring the Libertarians' position, at least in regard to an individual's right to privacy, but the absolutest stand most libertarians take against the role of government is impossible to implement in the real world. It would be anarchy. Let's face some facts: governments exist to do the things that people want or need to have done but which they cannot do by or for themselves. Setting out that framework is what the Founders intended in creating the Constitution in the first place. They had tried the much weaker Articles of Confederation, and scrapped that experiment as soon as practical experience with it showed that it was too weak to do what America needed to survive as an independent country.

No one will be in 100% agreement with anyone else 100% of the time. But without some framework that's sturdy enough to say what is to be done when disagreements arise, and to enforce that procedure on those who disagree issue by issue, there is no government but chaos. And chaos is no government. If you doubt this, consider the essential IN-action of the US Senate during most of the past year-and-a-third. Yes, some things, some important things, have been accomplished, but at what cost? In the US Senate, a minority of ONE can hold the will of the vast majority of American voters hostage . . . and for what? To protect British Petroleum from having to pay for the immense damage its own reckless behavior has caused? T'ain't right, Magee.

I confess to fearing I am on the losing, even though correct, side of this issue, the philosophy of governmental power. When I see US Supreme Court decisions such as the one in Citizens United, the campaign financing case, and I see people on all bands of the political spectrum nodding seriously and giving more than due consideration to the concept of "states' rights," I marvel at how such things could have come to pass in America. Have we learned nothing from the Civil War, the Great Depression, the paroxysms of the Sixties, and the other traumas we have suffered throughout our history? America today, with all its emphasis on corporate welfare and the rights of artificial "persons," evokes the melody of "The World Turned Upside Down" and the sarcastic observation in Animal Farm that "some are more equal than others." Yes, George Orwell was railing against communism, but his words are equally applicable to modern corporate power. Control and repression of the individual are the same whether the one doing the controlling is Stalin or Goldman Sachs.

Lawyers, Guns, and Bu . . . uh, Mon . . .uh, Snakes?

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It has been argued that even a government on a war footing can satisfy the needs of its citizens at home, the classic economics expression being "guns and butter." FDR had some success in that regard, despite rationing of certain products and raw materials during World War II. LBJ's efforts to make the same argument got less and less credible with every escalation in Vietnam, despite the fact that rationing was never imposed within the US during the 1960s. Warren Zevon brought an entirely new layer of meaning to the phrase by changing "butter" to "money" and throwing lawyers into the mix, to boot.

And today the US Supreme Court hears another Second Amendment case, one with potentially drastic consequences for the entire nation. In the case at hand, a Chicago citizen is challenging Chicago's ban on possession of handguns, even in one's own home. The citizen concedes that under Chicago's law, he could legally have a shotgun, but he wants a handgun because a shotgun is "inconvenient."

The Second Amendment case (a 5-4 decision) from two years ago determined that gun ownership is a fundamental individual right, but since that case arose out of the District of Columbia's handgun ban, it applied only to federal enclaves such as DC itself and the national parks. [See the post "Strict Constructionist--NOT" for my take on the previous case.--Ed.] This case seeks to expand the judicially-defined meaning of the Second Amendment to all state and local government entities, as well.

Set aside for a moment the delicious irony of so-called conservative "strict constructionists" like Antonin Scalia imposing a massive expansion of federal control over the states. The ramifications of the case at hand could literally mean anarchy--for extended to its logical conclusion, the 100% unfettered right of individual Americans to own guns would result in the eventual overturning of even the paltry gun-control measures we have now, such as licensing and registration of handguns.

There is a workable solution, however, based on long-standing (and thus settled) First Amendment precedent. One's right to the religion of one's choice is unfettered--except where it is regulated. You have an absolute right to believe whatever the heck you want. You do not have an absolute right to act on those beliefs. The classic example is the handling of poisonous snakes. Certain churches have held that God will protect the faithful, and that they will suffer no harm from passing rattlesnakes around amongst themselves, even to their children. Well, the Supreme Court put the kibosh on that a long, long time ago. There's a larger concern: the protection of children and the general public safety and welfare. So the church members are not forbidden to believe that they can handle poisonous snakes with impunity. They just cannot demonstrate their beliefs by actually handling such snakes as part of their religious observances.

It will be instructive to see how the Supremes decide this case, and by what sort of a margin. I'm predicting--and dreading--a 5-to-4 split, with Antonin Scalia again writing for the majority, and dictating that guns rule. Scalia has already shown, by his majority opinion in the DC handgun ban case, that he's willing to throw away all his other cherished philosophical beliefs about strict construction and avoiding judicial activism for the sake of being able to shoot 'em up.

I wonder whether anyone who's considered the looting problems in Haiti and Chile after their recent earthquakes has stopped to think about how much harder it would be for the Haitian and Chilean police and military to restore order if the looters had the unfettered right--and ability--to shoot back.

Quick And Cogent Observations

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Observation the first: the governors of the fifty states have been meeting this weekend. Liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, they all seem to oppose the "intrusion" of the federal government into their lives and statehouses. I am not unsympathetic; I don't have a great deal of love or respect for unfunded federal mandates, myself.

However, I must take issue with the governors' assertion that the states are 50 laboratories which can each do experiments and find solutions for their own pressing problems. (What works best for West Virginia may not work best for Utah, as it were.) True enough, and tailored clothes always fit better than off-the-rack ones. But when it comes to issues like the problems with our current healthcare system, implementing 50 solutions is like shooting 50 BBs at a rampaging grizzly bear. Ain't gonna stop him--only gonna make him madder.

National problems require national solutions. In the case of healthcare reform, BBs won't work. Only high-powered rifle bullets will have any lasting effect. Besides, just because one is buying one's clothes off the rack, it doesn't mean that they don't fit or suit [pun intended--Ed.] their intended purpose. It just means one is wearing a brand-name and not a designer original.

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Observation the second: two weeks ago, an associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia, one Gerard Alexander, wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post wherein he decried the condescending attitude of liberals toward conservatives. As a female who follows certain sports diligently, I have been on the receiving end of condescension, and I agree, it's no way to behave. However, Prof. Alexander failed mightily to prove his point. He kept saying that conservatives have good ideas, but he didn't spell out any of them. Thus one must look to what other conservatives are saying to determine whether Alexander's point is well-taken, and in light of the healthcare reform debate alone, the paucity of Alexander's complaint becomes glaringly clear.

