How long has it been since I, or any Twin Cities conservative blogger, lit up a Nick Coleman column?
Seems like forever.
Fisking Nick “I Know Stuff” Coleman used to be to Twin Cities blogging what bread was a a meal; a staple. But since Nick’s exit from the Strib, he’s been pretty much out of sight.
No more.
Tune in at noon.
Joe Doakes from Como Park is a pretty peripatetic writer. Some weeks, he sends me a couple emails on a couple of issues.
Other weeks, I think he may write more stuff than I do. And he doesn’t actually want to write for this blog, per se; just likes to send “letters to the editor”.
And I figured it was time I pared down some of the backlog. So today, I’m going to run a slew of Joe’s emails that, for whatever reason, I didn’t run during this past week or so.
Starting with this one:
Come on, give the guy a break. It’s like Elizabeth Warren claiming to be an Indian, Halle Berry claiming to be a Black woman, or President Obama claiming to be an American – it’s a matter of desire, not evidence.
joe doakes
The guy doesn’t look a day over 85…
I’ve added a new corollary to “Berg’s Law” – especially in light of events of this past seven months and the doddering, bobbleheaded liberal punditry to which Real Americans have been subjected.
It’s the “Fugelsang Corollary to Berg’s Seventh Law of Liberal Projection” (Berg’s Seventh reads “When a Liberal issues a group defamation or assault on conservatives’ ethics, character or respect for liberty or the truth, they are at best projecting, and at worst drawing attention away from their own misdeeds.”)
It reads as follows:
The Fugelsang Corollary To Berg’s Seventh Law – a liberal who uses “I’m happy with my penis size” as a conclusion to a debate on the Second Amendment doth protest too much.
The thing about Berg’s Laws are that they are, in actual practice, absolute and inviolable.
A big chunk of Northern/Northeastern Colorado are actively pursuing secession from the rest of the state, to form – they hope – a 51st state. Sick of the onrushing dim-bulb “progressive’ statism that’s engulfed the Boulder/Denver/Colorado Springs corridor, with its attendant spending, rapacious taxation and suffocating regulation, the more traditional, rural, conservative parts of the state have had enough.
[Weld county commissioner Sean] Conway said the new laws don’t support the interests of the northern part of the state, which is rich in agricultural history. Conway said that’s why he and others are proposing to break away from Colorado to form a new state.
“This is not a stunt. This is a very serious deliberative discussion that’s going on,” he said. “There’s a real feeling that a lot of folks who come from the urban areas don’t appreciate the contribution that many Coloradans contribute.”
Parts of Nebraska are also apparently interested in joining in on what would be a new state.
It’ll likely come to nothing; most Americans have been painstakingly taught that re-arranging our states in any way equals supporting slavery.
But there’s a historical precedent:
Conway says five of the current 50 states were created through a similar process. He says the proposal is “likely” to end up on a Colorado ballot this fall.
“The whole purpose of doing this is to preserve an agricultural way of life and to protect the energy sector, that we feel is very much under assault,” Conway said.
Rep. Cory Gardner, the Republican Congressman from Yuma, told The Coloradoan in Fort Collins he’s not sure how he’d vote on such a measure, but he says he understands why the measure is being floated at this time. He says Democratic leaders controlling the state Legislature and the governor’s office have not been listening to their constituents in rural parts of the state…If voters in those counties decide they want to move forward, then the county commissioners would ask state lawmakers to approve the plan, and then petition Congress for statehood.
Of course, if the proposal ever did make any headway, the urban parts of the state – which depend, as they do in Minnesota, on the exurbs and the rest of the state to keep up a steady stream of tribute to the central government – would no doubt bog the idea down in court actions and worse until kingdom come.
But leaving all that aside – I think it’d be a fascinating idea here in Minnesota.
Clearly, Minnesota is two states that are stuck together, like Oscar Madison and Felix Unger, more out of tradition, a historical accident based on lines drawn in the 1840s when Minnesota was a sparsely populated swampy wilderness, than out of any rational political, demographic or social reason that they should be forever together.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to have an “East Minnesota” – basically what are now the 4th, 5th and 8th Congressional Districts, the Twin Cities and Duluth and the land they’d need to build their high-speed choo-choo between each other – on the one hand, and “West Minnesota” the rest of the state, form separate states? Perhaps with a capitol in Rochester?
The new states would make more economic, political and social sense than the current one does; “West Minnesota” could orient itself economically toward the rest of the region, while “East Minnesota” could then endeavor to prove its long-standing premise that it carries the rest of the state.
In fact, this would be true of many states; Upstate New York would no doubt love to be rid of NYC and Long Island; greater California would no doubt love to cast its lot with Arizona, Utah and Nevada rather than be stuck with the endless money suck of Los Angeles.
(Likewise the Dakotas are all wrong; the eastern halves of both states have more in common with each other politically, economically and socially than they do with their western halves, which are also pretty much alike; “East Dakota” and “West Dakota” make more sense than North and South Dakota do).
A chunk of the next generation thinks a president siccing the IRS on his opponents is juuuuuust fine:
Remember; they’re college kids. “Tomorrow’s leaders”.
We’re so screwed.
A liberal acquaintance of mine on Twitter told me yesterday that this bit spelled out the case against the NRA “in a logical way”.
