More Supremacy games

It's been a while since I've posted anything. I've been kinda busy with some personal stuff, such as being sick and arranging for a new home computer. I'll try to be somewhat more prolific in the future but no guarantees....

Today we have the next installment of "The Supreme Court Follies" courtesy of this article by Texas Senator John Cornyn, via the ever-irascible Kim du Toit. Here Senator Cornyn is addressing the Supreme Court's distressing new propensity to refer to the laws and precedents of other nations to determine their interpretation of the laws and Constitution of the United States, in many cases overriding previous rulings by the Court:

For example, in Penry v. Lynaugh (1989), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a state may impose the death penalty on convicted criminals regardless of their IQ, if the state so chooses — but in Atkins v. Virginia (2002), the Court reversed its earlier ruling in part because the Court was concerned about "the world community" and specifically the views of the European Union.

Similarly, in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), the Court held that each state retains the discretion to determine whether certain kinds of conduct, long considered immoral under our longstanding legal traditions, should or should not remain illegal — but in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the Court again reversed itself, this time in part because it was concerned about the European Court of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights.

Likewise, in Stanford v. Kentucky (1989), the Court concluded that 16- and 17-year-olds may be subject to the death penalty, if a state chooses to do so — but just last month in Roper v. Simmons, the Court reversed itself yet again, in part because of treaties the U.S. has never even ratified, and because of the views of foreign countries not shared by the people of Missouri and numerous other states.

Still other opinions from Supreme Court justices have relied upon the legal judgments of foreign courts all across the globe, such as Jamaica and Zimbabwe.

If the laws of other nations are sound and worthy of implementation in this country, it's the purview of the United States Congress to draft and then pass those laws, subject to signature of the President. Only then can the Supreme Court take such laws into consideration. Otherwise, it should be as if those laws do not exist. If they are not a part of the law of this country, the Supreme Court has no business even considering them in its rulings. Senator Cornyn has come up with a plan that should at least help with this issue:

Last week, I introduced Senate Resolution 92, similar to a resolution introduced by Rep. Tom Feeney (R., Fla.) last month. It expresses the sense of the Senate that judicial determinations regarding the meaning of our Constitution should not be based on the judgments, laws, or pronouncements of foreign institutions, except where such foreign judgments, laws, or pronouncements inform an understanding of the original meaning of our Constitution.

It's not binding legislation but it should send a message to the members of the Court that a lot of people are getting fed up with this behavior. If you ask me, any Supreme Court Justice who cites foreign law or precedent as a basis for their ruling is in violation of their oath of office and should be removed. After thinking about this further, it may be that a Constitutional amendment is required that will force Justices to confine the bases of their rulings to the laws and Constitution of this country and no other.

Tug of war with Terri

The latest in the unfortunate case of Terri Schiavo is that the US Congress is going to pass legislation allowing a federal court to review the Florida State judge's decision in her case. With her feeding tube having been removed yesterday, the idea is that it would be re-inserted and she would be kept fed and hydrated until the federal appeal is finished.

I admit that I am torn on this issue, however I tend toward the position of her husband since I don't think I would want to continue indefinitely in the state that Terri is in. There are both valid and invalid arguments for each side and I don't have a firm opinion either way.

However, I do have a comment about how those who support keeping her alive have characterized the action of removing her tube. They claim that removing the tube will kill her. Actually, that's not really true. There's a difference between taking deliberate action to bring about the end of someone's life, and no longer performing actions that are preventing someone from dying.

So, for example, putting a gun to her head and pulling the trigger would be killing her. Pulling out her tube would not be the cause of her death. It will, however, allow starvation and dehydration to occur which would be the cause. Yes, it's essentially arguing semantics but I think it's an important distinction. I do not agree with those who oppose removing the tube that it is an act of murder.

The Governator is on a roll

Dick Morris, writing for the New York Post, has this to say:

We'll never change the Constitution to let him become president, but Arnold Schwarzenegger is conducting a one-man revolution aimed at providing presidential leadership.

The East Coast media has missed the full dimensions of the California governor's accomplishments and bold proposals. Together, they constitute one of the most astounding, imaginative and forward-thinking agendas in our recent history.

The things that Governor Schwarzenegger is doing can be summed up as follows:

• Promote use of hydrogen as fuel for automobiles.


