The Conservative Reader

Art Smith August 20th, 2008

I finally got time to watch a recording of Saturday night’s Saddleback Church event with Obama and McCain.  DJ made some excellent observations earlier in the week, which I thought I might supplement a bit.  If you have not seen it yet, I strongly suggest that you view this event as I think it provides the most candid view of these candidates available to date.

I don’t really know Rick Warren that well.  I have read “The Purpose Driven Life”, as have millions of others, and I did find the book helpful in my perspective on and relationship with God.  I appreciate his work on that.

Rick rang a bell I’ve been tolling here from time to time… we need to find ways to engage in productive, civil discourse without all of the useless, antagonizing, confrontational venom that has poured out of so many blogs and talk shows this year.  In my opinion, if you need to resort to name-calling, gutter language, threats or other forms of verbal intimidation, then perhaps even you don’t consider your opinion to have much credibility.

Faith/World View

Obama was probably the best prepared that I’ve ever seen him.  He acted very personable, friendly, and seemed reasonable in his presentation, and worked the conversational approach to his answers which for many could easily hide the fact that he didn’t really have much to say.

Barack, talking about his faith, said a lot of the right things, which I hope he would have been prepared to do, although I found it interesting that he ended that by saying:

“And it means that those sins that I have on a fairly regular basis hopefully will be washed away.”

The words “hope” and “hopefully” are funny words in how they are understood.  “Hope” has a larger variety of meanings, ranging from “a desired result carrying a strong certainty” to “a feeling that something desired can happen”, but lacking certainty.  There are other related definitions tied to people whom we place hope in, etc. In the Christian faith, the word “hope” is often tied directly to “faith”, such as in Hebrews 11:1:

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

The word hope in this context lacks any sense of uncertainty, and quite the opposite, is part of a strongly confident statement of faith.  “Hope” in our faith relates closely to a high level of confidence, and directly as a reference to our Lord Jesus.

“Hopefully”, on the other hand, is a word beset with uncertainty.  This word tends to convey, in almost any context, that the desired outcome seems, not unlikely, back lacking strong confidence.

It may seem like I am over-analyzing unplanned word choice here, but if you watch the video, he is almost being flippant about one of the core aspects of the Christian faith: Christ died for our sins and has made them clean and never needing to be paid for again.  To those of us who believe, this is an unshakable truth, and the hope we have in this is an absolute confidence that our sins are washed away.

I don’t want to convey doubts that his faith is real, I’m just pointing out that something that should be, if his faith is real, an absolute in his life, appears to be an area where he lacks confidence.  I would hate to see this kind of confidence while negotiating an arms treaty with Iran.

McCain answered this question succinctly “I’m saved and forgiven”.  Direct and without wavering.  He shared what I think is an already well-known story about a guard in the POW camp where he was held.  The guard apparently provided him some relief while he was being tortured and later communicated why by drawing a cross in the sand.  Again, I’m not in a position to know the place of John McCain’s heart either, but his confidence and sense that the Christian faith is relevant on the world stage is appealing.

Abortion

As many others have already stated elsewhere, Obama sure copped out with the “above my pay grade” statement. Since the question was “at what point is a baby entitled to human rights?”, it seems that someone seeking to be the President of the United States should actually have an answer for this question.

Essentially, Barack made one thing clear: he does not believe that life begins at conception.  But he also attempts to be conciliatory, saying that there are too many abortions.  He also states that he opposes late-term abortions.  But he never actually answers the question.

After this one, I sort of wish he had asked Obama “When would it be okay to use nuclear weapons?”.  I suspect that one is above his pay grade as well.

I was somewhat disappointed that Warren said “I know that this [subject of abortion] is a complex issue”.  It should not be complex for Warren, unless he also does not believe that life begins at conception.  It is hard for many to work it out because they either struggle with the emotional aspects of the issue (especially when considering rape and incest cases) or simply lack any meaningful respect for life at all (which is the plague we have beset upon ourselves in the past century).

At any rate, McCain was again direct, and answered the question: “At the moment of conception”.  He went on to state his pro-life record.

