Current Affairs – Page 12 – Maverick Philosopher

What the Gun Debate is Fundamentally About

At bottom, the gun debate boils down to a conflict of visions, to borrow a phrase from Thomas Sowell. This is well-explained by Mchael Medved in The Liberal God Delusion. Excerpt:

Consider the current dispute over the right response to gun violence. At its core, this argument comes down to a visceral disagreement between relying on self-defense or on government protection. Gun-rights enthusiasts insist that the best security for law-abiding citizens comes from placing formidable firearms into their hands; gun-control advocates believe we can protect the public far more effectively by taking guns away from as many Americans as possible. In other words, conservatives wantto address the threat of gun violence by giving individuals more power while liberals seek to improve the situation by concentrating more power in the hands of the government. The right preaches self-reliance while the left places its trust in the higher power of government.

The same dynamic characterizes most of today’s foreign-policy and defense debates. Right-wingers passionately proclaim the ideal of “peace through strength,” arguing that a powerful, self-confident America with dominant military resources remains the only guarantee of national security. Progressives, on the other hand, dream of multilateral consensus, comprehensive treaties, disarmament, grand peace deals, and vastly enhanced authority for the United Nations. Once again, liberals place a touching and naive faith in the ideal of a higher power—potential world government—while conservatives insist that the United States, like any nation, must ultimately rely only on itself.

For the liberal, the weapon, not the wielder, is the cynosure of his moral disapprobation, and it doesn't matter whether the weapon is a semi-automatic pistol or a nuclear device. It is baaaaaad, as such and in itself, and so must be banned. For the conservative, the focus is on the wielder, not the weapon, for only the wielder is a moral agent. If Israel has nukes, that is not a problem. But it is a big problem if a rogue state such as Iran does. Iran does, but Israel does not, call for the destruction of other states.

The difference between my shotgun and Stanley 'Tookie' William's shotgun resides not in the shotgun but in the fact that he is or (thankfully) was a moral cretin whereas your humble correspondent, despite his manifold minor faults, does not deserve such an appellation.

It's the wielder, not the weapon, that counts. Wise up, liberals.

The Problem: Gun Culture or Liberal Culture?

Without wanting to deny that there is a 'gun culture' in the USA, especially in the red states, I would insist that the real problem is our liberal culture. Here are four characteristics of liberal culture that contribute to violence of all kinds, including gun violence.

1. Liberals tend to have a casual attitude toward crime.

This is well-documented by Theodore Dalrymple. Here is a list of his articles. No Contrition, No Penalty is a short read. See also my Crime and Punishment category.

It is interesting to note that Connecticut, the state in which the Newtown massacre occurred, has recently repealed the death penalty, and this after the unspeakably brutal Hayes-Komisarjevsky home invasion in the same state.

One of the strongest voices against repealing the death penalty has been Dr. William Petit Jr., the lone survivor of a 2007 Cheshire home invasion that resulted in the murders of his wife and two daughters.

The wife was raped and strangled, one of the daughters was molested and both girls were left tied to their beds as the house was set on fire.

The two men convicted of the crime, Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes, are currently on death row.

Anyone who cannot appreciate that a crime like this deserves the death penalty is morally obtuse. But not only are liberals morally obtuse, they are contemptibly stupid in failing to understand that one of the main reasons people buy guns is to protect themselves from the criminal element, the criminal element that liberals coddle. If liberals were serious about wanting to reduce the numbers of guns in civilian hands, they would insist on swift and sure punishment in accordance with the self-evident moral principle, "The punishment must fit the crime," which is of course not to be confused with lex talionis, "an eye for an eye." Many guns are purchased not for hunting or sport shooting but for protection against criminals. Keeping and bearing arms carries with it a grave responsibility and many if not most gun owners would rather not be so burdened. Gun ownership among women is on the upswing, and it is a safe bet that they don't want guns to shoot Bambi.