• Promoting a voter initiative to have legislative and congressional districts drawn by independent jurists who aren't permitted to take account of incumbency or party in creating the districts.


• Eliminate public school teacher tenure and pay and promote teachers based on merit instead.

These are all worthy goals, however I do have a problem with some aspects of the first one. According to Morris:

With financing projected to come one-third each from federal, state and private sources, California will offer hydrogen fuel every few miles in urban areas and at least every 20 miles along the highway system by 2010. Eventually, he and the leaders of Washington, Oregon, Baja California and British Columbia will work together to create a "hydrogen highway" that will run from B.C. (British Columbia) to B.C. (Baja California).

The Schwarzenegger plan calls for state-subsidized production of hydrogen and for tax incentives for those who purchase hydrogen cars.

As usual, it's government and taxpayer money that is being touted as the answer to this problem. Well, if a state wants to do that, then fine. That's what states' rights is about. The use of Federal tax revenue to support this is, at the very least, questionable, and more probably unconstitutional. But then so is most of what the Federal government does anyway.

Replacing gasoline engines with hydrogen-fuel cells would eliminate two-thirds of America's need for oil — a demand that we could meet entirely with domestically produced oil.

Now that sounds impressive but it ignores a very basic fact which is that the hydrogen has to come from somewhere. Generating hydrogen requires energy. I've heard that it may be possible to get it from ethanol, which of course comes from plants. If sufficient quantities can be obtained using that method, which would also probably require burning some of that ethanol to provide the energy to crack the rest, then great. Otherwise it will have to be supplemented with other energy sources such as hydroelectric, nuclear, or burning of coal and/or petroleum fuels. In other words, it may be possible, but it's not nearly as simple as this article makes it sound.

Thank God it's Friday

And thank God for Victor Davis Hanson. In today's column, he addresses the ubiquitous comparisons by the Left, both mainstream and radical, of Bush to Hitler:

The effort to remove fascists in the Middle East and jump-start democracy, for all its ups and downs, has been opposed not just by principled critics who bristled at tactics and strategy, but also by peculiarly vehement cynics here and abroad — whose disgust was so often in direct proportion to their relative political impotence.

One of their most hackneyed charges, begun almost at the beginning of this war, has been the Bush/America as Hitler/Nazi Germany comparison. True, fast-changing events in the Middle East recently have left many of these hypercritics either embarrassed, discredited — or desperately reinventing themselves into the “I told you so” crowd. But we should not forget these slurs — nor expect them to disappear entirely inasmuch as they reflect a deep sort of self-loathing among Western elites.

Anyone who compares Bush to Hitler and/or the Republicans to Nazis is betraying a fundamental ignorance of history. If either major party can be said to be the heir of the Third Reich, it's the Democrat Party. After all, Democrats are socialists and so was Hitler. Nazi is an abbreviation for the full name of the party in German which, when traslated into English, is the National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany. Although it differed from Communism on several points (one of which was that the Nazi's allowed corporations to exist, albeit under governmental control and the Soviets did not allow such corporations at all), they were far more alike than either is like the Republican Party. Hanson goes on to show just why this comparison is preposterous:

Hitler hijacked an elected government and turned it into a fascist tyranny. He destroyed European democracy. His minions persecuted Christians, gassed over six million Jews, and created an entire fascistic creed predicated on anti-Semitism and the myth of a superior Aryan race.

Whatever one thinks of Bush’s Iraqi campaign, the president obtained congressional approval to invade and pledged $87 billion to rebuild the country. He freely weathered mass street demonstrations and a hostile global media, successfully defended his Afghan and Iraq reconstructions through a grueling campaign and three presidential debates, and won a national plebiscite on his tenure.

And if Bush had lost, he would have relinquished power to Kerry (shudder) because that's how it's done in this country. If he had tried to hold on to power by declaring martial law or some such ploy, my voice would have been among the loudest denouncing his actions.

Of course, a post about the foibles of the Left wouldn't be complete without the hypocrisy element:

George Soros can nearly destroy the Bank of England in his hyper-capitalist financial speculations but somehow find spiritual cover among the leftists of Moveon.org, which he subsidized and which ran ads comparing the president to Hitler. Sen. Byrd, who suffers from the odium of an early membership with the racist Ku Klux Klan, perhaps finds it ameliorative to associate others with the tactics of the 20th century’s premier racist.