So far, the conservatives' "good ideas" consist of "death panels" (a/k/a "killing Grandma"), "socialized medicine," and "higher costs to you, the consumer." The size of the cost is a legitimate concern, but what the conservatives spouting that bit of "wisdom" fail to address is just how much higher the costs of doing nothing will be than will be the costs of doing something. "Death panels" and "socialized medicine" repeatedly have been shown to be outright lies. "Death panels" are what we have NOW, when corporations whose profits depend on denying coverage decide what level of care policyholders will get; "socialized medicine" is impossible under the current plan being debated, seeing as how it is a public "option." Nor does providing the public option put us inevitably on the road to socialized medicine. One would think that our over 40 years' experience with Medicare adequately demonstrates that.

One of the first things that law students learn is this hierarchy of argument: when you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. After all, facts are the strongest possible support for your case. When you don't have the facts, argue the law. Laws already on the books frequently bolster an argument that is unsupported by the facts, so it's the second-best line of attack. Only as a last resort should you make blatant emotional appeals, because resorting to the same demonstrates that you have neither the facts NOR the law on your side . . . and thus is an indication that you have no case.

Yet the conservatives in this country present their "ideas" in terms of distortions and even outright lies, as the second paragraph of this essay-in-miniature demonstrates. Their tactic of first--not last, but first--resort is to incite fear and anger. That's a blatant emotional appeal, which by its very existence proves that conservatives have no case (except their own greedy self-interest). It is hard not to be condescending toward that.

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Observation the third: I am beyond being sick unto death of conservatives claiming that only they love and revere the US Constitution, as the editor of The National Review [whose name escapes me at the moment. My apologies.--Ed.] claimed during the NPR broadcast of All Things Considered which aired locally last night (starting at 4 p.m. CST). I love and revere the Constitution just as much if not more than any of them. I daresay I know it better, too, having taught college-level courses on the history of same and having studied it as one of my fields of particular interest all my adult life.

What conservatives revere is their own interpretation of the Constitution, which is designed to protect and defend their own advantages, too often at the expense of the vast majority (by sheer numbers) of us in this country. Anyone who wants to pooh-pooh that idea must first consider this: if there were only one way to interpret the Constitution, we wouldn't NEED the Supreme Court at all, because there'd never be any disagreements about what the Constitution means and thus how it applies in any given situation.

And don't even get me started on "original intent." I've covered that ground before in this blog, in great depth and detail, so I will not bore you by repeating myself--at least not beyond saying that just because Shakespeare didn't know of, use, or even invent the term "psychological drama," it doesn't mean that he didn't write any.

Grammar Police Redux

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A great many Republicans of late are taking umbrage at news reports regarding the victory of their own candidate, Scott Brown, in taking what has been called "Ted Kennedy's Senate seat." They are mightily offended that anyone suggest, imply, or flat-out say that that seat belonged to the late Senator Kennedy.

I suppose I should not be surprised that their inability to comprehend their own native tongue reflects the same rigid inflexibility they exhibit when "discussing" anything else. Nor should I be surprised that they are so willing to politicize something which, even though it's talking about politics, is NOT a political issue. So I am not surprised. But I am disenheartened. No one would be able to get away with making such stupid statements if we still had proper grammar education in our schools.

English is a prehensile language, and sometimes its ability to bend and flex and stretch causes problems. However, the lack of understanding that English can so bend and flex and stretch should never be the root of what has become a disinformation campaign. I don't know who is worse: the people who dropped grammar education from our standard curriculum, or the people who have cynically exploited that for their own nefarious purposes.

Yes, "Ted Kennedy's Senate seat" can, under one interpretation, mean "the seat owned by/belonging to" Ted Kennedy. HOWEVER, it also can mean "the seat most recently occupied by and identified with" Ted Kennedy. Furthermore, we all know journalism abhors both the passive voice ("something is done by someone" as opposed to "someone does something") and long, drawn-out sentences (why I'll never be a journalist, alas). Thus, "Ted Kennedy's Senate seat" is merely journalism's way of saying "the Senate seat most recently occupied by and identified with Ted Kennedy."

So I beg of you, those of you who are blathering on in protest about "Ted Kennedy's Senate seat," give it a rest, already! You're only making yourselves look foolish. Before you sound off again, please take a moment to consider Mark Twain's sage advice: better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you're an idiot than to open it and remove all doubt.

As The Stomach Churns, Part Two

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I have to admit, I find it shocking that people are defending the majority's decision in the Supreme Court's overturning yesterday of campaign-financing reform laws. Nevertheless, reading some of the comments published online in response to various news reports about the decision, it seems the American public is just as divided as was the Court. And that leaves me once again frightened for the future of not just America, the country, but America, the idea.

I take a backseat to no one in my devotion to the First Amendment. Anyone who knows me at all knows I am a thoroughgoing champion of free speech and the free press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and the right to petition the government. But anyone who knows me also knows that these freedoms do not include the right, for example, to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there is no fire--for the danger to the public safety of inciting panic outweighs the individual's right to say what he likes willy-nilly. For the same reason, the Founding Fathers always knew and recognized [read the Federalist Papers if you don't believe me--Ed.] that what they were protecting was political speech. Commercial speech, the right to hawk one's goods, as it were, was never intended to get the same level of protection. Otherwise, we'd have no truth in advertising laws, and people who were damaged by lies such as "oh, this product is 100% safe" when the product was, in fact, toxic, would have no legal recourse. Then again, in the days before the publication of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, many people didn't care. What you don't know can't hurt you . . . except that it can, and frequently does.

But how anyone can equate a corporation with a living, breathing human being is utterly beyond me. We are the United States of America, not the United Corporations of America. Our system is "of the people, by the people, and for the people" not "of, by, and for the Corporation."

Corporations do not have the right to cast ballots in either primary or general elections. Corporations exist to make profits for their owners. They have no other raison d'etre. They do not care about right and wrong, good and bad, or any of the other higher concerns that motivate individual people. Corporations are at best amoral, artificial creatures, which do not exist outside the laws governing their creation and operation. Their behavior thus can be regulated according to the public will. Their only stake in our system of government is to do whatever they can within the law to minimize risk and maximize profit.

But they do have an inordinate amount of money to throw around, and that raw economic power alone puts them in opposition to being regulated by government. After all, when they can make an extra $10 per toy, for example, if they don't have to ensure that said toy is lead-free, they will not spend the money to make the toy lead-free . . . unless an outside regulatory force, government, makes them do so.

