Mr. Completely on the TeeWee

Mr. Gun Blogger Rendezvous himself does a terrific TV interview on steel challenge shooting for KING-5 TV, the same outfit that did a damned fine job on a story about Joe Huffman's Boomershoot. Mosey on over and give it a look.

Moral Outrage and Rights

By now I'm sure you've heard about the fire department in Tennessee that let a family's doublewide trailer burn to the ground because the owner hadn't payed the $75 annual fee the department requires. Here's just one of many reports covering the story:

A small rural community in western Tennessee is outraged and the fire chief is nursing a black eye after firefighters stood by and watched a mobile home burn to the ground because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 municipal fee.

South Fulton city firefighters -- equipped with trucks, hoses and other firefighting equipment -- didn't intervene to save Gene Cranick's doublewide trailer home when it caught fire last week. But they did arrive on the scene to protect the house of a neighbor, who had paid his fire subscription fee.

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Firefighters in South Fulton city are under orders to respond only to fire calls within their city limits, as well as to surrounding Obion County, but only to homes there where people have signed up for a fire subscription service.

Because Cranick hadn't paid his fee, firefighters doused the border of his neighbor's property to protect that house in case the flames spread, but wouldn't help him. He lost all his possessions, plus three dogs and a cat.

"They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do it," Cranick told MSNBC. The fire began when Cranick's grandson set fire to some trash near the house, and the flames leapt up. Cranick said he told the 911 operator that he'd pay whatever fee was necessary, but it was too late.

Here's a representative sample of the majority of the comments left at this particular piece:

by MIteach on 10-06-2010 11:40 AM

They should have gone ahead and put out the fire, and then put the $75 fee or the cost of the fire run on his property taxes for the year. Either way the house would have been saved and the firefighters would have looked like heros. This is government at its best!!!

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by jpinteriorsgo on 10-06-2010 11:43 AM

This is totally outrageous. How could anyone with any conscience stand by and let this happen? This family needs a good lawyer and the animal rights groups should protest. Basically this goes against EVERYTHING that firefighters stand for!

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by SilverFin on 10-06-2010 11:46 AM

Unbelievable. I am shocked that they stand by what they did. It's horrendous. So does this mean that the uninsured and poor are left to die outside of hospitals because they can't pay? That rape and murder victims don't get police help if they don't pay their taxes? This is bullsh*t. How could any decent human being with the means to save another's home stand by and watch it burn, allow animals to die and this man to lose everything. Just standing there?!?! The firefighters may have followed policy, but they have no souls or human decency. Douse the fire, make the man pay the tax plus their time and a penalty after. But save his home. Pure crap to let this happen.

There's lots more like this, most outraged over the fact that a mere $75 fee hadn't been paid. One has to wonder if it had been, say, $1,000 if they'd feel any different.

Today Say Uncle linked to a piece at LeanLeft, Life in Libertarian Land, that stated that this is how the Libertarians want the world to work. Uncle characterized the piece thus:

Remember those government employees following government rules and letting house burn as sanctioned by government regulations contracted with another government? Seems that is a fundamental flaw in libertarian philosophy.

OK, then.

But Kevin (the other Kevin that blogs at LeanLeft) put it this way:

Fire fighting — like all government services — costs money. Firetrucks need to be purchased. 911 systems need to be staffed. Alarm systems need to be maintained. Firefighters need to be clothed, housed and fed while on duty. None of that can exist without money — money that the residents of the county have refused to supply as a community and only sporadically as individuals. So the choice is clear: let people freeload on the taxpayers of the municipalities that do support fire departments and eventually ruin their budgets or let houses burn to the ground. It is, in other words, the perfect libertarian world.

Letting houses burn to the ground is the only result acceptable to a libertarian. If you do not let the house burn to the ground, then you encourage free loading, which eventually bankrupts the fire department or the people who are willing to support the fire department. And when we replace the notion of community and collective action for the good of the community, then we are left with the libertarian schemes that require firefighters to stand by and watch homes burn.

Some of you may think that is just fine, that the man got what he deserved. I would argue that that is immoral — that putting out fires is a community responsibility best shared by the community. In this scheme, a person who is poor or down on their luck might lose everything because they could not pay the flat fee for the protection. Someone just might forget, or have the paperwork lost. It is not just to allow someone to lose their home or life to that kind of mistake if the damage from that mistake can be reasonable mitigated.