Entire continents can play this game. If Europe is awash in anti-Semitism, then one mechanism to either ignore or excuse it is to allege that the United States — the one country that is the most hospitable to Jews — is governed by a Hitler-like killer. Americans, who freed Europe from the Nazis, are supposed to recoil from such slander rather than cry shame on its promulgators, whose grandfathers either capitulated to the Nazis or collaborated — or were Nazis themselves.

If the sick analogy to Hitler is intended to conjure up a mass murderer, then the 20th century’s two greatest killers, Mao and Stalin, who slaughtered or starved somewhere around 80 million between them, are less regularly evoked. Perhaps that omission is because so many of the mass demonstrators, who bore placards of Bush’s portrait defaced with Hitler’s moustache, are overtly leftist and so often excuse extremist violence — whether in present-day Cuba or Zimbabwe — if it is decorated with the rhetoric of radical enforced equality.

In other words, it's okay if leaders we agree with go all totalitarian on their people. The ends justify any means as long as they are the ends we desire. Nice.... He closes with this sobering thought:

The final irony? The president who is most slandered as Hitler will probably prove to be the most zealous advocate of democratic government abroad, the staunchest friend of beleaguered Israel, and the greatest promoter of global individual freedom in our recent memory. In turn, too many of the Left who used to talk about idealism and morality have so often shown themselves mean-spirited, cynical, and without faith in the spiritual power of democracy.

What an eerie — and depressing — age we live in.

To quote the mighty Reynolds, "Indeed."

Walk on....

Today's installment of "The Hypocricy of the Left" is brought to you by the letter 'D' and Joe Kelly, who writes about his experience at the Tenth Annual Talk Radio Seminar. His write-up is interesting and I recommend you check it out if you listen to talk radio at all. However, the part I want to focus on has to do with a couple of people who were at the conference. First of all, the set-up:

The keynote speaker for breakfast was not Dr. Laura, but liberal radio newcomer Al Franken.

(snip)

But, I must admit that Franken’s address was probably the most entertaining. He was witty, funny, self-deprecating, and seemingly sincere. He ribbed both Hannity and Rush, with an amusing impersonation of the latter. He told the story of his USO tours to Iraq and Afghanistan. He choked up as he told of meeting amputee soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He is an actor, yes, but aren’t we all?

And now the payoff:

Every single time I walked back and forth between hotels, I adhered strictly to the controls and never crossed until given the signal to do so. As I made my final walk back to the hotel to check out and prepare to take my taxi ride back to LAX, I stood waiting at the final cross walk for the signal to turn. While I stood waiting with a handful of tourists, I saw from the corner of my eye two people who briskly walked out into traffic against the signal. I chuckled as I realized it was none other than Al Franken and liberal talker Stephanie Miller.

Laws are good for thee, but not for me, it seems is the mantra of the liberal talkers. I don’t know if anyone else would have noticed the irony that these two activists are absolutely the kind of people who will campaign for greater government involvement in our lives, yet don’t adhere to the same regulations that they sought.

Any morsel of respect I had gained for Franken from his address moments earlier had completely gone out the window at viewing his callous and arrogant disregard for simple government regulations that were implemented for greater public safety.

You can't make this stuff up because nobody will believe you unless you can back it up with eyewitness testimony. It's so blatant and obvious that people will assume you're lying and trying to smear the character of those you're talking about.

Too little too late

I didn't comment on this (see here as well) when it originally came out in the news. Since then, there has been a new development:

The UAW has apologized to U.S. Marine Corps reservists and reversed its stand on which Marines can use the UAW parking lot. But it's too late -- the Marines have moved on.

And rightly so. You don't dis the finest fighting force in all of history and expect them simply to forget about the slight.

After several days of bad publicity, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger -- a former Marine reservist -- retracted the decision Monday. "I made the wrong call on the parking issue," Gettelfinger's statement said.

Ya think?!? And since he's a former Marine reservist, I guess it's possible to be an ex-Marine after all despite the old adage to the contrary. This guy put political considerations above supporting the men and women who are fighting and dying for this country and for his freedom to make these kind of boneheaded mistakes.