Both candidates came down essentially in support of embryonic stem-cell research, although McCain thinks he has an out by pushing other similar research on skin cells.  It’s unfortunate that we’re not able to confront one of the issues that has made it possible and yet hard to deal with this, and that’s the fact that in vitro fertilization is already killing babies.  This is where Obama is content taking stem-cells from.  But neither candidate, nor much of the media on any side of this discussion, has the stomach to say what needs to be said: in vitro fertilization itself if wrong because it requires the conception of many sets of early forming embryos, and often destroys all but those that are transferred to the mother (although cryogenic storage of excess embryos does occur… I can’t even begin to tell you how much that bothers me).  And current successful pregnatncy rates are about 35% in the US.  If you believe that life begins at conception, you have to face this situation head-on.  I feel for the needs of those who have trouble conceiving.  I feel for those who put their hope (there we go again) in the possibiliy that stem-cell research will lead to cures for horrible diseases.  But taking a life, is just wrong.

Supreme Court Justices

(I know I skipped a bunch of topics, including Marriage.  If it really bugs you, leave me a comment.)

According to Omaba, Clarence Thomas was not intellectually prepared to be on the Supreme Court (”I don’t think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time…”).  Somehow, that same kind of thinking permeates my mind when I think about Obama as President.  But I digress…

McCain hit the key on this question of whom he would not have nominated to the Supreme Court.  McCain lists the four that I would have listed (Ginsberg, Breyer, Souter and Stevens).  He hits the targets by stating that the Court should adhere strictly to the Constitution, and should NOT legislate.

Evil

I thought that McCain’s most shining moment was in answer to this question: “Does evil exist, and if it does do we ignore it, do we negotiate with it, do we contain it or do we defeat it?”.

Obama said that it exists, and that it has to be confronted, and then he got kind of wishy-washy by saying that sometimes we do evil when we say we are trying to eliminate evil (sounds like Congress to me).

McCain simply stated: “Defeat it!”.  His intensity as he said that was inspiring, and his follow-up in describing the critical need to capture Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice was impressive and compelling.

Overall

Both men were very personable in this setting, and I think the event gave them both an opportunity to be seen as real people to some degree.

As DJ stated, McCain was much more direct overall, and very much on top of all of the topics.  Some have concluded that perhaps McCain was not has secluded during the Obama portion of the event as Warren had intimated.  That is just ridiculous.  I prefer to think that the two men have different styles, and different degrees of experience to draw upon.  My friend BitHead today published the following information:

Now granted, Obama has other areas of experience, but politically and particularly in working across the aisle, he simply lacks the experience to be as well prepared for this interview that McCain has.  The more opportunity to see the two fo them side-by-side, the more convinced I think most people will become that an Obama presidency is extremely risky.

We’ll see… I may come back to some of the other topics another day.

Tags: 2008 Presidential Election, Abortion, Above my pay grade, Barack Obama, Civil Discourse, Civil Forum, Clarence Thomas, CNN, David Souter, DJ Durant, evil, Faith, Hebrews 11:1, Hope, Hopefully, In Vitro Fertilisation, In Vitro Fertilization, John McCain, John Paul Stevens, Lord Jesus Christ, Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain, Osama bin Laden, Rick Warren, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Saddleback Church, SCOTUS, Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court, World View

• 2008 Presidential Election , Abortion , Barack Obama , BitsBlog , John McCain , SCOTUS
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Art Smith August 18th, 2008

Dick Heller, of DC v. Heller fame, finally got a gun permit today. 

Unfortunately, that’s only part of the story.

The District is treating semi-automatic handguns as “machine guns”.  So, the registration he succeeded at acquiring only allows him to have a revolver in his home.

Heller recently sued the city again, alleging that the registration rules adopted by the D.C. government after the ban was overturned are too cumbersome and violate the spirit and letter of the Supreme Court decision.

We discussed this story as the case went to the court, and as the decision was handed down. 