Now, interestingly enough, not too long back I wrote a piece tangential to this topic in response to a post at Markadelphia's. In the comments to Mark's post "blk" wrote:

Most people would agree that protection by the fire and the police departments is a right. It wasn't always that way.

I responded:

Obviously I'm not "most people." I know better. I've lived where residents had to pay a local private fire company to get them to come to their homes if there was a fire. If they chose not to pay, the firefighters could choose not to come. Or if they did, the homeowner would get a big damned bill for their appearance afterward that would represent a lot more than a few years of subscription to their services. If the homeowner chose not to pay that bill, they'd be taken to court.

Does that sound like a "right"?

I also understand that I have no "right" to police protection. That happens to be just one of many reasons I'm an activist for the right to arms. As I said, I'm a pragmatist. I try to deal with the way the world works rather than how people think it ought to be.

(Emphasis added.)

Now, Kevin (the other Kevin) admits that:

75% of the fire calls to those services are in the county. And when the fire department tries to collect for the costs of going to put out fires, they are stiffed more than fifty percent of the time. So the citizens of the cities are paying for fire protection for people who refuse to contribute the common good. So, inevitably, they were forced to make a choice: enforce the penalty for opting out of the community or continue to pay higher and higher costs to protect those who refuse to be fully paid up members of society.

(Emphasis added.) So Kevin (the other Kevin) thinks that morally it's the community's responsibility to provide fire protection to all, therefore everyone ought to be forced to chip in and pay. This, of course, disregards the fact that "the community" is made up of people - people who decided not to pay. For Kevin (the other Kevin), forcing people to pay at gunpoint isn't immoral, but letting a home burn to the ground is.

Here's where our positions differ: He wants people to behave one way, and I know that given the freedom to choose they may not.

I'd rather people have that freedom. He'd rather they didn't.

Here's an example of a group opposing being forced to pay:

A proposed fire district annexation in Oro Valley has been met with opposition from a group of residents,

Nearly all of the 120 property owners in La Cholla Airpark have refused to sign annexation petitions circulated by the Golder Ranch Fire District. Some of the residents have organized a formal opposition to the move to incorporate the airpark and nearly 500 other properties, mostly in Pima County, into the district.

"I think it's just a big money grab," said Dick Heffelman, a La Cholla Airpark resident and one of the forces behind the group Citizens Against Annexation.

Heffelman said he wants to see less government and doesn't want to pay the more than $1,100 in secondary property taxes per year he estimates annexation would cost him. The total secondary rate in the district stands at $1.73 per $100 of assessed value.

"It's more than twice as much as I pay for insurance," Heffelman said.

Residents have proposed having all homeowners pay $1,000 into a fire-service fund that would be tapped to pay fees for emergency services.

Did you get that? "Nearly all of the 120 property owners" object. But hey! They're outvoted by the nearby municipality that wants to annex them! Now these residents say they're willing to pay $1,000 (one assumes annually) for emergency services, not the piddling $75 that the residents of Obion County, TN are required to pay, but you have to wonder about that, really. How many actually would?

But here's the thing I wanted to point out, one comment among the hundreds left to that original piece on the home being left to burn down:

by sekkymomma on 10-06-2010 12:19 PM

I have lived in Chattanooga TN for almost 4 years now and didnt(sic) believe the "statements" that we received in the mail stating that we needed to pay for fire service were real. I just assumed that it was a donation type thing. I live less than a mile from fire station and always felt safe knowing they were so close. After hearing this story we have since paid our "dues" which are $105.00! I think this is outrageous! Something needs to be done.

(Emphasis added.) What do you want to bet that a whole bunch of people just mailed checks to their local fire departments? And not just in Tennessee?

Human beings are human beings. They respond to incentives.

So yeah, Kevin, rather than let people freeload on the rest of us, occasionally letting a home burn to the ground because of someone's right to choose is A-OK with this small-"L" libertarian.

Quote of the Day - Conservative/Libertarian Edition

From the comments to How Could They? Ed Heckman linked to Theodore Dalrymple's essay The Frivolity of Evil (worth your time, BTW). In that piece Dalrymple writes:

When the barriers to evil are brought down, it flourishes; and never again will I be tempted to believe in the fundamental goodness of man, or that evil is something exceptional or alien to human nature.