"I'm glad he decided to change his decision," said Lt. Col. Joe Rutledge, commanding officer of the Marine Corps Reserve Center.

But the apology came too late. "The decision's already been made that we're not going to park there," Rutledge said. "We've already made other arrangements to park elsewhere."

There's more from Lt. Col. Rudledge in this more in-depth article at The Detroit News:

Wounded by what they consider an unpatriotic ambush, the Marines rejected the union's olive branch and secured an alternative parking lot.

"I talked to Ron; I let him know that I understand he has rescinded his decision," said Lt. Col. Joe Rutledge, a top-ranking officer at the reserve infantry rifle battalion. "However, I've made my decision -- either you support the Marines or you don't."

I'm willing to bet the Lieutenant Colonel had some choice words he really wanted to say, but refrained from doing so in the interests of public relations. More from the second article:

Gettelfinger and other top UAW International officials say Bush is blatantly anti-labor and has opposed measures that could have benefited working men and women.

UAW leaders backed Democratic challenger John Kerry and his running mate John Edwards in last year's election.

Just because a measure benefits working men and women doesn't mean it's a good one. Every time there's a "benefit" there's also a "cost." Unions served a vital purpose in ending the exploitation of labor by large corporations. Now that's not really an issue anymore but the unions are still around and still trying to have their cake and eat it, too. And that support for Kerry by the UAW was paid for with union dues which auto workers were forced to pay and had no say in how they were spent. You ask me, unions should be barred from supporting political campaigns with compulsory dues. Why wasn't *that* in McCain-Feingold?

Tip of the hat for the first article to Mike who had this to say on the subject:

It’s enough to make me consider a Toyota next time around—and boy, let me tell you, I NEVER thought I’d say those words. Congrats, Smiley – you guys are getting so good at shooting yourselves in the foot somebody oughta be giving out marksmanship badges for it.

And another to Kim du Toit for the second article who commented on the situation in his own inimitable style:

And you know what? Now that the UAW has exposed themselves for the fucking bastard socialist Democrat supporters that they really are (not that we didn’t know it already, but it’s always nice to get confirmation), let me add this:

When I get round to replacing the F-150, I’m still not going to buy a car that has been built by UAW labor.

Suck on that, asswipes.

Quotes of the day

From today's Federalist Patriot email:

"It is a singular advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end purposed -- that is, an extension of the revenue." --Alexander Hamilton

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress. ... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America." --James Madison

"Congress never votes on the things we used to talk about when I got there -- like reining in entitlements or the balanced budget amendment or closing down Cabinet agencies such as the Department of Education. And under Republican control, for goodness sake! Whatever happened to getting rid of the National Endowment for the Arts? Medicare should have never been passed in the first place. And now Republicans compound the problem by enacting this prescription drug bill when the White House has no idea what it will ultimately cost. Choosing between Democrat and Republican bills on prescription drugs is like saying how do you want to shoot yourself -- with a silver bullet or a lead bullet?" --Former Rep. Mel Hancock

"The other day I found myself, for the umpteenth time, driving in Vermont behind a Kerry/Edwards supporter whose vehicle also bore the slogan 'FREE TIBET.' It must be great to be the guy with the printing contract for the 'FREE TIBET' stickers. Not so good to be the guy back in Tibet wondering when the freeing thereof will actually get under way. For a while, my otherwise not terribly political wife got extremely irritated by these stickers, demanding to know at a pancake breakfast at the local church what precisely some harmless hippy-dippy old neighbor of ours meant by the slogan he'd been proudly displaying decade in, decade out: 'But what exactly are you doing to free Tibet?' she demanded. 'You're not doing anything, are you?' 'Give the guy a break,' I said back home. 'He's advertising his moral virtue, not calling for action. If Rumsfeld were to say, 'Free Tibet? Jiminy, what a swell idea! The Third Infantry Division [will] go in on Thursday,' the bumper-sticker crowd would be aghast." --Mark Steyn

I'll see your 500,000 and raise you another 500,000

From the AP article (which I'm linking to at Fox News because, well, you know):

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators chanted "Freedom, sovereignty, independence," and waved a sea of Lebanese flags in Beirut on Monday, the biggest anti-Syrian protest yet in the opposition's duel of street rallies with supporters of the Damascus-backed government.