The District is, in my opinion, doing all they can to thumb their nose at the Supreme Court on this one.   We can certainly expect a new case to come up and address more of the details, which could go one of several ways.  My two main concerns are:

1. This gets solved with soem kind of legislating from the bench (whether I like the position of the court or not, acting in this manner is not acceptable to me).
2. The close 5-4 margin swings the other way… or worse if a more liberal judge replaces a more conservative one before this is decided.

I think it’s time for a new amendment to clear up the whole gun ownership issue once and for all.

More comments at HotAir.

Update:  Oh yeah, Part 2 will come when Heller’s new case reaches the Supreme Court.

Tags: D.C. v. Heller, Gun Ownership, Handguns, SCOTUS, Second Amendment, Supreme Court

• Constitution , SCOTUS , Second Amendment
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Art Smith July 2nd, 2008

I am surprised I didn’t see more blogs lit up over this today (Allahpundit over at Hot Air did hit on it, though).

The Supreme Court was wrong.

That is, Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion in Kennedy v. Louisiana, was wrong.  If you recall, Kennedy wrote in his opinion (discussed here last week) that

Thirty-seven jurisdictions—36 States plus the Federal Government— currently impose capital punishment, but only six States authorize it for child rape.

Kennedy then used this fact to establish that Congress’ lack of action to enact capital punishment for child rape reflected the country’s growing desire to treat child rapists more kindly.  I’m still gagging over that one.

In Wednesday’s New York Times, we find that Kennedy, along with both legal teams on the case, missed some critical information.  Federal Military code does cover child rape as a capital crime:

A military law blog pointed out over the weekend that Congress, in fact, revised the sex crimes section of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 2006 to add child rape to the military death penalty. The revisions were in the National Defense Authorization Act that year. President Bush signed that bill into law and then, last September, carried the changes forward by issuing Executive Order 13447, which put the provisions into the 2008 edition of the Manual for Courts-Martial.

The blog referenced here is run by Colonel Dwight Sullivan of the Marine Corps Reserve.  His post on his blog, CAAFlog, provides more specific details.  Here’s the important part:

But just two years ago, Congress did enact a law permitting the death penalty for the rape of a child, which makes the number of authorizing jurisdictions seven (Louisiana, Georgia, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and the military), not six.

Section 552(b) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, 119 Stat. 3136, 3264 (2006), provides that “[u]ntil the President otherwise provides pursuant to” UCMJ article 56, “the punishment which a court-martial may direct for an offense under” the amended UCMJ article 120 “may not exceed the following limits: . . . For an offense under subsection (a) (rape) or subsection (b) (rape of a child), death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.”

Amusingly or not, it appears that the court and the legal teams were not only unaware of the law, but some had even research military law and not found this legislation.  That’s kind of scary, if you ask me.

The state of Louisiana has 25 days to petition the court to reconsider its decision.  I’m guessing if Louisiana petitions, the court won’t bother.  Admitting that this kind of oversight is sufficient to reconsider will set a precedent that could overwhelm the court with spurious requests.

Of course, that throws the federal statute itself into question as well.

Ever notice the more our societies “evolve” (Kennedy’s word, by the way), the worse it seems to get?  More proof that Darwin didn’t know what he was talking about either.

Tags: Anthony Kennedy, CAAFlog, capital punishment, Charles Darwin, Child Rape, Colonel Dwight Sullivan, court-martial, death penalty, Evolution, Executive Order 13447, Kennedy v Louisiana, Marine Corps Reserve, Military Law, National Defense Authorization Act, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, The Conservative Reader, US Congress

• Courts , SCOTUS , capital punishment
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Art Smith June 26th, 2008

Thank goodness, albeit another split decision, the court came through with a good decision. In DC v Heller, the court ruled in favor of gun ownership. We discussed this case back when arguments wrapped up in April. For those of you that are sure to argue that my position yesterday was that the court should have stayed away from the state’s right to legislate on the death penalty, one must understand that there are significant differences here.

One (death penalty) has to do with the meting out of punishment, which is certainly addressed in the 8th amendment.  For that reason, the court certainly has a role in ensuring that the 8th Amendment is not abrogated.  In Kennedy v Louisiana, however, the case does not appear to me to offend the 8th Amendment.

In DC v Heller, the 2nd Amendment is directly attacked by the DC law.

