t.u. and Affirmative Action

This isn’t a surprise, but the University of Texas will startup its discriminatory admissions practices again.  I just love this quote:

Affirmative action “gets to the heart of what we try to accomplish as an institution,” Faulkner said. “It’s important for us to have strong representation here of students from all sectors of society.”

Never mind education or intellectual enhancement, t.u. sees a racially diverse student body as the heart of the university’s mission. 

Sadly, I fear that my beloved Texas A&M is next in line to implement this racist program.

Sodomy Ruling

I know - I keep coming back to this, but Charles Krauthammer has a very interesting column about the ruling that I think argues Jed’s position very well:

Why then am I glad the court, for all of its sophistry, upheld affirmative action? For those who believe that affirmative action, for all of its noble purposes, is extraordinarily destructive to both its beneficiaries and its victims, and to both race relations and constitutional principles, it is tempting to wish it all swept away by the Supreme Court.

It is a temptation to be resisted. Issues of this magnitude should never be decided by nine robes. Affirmative action needs to be dealt with by the people in the legislatures and in referendums. I believe that the current dispensation is a travesty. But a very substantial portion of the population reads the Constitution—and the nation’s needs—quite differently. Under these circumstances, the issue should not be settled by judicial fiat.

We learned from the abortion issue the doleful consequences of such judicial imperialism. In 1973, changes in public opinion and action in state legislatures were altering the landscape on abortion. At which point the court stepped in and took the issue out of the political arena. As Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued before she ascended to the Supreme Court, ``Roe v. Wade ... halted a political process that was moving in a reform direction and thereby, I believe, prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue.’’ The result has been 30 years of strife and agitation, as a disenfranchised minority continues to carry the fight against policy for which it has no political recourse.

It’s just that I still see a Constitutional issue here.  Look at the Ninth Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The issue as to whether the Right of Privacy, or Right of Liberty, is protected by the Constitution comes down to whether it is a right at all.  If the Right to Privacy is indeed a natural right, then it is protected by the Constitution.  So what is a “natural right”?  How about this for a definition:

Natural rights are self-evident, all rights are by their definition natural, they are based on self ownership and the free will, there can be no rights other than those which are in nature.

The Right to Privacy is indeed an extension of self ownership and free will, and I find it to be self-evident.  In a state of nature, man has the right to seclude himself from his fellow man and conduct himself in private.  As such, he retains that right when he forms a civil society.

Based on the Ninth Amendment, the only way you can argue that the Right to Privacy is not protected by the Constitution is to argue that it is not a right at all.

UPDATE:  It also strikes me that this is related to the Right of Private Property.  People have a right to use their private property as they see fit.  As such, if they choose to build a house on it to facilitate their privacy, then we don’t have the right to peer into the confines of that privacy.  Just a thought…

UPDATE BY JED:

For almost 200 years, the Court avoided making use of the Ninth Amendment because it’s open-endedness created, in effect, a blank check.  If you start saying that something is a constitutional right because of the Ninth Amendment, where is the line between what is and what is not a constitutional right?  Who gets to decide?

Read the rest

Stock In Trade

Dean has a very good post about gift economies and how they relate to the blogosphere.

It’s too good to pick out a paragraph to post here, so go give it a read!

This Day In History

Edward IV is crowned King of England in 1461.  And Queen Victoria (the last of the house of Brunswick to rule England) was crowned in 1838.

The Battle on Monmouth was fought between the Americans and the British in 1778.

The Treaty of Versailles, ending WWI and sowing the seeds for another titanic struggle, was signed in 1919.

Liberia

Liberia is calling for the US to intervene.

Many Liberians want Bush to do more and bands of marchers, many driven from their homes by fighting, headed for the U.S. embassy for a third day chanting “We want peace, no more war.”

Most eyes turn to the United States because of its historical links with a country founded more than 150 years ago by freed slaves trying to establish a haven of liberty.

“Do they want all of us to die? They are the people we look up to. We think the Americans must help us,” said Rita Younger, one of those heading for the U.S. embassy…

And for many Liberians, it is only the Americans who could do the job.

“George Bush is the president of the whole world and everyone knows that,” said Martin Luther Wesseh, demonstrating outside the U.S. mission. “America owns Liberia. That is a fact. We learned it in school.”

These are the kinds of things that make American’s cynical about foreign intervention.  We just went through a whole war where “world opinion” was slamming us for intervening.  Now, with the rest of the world is sitting on their ass, Liberia is calling for America to help.

Honestly, I am not familiar with the details of the conflict to make a judgment as to whether American intervention would be appropriate.  On the surface, though, I do not see any American national interests at stake - save the general use of a destabilized region as a breeding ground for terrorists. 