Nothing to see here, move along. It's nothing special. Later in the article:

Monday's protest easily surpassed a pro-government rally of hundreds of thousands of people last week by the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah. That show of strength forced the opposition to try to regain its momentum.

While there were no official estimates of the size of the crowd, police officers privately estimated it at about 1 million people. The officers refused to speak publicly because it was an opposition rally.

An Associated Press estimate by reporters on the scene put the number at much higher than the approximately 500,000 who attended the March 8 pro-Syrian rally.

I don't know about you, but that sounds like "regain(ing) the momentum" to me. I could write something really snarky about what this means for the Left, but Mike beat me to it:

Moreover, given not only the incontestable desirability of maintaining “stability” in the ME, no matter how brutal and inhuman that “stability” might be, but also the proven effectiveness of decades spent carefully nurturing the status quo as advocated by various forward-thinking liberals worldwide, it would be downright criminal and completely disgusting to suggest that the widely derided efforts of the Bush admin had anything whatever to do with any of this.

Of course not, Mike. It would have happened anyway if the US had done nothing in response to 9/11 and then engaged in the broader war against terror and its enablers. In fact, it would have happened faster. Trust us, we have the technology to explore alternate timelines so we know this to be true....

You know, it's funny that we're seeing these massive demonstrations by the people of Lebanon telling an occupying power to get out. We're *not* seeing anything remotely close to that magnitude from Iraqis telling the US to get out. Syria doesn't really have much of an economy itself; it relies on the economy in Lebanon. The US, on the other hand, is not sponging off of Iraq but is instead sinking large sums of money into the reconstrustion of Iraq's infrastructure and the revival of its economy. Yet, between Syria and the US, which one would the Left rather see leave the Middle Eastern nation it has its troops in?

And, also via Mike, this image is not to be missed. Be sure you're not drinking anything if you don't want it all over your keyboard and monitor.

Yet another import

From USA Today:

Americans drive imported cars, wear imported clothes and chug imported beers. Now scientists are discovering another, less welcome import into the USA: air pollution.

Mercury from China, dust from Africa, smog from Mexico — all of it drifts freely across U.S. borders and contaminates the air millions of Americans breathe, according to recent research from Harvard University, the University of Washington and many other institutions where scientists are studying air pollution. There are no boundaries in the sky to stop such pollution, no Border Patrol agents to capture it.

Well, isn't that special. Of course, since the US won't sign the Kyoto Protocol, it's all our fault, even though China and other developing countries are specifically exempted from meeting its requirements. What good would signing it do? It's not like magical "pollution pixies" will appear and clean up the planet. All that will happen is that the economy of the US will be significantly hampered at the expense of the economies of other nations.

It doesn't take much research to find that, the wealthier a country is, the cleaner its environment tends to be. This is in large part because cleaner technology, involving both the creation and consumption of energy, is more sophisticated and therefore more expensive to develop, purchase, and maintain. Goods and services provided with that technology are likewise more expensive. You really want to clean up the planet, let the wealthy countries like the US grow their economies, which will help other less developed nations grow theirs, and eventually you'll get to a point where everyone can afford to have clean environments.

Now I'm not saying that the US doesn't have any work to do. But it's being done. For example, here in the Seattle area, I'll bet you won't be able to find a Toyota Prius or Honda Civic Hybrid for MSRP. There are a lot of environmentally-conscious people living here and a lot of them have ample money to spend on hybrid vehicles that are somewhat more expensive than their non-hybrid counterparts.

Oh, and what about allowing greater use of the energy source that doesn't pollute the air at all? That would, of course, be nuclear power. Yes, there's the problem of what to do with the spent fuel but we know how to store that stuff safely. Take a look sometime at how that stuff is going to be stored at Yucca mountain, if it ever happens. It's seismically stable and the fuel will be encased in containers that are, if anything, massively overengineered for the task.

Whether the Kyoto Protocol is an attempt to reduce the economic power of the United States or is motivated entirely by good intentions, it has serious issues and that's why the US isn't signing on. Instead, we're just going to go about our business inventing cleaner sources of energy not because we have to, but because we want to.

Muslims react to '24'

According this article at Fox News:

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. — A plate of spicy stuffed cabbage leaves and a cup of mint tea before him, Yosry Bekhiet sat down and turned on the television for a late dinner one recent Monday night. On the screen, he saw Muslim terrorists gain control of a nuclear plant, causing it to melt down.