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Infringed this right has been by DC, which is not a state and therefore enjoys existence in a special class, but nonetheless should not have be allowed to remove the right to bear arms from its citizens.

Of course, the court has essentially set the same process and issue in motion in both cases, that is, finding against the legislated laws which it believes (wrongly and rightly in my opinion) are unconstitutional.  The impact will be substantial review and representing of new cases in the future which may create a bigger mess as the court’s makeup will certainly change before too long… the question is in which direction will it sway?

Great conversation at Sister Toldjah, BitsBlog, McGehee, SCOTUSBlog, Michelle Malkin, TownHall, Stop the ACLU, and Hot AIr.

Tags: 2nd Amendment, 8th Amendment, Bill of Rights, D.C. v. Heller, death penalty, Kennedy v Louisiana, Right to Bear Arms, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, US Constitution

• 2008 Presidential Election , Featured , Gun Control , Rights , SCOTUS , Second Amendment , Uncategorized
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Art Smith June 25th, 2008

Lyle Denniston at the SCOTUS Blog provides some interesting insight into today’s decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana, a death-penalty case that has now been overturned by the high court. This was a case of child rape. Eight years old. By the her step-father.

The court is wrong.

As Lyle observes, the court has been progressively narrowing the conditions under which the death penalty can be used. By itself, this is a frustrating fact as the court appears to be referencing reasons with less basis in law and more basis in their feelings. Lyle observes:

…the longer a Justice stays on the Court and watches capital cases come and go, the greater the prospect that capital punishment will lose another vote…

But more disturbing is the fact that the court has taken the most offensive, the most evil crime next to murder, and essentially issued a free pass. If a little girl can be gruesomely raped by an adult and the death penalty is too “cruel and unusual”, then where is the hope of justice?

Just as important is the fact that the court continues to dig itself further and further into countering the legitimate efforts of state legislatures and the US Congress. Although there are clearly cases where this is a necessary role for the court, they have come close to making this a full-time job.

Here’s the crux of court’s decision with respect to the 8th amendment (to the US Constitution):

Held: The Eighth Amendment bars Louisiana from imposing the death penalty for the rape of a child where the crime did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim’s death. Pp. 8–36.

1. The Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause “draw[s] its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, 101. The standard for extreme cruelty “itself remains the same, but its applicability must change as the basic mores of society change.” Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, 382. Under the precept of justice that punishment is to be graduated and proportioned to the crime, informed by evolving standards, capital punishment must “be limited to those offenders who commit ‘a narrow category of the most serious crimes’ and whose extreme culpability makes them ‘the most deserving of execution.’ ”

So, the point is, as the Supreme Court’s interpretation of society’s collective standards change, then the meaning of the law changes.

There’s something deeply wrong when the court becomes so self-deluded in its own divine power that it believes it knows what society, that is the people, want(s) more than the actual elected representatives of the people. But there it is: the court believes it actually knows better. This is why it is so important that we have constructionist judges on the court instead of this generation of activist jurists.

Obama, for his part, opposes the court’s decision. This is also unbelievable. Eliminating the death penalty is a traditional liberal position, so this was a surprise. I’m not sure what’s behind this aside from his attempt to “reinvent himself”.

Sister Toldjah, Stop the ACLU, Hot Air, and a host of other blogs are talking about this.

Tags: 8th Amendment, activist court, Barack Obama, Bill of Rights, capital punishment, Congress, Constitution, cruel and unusual, death penalty, Emotion, justice, Kennedy v Louisian, Lyle Denniston, rape, SCOTUS, SCOTUS Blog, state legislature, Supreme Court

• 2008 Presidential Election , Barack Obama , Bill of Rights , Courts , Featured , SCOTUS
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Art Smith June 12th, 2008

In other news, the Supreme Court has now gone too far. Sister Toldjah:

Quote of the day: “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today.”

That was Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in his dissent on the USSC ruling today that Gitmo detainees have habeas corpus rights.

Lyle Denniston analyzes the ruling here.