Government exists to do the things we as individuals cannot do for ourselves. In its own way, it's "the cost-effective" option. Better for us, as individuals, to have one government agency out there to test and regulate toys for lead content than to force every family in the country to buy lead-testing kits along with every single new toy. We ARE the government. Government is not our enemy. It is our agent, our collective representative. Its raison d'etre is to protect our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Corporations are not alive; they are not free (they don't exist except within the context of the laws); and happiness is NOT their pursuit. Their pursuit is to make money. The most money for the least possible cost. Period.

These are facts. They cannot be disputed. I concede that the implications of these facts are disputed, but too often the dispute is not about the merits of whatever is at issue. The dispute too often becomes a cover for expression of one's personal political proclivities at the expense of genuine discussion and debate. For example, the vast majority of the people posting comments supporting the Court's majority ruling takes a very bullying, schoolyard tone. Most of those people's comments do not rise above the level of name-calling and insulting those with whom they disagree. That alone suggests that those people are in the wrong, for if the facts are on your side, you should be stressing the facts, not making personal attacks on anyone else.

To all you who wrote in favor of the majority's ruling: you who say that this is a great victory for the First Amendment and truly free speech, and who believe that the Internet will protect the full expression and circulation of all ideas, are forgetting something: if the corporate owners of your access to the Internet decide to pull the plug, what will you do then?

Money in politics is like steroids in sports--especially baseball--it distorts everything in favor of those who have the most clout. Again, corporations are not people; corporations do not vote. What if all the shareholders but one in a corporation dislike the position the corporation has chosen to support financially, but the one shareholder has the controlling vote? The controlling shareholder thus essentially gets double expression of his idea since he can express it through his individual vote AND through the corporation's spending. All the other shareholders can cast their individual votes otherwise, but if the one shareholder, through his corporation's money's clout, has the ear of the people in office, they're going to listen to him, not the other shareholders. For they know that if they don't listen to him, he'll put his money and resources at the disposal of their political opponents. "Pay to play" and "get paid to play" will become the norm, not standing up for the larger public good.

If you disagree with this analysis, fine, but answer me this: if my analysis is so wrong, so off-the-beam, why do corporations spend millions and millions of dollars every day on lobbyists and advertising? Because lobbying and advertising work. Jane and John Q. Public's voices can hardly be heard above the din of all the money that's in the system now. Removing the few regulations that were in place until yesterday's ruling means the silencing of Jane and John for good. Maybe not in one fell swoop, but ultimately . . . what do they say in Las Vegas? "Money plays."

Money plays. Money wins. No longer will the best ideas win because of their intrinsic merits. The best ideas will never even get heard. The ideas that win will be the ideas that have the most money behind them. Furthermore, it is error to presume that getting tons of financial support is a sign of being the best idea. It is a sign only of the idea which is in the best interests of those with the most money to spend, which may be antithetical to the best interests of you and of me, we who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the system.

I was afraid this would happen back when the Court announced it would hear the case. I even wrote about it in this blog. See "Overshadowed In Yesterday's News," posted 9/10/09. I will say at this point that I am sick to death of the way EVERYTHING has become politicized in this country. Some things ought to be bigger than politics, and the fact that nothing any longer is saddens me. Maybe "America" cannot work, for the very freedoms it protects enable the seeds of its own destruction to sprout and grow. For my part, 99% of the hope I felt at this time last year has gone right down the drain.

To conclude with a bit of hyperbole: this Supreme Court ruling truly is the worst thing to happen to people as individuals since the Dred Scott case, for in effect, it makes you and me and every other person who is not a CEO or CFO de facto chattel of those who are. Not all at once, mind you. Just after our access to all ideas has been so squeezed and so circumscribed by those with the money, hence the power, to press incessantly for their points of view that we will be anesthetized or otherwise beaten into submission.

Still, in every "good" there is a "bad," and vice versa. At least the lie that "conservative" justices hew to "original intent" has been put to death once and for all. This ruling is activist in the extreme. Radical, I daresay. Not that that matters to the right-wingers who insist on politicizing everything. As far as they are concerned, it's only "activism" when they disagree with the outcome. Anyone with intellectual honesty and integrity, however, must admit that "activism" is "activism." It's only bad when it takes us (collectively, as a society) backwards and not forwards.

MY OMG Moment For This Week

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In case you are not familiar with it, please go and check out the web site www.delanceyplace.com. You can sign up to receive daily excerpts from significant works of history, culture, and science. You can also make suggestions for publication, if you've read something that you think deserves wider dissemination. It's a great way to fulfill your need to "learn something new" every day.

Toward the end of last week, www.delanceyplace.com sent out excerpts from notes describing the debate at the convention of delegates who created our Constitution. My OMG moment while reading this was as follows: if you put the language into contemporary syntax and usage, you will find you are describing the tea-baggers, conspiracy theorists, and other assorted nut cases who are encouraged to spew their ignorance by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Fox "News." I now see the Founders' point--and agree with it.

What really distresses me about my change of mind is that I used to be totally against those of the Founders who spoke in favor of limiting direct democracy, seeing as how I'd probably be one of the ones disenfranchised due to my social standing as based on my birth. I now find that I am not opposed to a "meritocracy" when that merit is judged by one's education and capacity for rational thought. I am opposed to it only when its criteria are things like (1) being a white male of a certain age who (2) owns a certain amount of real estate. By those criteria, the tea-baggers and the other crazies might still qualify to vote, thus leading the country straight into the toilet of stupidity down which they today are still trying to flush us.

Anyway, with no further ado, here is the text of the excerpt emailed out to www.delanceyplace.com subscribers:

In today's excerpt - because of the inherent distrust of pure democracy that existed in the 1780s, only the members of the House of Representatives were to be elected directly by the people in the original U.S. Constitution; Senators were chosen by their state's legislature, and the President was to be chosen by electors. The comments below come from the notes of the debate of the Constitutional Convention itself, and show there was considerable opposition even to allowing the people vote directly for representatives:

"ROGER SHERMAN [of Connecticut]: Election [of the members of the House of Representatives] should be by the state legislatures. The people immediately should have as little to do as may be about the government. They lack information and are constantly liable to be misled. If the state governments are to be continued, it is necessary in order to preserve harmony between the national and state governments, that the elections to the former should be made by the latter. The right of participation in the national government will be sufficiently secured to the people by their election of the state legislatures.