And in response, Sarah "Stickwick Stapers" writes today's QotD (my emphasis):

And thus the conservative/libertarian ideology. When you recognize that everyone has a tendency to evil, you resist the notion of concentrated coercive power for any group. When you think only the other guy is evil, it becomes your mandate to have all of the coercive power for your group only.

Yup.

How Could They

David Burge (Iowahawk) made this observation about the recent 10:10 Campaign "No Pressure" television ad:

(S)omehow, throughout this entire process, not one of the hundreds of people involved seemed to have questioned the wisdom of an advertising message advocating the violent, sudden death of people who disagree with it.

Many among those of us who disagree with the message have spent much of the last week obsessed with the question, "How could they?" As in "How could they not see what the reaction would be?" "How could they think blowing school children up would be funny?" Etc., etc.

But that question was answered long, long ago. In 2002 Charles Krauthammer put it in modern terms:

To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.

But it goes back much earlier in history.

I'm currently reading Thomas Sowell's Intellectuals and Society, volume III in his Conflict of Visions trilogy. The second book in that series is Vision of the Anointed: Self Congratulations as a Basis for Social Policy. In Sowell's lexicon, "The Anointed" are the Leftist intellectuals who believe they know best how the world ought to work. In the section of Intellectuals and Society entitled "Unworthy Opponents," Sowell has this to say (long excerpt follows):

Because the vision of the anointed is a vision of themselves as well as a vision of the world, when they are defending that vision they are not simply defending a set of hypotheses about external events, they are in a sense defending their very souls - and the zeal and even ruthlessness with which they defend their visions are not surprising under these circumstances. But for people with opposing views, who may for example believe that most things work out for the better if left to free markets, traditions, families, etc., these are just a set of hypotheses about external events and there is no huge personal ego stake in whether those hypotheses are confirmed by empirical evidence. Obviously everyone would prefer to be proved right rather than proved wrong, but the point here is that there is no such comparable ego stakes involved among believers in the tragic vision. (That would be those of us on the putative "right." - Ed.)

This difference may help explain a striking pattern that goes back at least two centuries - the greater tendency of those with the vision of the anointed to see those they disagree with as enemies who are morally lacking. While there are individual variations in this, as with most things, there are nevertheless general patterns, which many have noticed, both in our times and in earlier centuries. For example, a contemporary account has noted:

Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, foolish, a dope. Disagree with someone on the left and he is more likely to think you selfish, a sell-out, insensitive, possibly evil.

Supporters of both visions, by definition, believe that those with the opposing vision are mistaken. But that is not enough for those with the vision of the anointed. It has long been taken for granted by those with the vision of the anointed that their opponents were lacking in compassion. Moreover, there was no felt need to test that belief empirically. As far back as the eighteenth century, the difference between supporters of the two visions in this regard was apparent in a controversy between Thomas Malthus and William Godwin. Malthus said of his opponents, "I cannot doubt the talents of men such as Godwin and Condorcet. I am unwilling to doubt their candor." But when Godwin referred to Malthus, he called Malthus "malignant," questioned "the humanity of the man," and said "I profess myself at a loss to conceive of what earth the mad was made."

Edmund Burke was a landmark figure among those with the tragic vision but, despite his all-out attacks on the ideas and deeds of the French Revolution, Burke nevertheless said of those with the opposing vision that they "may do the worst of things, without being the worst of men." It would be hard, if not impossible, to find similar statements about ideological adversaries from those with the vision of the anointed, either in the eighteenth century or today. Yet such a view of opponents - as mistaken or even dangerously mistaken, but not necessarily evil personally - has continued to be common among those with the tragic vision. When Friedrich Hayek in 1944 published The Road to Serfdom, his landmark challenge to the prevailing social vision among the intelligentsia, setting off an intellectual and political counter-revolution later joined by Milton Friedman, William F. Buckley and others intellectually and by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan politically, he characterized his adversaries as "single-minded idealists" and "authors whose sincerity and disinteredness are above suspicion."

Clearly, however, sincerity was not considered sufficient to prevent opponents from being considered not only mistaken but dangerously mistaken, as illustrated by Hayek's belief that they were putting society on "the road to serfdom." Similarly, even in the midst of a political campaign in 1945, when Winston Churchill warned of authoritarian rule if the opposing Labour Party won, he added that this was not because they wanted to reduce people's freedom but because "they do not see where their theories are leading them." Similar concessions to the sincerity and good intentions of opponents can be found in Milton Friedman and other exponents of the constrained or tragic vision. But such a view of ideological opponents has been much rarer among those with the vision of the anointed, where the presumed moral and/or intellectual failings of opponents have been more or less a staple of discourse from the eighteenth century to the present.