@tjswift2 @mitchpberg Reading the piece actually makes the point quite logical. Even if you don’t agree with it. @jruha
— John Shannon (@JohnTShannon) May 28, 2013
It’s by John Fugelsang. Now, I do try to seek civil conversation, but Fugelsang is becoming to the left what Bob was to Baghdad; people who quote or cite Fugelsang are justly derided as ninnies; he’s best ignored completely, or as we conservative bloggers say, “Billied”.
But since the lefty tweep took the trouble, let’s show all the ways in which this piece (transcribed below) does not lay out any case with any logic.
It’s almost too densely-misguided to even “fisk” in the classical sense. For starters, let’s stick with calling out the individual misstatements, evidence-free chanting points and distortions in blue. Like this: {Chanting Point!}
Maybe you’re someone who, like the majority of Americans, supports the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, but you feel kind of creepy about the weapons-grade cretins who run the NRA and do all they can to keep Americans {Ad-hominem – name-calling!} safe from any gun laws that might keep Americans safe. {Assertion made without evidence; not a single gun law proposed would have “kept” a single American “safe”}
Well, you’re not alone. And this is why: loving the Second Amendment while opposing the NRA is every bit as natural as loving Jesus while opposing Westboro Baptist Church.
Let’s take a break here. This is straight out of Saul Alinsky. Linking a mainstream organization of regular Americans – five million of us – with the “God Hates Fags” church? Seems a stretch.
In fact, Wayne LaPierre’s fake constitutional rights lobbying group {Perhaps Fugelsang would favor us by telling us how the lobbying is “fake”?} that gun manufacturers use to buy off congressmen actually has quite a bit in common with the revoltingly fake Christians of Westboro. {The “Buy Off” meme is an interesting one; we’ll come back to that…}
You see, Westboro is to Christianity what Jesus was to ignorance, hatred and inbreeding. They travel the country holding these vile, un-Christian protests at the funerals of anyone evil enough to live in a land that doesn’t stone gay people to death, Leviticus-style. They don’t want to hate gays — they’re just doing it because God commands them and they’re only following orders. It’s like Nuremberg, but with very bad teeth.
There’s a sign that Fugelsang’s piece is targeted at the insufficiently bright; he has to explain who Westboro – the church that pickets soldiers’ funerals – is.
These guys don’t picket outside gay bars or gay bathhouses or gay dance clubs or Lindsey Graham’s Senate office. Just places guaranteed to cause the most outrage possible – like funerals. Then when someone tries to stifle them, they engage in First Amendment lawsuits.
Then you’ve got the NRA. And please understand, when we talk about the NRA, we’re not talking about their members. {Oh, heavens, no!} In Frank Luntz’s 2012 poll of NRA members, 87 percent said they believed Second Amendment freedom went hand in hand with preventing gun violence. That’s responsibility.
But you wouldn’t know that from the group’s leaders. Under the stewardship of Wayne LaPierre, or as I call him, “Il Wayne,” the NRA has become the front for gun manufacturers, the guys who’ve cashed in big time since Newtown.
So much “wrong” packed into two paragraphs.
Where precisely does Fugelsang think the NRA gets its leadership? Who does he think elected, and re-elected, LaPierre? The members – whom current events show to be among the most engaged, informed voters (especially on gun issues and the NRA itself) out there.
And the “Front for Gun Manufacturers” meme is one that the left bruits about without ever showing what the problem is. It’s as if gun manufacturers, staring at legislation that would in many cases actively destroy their market – between the various confiscations, limits and price hikes that the bills would impose on the law-abiding and the law-abiding alone, don’t have a right to take up common cause with the biggest nationwide organization that’s on their side?
If someone tried to ban NPR, you don’t think Volvo or Patagonia or Starbucks would pony up for the defense?
They’re the reason why in America it’s now easier for a civilian to buy lots of weapons designed to kill lots of people really fast than it is for you to remember your old MySpace password. {What the hell is he talking about? This is just barking lunacy}
But while they’re protecting profits, they’re also juicing up profits through fear-mongering mailings about how Obama’s coming to confiscate your weapons.
Here’s a little tip, Skeeter: The fact that you’re able to heavily arm yourself while publicly calling Obama a gun-grabbing tyrant is pretty much proof that he’s not.
And there’s your proof that liberal never have to learn how to debate conservatives. I’ve heard that last bit countless times, even here in Minnesota during the session; if a noxious provision – a useless and price-gouging background check, a magazine restriction with a confiscation provision – hasn’t been signed into law yet, it doesn’t exist, so shut up about it.
But only if it’s about guns. Not like abortion, or defunding NPR, or defending traditional marriage, the very whisper of which is cause to rally the liberal troops.
By opposing background checks at gun shows — checks supported by 90 percent of Americans — the NRA guarantees that guns can be legally bought through the gun-show loophole by felons or third parties who sell to felons. And then those legal guns just kind of disappear, get sold a few more times, and when the cops recover those weapons years later from a killing that wiped out a playground full of kids, the NRA can say, “Look, illegal guns! Background checks wouldn’t have stopped anything.” See, who needs the black market when you’ve ensured that bad guys can get guns freely on the open market? {In junior high writing class, the story would then end “And Then I Woke Up”. The scenario exists only in John Fugelsang’s imagination}
Background checks only infringe on your Second Amendment rights if you’re a felon, a terrorist or criminally insane. And if you’re all three, you probably already work as an NRA lobbyist. {Not just an ad-hominem, but a really stupid one} It’s all about the money.
Westboro ignores the teachings of Jesus and takes one line of Leviticus out of context to justify their homophobic evil.