ELBRIDGE GERRY [of Massachusetts]: The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not lack virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots. In Massachusetts it has been fully confirmed by experience that they are daily misled into the most baneful measures and opinions by the false reports circulated by designing men. One principal evil arises from the want of due provision for those employed in the administration of government. It would seem to be a maxim of democracy to starve the public servants.

CHARLES PINCKNEY [of South Carolina]: The people are less fit judges in such a case than the legislatures, and the legislatures will be less likely to promote the adoption of the new government if they are to be excluded from all share in it.

WILLIAM PATERSON [of New Jersey]: If the sovereignty of the states is to be maintained, the representatives must be drawn immediately from the states, not from the people.

JOHN RUTLEDGE [of South Carolina]: Election by the legislatures would be more refined than an election immediately by the people, and more likely to correspond with the sense of the whole community. If this Convention had been chosen by the people in districts, it is not to be supposed that such proper characters would have been preferred. The delegates to [the Continental] Congress have also been fitter men than would have been appointed by the people at large.

JOHN MERCER [of Virginia]: The people cannot know and judge of the characters of candidates. The people in towns can unite their votes in favor of one favorite, and by that means always prevail over the people of the country, who, being dispersed, will scatter their votes among a variety of candidates. ...

PINCKNEY: The first branch should be elected by the people, in such mode as the state legislatures shall direct.

GERRY: The people should nominate a certain number, out of which the state legislatures should be bound to choose. Experience has shown that state legislatures drawn immediately from the people do not always possess their confidence. An election by the people should be so qualified that men of honor and character might not be unwilling to be joined in the appointments. The people could choose double the requisite number, the legislature to appoint out of them the authorized number of each state.

MERCER: Candidates should be nominated by the state legislatures and elected by the people, who should not be left to make their choice without any guidance."

Jane Butzner (Jacobs), Constitutional Chaff, Copyright 1941 by Columbia University Press, pp. 8-9.

Where Apologies Are Owed, Apologies Will Be Given

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I learned earlier today that the woman who made the initial 911 call about the possible break-in that turned into the controversial arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates [see previous blog post, "A Whole Lot Of People Are Missing The Point"--Ed.] said absolutely nothing about the race(s) of the two men she thought were breaking into what turned out to be Professor Gates's own home.

My apologies to her for the unwarranted assumption I made within the body of my previous post. Not only did she not say anything to the 911 dispatchers about the race(s) of the two men she saw, she didn't even see their faces, and so probably could not have known who apparently was forcing open the front door of Gates's house.

Again I apologize. I regret my error, and will try to learn from it. The moral of this story is that no one is 100% free of prejudice, and one of mine tends to be that rich people are prejudiced against minorities. I will watch my own presumptions more carefully in the future.

I also hope my error does not distract from the larger point of my previous post, however. Professor Gates had every right to be angry and upset about being confronted by police, and even though he did not keep his cool, the police still should have walked away the second Gates produced his identification. And to anyone who says that the black police officer on the scene totally defended the arresting officer's actions, I ask: what else is he going to say? He is a cop. He has to work with Sgt. Crowley and the other members of the Cambridge police force every day for the foreseeable future. If he challenged Sgt. Crowley's account, he'd be ostracized by his fellow officers. If he said nothing, he'd be seen by his fellows as not being supportive, and thus be ostracized just the same.

I will see no need to change my ultimate conclusion until and unless I am shown that exactly the same thing that happened to Professor Gates has happened to white men accused of breaking into their own homes and who also were less than pleased with the police coming to investigate.

And remember, my ultimate point is simply this: sometimes the most effective use of power is NOT to use it. Prof. Gates may well have been hypersensitive, but he was in his own home, and I cannot understand why Sgt. Crowley, trained as he was in not just avoiding racial profiling, but in teaching other police officers how to avoid it, did not simply walk away.

One suspects that in the end, this entire incident had less to do with race than it did with excessive testosterone, on both sides.

A Whole Lot Of People Are Missing The Point

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Forgive me for throwing in my two-cents' worth, but I must post my thoughts about the recent arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates for "breaking into" his own house. Gates, who is black, was arrested in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by a white police sergeant, James Crowley, for disorderly conduct when Gates continued to upbraid Crowley after Crowley had seen proof that Gates was in his own house. Many are defending Crowley, who is by all accounts an excellent officer, and who indeed teaches younger police officers the wrongs of racial profiling. Many (myself included) are outraged that Crowley arrested and handcuffed Gates at all, despite the fact that the charges were later dropped. President Obama called the officer's actions "stupid" at the end of his press conference Wednesday night. I have to agree.

First, the real source of the problem has been totally ignored so far. That source? The woman who called in an apparent break-in and robbery in progress. Yes, she was correct to call for help instead of investigating herself, but here's the problem with what she did: if she was so aware of what was going on in her neighborhood that she saw Gates leaning his shoulder into his front door in an effort to get it to open, why didn't she recognize Gates? Her brain seems to have shut itself off the moment she noticed that the man at that door was black. That's the real root of the problem.

Yes, Gates could have restrained himself and his tongue--but why should he have had to? He was in his own home. He'd proven to the police it was his own home. The ER character Halle once pointed out to a white character that "for black folks, it's always about race." And it is. People who say Crowley did nothing wrong because he would have done the same thing had a white suspect so berated him are forgetting that no white suspect ever would have found himself in the position in which Gates found himself in the first place. Let alone the fact that Gates is a professor at Harvard. His status and his skin color simply don't match in the minds of way too many people in this country, and they mix and match their reactions to Gates' behavior by pointing to whichever factor suits their prejudices. He is a professor, in his own home? He should have understood the neighbor's concerns and been grateful that the police responded so quickly to protect his property values. But he was out of line in the way he spoke to the officer? He's a hypersensitive [read that "uppity"--Ed.] black man. In short, he's in a no-win situation, a situation no white person would ever have had to face.

The other major point that occurred to me, and which seems to have occurred to no one else besides Joseph McMillan, the head of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, is that the police contact with Gates should have ended the second Gates proved who he was and that he was in his own home. Crowley should have just walked away, even if Gates continued to excoriate him verbally. He should have closed his ears and kept on walking. The man was in his own home. He had every right to be upset. Let him blow off steam. Don't try to talk him down; don't even listen to him. The fact that the disorderly conduct charges were dropped proves Crowley could have just walked away. The charges were not dropped due to adverse publicity, for the charges were dropped before the events had become widely publicized.