Captain Ed sums up USSC’s decision:

This will probably derail the hearings that had just begun at Gitmo for six members of the 9/11 conspiracy. By granting the unlawful combatants habeas corpus, the court has now eliminated the main reason for the military tribunal system - and for that matter, Gitmo itself. If the detainees can access American courts, they may as well be held on American soil.

The previous two rulings that struck down the tribunals forced the government to quickly pass laws that allowed for them. The Supreme Court has basically ruled that the Constitution applies worldwide rather than just to the US and its residents, which makes it pretty difficult to go back to the well a third time. Also, with very little time remaining in the Bush administration, they will not have enough time to push through a third attempt to address the Court’s concerns - and this ruling appears to be much broader than the two that preceded this one.

It seems absurd to apply criminal law to unlawful combatants captured during hostilities abroad. Will they require a Miranda reading, too? Do we have to bring the soldiers and Marines who captured them to the trial? In our 232-year history, when have we ever allowed that kind of access to enemy combatants not captured inside the US itself?

It’s mind-boggling.

The NYT excitedly reports on the news here.

This day will go down as the day we opened the slide and pushed ourselves into abandoning all sense of reason and national sovereignty. Now, anyone can attack us, and I wonder if we have the legal right to oppose them… SCOTUS has potential created a legal precedent to outlaw war and military infrastructure. This is scary.

More discussion at: Bitsblog, Townhall, JohnMcCain.com, RedState, Outside The Beltway, Michelle Malkin, and SCOTUS Blog.

Tags: SCOTUS, Sister Toldjah, Supreme Court

• Rights , SCOTUS , Terrorism , WAR
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Art Smith May 23rd, 2008

John Hawkins at Right Wing News today proclaimed an about-face on his position regarding John McCain. Granted, Hawkins is not make a huge shift in position, since he has shared the same opinion of many of us that McCain is far from conservative and not what we consider the ideal candidate. But he has also shared the opinion of many of us that we need to support McCain regardless in order to avoid the inevitable catastrophe that the Democrats would foist upon us if they take the White House.

Now, he is convinced that he cannot support McCain.

I have a lot of respect for John Hawkins and I even understand his reasoning on this topic, as it appears very likely that McCain has not been forthright about his position on immigration reform.

I also respect his right to hold this opinion, to voice it, and to act on it as he has and apparently plans to do.

It is unfortunate that part of that includes excusing himself from receiving information from McCain’s campaign and engaging in conference calls with McCain. In this entire discussion, this part of his decision is the most disappointing. Hawkins’ position is that he cannot trust McCain to be honest. I would contend that there are few politicians whom I can trust to give me a 100% honest response to many questions, and that part of the role of those in the News Media and Blogdom is to know how to work with that fact effectively. I think John Hawkins is well equipped to do that, and it will be a shame to miss out on his insights and involvement as he gives up the level of access he has maintained.

Although Hawkins’ own words in the past have sent the same message, I want to reiterate the importance of two things:

1. Ensuring we don’t allow the Democrats access to appointing the next 5 Supreme Court Justices. We will end up with activist judges, a court that will find ways to demolish our rights and our economy, and further difficulty moving the country in the right direction even with a Conservative Congress and President in office.
2. Engaging with Republican candidates for Congress and President. Expressing support is not enough, and frankly, not as important as communicating with candidates and those in office. It is critical that the message is delivered, and done continuously and consistently so that our country may move forward and make the right decisions, looking to long-term, keeping government small, our nation strong, and fiscally sound.

Our Government cannot stay on the right course if we are not vigilant, engaged and unified. If we sit back and just watch it fall apart, it is no longer a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people”.

Hat Tip to Bithead and Sister Toldjah. Additional comments by DavidL at Bitsblog.

Edit: Fixing a link.

Tags: BitsBlog, Congress, Honesty, Immigration Reform, John Hawkins, John McCain, Politicians, Politics, POTUS, Right Wing News, SCOTUS, Sister Toldjah, Trust

• 2008 Congressional Election , 2008 Presidential Election , Immigration , John McCain , SCOTUS
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Art Smith April 28th, 2008

The Supreme Court handed down a good (in our opinion) decision this week by affirming the Indiana Voter ID law which was under attack by the ACLU. In a 6 to 3 decision, the high court blasted the “facial challenge” (the litigants claimed the Indiana law was unconstitutional on it’s face, or that it was in any given circumstance unconstitutional). Other claims that it was “unfair to Democrats” were roundly derided by the court as irrelevant.