UPDATE:  Now France is calling for the US to intervene!

Mr de Villepin, quoted by French news agency AFP, said: “The most pressing things are the ceasefire and the deployment of an international force.”

Taylor has been indicted for alleged war crimes
He said France and Britain had “assumed their responsibilities” to bring relative peace their former colonies of Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone, and that the US had a special role to play in Liberia.

“There must be a multinational force… Let us together find the best solution,” he added.

Basically, Mr. de Villepin is demanding an American force to be commanded by the French.  It’ll be “celibate day” in a Las Vegas brothel before we allow the French to command our troops.

Baylor Player

All right, Jed.  Joke’s over.  Put the guy back.

WACO, Texas, June 27 ?  Some of Patrick Dennehy?s teammates might be suspects in the disappearance of the Baylor basketball player, police said Friday.  

DENNEHY, A 6-FOOT-10, 230-pound center, has not been seen or heard from in more than two weeks.

Owen’s Toys

Come on Owen.  You couldn’t really have fun at 1M rounds-per-minute…

How about one of these mounted in the back of La Bamba?  Comes with 1,000 rounds.

Petty

I know this is petty, but this is a picture and caption from Yahoo:

El Nino, the weather pattern which has been blamed for extreme conditions in many areas around the Pacific Ocean, is over for 2003(AFP-NASA (news - web sites)/File/Str )

I know that this is just a file photo, but the Pacific ocean isn’t in it.  The Atlantic is on the left of Africa and the Indian Ocean is on the right.

Yikes

You know you drank too much when you wake up next to this:

1,000,000 Rounds a Minute

A guy in Austrailia is developing a weapon that can fire a million rounds a minute.  Instead of mechanical firing mechanisms, it uses an electric one.

While much of the technology is a closely guarded secret, the firing mechanism has no moving parts. Instead, it uses electronic ballistics technology. Unlike other guns, the only parts which move are the bullets.

This can be used in last-ditch defense efforts like the Phalanx.  

Of course, if the accuracy can be verified, it could also be employed for offensive capabilities.

Amazon (not .com)

It appears that the Amazon is being cut down at historic levels.

      PRELIMINARY FIGURES FROM the Environment Ministry, released late Wednesday, showed deforestation in the Amazon jumped to 9,840 square miles last year ? the highest since 1995 ? from 7,010 square miles in 2001.

Undoubtedly it is the fault of the Bush Administration’s failure to back the Kyoto Protocol.

Windshield Death

This “woman” got exactly what she deserved:

A jury sentenced Chante Mallard to 60 years in prison Friday for leaving an accident victim to die a slow death while lodged in the broken windshield of her car.

This woman hit a guy, he lodged in her windshield (legs sticking out if I recall correctly), she drove home and parked in her garage, and he slowly died of blood loss.  He could have lived if she had called 911 right away.  She willfully caused is death, even if she didn’t willfully cause the accident.

Civil War

OK, Jed.  I’m a little surprised at you.  In an earlier post I asked for book recommendations for the Civil War.  You recommended The Longest Night, by David J. Eicher.

Trusting my ol’ lady not to lead me astray, I ordered the book.  It arrived today and I began reading it.  In the introduction is this:

After the war hundreds of thousands of veterans knew how to use guns, and millions of weapons made their way into society.  The postwar era of violence, played out largely in the western states and territories, inaugurated a tradition we still pay for today.  As Michael Bellesiles has shown in his book Arming America: The Origins of the National Gun Culture, it was in the wake of the Civil War that the “right to own and use weapons” became an assumed constitutional guarantee”

Am I to trust an author that lauds such a discredited “historian” as Bellesiles?

*sigh*

Canadian Snipers

The Canadian government has blocked an attempt by the US to award Bronze Stars to four Canadian snipers for their actions in Afghanistan (including a kill from 2,430 meters—that’s just short of 1.4 miles).  Apparently, the Canadian government suffers from one or more of the following:

They can’t decide whether to give a medal of their own, and don’t want the snipers getting a US medal w/o a comparable Canadian one

Canada has become so averse to violence that they don’t want to reward it

 

It’s a shame to see the Canadian government fall so far so fast.  Just a few years ago they were good allies.  Now they’re not good for much.

Tax Freeze

The Wisconsin State Budget is on the Governor’s desk awaiting his signature.  If you live in Wisconsin, please go here to sign a petition asking Governor Doyle to NOT VETO the property tax freeze that is included in the budget. 

Also feel free to call Governor Doyle at (608) 266-1212 and express your opinion.