No, Crowley technically may have done nothing wrong, but he of all people should have known that exercising his police power under the circumstances would come to no good end. He may claim it's because he doesn't look at people's races in making his decisions, and he may really believe it. He may even be right. But that's not really the point. The point is that some people on the receiving end of the exercise of police power have collectively been on the receiving end of centuries of abuse of that power. Crowley was in the position of power and authority in the situation in which he found himself vis-a-vis Gates. He could have chosen NOT to exercise it out of deference to the right of a man in his own home to be, well, pissed off. He should have made the choice not to exercise his power in that situation. The fact that he did not choose just to walk away demonstrates that he still has a big blind spot in his thinking about and understanding of the realities of race relations in this country. Judging from much of the subsequent commentary, Crowley is not alone. And that is very, very sad.

Some Man Wrote That Editorial

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I was reading the editorials in today's Omaha World-Herald, a paper whose editors frequently make Attila the Hun look like a reasonable person, when the following (reproduced in its entirety) caught my eye:

It was a strange scene when U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer of California cried foul during a recent congressional hearing. Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh referred to her as "ma'am" during his testimony, and she pointedly directed him to refer to her as "Senator."

In this age when a traditionalist mind-set sometimes collides awkwardly with a progressive one, the term "ma'am" has become an oddly divisive term in certain situations.

To many progressives such as Sen. Boxer, the term evidently is a symbol of retrograde thinking, a throwback to the day when married women went dutifully by their husband's name ("Mrs. John Smith").

To Gen. Walsh on the other hand, the term "ma'am" was merely one common in formal military usage.

In any case, the general's intention clearly was to show respect. By no means did he deserve such a hard-edged, public reprimand.

Although the taste of self-righteousness was no doubt satisfying to Sen. Boxer, it is excessive for a U.S. senator to make such a show of taking offense when obviously none was intended.

On such matters, the senator should beware of leaping to be so judgmental. It would help if she would raise her consciousness and devote more energy to appreciating cultural diversity.

There are so many errors of logic in this that it is difficult for me to know where to begin. One thing I will admit up front: I did not see the hearing in question, so I have no idea whether the World-Herald editor's description of the event is even accurate.

Is it possible that Sen. Boxer had, at some point prior [either before the proceedings began or earlier during them--Ed.] politely asked the general not to use "ma'am" and he ignored her request, which caused her to make the more pointed comments she made (presuming the editorial recounting is correct)?

Is it possible that the editor's description of the incident is not totally accurate? One person's upbraiding is another's mild request--especially when it's a woman speaking to a man.

What would the World-Herald editor have said if the tables were turned? I have had the personal experience of being excoriated by a judge for calling him "sir" instead of "Your Honor." But the judge was an older, white, male, in charge of the proceedings, and I was merely a participant, the child and spouse of career Air Force members, trying my darnedest to be polite, but getting the protocol wrong. No one thought the judge was out of line. Maybe Sen. Boxer wasn't, either.

How does the World-Herald editor know that "no disrespect was intended"? Did the editor call the general and ask? Words reduced to writing and descriptions of events (once reduced to paper) have an odd habit of sounding neutral. Why, this is the very stuff of diplomacy, to say the meanest thing in the nicest way, so that the other diplomats get the point but the general public does not. The editor was awfully quick to ascribe noble motives to the general and evil ones to Sen. Boxer. Maybe she didn't intend any disrespect, either, but she just wasn't as subtle about making her point as the general apparently was in making his.

Besides, even though "ma'am" is a term "common in formal military usage," the general was not in a military setting. In this country, the civilian authority controls the military. Hasn't the World-Herald editorial staff ever heard of "When in Rome, do as Romans do"? He was testifying before Congress. Yes, he is a military officer speaking in his official capacity. But he is speaking to his employers, the American people, via their elected civilian representatives. His military duty is to show them the respect THEY expect, not force them to accept his version of same.

Of course, the key to the entire snide little piece is the use of the word "evidently." Using it lets the editor ascribe all sorts of nasty motives to Sen. Boxer, yet deny nefarious purpose because the editor was only "speculating." He doesn't really know. Since many people do not read editorials with the skeptical care they should, they forget the "evidently" and go on about their lives believing that Sen. Boxer is a bad, bad, bad--liberal--bad, bad human being. Even if that's not "technically" what the editorial said.

The editor even got careless: "married women went dutifully by their husband's name"? Unless the World-Herald offices are a hotbed of fundamentalist Mormonism, it should have said "married women went dutifully by their husbands' names." Good grief! The World-Herald could use some better copy editors.

Not to mention that the closing line about "cultural diversity" is entirely irrelevant, and contradictory to the main point of the editor's comments. He was defending the use of traditional terminology by a traditional wielder of power against the exercise of a protest to same by a female, non-traditional wielder of power--who actually was the one in charge in that situation. The only cultural diversity the World-Herald seems to accept is the cultural diversity of white males.

The World-Herald editorial staff could do much worse than to take its own advice: "Although the taste of self-righteousness was no doubt satisfying . . ., it is excessive . . . to make such a show of taking offense when obviously none was intended. On such matters, [one] should beware of leaping to be so judgmental."

You may ask me why, when it exasperates me so much, I continue to read the World-Herald's editorial tripe. All I can say is, "keep your friends close--but keep your enemies closer."

Still, I may have to quit reading the paper in any event. I don't know how much more of its official hypocrisy and stupidity my blood pressure can stand.

Still More Lack Of Clarity On The Concept

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In Wausau, Wisconsin, a woman was just convicted of negligent homicide. She and her husband and her prayer group did not seek medical help while her ll-year-old daughter lay dying . . . until it was too late. The woman's husband, who is scheduled in July to face trial on the same charges, decried the verdict and claimed this meant the end of freedom of religion in America. He says he'll appeal the case all the way to the US Supreme Court if necessary.