One of the leaders of the plot shot his own wife and tried to shoot his son, fearing they would thwart his plans. (And this was after kidnapping the U.S. defense secretary and trying to behead him live on the Internet.)

Bekhiet was watching "24", the popular Fox action series starring Kiefer Sutherland as a government agent who battles bloodthirsty Islamic terrorists. The show has garnered high ratings, but also has angered Muslims across the nation over the way their community is portrayed.

"It's disgusting," Bekhiet said after watching an episode with an Associated Press reporter. "My own kids, if they see this show, they might hate me."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations also had something to say about this:

Rabiah Ahmed, a CAIR official who attended the meeting with the network executives, said Muslims are concerned with how others view them, particularly in the mass media.

"For us it's a sensitive and urgent situation because we are facing a backlash after Sept. 11 and we need to defend our interests and our image. We understand that it's entertainment and fiction. Our concern is that others may not."

One of the goals of good drama is to present believable situations. Right now, the majority of terrorism occurring in the world is being perpetrated by Muslim extremists. To be sure, there have been terrorists who were not Muslims; the IRA is a prime example. But, at this time, it's pretty much all Muslims, all the time, at least when it comes to terrorism that targets the United States and its allies.

The producers of the 2002 movie "The Sum of All Fears" had to deal with this issue. From the trivia page at IMDB:

The movie changed the villains from Islamic extremists (in the novel) to Neo-Nazis. This was done to increase realism because before the terrorist attacks on the USA of 11 September 2001, Islamic extremists were considered unable to carry out intensive terrorist act on US soil. After 9/11 the production staff had to review how to present the movie to the public.

I think that the decision was at least partly motivated by a desire not to upset Muslims.

The thing is that it's realistic to portray Islamic terrorists in television shows and movies that are being made at this time. Getting mad because someone is portraying realistic events is just trying to shift the blame elsewhere. It's not Fox's fault that Muslims are committing terrorism; it's the fault of those Muslims who are actually doing it. Instead of getting mad at Fox, American Muslims and CAIR should be getting mad at the terrorists themselves for giving all Muslims a bad name. Start denouncing terror unequivocally and distance yourself from those organizations who are in any way involved with it. Unless you start by doing that, your protests ring hollow.

And just to note, I know that most Muslims living in America are peaceful and do not want to kill anyone. For that matter, several of the people that work at my company are Muslims and they're perfectly friendly and peace-loving. I'm sure that they don't support terrorism any more than I do. The problem, as I see it, is with prominent Muslims and Muslim organizations who are not making it very clear that they abhor terrorism. They may feel that way, but for whatever reason they are not speaking out, at least not unequivocally. Some are, but not enough.

Drawing a line in the sand

So, it looks like the Federal Election Commission is looking to start "crack(ing) down on blogging."

The GeekWithA.45 has some words to say on the subject:

I am an American, and this is my soapbox, and I will write whatever the hell I want, link to whatever the hell I want, and copy snippets and excerpts of whatever the hell I want.

The ever-irascible Kim du Toit and The Everlasting Phelps put it much more succinctly:

Fuck you.

The Geek has called for a "McCain-Feingold insurrection." I hereby add my voice to the growing chorus. Let it be known throughout the land:

This is my personal weblog and what I post here are my own personal opinions, in accordance with my sacred rights as protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. This weblog is supported and maintained entirely by me, utilizing the services of private corporations. I will write what I want, link to what I want, and excerpt whatever I want subject to the fair use provisions of copyright law. You will not tell me what I can and cannot say here. If you don't like it, don't read it. It is no different than me sitting in a coffee shop and talking with other people. If you think that you can regulate that speech, if you think that you can come in and try to shut me up, then you will bring us one step closer to the necessity of refreshing the tree of liberty with that which it occasionally needs. And should it prove the final step, then may God help you, even though I know he won't.

Supreme treachery

Anybody who has been paying a modicum of attention knows that the US Supreme Court has ruled that execution of minors is unconstitutional. This has the effect of overturning the death sentences of some 70 criminals who committed their crimes as minors, and prevents states from sentencing any further minor offenders to death. The complete majority opinion of the court is here.