2. Liberals tend to undermine morality with their opposition to religion.

Many of us internalized the ethical norms that guide our lives via our childhood religious training. We were taught the Ten Commandments, for example. We were not just taught about them, we were taught them. We learned them by heart, and we took them to heart. This early training, far from being the child abuse that A. C. Grayling and other militant atheists think it is, had a very positive effect on us in forming our consciences and making us the basically decent human beings we are. I am not saying that moral formation is possible only within a religion; I am saying that some religions do an excellent job of transmitting and inculcating life-guiding and life-enhancing ethical standards, that moral formation outside of a religion is unlikely for the average person, and that it is nearly impossible if children are simply handed over to the pernicious influences of secular society as these influences are transmitted through television, Internet, video games, and other media. Anyone with moral sense can see that the mass media have become an open sewer in which every manner of cultural polluter is not only tolerated but promoted. Those of use who were properly educated way back when can dip into this cesspool without too much moral damage. But to deliver our children over to it is the real child abuse, pace the benighted Professor Grayling.

The shysters of the ACLU, to take one particularly egregious bunch of destructive leftists, seek to remove every vestige of our Judeo-Christian ethical traditiion from the public square. I can't begin to catalog all of their antics. But recently there was the Mojave cross incident. It is absurd that there has been any fight at all over it. The ACLU, whose radical lawyers brought the original law suit, deserve contempt and resolute opposition. Of course, I wholeheartedly endorse the initial clause of the First Amendment, to wit, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . ." But it is hate-America leftist extremism on stilts to think that the presence of that very old memorial cross on a hill in the middle of nowhere does anything to establish Christianity as the state religion. I consider anyone who believes that to be intellectually obtuse and morally repellent. One has to be highly unbalanced in his thinking to torture such extremist nonsense out of the First Amendment, while missing the plain sense of the Second Amendment, one that even SCOTUS eventually got right, namely, the the right to keep and bear arms is an individual, not a collective, right.

And then there was the business of the tiny cross on the city seal of Los Angeles, a symbol that the ACLU agitated to have removed. Commentary here. I could continue with the examples, and you hope I won't.

3. Liberals tend to have low standards, glorify the worthless, and fail to present exemplary human types.

Our contemporary media dreckmeisters apparently think that the purpose of art is to degrade sensibility, impede critical thinking, glorify scumbags, and rub our noses ever deeper into sex and violence. It seems obvious that the liberal fetishization of freedom of expression without constraint or sense of responsibility is part of the problem. But I can't let a certain sort of libertarian or economic conservative off the hook. Their lust for profit is also involved.

What is is that characterizes contemporary media dreck? Among other things, the incessant presentation of defective human beings as if there are more of them than there are, and as if there is nothing at all wrong with their way of life. Deviant behavior is presented as if it is mainstream and acceptable, if not desirable. And then lame justifications are provided for the presentation: 'this is what life is like now; we are simply telling it like it is.' It doesn't occur to the dreckmeisters that art might have an ennobling function.

The tendency of liberals and leftists is to think that any presentation of choice-worthy goals or admirable
styles of life could only be hypocritical preaching. And to libs and lefties, nothing is worse than hypocrisy. Indeed, a good indicator of whether someone belongs to this class of the terminally benighted is whether the person obsesses over hypocrisy and thinks it the very worst thing in the world. See my category Hypocrisy for elaboration of this theme.

4. Liberals tend to deny or downplay free will, individual responsibility, and the reality of evil.

This is connected with point 2 above, leftist hostility to religion. Key to our Judeo-Christian tradition is the belief that man is made in the image and likeness of God. This image is that mysterious power in us called free will. The secular extremist assault on religion is at the same time an assault on this mysterious power, through which evil comes into the world.

This is a large topic. Suffice it to say for now that one clear indication of this denial is the bizarre liberal displacement of responsibility for crime onto inaminate objects, guns, as if the weapon, not the wielder, is the source of the evil for which the weapon can be only the instrument.

Why Would Anyone Need a Semi-Automatic Rifle?