Here's a small news flash: the man is wrong. Freedom of religion has not died in America. In America, anyone is free to believe--or not--as s/he wishes. What anyone is NOT free to do is to endanger someone else's life while acting out those beliefs. There exist an uncounted number of Supreme Court decisions over the decades which establish that. The most famous case, the first one taught to law school freshmen, is the infamous "snake-handling" case. A particular stripe of fundamentalist Christians believed that handling poisonous snakes was a necessary part of their religious service, a demonstration of their faith that God would not let them suffer harm. The Supremes said the believers were perfectly free to believe that handling poisonous snakes was a necessary demonstration of their faith, but they were not free to do it. For one thing, children were present. For another, the snakes could escape and put non-believers at risk. Not to mention the risks to any medical personnel who would be called to the scene if a church member were, in fact, bitten.

In short, the Court determined that there was a larger, overriding public good in preventing the church members from putting their beliefs into action. They were still free to hold their beliefs; they just were not free to endanger themselves or others to act them out.

What appals me most about this Wisconsin case is that any attorney would raise the smokescreen of "freedom of religion" as a defense. It has been thoroughly repudiated by an unbroken string of Supreme Court precedents. Yes, every defendant is entitled to make the state prove its case. Yes, every defendant is entitled to the most zealous representation possible. But to take money for using such a thoroughly rejected argument borders on the unethical. Once again, the attorneys are unclear on the concept. "Zealous representation" is NOT the same as "going along with whatever your client says s/he wants." Sometimes, "zealous representation" means making the realities of the situation plain to the client, and working out the best possible plea bargain.

Still, I shouldn't be surprised that so much fuzzy thinking is still going on in the world of the law. After all, the governors of several states are suddenly talking about secession again. Excuse me for throwing water on you, governors, but the Civil War established once and for all time that secession is not an option in the American system of government. You lost. One-hundred-and-fifty years ago. Get over it, already!

But why do I waste my electronic ink pointing out such obvious truths? I keep hoping that reason and rationality will win the day. However, there are too many people out there who do not want to be confused with the facts, as they have already made up their minds. I understand from the published quotes of several Republican politicians and fund-raisers that they've already put together a package condemning whomever President Obama nominates to replace retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice David Souter. They're just waiting to fill in the name.

If that's a joke, it's not funny--for any number of reasons. Despite the oblique reference to Groucho Marx in Horse Feathers ("Whatever it is, I'm against it!"), it's not funny. Despite the ludicrous implication that everyone Obama nominates will have the identical and specific set of negatives to expose, it's not funny. Despite that fact that it makes a mockery of the US Senate's duty to investigate and confirm (or reject) presidential nominees, it's not funny. Despite the fact that the GOP claim to be ready to do battle was said with a perfectly straight face, it's not funny.

Then again, these are the same people who think they lost last November because the GOP was not far enough to the right. They've completely lost sight of reality. Reality is that no one who cannot attract moderate and independent voters can win a national election in this day and age.

So the GOP is flushing itself down the proverbial toilet. But that's not funny, either. That the party of Lincoln has sunk to this is just plain sad.

Unclear On The Concept? You Betcha!

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Several recent letters to the editor published in the Omaha World-Herald's "Public Pulse" feature have claimed that the reason the Republican Party is not doing well right now is that the GOP is not far enough to the right. They point to John McCain's loss in the presidential election in November as proof that "moderate" Republicans cannot win.

Boy, are some people unclear on the concept! McCain's thumping was due primarily to two things: (1) his "all-over-the-place" reaction to the economic crisis last September; (2) his being saddled with the uber-right wing Sarah Palin as a running mate. In neither instance did McCain come off as a leader with a calm and steady hand, a rational thinker who'd make sound decisions based on facts and not on careening emotions.

Still, I cannot help but think that it's not a bad thing that the hard-core GOP toadies want to move the party even farther to the right than it already is. They would only increase the level of their marginalization from the mainstream of American politics. And while that may mean we have to listen to their excessive bleating and whining, all out of proportion to their actual numbers, for a time, it would be worth it to me--for the long term health of the American body politic.

We need people in office who can have principled, civil, on-the-facts differences of opinion, yet who are willing to work together for the larger good of the nation as a whole, not a bunch of crybaby "my way or the highway" children throwing tantrums.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I made the mistake yesterday of weighing in on the Yahoo! News item about CBS golf analyst John Feherty's recent in-print stupidity. Feherty opined that if any American military member found himself trapped in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, and he had a gun and two bullets, he'd shoot Pelosi twice and strangle Reid and bin Laden.

I pointed out that not only are there many, many members of the American military who are not ultra-right zealots, but that every member of the American military, whatever his/her personal politics, would take offense at the notion that he/she would kill elected American political leaders. All military personnel take an oath that recognizes the military is subordinate to the civilian authority in our system, and they all believe fervently that the way things change in America is via the ballot box, not the bullet.

A response to my comment said, and I quote, "your wrong," and that conservatives were on the correct side of history. Really? Is that why we're still living in a slave-owning monarchical system where no one can rise above the station of his/her birth no matter how creative and intelligent s/he is?

Besides, I find it difficult to give credibility to anyone who does not know the difference between "your" and "you're." I AM a historian. I've taught history. I study history every day of my life. I've forgotten more history that that commentator will ever know. That commentator needs to take Mark Twain's advice: when given the choice, keep your mouth shut and let everyone think you're an idiot rather than open it and remove all doubt.

However, I, too, should heed another of the sage Twain's directives: never teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.

Talk About Your Errors In Logic!

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One of the GOP's pet ideas for economic stimulus is to offer individuals tax incentives (i.e., credits) for spending money. Such tax incentives won't work, and here's why: you have to have money to spend before you can spend any money.

If people are out of work, I don't care what kind of tax incentives are out there--people are not going to be buying new cars, newly-constructed houses, or much of anything else beyond the bare minimums they need for food, clothing, and shelter. No tax incentive in the world is going to encourage you to spend when you don't earn enough money even to pay taxes, let alone need to get your taxes reduced.

An astute reader's letter to the editor published in last night's Omaha World-Herald revealed the reason for the flaw in the GOP's collective thinking [and I use the term "thinking" loosely--Ed.]: the GOP doesn't recognize that workers and consumers are the same people. They want to reduce not just workers' benefits, but the number of workers at the same time they want consumers to spend more. Let's face it: that's impossible when workers and consumers are one and the same.

But the GOP doesn't get it, for the GOP's concept of "workers" is "beings beneath our notice and subject to our contempt." They honestly think that every penny given to workers is a penny taken from the pockets of their "consumers," who seem to be limited to being the owners, operators, or anyone else in business who makes an annual income of at least six figures.