When I first heard about this, I didn't necessarily disagree with it. Although I do think there are juvenile offenders whose crimes are heinous enough to merit the ultimate sanction (I tend to think of it not so much as punishment as excising an unacceptable risk from society), it is better to err on the side of caution given the finality of the sentence once carried out.

However, at that time I had not read any information about the actual ruling itself and the majority Justices' reasonings for that ruling. Although I may not disagree with the outcome, the reasoning used is something that we all should be very concerned about.

Others have done a much better job than I of expressing this. I point you to Kim du Toit's post on the subject. Lileks chimes in as part of a longer post. The relevant portion I include here:

For a modern analogue, albeit a broad and inexact one, you could be worried about the SCOTUS decision on the death penalty. It upended laws concerning the execution of juvies because five judges didn’t much like the law, and were alarmed to find it was out of step with the direction of the drift of the emanations of the penumbra of several judicial decisions in Europe. I’m not all that keen on the death penalty; I think it lets them off the hook. I want killers to die in jail, alone, forgotten, with their last meal consisting of steak-flavored mush and Sanka. But the reasonings don’t seem based in that pesky Constitution itself, and the very idea of using foreign law as some sort of guide for American law unnerves me as much as it angers me. I know: let’s use Iranian law to settle the constitutionality of divorce, right now. Someone bring a case.

There are others. Just click browse the blogs on my blogroll and I'm sure you'll find plenty.

In short, there is an increasing and disturbing trend for the Supreme Court to use foreign opinion to shape their decisions. Section IV of the majority opinion is devoted entirely to doing this. That section includes this text:

It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty, resting in large part on the understanding that the instability and emotional imbalance of young people may often be a factor in the crime. See Brief for Human Rights Committee of the Bar of England and Wales et al. as Amici Curiae 10—11. The opinion of the world community, while not controlling our outcome, does provide respected and significant confirmation for our own conclusions.

Yes, they say it is not controlling their outcome, but I disagree that it is proper that they acknowledge such foreign opinion. It should have no bearing whatsoever on the court's decision, as Scalia notes:

The Court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our Nation’s moral standards--and in the course of discharging that awesome responsibility purports to take guidance from the views of foreign courts and legislatures. Because I do not believe that the meaning of our Eighth Amendment, any more than the meaning of other provisions of our Constitution, should be determined by the subjective views of five Members of this Court and like-minded foreigners, I dissent.

The Federalist had this to say as part of a larger essay regarding Senate Democrats' obstructionism regarding the President's judicial nominees:

The U.S. Constitution suffered some serious setbacks this week. The future of liberty and the rule of law suffered likewise.

It's bad enough that Democrat obstructionists are once again denying President George Bush's federal-bench nominees their constitutionally prescribed up-or-down vote by the full Senate. In a fine example of why we need those nominees on the bench, Leftists on the Supreme Court are, again, "interpreting" the so-called "living Constitution" as a method of altering that venerable document by judicial diktat.

Worse yet, these Left-judiciary Supremacists -- Justice Anthony Kennedy and Court Jesters Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens -- cited "national consensus" as a factor in Tuesday's Roper v. Simmons ruling. In other words, they disregarded the Constitution's prescription for federalism and republican government in the name of unmitigated democracy. Which is to say, while riding roughshod over the Ninth and Tenth Amendments as they overturned the laws of 19 states, the Supremes blithely pushed the nation one step closer toward what everyone since Plato has described as governance in its most degenerative form.
Writing for the majority, Kennedy claimed that Americans had reached a "national consensus" against capital punishment for "children," citing as evidence that only 20 states allow a 17-year-old to be sentenced to death. Of course, Kennedy's logic is utterly at odds with decisions such as Roe v. Wade. In that 1973 decision, the Supremes serendipitously discovered a right to privacy that allowed for the aborting of children, despite the fact that all 50 states had laws at the time either prohibiting or tightly regulating abortion. So we must ask you, Justice Kennedy -- what's all this rubbish about a "national consensus?"

You recall, of course, that in a recent case, the Supremacists discovered a clause in the Constitution specifically stating that a 14-year-old is mature enough to abort the life of her child without parental consent. Now, in Roper v. Simmons, they've found a contradictory clause, which avers that a 17-year-old is not mature enough to be held accountable for capital murder.