A sweet old lady in the pool the other morning asked me this question. Actually, she asked a much stupider question,"Why would anyone need an assault weapon?' I smiled indulgently and refused to engage her. I knew she wasn't baiting me, and I like her, and 'tis the season to be jolly, and so in the interests of comity I let it slide, realizing that no good would come of giving her the dialectical thrashing she so richly deserved.

First a point of history and a bit of terminology.

Fully automatic rifles, ‘machine guns,’ are heavily regulated. The National Firearms Act of 1934 " requires that before a private citizen may take possession of a fully-automatic firearm he must pay a $200 tax to the Internal Revenue Service and be approved by the Treasury Department to own the firearm, which is registered to the owner with the federal government." (reference) A semi-automatic pistol, rifle, or shotgun fires exactly one round with each pull of the trigger until the magazine is exhausted, unlike a fully automatic which does not require a separate trigger pull for each round fired. The distinction is important and is blurred by use of the emotive phrase 'assault weapon.'

Why would anybody need a semi-automatic rifle such as an AR-15? Well, you might be a Korean shopkeeper who needs to defend his life and livelihood from rampaging ghetto blacks in South Central Los Angeles. (Remember the aftermath of the acquittal of the cops who took the 'motorist' Rodney King into custody using perfectly legal and reasonable methods?) Or perhaps you live along the southern border and need to defend yourself and your family against heavily armed drug cartel members from the corrupt narco-state to the South. Your snub-nosed .38 special is a nice walk-around piece, and better than nothing, but insufficient for the defensive task at hand.

(A gun enthusiast acquaintance of mine referred to my Colt .38 Detective Special as a nice 'heirloom,' recommending that I get a 1911 model semi-auto .45, which I did.)

Any conservative can continue with answers like the above ad libitum, but the best strategy for a conservative is to reject the question altogether.

The right question is not: Why does the citizen need to be armed? The right question is: By what right does the government violate the liberty of the law-abiding citizen? Gun-ownership is a liberty issue similarly as taxation is a liberty issue. With respect to taxation, the right question is not: Why should citizens be allowed to keep their wealth? The right question is: What justifies the government in taking their wealth? The onus justificandi is not on the citizen to defend his keeping of his money; the onus justificandi is on the government to justify its taking of his money. The same goes for guns. The burden is on the government to justify its curtailment of individual liberties, not on the citizen to justify his keeping of his liberties. This is because governments exist for the sake of their citizens, and not the other way around.

You might think that liberals would understand all of this. Although liberals are absurdly sensitive about First Amendment rights, nary a peep will you hear from them concerning Second Amendment rights. And yet it is the Second Amendment that backs up the First. Chairman Mao was right about one thing, namely, that power emanates from the barrel of a gun. Power to the people!

There is a curious inconsistency here, is there not? If liberals believe that our civil liberties are under serious assault from Ashcroft & Co., and continue to be as Obama continues Bush-era policies, then why are they so unwilling to ensure that real power remain in the hands of the people?

There is something schizophrenic about contemporary liberals. They have a libertarian streak: they want to be able to spout any kind of nonsense, no matter how offensive and irresponsible, and have it protected as ‘dissent.’ Fair enough. Though I find Michael Moore contemptible, I would defend his right to pollute the air waves with his ideological flatulence. But when it comes to gun rights, liberals become as collectivist as Hitler or Fidel Castro. It’s curious, and a worthy theme of further rumination.

On Calls for a ‘Conversation’ About Guns

Liberals often call for 'a conversation' or a 'dialogue' about this or that. Didn't Eric Holder a while back call for a 'conversation' on race? What have we been talking about for 150 years? Same with guns. Our liberal pals must know that the gun debate has been raging for decades. So what does a liberal mean when he calls for a 'conversation' about guns?

He means: You conservatives and libertarians shut up and acquiesce in our position. Kurt Schlichter gets it right:

. . . we’re not supposed to have what people might commonly describe as a “conversation” at all. We’re supposed to shut-up and listen as liberals, barely masking their unseemly delight at the opportunity, try to pin the murder rampage of one degenerate creep on millions of law-abiding Americans who did nothing wrong. The conversation is then supposed to end with us waiving our fundamental right to self-defense.