The tax incentives the GOP pushes are not for people like you and me. They are for the acceptably well-off. The rest of us can go hang as far as the GOP is concerned.

And lest you doubt me, remember: during last summer's presidential campaigning, John McCain himself said he thought middle class people were making $500,000 a year.

The reason this blindness didn't stir outrage amongst those who are relatively poor but who support the GOP nonetheless is that the GOP has convinced them that it is the protector of proper social values, like being anti-reproductive choice, anti-gay rights, anti-immigration (illegal or not), and so on.

The GOP is becoming increasingly marginalized yet its leaders think it needs to move even farther to the right. As far as I am concerned, let it. It's driving itself over a cliff and doesn't even realize it. But President Obama's rightful desire to move Washington away from partisanship may actually be giving the rightest of the right wing a lifeline . . . when what it really needs is a Do Not Resuscitate order.

The Problem With Trying To Use "Original Intent"

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I had a real "Eureka!" moment this morning when I was waking up. For years, I have been wrestling with the contention advanced by people like US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and right-wing commentator Pat Buchanan: that the Founding Fathers, in writing and adopting our Constitution, had certain very clear meanings in mind, and that we therefore must base our interpretation of the Constitution on those meanings, i.e., we must obey the Founding Fathers' "original intent" in deciding what the Constitution means today.

I have always held that could not be true. As a matter of sheer expediency, it would be impossible to do so. The world in 1789 was not filled with airplanes and computers and space satellites and men like Scalia and Buchanan themselves (and women) who have the vote. Since it's no longer the world of 1789, it can no longer be the Constitution of 1789, and the Founders were wise enough to know that. We wouldn't need a Supreme Court at all if the Constitution's meaning were plain and undeniable in the way people like Scalia and Buchanan make it sound.

However, since none of the Founders is on the record as saying flat out that the meaning of the Constitution is designed to expand as the world around us changes, the "strict constructionists" like Scalia and Buchanan have been able to maintain their position.

My "Eureka!" moment? Realizing that the meaning of words can change over time as a natural, organic thing--and that everyone who has ever looked up a word in a dictionary knows it. Therefore, the Founders knew it, too. The specific word in my case was "nice." When "nice" first came into regular use, it was not a bland compliment. It meant "trivial and petty." Examining great literature from the days of Shakespeare forward will reveal the natural evolution of the word's meaning and usage. And the Founders, well-educated men all, knew this body of literature.

Further, one of the greatest problems of studying history is trying to figure out what "everyday" people believed about their lives. Until relatively recently, most people didn't record the things that shaped their daily attitudes. They just lived their lives. Modern technology and the spread of education have made it possible for us both to leave records of our thoughts on such subjects and to wonder what our ancestors thought about them in their turn. I doubt that a concept like "original intent" even crept into our ancestors' conscious thinking. It would have been utterly foreign to their actual, real-world experiences. They wouldn't have to discuss it because its opposite was axiomatic. That the meaning of words changes over time was a given. It didn't need to be explained because everyone already knew it was true.

Recognizing this also puts the lie to the claim advanced by some that the Founders intended the Constitution to change only through the process of formal amendment [which is something that self-styled "clever" people have been braying about in letters to the Editor of the Omaha World-Herald of late--Ed.]. Yes, they made amending the Constitution a difficult process, both time-consuming and requiring an extraordinary level of societal consensus. But that was to keep the document from getting cluttered (the way most state constitutions have) with trivia or other matters of limited scope and interest.

The Constitution was designed to stand, as clean and uncluttered as possible, as our society's most basic expression of its governmental organization. It was written in general terms because the Founders knew they couldn't anticipate every possible permutation of every possible issue they addressed. They knew the particulars would be sorted out as the need arose. They came from a "common law" tradition, which by definition says law evolves incrementally as judges apply general principles to specific facts--or, in modern terms, the judges make the law [again, it's impermissible "activism" only when you disagree with the specific conclusion--Ed.] based on their understanding of societal consensus within the framework. In other words, it's inherently flexible.
The Founders didn't expressly adopt "original intent" because they knew it wouldn't work in a thriving society. On the other hand, the Founders didn't specifically deny "original intent" because it never occurred to them that they needed to.

I understand why the strict constructionists want to hang onto some rock-steady, solid and unchanging view of the Constitution and its meaning. It gives them comfort in a world filled with an ever-increasing pace of change--change that frequently is frightening. But it's a losing proposition. It flies in the face of reality on all levels, including science. The Founders, men of the Enlightenment all, knew the science of the day as well as they knew literature. All they had to do was look around to see physical evidence that everything changes over time. Fossilized seashells found on land were known to men of science in those days. They didn't know why the fossils were no longer under water, of course [heck, many scientists "pooh-poohed" plate tectonics as recently as 40 years ago--Ed.], but they knew that something had changed, otherwise there would be no reason for the remnants of aquatic creatures to be found far from the oceans in which they lived and died.

Ironically, "change" is the only constant. All of life is change, and it always has been--even before Darwin forced the world to face up to it. "Adapt or die," we say . . . and with good reason. Everyone and everything does die, eventually. But everyone and everything that hasn't adapted has died too soon when compared to everyone and everything that has.

On Connecting The Dots

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Does John McCain realize that his own excessively misleading rhetoric is at least partly to blame for the frightening ideas his campaign-appearance crowds seem to have embraced? If he does, his chastising those crowds (to boos, no less) yesterday was not only too little, too late, but hypocritical. So much for the integrity we ought to expect in our leaders. If he does not realize it, he lacks the clear perception and judgment to be president. Either way, he has no business becoming the so-called leader of the free world.

He has boxed himself quite neatly into a no win situation--in his attempts to curry favor with the rabid right wing of the GOP, he's unleashed the truly wild-eyed fringe elements. Even so, he has not succeeded in placating the rabid right wing, talk-radio crowd of his own party.

Worse, he's now damaged what little credibility he might have gained with them by telling them yesterday to rein it in and be respectful, and that not only is Barack Obama no Arab, he IS a good and decent family man, someone who we need not fear occupying the Oval Office.

And he's lost whatever good will might have remained among the more center-to-left voters who'd at least have tolerated his election and tried to work with him should he in fact win the presidency.