The NRA ignores the Second Amendment’s “well regulated militia” part and takes one line out of context to justify their blood-soaked greed.
The NRA ignores nothing – “well-regulated” meant “can hit what it shoots at” in 1787, and it still does. But Fugelsang, like every liberal who skis this well-worn rhetorical slope, ignores the whole “right of the people” bit. In his blood-soaked ignorance.
OK. It’s time for the home stretch. The part where Fugelsang – who has become one of the lefty alt-media’s name-brand public intellectuals, their sine qua non of debate – closes his case with eloquent logic, a command of fact, and calm reason:
Homophobia is an insult to God, and opposing gun safety is an insult to living people. {That’s right! If you smear the label “gun safety” on a polished turd like Michael Paymar’s background check bill – which will never deter a single crime – you love death!}
These groups are both rackets and they’re both doomed. Because the WBC has made untold Americans realize, “Hey, I don’t want to be like that.” {The NRA’s membership has increased by over a quarter since Newtown}
And now, the deal closer – the all-important final sentence:
And Wayne LaPierre’s complete indifference to the consequences of gun proliferation makes more NRA members realize every day, “Dude, maybe I’m OK with my own penis size.”
All that buildup…for a dick joke?
(I could throw in a “Berg’s Seventh Law” reference here, but that’d be gratuitous)
Here’s the scary part: it’s no dumber than most of the left’s arguments.
But John Fugelang? Not so much.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails, channeling Will Rogers:
The woman who was in charge of the unit that delayed conservative groups their tax exempt status has been promoted.
She’s now in charge of Obamacare, where she has the power to delay conservatives health insurance reimbursement for medical treatments.
Previously, she could annoy you; now, she can kill you. That’s what Progressive Government means – it gets progressively worse!
joe doakes
We’ve got a Stage III government.
Congrats, same sex marriage supporters. After five months of noodling non-stop with social policy – gun grabs, forcing daycares into the union racket and so on – Governor Dayton took a few minutes from his grueling day of sitting in his office to come out and sign same-sex marriage into law.
Well, there you go!
Now, when all that wedding excitement wears off, take a moment to think about a few things if you would:
I know – same sex marriage was a big thing for you. But just as weddings and honeymoons give way to the push and pull of actual married life, the euphoria you feel over getting a legislative milestone passed (I had my moment on my issue ten years ago, so I know how you feel) eventually passes, and you get to dwell on other things.
Like what an unholy has the DFL is making of this state’s economy. The one we all live in, gay or straight.
The GOP minority in the Senate managed to filibuster the daycare union jamdown last night – as in “up until 7AM”.
It wasn’t a “filibuster”, per se – the GOP added over 80 amendments to the jamdown, and debated them vigorously. As of sixish AM, they’d gotten through a couple dozen, with dozens to go, and Tom Bakk tabled the bill. There are other things to get done.
Like maybe a budget.
The jamdown may come back. But so will the amendments.
Cross your fingers, and stay tuned. The good guys may pull this one off.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
The rush for immigration reform never made any sense to me and the motive ascribed to proponents (want to import Mexicans who will vote Democrat) is silly because they’re already doing that.
If we wanted immigration amnesty, a simple bill would work: “Anybody present within the borders of the continental United States on July 1, 2013, shall automatically be a citizen with all rights and privileges thereof.” Except, as Glenn Reynolds constantly points out, that solution would provide insufficient opportunities for graft so no politician would think of it.
The reason we need immigration reform is we need is an excuse to dole out more money to our Leftistbuddies who will run the immigrant integration centers to help newly-legal immigrants get their full share of welfare (and vote Democrat).
Ahhhh, now it makes sense.
Joe Doakes
Don’t just follow the money; listen for the sound of backs being scratched.
If you’ve read this blog for any time at all – and curbed your stereotypes while doing it, naturally – you’ll know two things about me:
I’ve had two problems with Gay Marriage as it’s currently put forth in the Legislature.
Gender Counts: the current gay marriage bill is part of a society-wide effort, via media pressure and junk science, to undercut the notion that children need male and female role models as they grow up.
We’ll come back to that one later. Today’s subject is…
It Will Violate The Civil Rights Of Dissidents: This is the subject of Walter Hudson’s piece over at Fightin’ Words (which is, when Walter updates it, one of the best liberty-oriented blogs. Anywhere. Period) entitled “Final Plea to the Senate: Please Show Restraint on Marriage“, a call to the Minnesota Senate to take a break from the Rush to Fabulous and think things over a bit.
Here’s the money quote (with emphasis added):
I do not advocate for the status quo. Homosexuals share the same moral right to free association that all of us have. They ought to be able to enter into contracts which create domestic partnerships and convey a mutually agreed upon legal relationship. The religious conviction of neighbors should not prevent that.
However, the bill you will vote upon Monday does not fulfill that vision of actual equality under the law. Instead, in combination with existing anti-discrimination statutes, it creates a legal mechanism for encroaching upon the rights of others. University of St. Thomas constitutional law professor Teresa Collett concisely sums up the problem in her Pioneer Press op-ed:
“Redefining marriage creates new liability under the anti-discrimination laws for “marital discrimination” where none exists now, and will expand claims of discrimination based on sexual orientation. The exemption for religious organizations is so narrow that most charitable activities engaged in by people of faith will not be covered.”
The bill’s proponents chant “there’s a religious exemption!”, ignoring what Walter points out in his piece, and what I’ve pointed out in the past; the “exemption” would cover, essentially, things that happen physically inside a church building. Sort of.