Because that is what the goal is – a total ban on the private ownership of firearms. There’s always another “common sense” gun law which fails because it is targeted at law-abiding citizens and not criminals, thereby inviting another round of onerous new restrictions until finally no citizen is keeping or bearing anything more than a dull butter knife.

Well, almost no citizens. “Gun control” means all guns under the control of the government and available only to it and, of course, to politically connected cronies. Gun-grabbing poser Michael Bloomberg is going to be surrounded by enough fire power to remake the movie Heat. He’s always going to be protected. The purpose of gun control is to ensure that we aren’t.

So let’s have that conversation, and let’s lay the cards on the table. Modern firearms (which really aren’t that modern) are highly effective weapons in the hands of an evil little freak who gets off shooting children. They are also highly effective weapons in my hands when defending my children from evil little freaks.

Liberals ask why I need these weapons. The answer is simple. I’m going to be as well-armed or better armed than the threat. Period.

Topical Insanity: Guns

Another old post that makes points that need regular repeating. Enjoy!

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There is temporary insanity as when a middle-aged man buys a Harley on which to ride though his midlife crisis, wisely selling the bike after the crisis subsides. But my theme is topical insanity, that species of temporary insanity that can occur when certain topics are brought to one’s attention. Someone so afflicted loses the ability to think clearly about the topic in question for the period of time that the topic is before his mind.

Try this. The next time you are at a liberal gathering, a faculty party, say, calmly state that you agree
with the National Rifle Association’s position on gun control. Now observe the idiocies to flow freely from liberal mouths. Enjoy as they splutter and fulminate unto apoplexy.

Some will say that the NRA is opposed to gun control. False, everyone is for gun control, i.e., gun control
legislation; the only question being its nature and scope. Nobody worth mentioning wants no laws relating to the acquisition and use of firearms. Everyone worth mentioning wants reasonable laws that are enforceable and enforced.

Others will say that guns have only one purpose, to kill people. A liberal favorite, but spectacularly false for all that, and quickly counterexampled: (i) Guns can be used to save lives both by police and by ordinary citizens; (ii) Guns can be used to hunt and defend against nonhuman critters; (iii) Guns can be used for sporting purposes to shoot at nonsentient targets; (iv) Guns can be collected without ever being
fired; (v) Guns can be used to deter crime without being fired; merely ‘showing steel’ is a marvellous deterrent. Indeed, display of a weapon is not even necessary: a miscreant who merely suspects that his target is armed, or that others in the vicinity are, may be deterred. Despite liberal mythology, criminals are not for the most part irrational and their crimes are not for the most part senseless. In terms of short-term means-ends rationality, it is quite reasonable and sensible to rob places where money is to be found — Willy Sutton recommends banks — and kill witnesses to the crime.

Still others will maintain that gun ownership has no effect on crime rates. False, see the work of
John Lott.

Here then we have an example of topical insanity, an example of a topic that completely unhinges otherwise sane people. There are plenty of other examples. Capital punishment is one, religion is another. A. C. "Gasbag" Grayling, for example, sometimes comes across as extremely intelligent and judicious. But when it comes to religion he degenerates into the worst form of barroom bullshitter. See my earlier post.

Speech and Guns

It is time to trot out my old gun posts to counteract the tsunami of leftist Unsinn washing over us because of the recent massacres in Oregon and Connecticut. Here is one from December of 2010, slightly revised.

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How should we deal with offensive speech? As a first resort, with more speech, better, truer, more responsible speech. Censorship cannot be ruled out, but it must be a last resort. We should respond similarly to the misuse of firearms. Banning firearms is no solution since (i) bans have no effect on criminals who, in virtue of being criminals, have no respect for law, and (ii) bans violate the liberty of the law-abiding. To punish the law-abiding while failing vigorously to pursue scofflaws is the way of the contemporary liberal. The problem is not guns, but guns in criminal hands. Ted Kennedy's car killed more people than my gun. The solution, or part of it, is guns in law-abiding hands.