I really do welcome his decency in trying to tamp down the more excessive untruths his crowds have embraced--that's the John McCain I remember from 2000. That's the man I could accept in the Oval Office should Obama lose, except for Sarah Palin's then being only one heartbeat away from the presidency. She is not only not ready, she lacks the temperament to get ready. She's another one of those "don't confuse me with the facts; I've made up my mind" people. They are dangerous, as the incomprehensibly stupid "leadership" we've had for the last 8 years has demonstrated. [It's the only thing at which they've excelled.--Ed.] The real world has absolutely NO interest in conforming to our expectations. The sooner the people we have in our highest offices realize that, the sooner we can rehabilitate our standing as the leader of the world community.

The problem is this: McCain's behavior during this entire campaign has been so erratic and self-contradictory that there are no guarantees that the decent McCain would be the one in charge, should he win the election. I, for one, cannot live with that uncertainty.

I think the vast majority of Americans who take the time to think about things would overwhelmingly vote for Obama . . . except for the "race thing." I heard one of Obama's advisers on NPR earlier this week claiming there was no racial issue or problem at all affecting the campaign, but let's get real. What else could he say? At this point in the campaign, the goal is to persuade the undecided not just to vote, but to vote for "your guy." The minute anyone connected to Obama suggests that race might play an issue in people NOT supporting Obama, all the people who have been hurt enough by the economic meltdown to consider voting for Obama, but who hesitate because of their own racially-related preconceptions, will abandon the idea of voting for Obama. Why? Because even hinting that race is an issue or a problem is tantamount, in those people's minds, to calling them racists. Even if they are, they're going to resent it to the point that no matter how bad the economy gets, Obama will have lost their votes.

This is not unlike those who have already been hurt badly (and for years) by GOP economic policies, but who will never vote for Democrats because those voters are "pro-life," unlike those nasty, baby-killing liberals. They vote against their own best interests because they nobly, although naively, think other issues matter more. The one thing they've not grasped is that for the first 6 years of the Dubya administration, the GOP could have legislated Roe v. Wade out of existence if it had wanted to do so. Doing that, however, would cost the GOP a wedge issue that has proved to be magic in getting them into and thus keeping power. That's what the GOP cares about, not the rights of the unborn. Or else Roe v. Wade would already be legislated out of existence.

One of the worst failures of our educational system is that all too often, it does not teach students HOW to think. No school should be responsible for teaching students WHAT to think--that's the job of parents and churches. Knowing HOW to think, however, is essential to survival in the real world, and that is an ideal task for educators. Alas for us, it's virtually impossible to do that while being overwhelmed by wildfires such as coping with students who come to class not ready to learn.

It's not just our physical infrastructure that's falling apart. Our educational system is coming apart at the seams, our health care system is broken, and a stable (financially and emotionally) middle class, the bulwark of every successful society in history, is being squeezed out of existence. America, as I know, love, and understand her, is disappearing before our eyes. Something has to give . . . and for the sake of both America and the world, I hope that what retreats is all the old and untrue racially-based canards that have infected our country for centuries. We need to vote for hope, not for fear, if we are to reclaim America's position as the real moral authority and voice of freedom for the whole world.

The Real Danger We Face

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A movie review in Saturday's Omaha World-Herald included a truly astute observation. In the context of reviewing two satires, An American Carol (pro-right-wing) and Religulous (pro-far-left-wing), the reviewer suggested that our worst enemy comprises those people who have no sense of humor.

I think he's right.

I recently forwarded an email I'd received to several friends, of all political stripes. The email asked for clarification about things such as why someone born in Hawaii is "exotic and strange" while someone from Alaska is just a "normal American," and why someone named "Barack" is weird but someone who named one of her children "Twig" is just folksy. And on and on in that vein.

Everybody to whom I sent it thought it was both hilarious and thought-provoking . . . whether they fancy themselves to be left- OR right-wing . . . with one sad, lonely exception. One person asked me to remove her from my mailing list. Which I did, immediately. I don't want to waste my time and energy on someone who has no sense of humor. People like that can suck the life right out of a body. Lord knows, I have enough trouble staying alive without being subjected to that.

Some of my more creative right-wing friends even tried (a bit tongue-in-cheek) to clarify my confusion for me, which I greatly appreciated. I don't agree with them, but I appreciate their efforts. They knew I meant no offense, and took it in the spirit it was offered. And we all got some laughs out of it.

And that's what is great about Americans. We can agree to disagree and still have some fun with each other's political beliefs. But people who are willfully humorless and who take offense at facts expressed in a humorous way (even if it is done to make a point they don't want to hear) need professional help.

Please note two things: (1) my sense of humor is as broad as anyone's (and broader than most); (2) things that pander to racial stereotypes are NOT funny. The "Aunt Obama" pancake mix some GOP idiots were selling at a GOP-related event in August, for example, was NOT funny. It WAS appalling and shameful.

I was certainly ashamed of the perpetrators' claims to be good Americans and to be clueless as to why what they did was offensive. How could they not know? When the subject came up on The View, the entire audience gasped in shock and revulsion upon seeing the box with Obama in a Mammy-style bandanna on the front and in an Arabic headdress on the back. The idiots who created the thing knew exactly what they were doing, and thought they could hide behind pretend "ignorance" to deflect criticism. That was likely their fallback position. They most probably never expected anyone to betray them by revealing their racist crap to that part of the world (i.e., the vast majority of the rest of us) that would shame them for expressing it.

And yes, distinctions can be drawn. If you, for example, wonder why I'm not complaining about Keith Olbermann's "Auntie Sarah's Moose Stew," here's why I'm not: Sarah Palin herself says she cooks and eats moose stew; the picture of Palin on the wrapper is an accurate, even flattering picture, showing her megawatt smile. [I've been on record for years of loving megawatt smiles.--Ed.] I would have been offended and would be complaining about it if she'd been shown with filthy, tangled hair, broken glasses, and blacked out/missing teeth. Demeaning stereotypes of every and any kind are not funny. Period.

Humorless people have another strike against them: they're the ones who foisted "political correctness" onto the rest of us. So you see, humorless people exist on the left as well as the right. Respecting people's preferences (as much as possible) is not wrong--but lecturing others on what is and is not acceptable, when the ones doing the lecturing are NOT in the group being referred to, is arrogant.

Thus humorless people of all stripes are the ones who pose the real threat to America. Their ultimate goal is to make the rest of us conform to their notions of propriety. They suck all the oxygen out of the air. That's anti-American. What is American is to show a little tolerance, to take a live-and-let-live approach to the world, and to give everyone a little breathing--and laughing--room.