Charities? Private businesses? Free association? Not so much.
And in a society that is chock full of unemployed lawyers and advocacy groups looking for the next big grant-attracting splash to make?
Chanting “The First Amendment protects religious expression!” is about like saying “the Second Amendment protects your right to keep and bear arms!” or “the Fourth Amendment protects you from unreasonable searches and seizures!” or “The Tenth Amendment reserves unenumerated rights to the States and People!”. All are true – provided you take them seriously enough to beat back ill-advised legal attacks on them.
Hudson:
Indeed, this is the explicit goal of the political movement advancing the bill. In a video from 2012 which only recently went viral, gay activist Masha Gessen proudly declared to raucous applause that the long-term goal of the gay marriage movement is the elimination of marriage as such and a redefinition of the family.
Here’s the video Walter mentioned:
If this were about civil rights, gay marriage advocates would have been fine with civil unions.
But it’s not, and never was, and ten years from now certainly won’t be – assuming you’re not an enthusiastic-enough supporter.
This story caught my eye this morning; Mark Zdechlik (Mitch silently double-checks the spelling) at MPR reported the Senator Hann’s likely upcoming vote on Gay Marriage is at odds with…
…his district’s vote on the Marriage Amendment:
Last fall, fewer than 4 in 10 voters in Hann’s Eden Prairie district cast ballots to define marriage in the state Constitution.
Still, Hann intends to vote against the bill.
“I have always supported the law that we have on the books today which defines marriage to be between one man and one woman,” he said.
So I’m wondering; how often does Minnesota Public Radio News plan on “exposing inconsistencies” in politicians’ votes?
Because I’d be interesting in hearing about the dilemma facing the DFL Senators – Stumpf, Skoe, Saxhaug, Tomassoni, and Majority Leader Bakk himself – who are likely to vote party line whose districts voted by 2:1 or better for the Marriage Amendment.
And on what votes can we expect this level of media scrutiny? For example, I’m going to hazard a guess that a majority – maybe a supermajority – of Rep. Savick’s district opposed Michael Paymar’s gun grab bills. How will the voter know if the media doesn’t tell them?
Or is it only certain issues? Or perhaps only a certain party whose votes will be scrutinized like this?
Or perhaps only those of conservatives who are seen as likely challengers to Mark Dayton?
Just curious.
(CORRECTION: Senator Bakk’s district opposed the Amendment. I checked the wrong district…)
Since it’s now politically incorrect to recognize gender in child-rearing, I’ll let you all sort it out.
So after yesterday’s passage in the House, it looks like gay marriage is a shoo-in. The Senate will pass it like diarrhea through a bum’s lower GI tract, and Governor Messinger will sign it, possibly by Tuesday.
I’ve said it a million times; gay marriage means different things to me. As a small-l libertarian, I don’t know that there’s not a case for allowing two consenting adults to sign a contract. As a Christian, I think same-sex marriage is like playing tennis without rackets; it sort of misses the point of what marriage is, at least as I understand it. As a member of a political minority in a place where the majority is deeply authoritarian, I think it’s just a matter of time before the state’s bureaucracy and an aggressive and recession-ravaged plaintiff’s bar starts suing people – photographers, bakers, tailors – who won’t work with gay couples, and eventually churches that demur. As a divorced guy, I think “what the f**k are you gays thinking? Gays have more disposable income per capita than breeders; a few years of exposure to the legal industry should bring you back down to earth”.
But this post isn’t about bad news. This post is about finding the bright side of gay marriage in Minnesota.
To wit: the Top Ten Benefits of Same Sex Marriage’s eventual enactment:
Bonanza!: My friends in the Family Law business are going to be able to upgrade their vacation plans! Gays currently earn more than breeders, per capita; that’ll change now.
Won’t Bakk Down!:The DFL loses a wedge issue; since gays can now marry, the DFL is going to have to find another small, aggrieved, but wealthy and influential minority with an injustice to flog. They don’t grow on trees.
The Honeymoon Is Over, And Cost A Metric Poo-ton!: Gays can stop futzing over “Marriage” and start wondering where the hell all their tax money is going. Now that their value as a wedge is nearly exhausted (“bullying” is going to play out pretty quick, here), it’ll be time for Gay Minnesota to figure out its political future.
The Battle Is Over, And We’re In A Metric Poo-Ton Of Doo-Doo!: Republicans can stop futzing with marriage and start wondering where in the all their tax money and their political future is.
Walk On The Wild Side!: Now, committed middle-class Christians can start learning civil disobedience, ignoring state marriage licensing.
Let’s Play Football!: Chris Kluwe can get so focused on his punting now.
Back Of The Bus!: The African-American community – which was even less favorably disposed to gay marriage than the mainstream white evangelical community – now has further evidence that the DFL wants them to shut up and sit at the back of the bus until they’re called on – on election day.
Honesty Can Prevail!: The DFL can stop pretending to care about gays. The Teamsters and SEIU can go back to beating them up like back in the day.
A Learning Opportunity!: The interesting thing about this debate was that the best debating on the behalf of gay marriage was done by libertarian conservatives, who made the libertarian and, to a degree, conservative case that there’s no reason to keep consenting adults out a contractual system that the other 98% of the the population gets. The left’s argument – especially on the “Lefty Street”, the thousands of “progressive” bobbleheads who turned out to chant and eventually vote – ran more along the lines of “you are teh bigot!”. So now that they’ve won, perhaps the left can put some of that extra energy into teaching their young adherents the rudiments of logic. Unless, of course, having masses of stupid, smug, ignorant, sloganeering, chanting-bot followers is exactly what they want.