According to the New York Times article:

Brian C. Bosma, who was speaker of the Indiana House when the law was enacted and is now the House’s Republican leader, dismissed the Democrats’ complaints. “This is only a burden for those who want to vote more than once,” Mr. Bosma said in a telephone interview from Indianapolis. “It protects everyone.”

Which is the nuts and bolts of why this is good law, and a good decision by the court. Voter fraud is likely quite common, and it doesn’t take much to gather a list of people in a particular neighborhood, herd in people from outside the precinct and run them through the voting process before anyone gets a chance to show up at the polls. If a defrauded voter shows up later and challenges their right to vote, they may get it, but the fraudulent votes are already in and counted in most places.

The most laughable argument I’ve heard so far is that there have been few cases of voter fraud prosecuted in the country. Someone has got to tell me how anyone can possibly prosecute for voter fraud without recording every person that comes through to vote. Impossible. And it assumes that the defrauded voter actually tries to vote and complains.

In order to vote in states where an ID is not required, you don’t even need to register to vote. You just show up, tell them you are someone who has registered (you need to know their name and address), sign a card and you get to vote!

On the face of it, I can’t see how anyone can think this is wrong. I don’t buy that it disenfranchises anyone… the poor, elderly and handicapped can be accommodated… we already accommodate them in other ways, this one seems rather trivial.

Don’t count on this kind of law eliminating voter fraud, but it certainly puts poll workers in a better position to validate and challenge people’s right to vote more effectively.

I’m not in favor of denying anyone their right to vote, and I only think Democrats are negatively impacted because they cannot run their ballot stuffing machine when such a law exists. However, I think if we can find a legitimate case of voter disenfranchisement and bring it to the courts, it would be valuable in helping all be certain that the right course is in place. The Carpetbagger Report presents some staggering numbers from a study done in Indiana regarding voter access to photo IDs. More analysis of this data would be useful. It amazes me that, according to these stats, more that 15% of all Indiana voters (this was the lower rate for whites) do not have access to a photo ID. That just baffles me. That said, this theoretically represents people that don’t drive, but aren’t necessarily prevented from acquiring a state photo ID despite that fact. My surprise would be that included in this 15% (more importantly, 21.8% of African Americans) are interested in voting, care enough to have done what they needed to register, but not enough to get the necessary identification that should be as easy to get as the registration (of course, the parties do go out and canvas to help people register… perhaps they could help get them IDs as well?).

The entire story at the NY Times is good. I liked this part:

But, as Justice Stevens noted, there have been flagrant examples of voter fraud in American history. He cited the 1868 New York City elections, in which a local tough who worked for Tammany’s William (Boss) Tweed explained why he liked voters to have whiskers: “When you’ve voted ‘em with their whiskers on, you take ‘em to a barber and scrape off the chin fringe. Then you vote ‘em again with the side lilacs and a mustache. Then to a barber again, off comes the sides and you vote ‘em a third time with the mustache. If that ain’t enough and the box can stand a few more ballots, clean off the mustache and vote ‘em plain face.”

Plenty of conversation on this topic and worth reading: Sister Toldjah, SCOTUSblog, Outside The Beltway, McQ, The New Republic (with some thought provoking comments on how this could be considered a Poll Tax), The Carpetbagger Report has a well written opposing opinion, as does Daily Kos.