Would an armed citizen in the vicinity of the Virginia Polytechnic shooter have been able to reduce his carnage? It is likely. Don't ask me how likely. Of course, there is the chance that an armed citizen in the confusion of the moment would have made things worse. Who knows?

But if you value liberty then you will be willing to take the risk. As I understand it, the Commonwealth of Virginia already has a concealed carry law. Now if you trust a citizen to carry a concelaed weapon off campus, why not trust him to carry it on campus? After all, on campus there is far less likelihood of a situation arising where the weapon would be needed. Conservatives place a high value on self-reliance, individual liberty, and individual responsibility. Valuing self-reliance and liberty, a conservative will oppose any attempt to limit his self-reliance by infringing his right to defend himself, a right from which one may infer the right to own a handgun. (As I argue elsewhere; see the category Alcohol,Tobacco and Firearms.) And appreciating as he does the reality and importance of individual responsibility, he will oppose liberal efforts to blame guns for the crimes committed by people using guns.

Nothing I have written will convince a committed liberal. As I have argued elsewhere, Left-Right differences are rooted in value-differences that cannot be rationally adjudicated. But my intention is not to try to enlighten the terminally benighted; my intention is to clarify the issue.

Persuasion and agreement are well-nigh impossible to attain; clarification, however, is a goal well within reach. We must be clear about what we believe and why we believe it and how it differs from the beliefs of the benighted. And in the light of that clarity we must carry the fight to our enemies.

Shysters of the ACLU At It Again

"Following a complaint filed by the ACLU, school officials in Cranston, R.I. have ended gender specific activities like father-daughter dances and mother-son ballgames to comply with state gender discrimination laws." Story here.

I've often wondered about the etymology of 'shyster.' From German scheissen, to shit? That would fit well with the old joke, "What is the difference between a lawyer and a bucket of shit?' "The bucket." I am also put in mind of scheusslich: hideous, atrocious, abominable. Turning to the 'shyster' entry in my Webster's, I read, "prob. fr. Scheuster fl. 1840 Am. attorney frequently rebuked in a New York court for pettifoggery."

According to Robert Hendrickson, Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, p. 659:

Shyster, an American slang term for a shady disreputable lawyer, is first recorded in 1846. Various authorities list a real New York advocate as a possible source, but this theory has been disproved by Professor Gerald L. Cohen of the University of Missouri-Rolla, whose long paper on the etymology I had the pleasure of reading. Shakespeare's moneylender Shylock has also been suggested, as has a racetrack form of the word shy, i.e., to be shy money when betting. Some authorities trace shyster to the German Scheisse, "excrement," possibly through the word shicir, "a worthless person," but there is no absolute proof for any theory.

A little further research reveals that Professor Cohen's "long paper" is in fact a short book of 124 pages published in 1982 by Verlag Peter Lang. See here for a review. Cohen argues that the eponymous derivation from 'Scheuster' that I just cited from Webster's is a pseudo-etymology. 'Shyster' no more derives from 'Scheuster' than 'condom' from the fictious Dr. Condom. Nor does it come from 'Shylock.' It turns out my hunch was right. 'Shyster' is from the German Scheisser, one who defecates.

Companion posts:

The ACLU and the Second Amendment

The ACLU and Mardi Gras

Yes, Vote Fraud’s Real

There is no need to play the 'numbers game.' The photo ID requirement is a matter of principle.

Anyone with common sense ought to be able to appreciate that voting must be conducted in an orderly manner, a manner to inspire confidence in the citizenry, and that only citizens who have registered to vote and have satisfied the minimal requirements of age, etc., are to be allowed into the voting booth. Given the possibility of fraud, it is therefore necessary to verify the identities of those who present themselves at the polling place. To do this, voters must be required to present a government-issued photo ID card, a driver's license being only one example of such. It is a reasonable requirement and any reasonable person should be able to see it as one.

But if you want to play the 'numbers game' voter fraud does occur often enough to be a serious problem.

Voter ID Laws are Not Like a Poll Tax

Here we go again:

First, a voter restriction is like a poll tax when its authors use voting fraud as a pretext for legislation that has little to do with voting fraud.