Hmmm.
So congrats, gays!
CORRECTION: House, not Senate. You seen one group of extreme liberal dogmatists, you’ve seen ’em all.
Last week reported that entrepreneurial activity in Minnesota was the worst in the entire US.
But the whole country is reeling.
Usually the “recovery” from a recession is a great time to start a business; in the “creative destruction” cycle, it’s the time when creativity happens; as money starts to flow again, people start businesses.
Glenn Reynolds:
So what’s to blame for this change? A lot of things, probably. One reason, I suspect, for a job market that looks more like Europe is a regulatory and legal environment that looks more like Europe’s. High regulatory loads — the product of ObamaCare and numerous other laws — systematically harm small businesses, which can’t afford the personnel needed for compliance, to the benefit of large corporations, which can.
Likewise, higher taxes reduce the rewards for success, making people less likely to invest their money (or time) into new businesses. And local regulatory bodies, too, make starting new businesses harder.
But I wonder if the biggest problem isn’t cultural. Since 2008, this country hasn’t celebrated achievement or entrepreneurialism. Instead, we’ve heard talk about the evils of the “1%” ” about the rapaciousness of capitalism, and the importance of spreading the wealth around. We’ve even heard that work in the public sector is somehow nobler than work in the private sector.
Countries where those attitudes prevail tend not to produce as much entrepreneurialism, so it’s perhaps no surprise that as those attitudes have gained ascendance among America’s political class and media elite, we’ve seen less entrepreneurialism here.
The process of changing this nation from a culture of building and innovating into one of consuming and demanding has taken decades. But Obama seems to be close to closing the circle, creating the first nation to go from benign tyranny to freedom and all the way back.
I’ve long said that the upside to any change in the law recognizing “gay marriage” would be that finally, once and for all, we could dispense with the notion of the Magic Gay Couple; more loving, more solid, more just-plain-worthy than all of us dirty imperfect Breeders.
Cable TV host David Tutera and his, er, husband are well on the way toward resolving this cultural problem:
On Tuesday, People magazine reportedTutera is divorcing Ryan Jurica. They married in Vermont in 2003 and had a domestic partnership in California. The two had been together for 10 years and are expecting twins via a surrogate in July.
Tutera filed the divorce papers in Los Angeles Superior Court on April 19, citing “irreconcilable differences,” according to People. He has been separated from Jurica since Jan. 1 and is seeking full custody of the children. Tutera does not want to pay spousal support and requests Jurica take responsibility for the legal fees.
The breakup saga took a wild turn Wednesday when TMZ reported Jurica filed his own papers in Connecticut. He reportedly claims the TV host has a sex addiction and visits prostitutes.
As John Edwards used to say, there are two Americas.
On the subject of freedom versus safety, there certainly are. And one of the Americas – the one that would give up liberty to get safety – is growing, and the other, the ones that are pretty hard-core about liberty? That one’s shrinking.
Wendy Kaminer, writing a few weeks back in that noted conservative tool, The Atlantic, noted that while in any group – especially a group of 660,000 like Boston – there will be heroes and cowards and lots in the middle, but when the heat is on, people will retreat to the comforting arms of Mother Government.
No matter what we say:
David Ortiz brags that “nobody is going to dictate our freedom,” and I assume he hasn’t heard of the Patriot Act or warrantless wiretaps, much less the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. Dennis Lehane can be excused for declaring that “they messed with the wrong city,” but don’t take seriously his confidence that not much will change: “Trust me,” he adds implausibly, “we won’t be giving up any civil liberties to keep ourselves safe because of this.”
Of course we will. We’ve been surrendering liberty in the hope of keeping ourselves safe for the past decade. The marathon bombings will hasten our surrender of freedom from the watchful eye of law enforcement. The Boston Globe is already clamoring for additional surveillance cameras, which are sure to be installed to the applause of a great many Bostonians. You can rationalize increased surveillance as a necessary or reasonable intrusion on liberty, but you can’t deny its intrusiveness, or inevitable abuses.
Every disaster – at least the man-made ones – lead to calls for less liberty and more government control. Sandy Hook – a disaster that could have been prevented or controlled by precisely one government intervention, an armed cop (or teacher – or, for that matter, parent) led to the biggest surge in demand (real and astroturf) for paring back the Second Amendment in 25 years.
Kaminer notes the disconnect between Americans’ and their leaders’ words and their actions:
You shouldn’t deny the fear that drives the diminution of freedom. You’ll only end up looking foolish. “A bomb can’t beat us,” President Obama assured Bostonians three days after the attack. “We don’t hunker down … we don’t cower in fear.” Yes we do. Less than 24 hours after Obama left town, hundreds of thousands of us were “sheltering in place.”
Of course, the very act of living with a civil government involves giving up some freedom; getting a drivers license, paying taxes, following procedure and voting and negotiating to reach consensus with your idiot neighbors to change the rules we all go by, having a police force; all of them involve surrendering some form of liberty. And most of us, even the most libertarian, go along with some of it, since they’re broadly considered acceptable trade-offs.
But a new CNN/Time/ORC poll shows that Americans – at least, the Americans who take polls – are willing to trade more and more:
A new poll shows a willingness by 4 out of 10 Americans to give up some civil liberties to figåht terrorism. But they don’t want the government eavesdropping on their cell phone calls or emails.