Tags: Democrats, Indiana Voter ID Law, SCOTUS

• Constitution , Democratic Party , SCOTUS , voting
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Art Smith April 16th, 2008

• Obama is still close to Clinton in the polls in Pennsylvania.
• Hillary steps up and admits she “said some things that weren’t in keeping with what I knew to be the case” about her trip to Bosnia in 1996.
• Hillary also says “I may be a lot of things but I am not dumb” instantly losing the dumb vote. Or maybe acquiring it. Hard to tell.
• Pope Benedict acknowledges sex abuse scandal “badly handled”.
• Sharpe James, former mayor of Newark, NJ, is convicted by a Federal Jury of fraud and conspiracy. Reuters waited until the 7th paragraph to mention James was a Democrat.
• Obama is wearing a flag pin again.  I’d feel better if he got a flag tattoo. ————— No I wouldn’t.
• Florida wants you to bring your guns to work now. Okay, now read it and find out that it’s just okay to lock it up in the trunk of your car, like people are searching them for contraband at the office.
• Alan Keyes has decided the Republican Party is not for him. That’s too bad, as I think Alan is a great thinker… but not good Presidential material. I suspect the possible move to the Constitution Party gives him a smaller pond, but not any more standing nationally.
• The Pickering Institute is trying to exploit it’s .edu domain (pi.edu) by selling subdomains to commercial interests. Ziff Davis is convinced this will degrade the credibility of the .edu name, as if the current academic system hasn’t already done the job.
• The Supreme Court was asked to decide if “lethal injections” were okay (humane) in Kentucky. They were, and they said it was okay.

Well, the real surprise for me is not in this list (okay, some of these were surprises, but not all). The big one for me is finding out that despite thinking I was only signing up to attend the Iowa State Republican Convention, I evidently got elected to the Iowa District 3 Republican Convention as well.

Good thing my calendar was clear.

I’ll be heading to Grinnell Iowa Saturday with hopes for a shorter session than the Polk County Republican Convention (that ran about 9 hours and a lot longer for the volunteers). I have not finished reviewing the platform, but what I’ve spot checked looks very consistent with what we put together at the County level.

And yes, I’ll still be attending the State Convention as well.

I plan to have some highlights for you on Sunday. Saturday, Bithead from BitsBlog will be guest blogging for us, so welcome him with open arms and enjoy his comments.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Part 3 of the series on Clinton’s plans for the Middle Class will be here yet this week… sorry about the delay, just crazy at work. And more in the overall analysis of the candidate’s positions to come… the team is hard at work!

Hat tip to Bithead times two, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Ziff Davis, and The New York Times, SCOTUSblog, and Memeorandum.

Tags: Alan Keys, Barack Obama, Bithead, BitsBlog, Bosnia, Consitution Party, Debate, District Convention Republican Party, flag pin, Florida, Grinnell, guns to work, Hillary Clinton, Kentucky, Lethal Injection, Newark, Pennsylvania, Pickering Institute, Pope Benedict, SCOTUS, Sex Abuse, Sharpe James, The Conservative Reader

• 2008 Presidential Election , Barack Obama , BitsBlog , Blogging , Florida , Gun Control , Hillary Clinton , Republican Party , SCOTUS
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Art Smith March 18th, 2008

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

- 2nd Amendment, US Constitution

As you may already know, the Supreme Court heard arguments today regarding the case of a Washington DC resident who wants to own a gun and keep it in her home for self defense purposes. The law in the District of Columbia prohibits her from owning having a handgun in her home… from even owning one. For background on the case, the SCOTUSBlog.com site (SCOTUS stands for Supreme Court Of The United States) has some good information. From their site:

Within seconds after the defender of the District law, Washington lawyer Walter Dellinger, laid out his general theory that the Amendment only guaranteed a “militia-related” right, the Chief Justice focused on the text of the Amendment and said “If it is limited to state militias, why would they say ‘the right of the people. In other words, why wouldn’t they say ’state militias have the right to keep arms.’”

Kennedy soon joined in, saying the reference in the Amendment to the arms needs of the militia was simply a reaffirmation of the importance of having an organized militia (as guaranteed by other provisions in the Constitution), but then the Framers went further an added an entirely separate right, “a right to bear arms.” Scalia shortly got involved, saying “why isn’t it perfectly plausible, indeed reasonable, to assume that since the Framers knew that the way militias were destroyed by tyrants in the past…by taking away the people’s weapons…the two clauses go together beautifully: Since we need a militia, the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Arguments were apparently completed today. A ruling is probably a few months away. SCOTUSBlog.com provides an excellent resource for information on the case, various resources around the Internet, including CSpan coverage and other write-ups.

