Good Quote

This seems especially relevant in a time when we are actively debating the meaning of words like “equality” and “diversity”.

“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville

UPDATE:  I just had to throw this one in too, since it’s so good:

“Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. But to be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ‘ought to have known better,’ is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image.”
—C.S. Lewis

The more I read and learn, the more I realize that true original thought is indeed a rare thing, and the more I cherish them when they occur. 

ANOTHER UPDATE:  The mentioning of C.S. Lewis brings back many memories for me.  A wonderful friend of mine gave me a true gift one Christmas when I was about 7 or 8 of the Chronicles of Narnia.  As any child of that age would do, I grudgingly said “thank you” and moved on to find the toys hidden in the colorful paper.  Some weeks later, out of duty to my friend, I picked up the books and started reading and found myself in the wonderful world of Narnia.  I’ll bet I’ve read those books a hundred times.  Now, I am sharing them with my oldest daughter.

As I have grown older, I have come to appreciate C.S. Lewis’ many other works.  I do believe that he is one of the 20th century’s top 5 authors whose works will be read for generations to come.

This Day In History

In 1632, the Globe theater burned down.

Britain’s Parliment passed the Townshend Acts in 1767, greatly angering the colonists. 

The Alien Act of 1940 (a.k.a. The Smith Act) passes Congress.

Minorities

Here’s an article about the Texas redistricting.  More specifically, it’s about a hearing about the issue in Houston.  Something near the bottom of the article jumped out at me:

That prompted Coleman to point out that Wilson, a Houston lawyer, drove a 2000 Lamborghini to the hearing.

“That’s why you’re shilling for the Republicans,” Coleman screamed at Wilson, causing many in the crowd to start chanting “sell out.”

 

Coleman and Wilson are both black Congressmen from Texas who differ on the redistricting issue. 

We keep seeing stuff like this, again and again and again.  Whenever a successful minority dares oppose the Democratic party line, they are slapped down as being a sell out.  Just like after the affirmative action ruling by the SCotUS, editorialists and cartoonists all over the country lambasted Clarence Thomas for his dissent by insinuating, or flat out saying, that he was a traitor to his race for not supporting affirmative action.  The Democratic party and its phalanx of race-baiters can never let a single minority forget that they never would have been a success without the Democrats.  How demeaning.

What strikes me more than the actual act of smacking down minorities by the Dems is the level of hatred and viciousness directed toward conservative minorities.  You can just see the pulsating vein in their collective foreheads swelling and throbbing while sweat drips from their flushed cheeks.  I guess the Dems only like blacks when they stay in their place and don?t actually wield power.

Texas Redistricting

For a little background, see my initial post here.

The GOP has come up with a plan which would unseat five Democrats and create four new “GOP” districts, and a new “minority Democrat” district.  As a result, several minority Democrats are considering voting for the proposed plan.  It seems their party loyalty becomes very limited when they see an opportunity to send another minority Representative to Washington.

“How can we sit back and turn away from the opportunity to increase our ranks?” asked state Rep. Ron Wilson, D-Houston, a member of the House Redistricting Committee. “If the train is moving, do you stand there and let it run over you, or do you put somebody on the train?”

 

The bill is expected to pass the House easily, but the GOP needs two more State Senators to reach the two-thirds required to consider the bill.

Republicans have been lobbying Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, to switch sides.

Mr. Lucio, the president pro tem, has said that he does not like the redistricting proposal put forth by Mr. King but would consider a plan that created five Hispanic districts along the Rio Grande. That would result in three more Hispanic districts.

 

I guess party loyalty stops where skin color starts.

Concealed Carry

Well, I finally got around to taking my concealed carry class today.  I’d been struggling to find time since I moved back to Texas, but the fine folks at DFW Gun Range set me up with a one-day class to get it out of the way.  It was a 2-hour class stretched into the required 10 hours, and most of the info was a rehash of criminal and tort law for me.  Hopeflly, I’ll have my permit in hand in 45-60 days so I can start carrying this:

The Kimber Pro CDP II in .45 ACP

Kerry’s Mrs. Directs Cartoonists

Teresa Heinz directs cartoonists on how to, and not to, draw her husband.

Already a target herself more than a year before the next presidential election, Heinz instructed the 150 cartoonists from around the country on how not to draw Kerry in the coming months, using an overhead projector to display cartoons she already disliked: “My husband should not be confused with Punxsutawney Phil. He isn’t a basset hound. Please resist the impulse to use Heinz products when drawing my husband & ” Concentrate, she said, only on “his noble chin, focused gaze and & smile. In other words, draw him like this.”