The CNN/Time/ORC International Poll shows that concerns about terrorism have increased since the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings. Forty percent say they are worried someone in their family might become a terrorism victim. That number is up 6 percentage points from a CNN poll conducted on the 10th anniversay of 9/11.
When it comes to security versus personal freedoms, 81 percent favor expanding use of cameras on streets and in public places. That’s up 20 points since 2001. Seventy-nine percent favor using facial-recognition technology to search for suspected terrorists at public events.
But only 30 percent want the government to increase monitoring of cell phone and email conversations to prevent terrorist acts. Slightly more than half, 55 percent, favor law enforcement monitoring of online chat rooms and other forums.
But commerce need not worry:
Americans are still mostly refusing to respond to terrorism by changing their routines. Seventy percent said they would not be any less likely to attend large public events in order to reduce their chances of being a victim of a terrorist attack.
This is pretty dire stuff – or, if you’re a DFLer, music to your ears.
It’s easy to take the hard-Libertarian tack; “he who trades liberty for security ends up with neither”. And it’s true; the search for the bombers in Boston itself showed this, metaphorically speaking. The people of Boston “voluntarily” hunkered down, “voluntarily” let their houses be searched (or so the government and media lines went) – and waited nearly a day at Mother Government’s mercy with no result, before the younger Tsarnaev was found by a civilian.
But if you’re concerned about the future of liberty in this country, the behavior of government isn’t your biggest concern – although that is truly worrisome, with the government confiscating guns, food and supplies after Hurricane Katrina, making up watch lists of average Americans involved in mundane non-left causes, police departments acting officially in ways that used to be considered “rogue” (all the while militarizing themselves to an extent that’d boggle the minds of cops 30 years ago), its behavior after Sandy, and now the Boston Dragnet.
No, your biggest concern is your fellow Americans.
Partly it’s things like the polls above; so many well-meaning Americans are willing to trade liberty for (short-term) security.
More so? It’s the way that our larger culture is stigmatizing the very concern for liberty.
More on that later.
Wonder why Obama’s gun grab legislation tanked – and, beyond that, why Obama quietly tried to appropriate the “guards in schools” idea for himself?
Because the American public – the part west of the Hudson and east of the Sierra Madre, anyway – is closer to the NRA than they are to Obama:
After the NRA school-guard strategy was roundly denounced as outright crazy by the pundits, — the editors of theNew York Times called it “delusional, almost deranged” — President Obama came out with … aproposal for armed guards in schools. It is no small feat for an out-of-touch, on-the-ropes organization to get the president to basically endorse its signature policy proposal at a time of national debate.
But, then again, it turned out that 55% of Americans supported the NRA proposal. Turns out, it was the people calling it crazy — like the editors of the New York Times— who were out of the mainstream.
Meanwhile, pundits denounced gun-rights activists who said that the right to bear arms is in part a protection against government tyranny. Only a crazed militia type could possibly believe that, right? Except that — go figure — 65% of Americans see gun rights as a protection against tyranny. And only 17% say they disagree. Once again, it’s the critics who appear to be out of the mainstream.
We Second Amendment Human Rights activists have always known this, of course.
We just have to keep coming back and proving it every few years.
And I suspect we always will.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
In 1996, the Minnesota Supreme Court adopted the requirement that every lawyer licensed in Minnesota periodically attend Continuing Legal Education classes on Elimination of Bias. It’s been 15 years. Has any progress been made? What measurement is used to determine the extent to which bias has been eliminated from the legal profession? Donald Rumsfeld, pondering the problem of Middle East terrorists, famously asked: “Are we killing them faster than we’re creating them?” What metric is the Supreme Court using to measure reduction in bias in the legal profession?
In other words, how will we know when we’ve won? And if, as I strongly suspect, the answer is “it never will be possible to eliminate bias in the legal profession,” then aren’t we wasting a lot of time and money chasing unicorn dreams? The practice of law is tough enough these days, and the cost of days off to sit in class plus the fees for the classes themselves are passed along to the customers along with rent, taxes and all other overhead. And if it turns out the insulting, humiliating and degrading classes are making lawyers MORE biased rather than less . . . .
Joe Doakes
Como Park
Given the record of most government programs – a war on poverty that made us poorer, urban renewal that made cities crappier, education spending hikes that are followed by stupider students – it doesn’t seem unreasonable.
Public opinion is driven by mass caprice. When the subject is “American Idol”, that’s fairly harmless (and where the hell is Ruben Studdard?).
When the subject is our civil liberties – especially the ones that are less popular with the coastal media “elites” that would set the popular tone? Less so.
P.J. O’Rourke, many of you know, is a conservative humorist and, as such, one of the great public intellectuals of the past forty years. In his classic A Parliament of Whores – which is rapidly pushing 25 years old and in a just world would be required reading in every high school civics class – O’Rourke summed up the capriciousness of democracy, defending the contrarian idea that our democracy is, in fact, protected by the most counterintuitively autocratic institution of them all, the Supreme Court.
The SCOTUS – and the Constitution that the SCOTUS is supposed to protect – is that way because it’s intended to be immune from the vagaries of public opinion.