Adding grievous insult to this "national consensus" injury, Kennedy cited "international consensus" noting "the overwhelming weight of international opinion" as a factor in the Court's decision. Kennedy cited the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child when writing, "The United States is the only country in the world that continues to give official sanction to the juvenile death penalty." Here, his message was all too clear: The High Court is building a tradition of referring "to the laws of other countries and to international authorities as instructive for its interpretation" of the U.S. Constitution.

Sadly, such citing of international standards and conventions seems to be the latest fashion among the Supremacists.

In 2003, Justices Ginsburg and Breyer upheld an affirmative-action policy at the University of Michigan, noting an international treaty endorsing race-based advancement for minorities. Stevens, for his part, cited international law in overturning another capital case: "Within the world community, the...death penalty...is overwhelmingly disapproved." Furthermore, in Lawrence v. Texas, Kennedy wrote that the European Court of Human Rights has affirmed the "rights of homosexual adults to engage in intimate, consensual conduct."

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said recently, "I suspect that over time we will rely increasingly...on international and foreign courts in examining domestic issues." Justice Breyer added, "We see all the time, Justice O'Connor and I, and the others, how the world really -- it's trite but it's true -- is growing together. The challenge [will be] whether our Constitution...fits into the governing documents of other nations."

"How our Constitution fits?"

Justice Antonin Scalia, a dependable constitutional constructionist, protested on behalf of the dissenters that capital punishment should, rightly in accordance with constitutional federalism, be determined by individual states. "Because I do not believe that the meaning of our Eighth Amendment, any more than the meaning of other provisions of our Constitution, should be determined by the subjective views of five Members of this Court and like-minded foreigners, I dissent. ... To invoke alien law when it agrees with one's own thinking, and ignore it otherwise, is not reasoned decision-making, but sophistry." Just so.

Perhaps Justice Scalia recalls this admonition from Founder George Washington: "Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence...the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government."

Clearly, international consensus has no standing whatsoever in the constitutional rule of law in the United States. For that matter, the only relevant "national consensus" is that prescribed by our Constitution for its amendment -- a consensus of the people as represented by two-thirds of the legislatures of the several states. But such facts are lost on Left-judicial activists who are content to legislate from the bench. Just consider this recent comment from Justice Breyer: "The extent to which the Constitution is flexible is a function of what provisions you're talking about." In other words, if he likes it the way it was written, it stands as is. If not, he interprets it, in the words of the august Sen. Sam Ervin, "to mean what it would have said if he, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it."

Garage jumping

So it looks like there's a new "sport" in Orlando, FL, called "garage jumping." This is where teens jump from one parking garage to another adjacent garage. The thing is, they're making these jumps six stories above the ground. As you might expect, not everyone makes it:

Tim Bargfrede told Local 6 News that he was following friends when he attempted to garage jump and did not make it to the other side. Bargfrede fell six stories and was knocked unconscious on impact.

"I just didn't make it," Bargfrede said.

Bargfrede survived the 80-foot fall but was injured.

The truth is he's lucky to be alive after a fall like that. I expect his injuries are more than just a bump to the head.

Of course, we all know who's responsible for this, right? When a young person wilfully and deliberately engages in behavior that anyone with more sense than a peanut knows is patently dangerous, whose fault is it? Why, it's the city and the garages' fault, of course!

There are no safety fences in place on the parking garage.

D'Assaro [attorney for the Bargfrede family -RR] is filing a lawsuit against the city of Orlando and the private garage owner for making little effort to correct a potential deadly risk.

"There was a very, very short length of fence that was completely ineffective in preventing this from happening," D'Assaro said.

You. Have. Got. To. Be. Yanking. My. Chain. What, did the garage owner take young Mr. Bargfrede up to the sixth floor and force him to make that jump? Did they have a sign up there that said, "Jumping across to the other garage is a fun and perfectly safe activity?"

Unbelievable. Although I hope the judge throws the case out with an admonishment to stop waisting the court's time, it wouldn't surprise me if the city and the garage end up settling out of court for some ridiculous sum. In this case, "ridiculous" means anything more than zero dollars.

The responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of the kids who are doing this dangerous activity, and those of their parents who are failing abjectly to raise their children with even the remotest shred of common sense.