I did a little additional research tonight as well just to see what some others are thinking and specifically if I could quickly find some background from the Federalist Papers.

Steve Mount, webmaster of USConstitution.net, has provided a helpful resource of information regarding the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. Included in his writeup of the amendment, Steve makes the assertion that the debate over the past 100 years regarding the amendment is mostly the result of unclear wording, and he suggests replacing the amendment with a new one that provides clarity to the self-defense purpose and removes the reference to the militia. I agree with the idea of replacing the amendment to provide clarity. I do not support eliminating the militia aspect. Steve’s contention is that the idea of a tyrannical leader coming to power in the US is unlikely enough to make the idea of a loosely formed militia unnecessary. I would contend that maintaining an independent militia helps avoid such a problem, and provides a legitimate last level of defense from foreign invasion. We should not remove any aspect of this basic freedom. We should ensure that the Constitutional aspect clearly represents the intent of our nation (not just our founders).
At GunCite.com, there is a nice analysis of commentary content from the period of the writing of the Constitution, including references to the Federalist Papers, that demonstrates with some clarity the thinking of the time on this topic. What I think we are missing in this debate is a better understanding that the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to protect individuals and the people collectively from having a basic right abridged… the right to self-protection. It is interesting that we continue to be very focused on the guns instead of the slightly more abstract concept of self-protection/self-preservation. If practical non-projectile energy weapons were easily available to consumers, we should be able to assign the specifics of ownership and use within the construct of the the 2nd amendment (the D.C. lawyer stated as much today in his arguments)… the right isn’t to own any specific type of technological weapon, the right is to be able to keep and use appropriate weapons for defending ourselves from intruders in our homes, on our land (in concert with others, a militia) or in our government (also a militia would be useful).

If I protect my family from an intruder by shooting him in the leg, I will probably not face criminal charges, but I might face a lawsuit, and may very well lose. I think it’s fair to say that the 2nd Amendment can be used as a reasonable basis for acting and expecting not to be held accountable for injuries suffered by an assailant. It’s unfortunate that we face an overly litigious society, and I think the courts could do a better job in supporting the basic right of self-defense by limiting the ability of assailants to sue their victims. I’m sure there are legislative actions required in some states as well to ensure this protection.

GunCite concludes its analysis of intent of the framers with this:

The only model that comports with all of the evidence from the Founding period is the one interpreting the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right for a collective purpose. The militia clause and the right to keep and bear arms were intended to be complementary.

I think that covers it right there.

The statistics that are being referenced in the current debate seem to demonstrate that stricter gun controls tend to lead to increased crime. The assumed explanation for this hyperbole is that by taking guns away from law-abiding citizens, we are setting them up to be open targets to violent criminals. The fundamental question here is, if someone wants to try and attack and potentially kill me, do I or do I not have the right to take reasonable action to prevent that person from succeeding? If that person has a baseball bat, what am I able to do? If that person has a knife, which am I allowed to do. If that person threatens me and my family with a gun, what are my rights? There aren’t any timeouts in real life. I am not willing to just unceremoniously become a murder victim. That’s just foolishness.

Cases like D.C. v. Heller are going to need to continue to come to the table until this issue is resolved properly. According to SCOTUSBlog.com, there appears to be a strong potential that the Supreme Court will find in favor of Heller. It is my hope that the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) also takes up the question of whether the individual states are truly free to restrict the rights expressed in the 2nd Amendment. It seems to me that the states should have the right to legislate many of the details around how militias are built and managed, and to define locations where guns should be banned (courthouses, airports, law offices… you know, places where people are more likely to go to hurt others), but restrictions on types of weapons that are appropriate to own and/or carry should (in my opinion) be managed at a federal level.

Thankfully, living in Iowa means I have less constraint on owning firearms.

Hat Tip to Blue Crab Boulevard.

Tags: D.C. v. Heller, Gun Control, SCOTUS

• Gun Control , SCOTUS , Second Amendment
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