Here’s the money quote from Parliament (with emphasis added):
“In the final D-day invasion results, Normandy was a decisive winner, with 54% of the votes, while 43% of American soldiers thought we should re-invade North Africa and only 4% favored a massive land, sea and air attack on the folks back home.” There wouldn’t even be any democracy to defend if our every national whim were put into law. We’d sacrifice the whole Constitution for those lost kids on milk cartons one week, and the next week we’d toss the Rights of Man out the window to help victims of date rape.
After every crisis large and small – drug abuse, naughty words in music lyrics, gay marriage, food poisoning, people opposing gay marriage, mass murder – there are, inevitably, calls to reconsider whether freedom is really all that much more important than public safety.
And always, always, there’s someone out there willing to profit politically from those calls.
Especially when there are children involved. Propose cutting welfare? “Children will starve!”. Propose paring back teachers union benefits or pensions? “Kids will turn stupid. Invade Iraz? The anti-war movement ten years ago made a grab for “absolute moral authority” by parading Cindy Sheehan in front of the cameras, after she lost her child (an adult who’d volunteered for the Army) in Iraq. And it worked – until Sheehan went batspittle crazy and started making Mike Malloy look pretty well-balanced.
Anyway – this impulse is never as powerful as after an ugly mass shooting – and Sandy Hook, in which a deranged “adult” targeted children because they were children, was the ugliest since the Stockton Massacre in 1988.
There’s no question about it; losing a child is the most awful thing a parent can experience. It strikes a chord in just about every parent, one way or the other. It’s impossible for a parent not to feel something way beyond sympathy. Some respond “I have to protect my children”.
Others respond “someone’s gotta protect my children”.
A group of the Newtown/Sandy Hook parents were flown to Washington last week, their every motion from leaving their homes to getting on Air Force One to arriving at the White House to listening to President Obama’s angry rant over the failure of his bill recorded in minute detail. (It’s worth noting that it was only the right Sandy Hook parents were invited – and that for some reason no parents of black kids murdered in Chicago showed up)
They believed, I’m sure, very sincerely that the Senate’s bill – which would not have impeded their kids’ murderer in the least – was the right response to their childrens’ deaths.
But the prominence they got in the media – from a President who was desperate to pass his bill in the Senate, to get his vote in the House to try to use guns as leverage in swing districts in 2014, and to draw attention away from debt, deficit, spending, taxes, an ongoing war and the gathering disaster that is Obamacare? That was pure, distilled cynicism.
Twin Cities talk show host Bob Davis – morning guy at AM1130, which is a cheap copy of AM1280, and a guy who gave me my first shot at trying talk radio again, ten years ago last January when I filled in for him for an evening on his old KSTP-AM night-side show – has taken a ton of flak for his remarks about the exploitation of the Sandy Hook parents and their grief (and especially other parents’ fear):
I have something I want to say to the victims of Newtown or any other shooting, I don’t care if it’s here in Minneapolis or anyplace else: Just because a bad thing happened to you doesn’t mean that you get to put a king in charge of my life. I’m sorry that you suffered a tragedy, but you know what? Deal with it, and don’t force me to lose my liberty, which is a greater tragedy than your loss.
I’m sick and tired of seeing these victims trotted out, given rides on Air Force One, hauled into the Senate well, and everyone is … terrified of these victims. I would stand in front of them and tell them, ‘Go to hell.’
The comment has gotten the usual manufactured outrage by the national leftymedia, and the inevitable chest-thumping “come here and say that!“.
The responses – on both sides, really – miss two key points:
The parents? Yep, they’re awash in grief. They’re trying to bring some meaning to a really, really horrible loss. I sympathize with them.
Every parent worthy of the title does.
And the people who booked them on Air Force One, and who made sure they got prominent placement (some might say “overkill”) in the media, and who made sure they were staring down from the gallery at the Senators as they voted on the President’s bill, which would have been meaningless in fighting crime, would have made law-abiding gun owners more vulnerable to confiscation, and which was never intended to do anything but increase the Democrat party’s fortunes in 2014?
Them?
They can go to hell, all right.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Article in Slate, republished in today’s Star Tribune on-line:
“So let’s drop the pretense. Most politicians standing in the way of background checks for firearms don’t really believe in freedom or limited government. They simply care more about controlling immigration than they do about controlling guns.”
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Joe Doakes
Como Park
Lawmakers being more interested in curbing law-breaking than attacking the law-abiding?
There oughtta be a law.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails in re my piece yesterday in which Sally Jo Sorenson snarked that there was no way, no how, never ever, that a Gay Marriage bill would oppress people who still exercised belief in traditional marriage:
The proposed statute says there will be no problem, so that ends it, right? Not so fast. The Courts are a separate but equal branch of government. They can snip out bits of the statute, leaving the rest operational, ignoring what the Legislature promised.
For example:
145.412 CRIMINAL ACTS.
Subd. 2.Unconsciousness; lifesaving.
It shall be unlawful to perform an abortion upon a woman who is unconscious except if the woman has been rendered unconscious for the purpose of having an abortion or if the abortion is necessary to save the life of the woman.
[See Note.]
Subd. 3.Viability.
It shall be unlawful to perform an abortion when the fetus is potentially viable unless:
(1) the abortion is performed in a hospital;
(2) the attending physician certifies in writing that in the physician’s best medical judgment the abortion is necessary to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman; and
(3) to the extent consistent with sound medical practice the abortion is performed under circumstances which will reasonably assure the live birth and survival of the fetus.
[See Note.]
NOTE: Subdivisions 2 and 3, clauses (2) and (3), were found unconstitutional in Hodgson v. Lawson, 542 F.2d 1350 (8th Cir. 1976).