Second, it is like a poll tax when it creates only a small nuisance to some voters, but for other groups it erects serious barriers to the ballot.

Third, it is like a poll tax when it has crude partisan advantage as its most immediate aim.

1. Presumably the issue concerns the requirement that voters produce government-issued photo ID at polling places. Voting fraud is obviously not a 'pretext' for such a requirement but a good reason to put such a requirement in place. The claim that photo ID legislation has little to do with voting fraud is ludicrous. The whole point of it is to prevent fraud.

2. It is just silly to claim that phtoto ID "erects a serious barrier to the ballot." If you don't have a driver's license, you can easily acquire photo ID from a DMV office for a nominal sum. You are going to need it anyway for all sorts of other purposes such as cashing checks. In the state of Arizona, the ID is free for those 65 and older and for those on Social Security disability. For others the fee is nominal: $12 for an ID valid for 12 years.

3. Those who support photo ID are aiming at "crude partisan advantage?" How is that supposed to work? Do non-Democrats get such an advantage when they stop voter fraud? Is the idea that it it par for the course that Dems should cheat, and so, when they are prevented from cheating, their opponents secure a"crude partisan advantage?"

What we have is crude psychological projection. Unable to own up to their own unsavory win-at-all-costs motivations, liberals impute to conservatives unsavory motives. "You want to disenfranchise blaxcks and Hispanics!" As if these minorities are so bereft of life skills that they lack, or cannot acquire, a simple photo ID. Note also the trademark liberal misuse of language.

To disenfranchise is to deprive of a right, in particular, the right to vote. But only some people have the right to vote. Felons and children do not have the right to vote, nor do non-citizens. You do not have the right to vote in a certain geographical area simply because you are a sentient being residing in that area. Otrherwise, my cats would have the right to vote. Now a requirement that one prove that one has the right to vote is not to be confused with a denial of the right to vote.

My right to vote is one thing, my ability to prove I have the right another. If I cannot prove that I am who I claim to be on a given occasion, then I won't be able to exercise my right to vote on that occasion; but that is not to say that I have been 'disefranchised.' For I haven't be deprived of my right to vote; I have merely been prevented from exercising my right due to my inability do prove my identity.

I am still looking for a decent argument against photo ID.

First They Came for My Chicken Sandwich . . .

Here.

I have honestly never eaten a Chick-Fil-A sandwich. So tomorrow I am going to try one. This is in keeping with my maxim, 'No day without political incorrectness.' Each day you must engage in one or more politically incorrect acts. Some suggestions:

Smoke a cigar
Use standard English
Practice with a firearm
Read the Bible
Enunciate uncomfortable truths inconsistent with the liberal Weltanschauung
Read Maverick Philosopher
Think for yourself
Patronize Chick-Fil-A
Give your baby baby formula
Read the Constitution
Cancel your subscription to The New York Times
Find more examples of politically incorrect things to do

Photo ID: The ‘It Would Disproportionately Affect Hispanic Voters’ Argument

Here (emphasis added) we find:

In March, the Justice Department denied the Lone Star State the necessary clearance for this new law, arguing that it would disproportionately affect Hispanic voters. Texas officials appealed. To preserve the access of all citizens to the right to vote . . . the District Court should follow the Justice Department’s lead and strike down this highly suspect and unnecessary law.

What is interesting here is the role disproportionality plays in these leftist attempts at argument. Let's see if we can uncover the 'logic' of these arguments.

Suppose people of Italian extraction are disproportionately affected by anti-racketeering statutes. Would this be a good reason to oppose such laws? Obviously not. Why not? The reason is that the law targets the criminal behavior, not the ethnicity of the criminal. If it just so happens that people of Italian extraction are 'overrepresented' in the memberships of organized crime syndicates, then of course they will be 'disproportionately affected' by anti-racketeering laws. So what?