Up on screen flashed a cartoon of John F. Kennedy.

he he.

BBC and the USA

Check out this description of the US by the BBC.  I particularly like this quote:

Freedom of expression in the US is guaranteed by the constitution, and some stations give airtime to extreme hues of political - often right-wing - and religious thinking. Elsewhere, outspoken radio “shock jocks” push at the boundaries of taste.

American public broadcasting is partly government-funded, but also supported by private grants. Many universities and colleges operate broadcasting outlets. National Public Radio - with more than 600 member stations - offers a more highbrow mix of news, debate and music without advertising. Public TV services operated by PBS have a mission to provide “quality” and educational programming.

The BBC, cozy in its monopoly of British media, seems a bit condescending toward the freedom of speech, don’t you think?

Medicare Prescription Drugs

Bush is eager to sign a prescription drug bill.

I’ve pontificated on this before, but this is a horrible idea.  I am furious at Bush for pushing this for political reasons.  There is absolutely no reason in the world that a Republican legislature and a Republican executive should pass this.

That being said, it has become obvious that something will be passed, so it is up to the conservatives in the conference committee to mitigate the damages.  The House version of the bill is the lesser of 2 evils, so I guess I’ll grudgingly give it support (grumble, grumble, grumble). 

UPDATE:  I need to rant a little more.  Here’s the intro to this article:

WASHINGTON - You’re 65, maybe older, and tired of paying hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars for drugs.

So how is the government going to help?

That’s the wrong #$^% question!!!  It must be remembered that the government is merely the representation of the people.  So when you ask government to pay for something, you are asking your friends, family, and complete strangers to pay for it.  It is the same as taking a mayonnaise jar to each of your neighbors and asking them to contribute to your prescription drug bills.  Most people would be ashamed to do such a thing, but feel perfectly OK with sending a government agent, a.k.a. the I.R.S., to collect their neighbor’s money for their bills.  I’m sick and tired of people asking the government to solve their problems.  argh

Straw Poll & Dean

Morridx has some comments about the straw poll by MoveOn.org.  (He also commented under this post of mine)

Upon further reflection I had to say, ?Whoa!? I believe that they?re attempting to artfully coerce our friends who are Democrats. It would certainly be easier to defeat President Bush if everyone fell in line behind one candidate. I think this is a not-so-subtle position towards that end. Personally, I find it rather offensive; I regard a wide ? if not ridiculously so ? range of options to be the hallmark of a healthy political race.

 

That’s not a bad point.  There is definitely a well-heeled political strategy to try to minimize the damage done to candidates in the primary in order to help the eventual winner in the final election. 

However, it seems just stupid to me for MoveOn.org to back whoever polls best this early in the game.  I, for one, would love to see Howard Dean win the nomination, but only because I think he is unelectable in a national election.  Bush could sweep all 50 states if Dean was his opponent.  If MoveOn.org’s objective is to get a Democrat elected - any Democrat - then they should at least back an electable candidate.

Summerfest

Summerfest, an annual music festival in Milwaukee, started this weekend. 

Summerfest is one of the best things that Milwaukee does.  It offers a bunch of bands, food, etc. for all to enjoy.  It regularly attracts a million or more visitors every year and is the largest music festival in the nation.  But it has had its problems.

The last couple of years, the attraction of hip-hop bands and a teenage atmosphere has led to kids getting rowdy.  And by rowdy, I mean drunk, high, starting fights with each other, and harassing other visitors. 

I haven’t ever been to Summerfest, but largely because since I’ve been here, the news is filled with the reports of bad behavior at the festival.  As a father, I didn’t want to take my kids to a place where they are likely to be exposed to such bad behavior.  But things may be looking up.

In an effort to make Summerfest more family friendly, the Summerfest officials have removed many of the teeny-bopper attractions and many more of the music acts are geared toward pulling an older and family audience. 

Of course, many of the hooligans who look forward to Summerfest as a place to get drunk and raise hell, are upset, but so be it.  In our youth-obsessed culture, the vast majority of entertainment venues and acts are designed to attract the 14-22 and single crowd.  There’s nothing wrong with offering a festival for families and older folks.

I think that as the population ages, and with the US birthrate at its lowest level ever, that we will see this trend grow.  Entertainers are in the business to make money, and although the older crowd is harder to get, they are more loyal and have more money to spend.

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.