The Legislature passed a law but the Court snipped out parts, leaving the rest.
Just as the Court could decide the mother’s right to be free from government interference in her reproductive freedom outweighed the unborn child’s right to life, the
Court could decide the gay couple’s right to equal protection of the laws outweighs the minister’s right to practice his own religion.
The Court may decide the portion of the proposed same-sex marriage statute that protects a minister’s right to refuse to marry gay people is really an attempt to authorize discrimination against gays, which is an unconstitutional violation of the gay couple’s right to equal protection of the laws. The insulating portion of the statute could be struck down by the Court, leaving gay marriage intact and the minister on the hook for violating the Human Rights Act. And with Liberal Governor Dayton appointing Liberal David Lillehaug to the Supreme Court, Senator Osmek is right to be concerned.
The point is this; thinking the way a law is written when it’s in the legislature protects one, in and of itself, is simply delusional.
Although it does provide good snarking material.
Not that the two are mutually exclusive.
Sally Jo Sorenson of Bluestem Prairie is – I’ll say it again – one of the tiny list of Minnesota leftybloggers who don’t deserve some sort of police surveillance.
But that doesn’t mean she knows how to tell a complete story – or do much beyond apes John Stewart lite snark at the C-squad level.
About a week back, she took a dig at Senator Dave Osmek and his take on the “Marriage Equality” bill while speaking to a class in Glencoe, in a post titled “Among school children: Sen. David Osmek misrepresents marriage bill in Glencoe class visit”. Osmek said he opposed Same Sex Marriage on First Amendment grounds.
Sorenson (with a little emphasis added by me):
He must have missed this part of the senate bill. It’s right at the top:
363A.26 EXEMPTION BASED ON RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION. Nothing in this chapter prohibits any religious association, religious corporation, or religious society that is not organized for private profit, or any institution organized for educational purposes that is operated, supervised, or controlled by a religious association, religious corporation, or religious society that is not organized for private profit, from:
(1) limiting admission to or giving preference to persons of the same religion or denomination; or
(2) in matters relating to sexual orientation, taking any action with respect to education, employment, housing and real property, or use of facilities. This clause shall not apply to secular business activities engaged in by the religious association, religious corporation, or religious society, the conduct of which is unrelated to the religious and educational purposes for which it is organized.; or
(3) taking any action with respect to the provision of goods, services, facilities, or accommodations directly related to the solemnization or celebration of a marriage that is in violation of its religious beliefs.
And then this bit here, with more emphasis added:
Or maybe this language in the bill:
Subd. 2. Refusal to solemnize; protection of religious doctrine. Each religious organization, association, or society has exclusive control over its own theological doctrine, policy, teachings, and beliefs regarding who may marry within that faith. A licensed or ordained member of the clergy or other person authorized by section 517.04 to solemnize a marriage is not subject to any fine, penalty, or civil liability for failing or refusing to solemnize a marriage for any reason.
I mean, that’s mighty big of the legislature, not unilaterally abrogating the First Amendment and all.
And if you’re not a church, a religious educational non-profit or, I dunno, a supplier of rabbinical wine or communion wafers?
If you’re, say, a baker? A photographer?
Of course, Osmek did actually say…
“I’m afraid it will eventually inflict on religious institutions,” said Osmek. “The pilgrims came here for religious freedom, and we need to respect that.”
But let’s get past the idea that laws, or even the Constitution, actually protect law-abiding people acting in their own conscience, or that the First Amendment actually protects my right to hold government to ccount, or free association, or the right to decide how my children are raised, or the Second Amendment by itself protects my protect my family and property as I, a law-abiding tax-paying citizen, see fit, or that the the Fourth really guards from unreasonable searches and seizures, or the Fifth absolutely protects due process and the right to face my accuser in court, or the Tenth really enumerates powers. It takes the Constitution and rigorous vigilance.
And it’s not that the left doesn’t see this, although the primary rights for which the left is universally, rigorously vigilant are the “rights” to expel un-gestated fetuses and make dung paintings of the Virgin Mary.
Osmek said that domestic partners are already given benefits by many businesses and corporations, and feels it best left to the private sector to create its own definition of domestic partnerships. . . .
So businesses get to define two committed people’s relationship? Would any married couple accept that?
It depends what marriage is, to you – doesn’t it?
If marriage is a religious thing to you, then you don’t care what government says about it.
If it’s about getting the same rights and benefits that guy/gal couples get, then why would anyone care? Put another way – “so government gets to define two committed peoples’ relationship? Why would any couple accept that?”
If it’s about showing society who’s boss?
LA Police say they’ll no longer immediately release addresses of people who’ve been “SWATted” – victimized by prank false alarms designed to bring out a maximum, intrusive police response:
The Los Angeles Police Department said Thursday that they will no longer offer immediate information to the media on bogus 911 calls that target celebrity homes.
“We think that whoever is doing this is motivated by watching the police on TV and watching the helicopters come in, and we don’t want to allow that opportunity,” said Cmdr. Andrew Smith.
This is a good thing; it removes a motivation for these potentially dangerous pranks, and it might even potentially free up one of their overstretched supply of scarce reporters to cover the Gosnell trial!
Er, wait – no. They’ll be busy filing paperwork to find out who’s been SWATted:
Smith said the department will also stop broadcasting the “swatting” calls so news organizations can’t hear the location of the star’s home. The media will now have to file a public records request, which can take 10 days.
They know what matters, after all.
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