It is very easy to multiply examples. Who commits more rapes, men or women? You know the answer. Among men, in which age group will we find more rapists? Will there be more rapists in the 15-45 age group or in the 45-75 age group? You know the answer. Laws against rape will therefore disproportinately affect males aged 15-45. Would this be a good reason to oppose such laws? Obviously not. Why not? The reason is that the law targets the criminal behavior, not the age or sex of the criminal.

Suppose that drunk drivers are predominantly Irish. (Just suppose; I'm not saying it is true.) Then laws against drunk driving would disproportionatey affect them. Of course. But that would be no reason to oppose such laws. Is a law just only if it affects all groups equally or proportionately? Of course not.

Who is more likely to be a terrorist, a twenty-something male Egyptian Muslim or a sixty-something Mormon matron? Do you hesitate over this question? The answer is clear, and you know what it is. Are anti-terrorism laws therefore to be opposed on the ground that they disproportionately affect young Muslim males from middle eastern countries?

Should there be a quota system when it comes to rounding up terrorists? "You can apprehend only as many Muslim terrorists as Buddhist terrorists."

Suppose child molesters are 'overrepresented' among Catholic priests. Then laws against such molestation will disproportionarely affect them. But so what? It would be morally absurd to argue that such laws 'discriminate' against Catholic priests and should be struck down on the ground that Catholic priests are disproportionately inclined to engage in child molestation.

Now we know that illegal aliens in Southwest states such as Texas are predominantly, indeed overwhelmingly, of Hispanic extraction. So such aliens would be disproportionately affected by photo ID requirements. But this is surely no argument against photo ID. After all, they are not citizens and have no right to vote in the first place.

Now consider the Hispanic citizens of Texas. They have the right to vote. And no decent person wants either to prevent them from exercising their right or to make it more difficult for them to vote than for other groups to vote. Why would they be 'disproportionately affected' by a photo ID requirement?

Is it because Hispanics are less likely to have ID than members of other groups? Or less likely to have the minimal skills necessary to acquire such ID? It does, after all, take a tiny bit of effort. You have to get yourself down to the DMV and fork over a nominal sum.

I myself do not believe that Hispanics as a group are so bereft of life skills that they are incapable of acquiring photo ID. But that apparently is what Dems believe when they think that a perfectly reasonable requirement would 'disproportinately affect' them. What an insult to Hispanics!

So I ask once again: is there even one decent reason to oppose photo ID?

Photo ID: Eric Holder’s Assault on Common Sense

I was shocked (shocked!) to hear over breakfast a while back that my friend Peter L. will vote for neither Obama nor Romney. All my posts about how politics is a practical business, how it's always about the lesser of evils,and about how foolish it is to let the best become the enemy of the good have fallen on deaf ears. But I won't give up on old Peter: he's worth saving from the remnant of his liberal folly.

When you vote for a president, you are not voting for just that one person. You are voting for his entourage as well. And for Obama that entourage is a sorry lot including as it does Eric Holder who became Attorney General. Remember the outrageous suit his Justice Department brought against Arizona re: S. B. 1070? (See my Arizona category for 1070 posts.) Now the issues raised by S. B. 1070 are complex. But the issue raised by photo ID laws is not. It's a very simple issue and there ought not be any dispute about it whatsoever. And yet our esteemed Atty Gen'l is going after states with photo ID laws making irresponsible accusations of 'disenfranchisement' and comparing the requirements to poll taxes.

Suppose you don't have a driver's license. How hard is it to get a photo ID? Not very hard. In Arizona it costs only $12 and is available at any DMV office. And it's good for 12 years. That comes to a dollar a year. That's a hell of a deal, especially when you consider all the other things you can do with that nifty photo ID such as open a bank account, cash checks, use credit cards, buy alcohol and tobacco products, apply for store credit, secure a library card, etc. You can now start doing all the things that normal citizens do. Ain't that grand? You can stop being a nonentity. Remember what your Uncle Quine taught you, "No entity without identity." If you tell me you don't do any of those things, and don't have any desire to do them, then why are you so interested in voting? You don't have a bank account, or cash checks, etc., but you have a burning desire to vote?

If you are 65 or older or a recipient of Social Security disability benefits you can get the ID for free. So what's your excuse for not securing a photo ID? If you are that lazy, how informed will you be about the issues on which you have such a burning desire to vote?

Liberals feel that the photo ID requirement will 'disenfranchise' many blacks and other minorities. This shows that we conservatives have a higher view of you minorities than do your 'keepers,' the Dems.

Some people want to play the 'numbers game.' They claim that there have only been a few cases of voter fraud. If you think that, then I refer you to the work of John Fund and Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia. And please note that the number of convictions in courts of law for voter fraud is bound to be much much lower than the actual cases of voter fraud. And if there are. contrary to fact, very few cases of voter fraud, then, by the same token, there are very few people who lack photo ID.

But there is no need to play the numbers game at all. It's matter of principle. Will we have a election system that is credible and worthy of respect or not?

Those who oppose photo ID have no good reasons, but they have plenty of motives, and I fear that they are of the unsavory kind.

Pessimistic Thoughts on this Fourth of July

Is there anything to celebrate this Fourth of July? Not much. Maybe there will be cause for celebration in November. But I'm not sanguine about that either. Our founding documents have become merely ornamental. They are interpreted to mean whatever those in power want them to mean.

The Commerce Clause is to be found in Section 8, Article I, of the U. S. Constitution. It reads," The Congress shall have Power to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."

Congress, then, has the constitutionally-based power to regulate interstate commerce. But it seems to this concerned citizen — who is no constitutional scholar — that one cannot regulate what does not exist. If there is some interstate commerce taking place between, say, California and Arizona, then congress by the above clause has the power to regulate it. But if no commerce is taking place, then there is nothing to regulate. Now if I choose not to purchase health insurance, then my not buying it is surely not a bit of commerce. So there is nothing to regulate, and my non-buying does not fall under the Commerce Clause even if, by some argumentative stretch, the buying of health insurance involves interstate commerce.

Or do you think something can be regulated into existence? Can my buying of health insurance be regulated into existence? The very notion is incoherent.

Ah, but "The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes . . . ." (Section 8) and so all we have to do is call the Obamacare individual mandate a tax, and we get what we want. After all, the PoMo Prez and his enablers can use words to mean whatever they want depending on what promotes their agenda.

The underlying principle here is the lack of any principle limiting governmental expansion. The essence of the totalitarian Left — and of course the Left is totalitarian by its very nature — is the lack of any limiting principle. And so, if the individual mandate cannot be rammed through via specious reasoning from the Commerce Clause, then some other justification must be found, however specious and mendacious it may be. Instead of evaluating for constitutionality a law that is presented for evaluation, one can simply rewrite the law, changing the mandate to a tax.

It is interesting to speculate as to what caused Chief Justice Roberts to cave to the Left. My man Prager adduces the power of liberal intimidation.

Arizona Can’t Do It; Washington Won’t

Debra Saunders' article begins:

President Barack Obama hailed the Supreme Court's 5-3 decision Monday that struck down most of Arizona's 2010 immigration law. In a statement released by the White House, however, the president said that he remains "concerned about the practical impact of the remaining provision of the Arizona law that requires local law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of anyone they even suspect to be here illegally."

All eight voting members of the Supreme Court upheld this provision, which requires that Arizona cops try to determine the immigration status of individuals who have been stopped for reasons not involving immigration.

Please note the difference between what the president is quoted as saying and what Saunders correctly reports the S.B. 1070 provision as requiring. The law requires "that Arizona cops try to determine the immigration status of individuals who have been stopped for reasons not involving immigration." President Obama of course knows this. So Obama lied in his statement when he said that "the Arizona law that requires local law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of anyone they even suspect to be here illegally."

Obama's egregious misrepresentation has been repeated time and again by leftists over the last two years. See my 1 June 2010 post, The Misrepresentations of Arizona S. B. 1070 Continue. Other of my 1070 posts are to be found in the Arizona category.

Why are leftists so mendacious? Because in their scheme the glorious end justifies the scurrilous means.

Don't forget to read the rest of Saunders' article.