While sincerity and humane feelings are often denied to ideological opponents by those with the vision of the anointed, whether or not opposition to minimum wage laws or rent control laws, for example, is in fact due to a lack of compassion for the poor is irrelevant to the question whether the arguments for or against such policies have either empirical or analytical validity. Even if it could be proved to a certainty that opponents of these and other "progressive" policies were veritable Scrooges, or even venal, that would still be no answer to the arguments they make. Yet claims that opponents are racist, sexist, homophobic or "just don't get it" are often advanced by the intelligentsia in lieu of specific refutations of their specific arguments.

In other words, they don't need to argue the merits. If you oppose them, you're morally repugnant and can be dismissed on those grounds alone.

Carried to its logical conclusion you get "No Pressure" - first as "humor" and later on as policy.

The Vision of the Anointed has existed since at least the beginning of the eighteenth century, and it has survived (I would argue) largely because those of us with the tragic vision attribute sincerity, idealism, and good intentions to our ideological opponents.

This has to stop.

Hayek called it "the road to serfdom" for a reason. Those with the vision of the anointed believe they are doing what is necessary to drag humanity into Utopia. Those of us with the tragic vision believe that what they are doing is dragging us into hell. I don't care how good their intentions are, I WANT THEM TO STOP. As James Lileks put it many years ago,

Personally, I’m interested in keeping other people from building Utopia, because the more you believe you can create heaven on earth the more likely you are to set up guillotines in the public square to hasten the process.

Or blow up children.

Your Moment of Zen - Firefall Edition

Reader Grumpy is psychic. He sent me an email today entitled "Moment of Zen" with a photo attached - the one below. However, I'd received another email a couple of weeks ago that contained that photo (not as high resolution, but the same photo) and several others of the same subject: Horsetail Falls in Yosemite, taken at a very specific time when the sunlight hits it juuust right. I was going to use one of them as the next MoZ, but Grumpy's gets the nod.

Your moment of Zen:

No, that's not a photoshop. Thanks, Grumpy!

Reality Capitalism TV

I was just thinking the other night about the current crop of "reality TV" shows out there on the History Channel, TLC and the like, shows like "Ice Road Truckers," "Axe Men," "Deadliest Catch," "Pawn Stars" and "American Pickers."

They're televising capitalism. Hell, they're celebrating it. How did that happen?

If I'm not mistaken, it started with Mike Rowe's series, "Dirty Jobs," of which "Deadliest Catch" is a spin-off. For those two of you who might not have seen it, "Dirty Jobs" is a show about people who do the most manual of manual-labor work in some of the nastiest jobs you're likely to find. Crab fishing in the Bearing Sea is among those jobs. It's cold, exhausting, mind- and body-numbing work that can get you dead or injured in short order through a moments inattention or through absolutely no fault of your own.

But it pays great - if your captain does his job well.

In the first three shows I list, "Ice Road Truckers," "Axe Men" and "Deadliest Catch," the stars do high-risk manual labor jobs in rough conditions and pull down good pay doing it. They do this voluntarily - no one tells them they must, they choose their professions. They all know that they could find other work, less dangerous, less risky, but they take pride in the fact that they are doing something that few other people are willing to do, and that has a pay scale commensurate to their rare skills and work ethic.

It's called "the pursuit of happiness" for a reason.

In the last two, "Pawn Stars" and "American Pickers," the stars don't risk themselves, but their capital - and they're neither bashful nor ashamed of it. In "Pawn Stars" people bring things in to sell, and we in the audience get to see a huge variety of items that people have collected or acquired. They often but not always get an offer, and they decide whether to accept. Each time an offer is made, the guys behind the counter are risking their money on the belief that at some time in the future they can sell the item at a profit. Experts are often brought in to identify and authenticate items in order to reduce the risk, but not always. I'm not certain what agreements the experts have with the shop, but I would not be at all surprised to learn that at least some of them are paid an annual retainer for their services. Their customers are free to refuse the offer, and often do. That's capitalism at its raw base - an item is worth what two parties agree upon.

In "American Pickers" the stars are more proactive - they go looking for stuff and then try to convince people to A) let them look around, and then B) sell. The stars are not only risking their capital on inventory, they are out spending money and time in active search. They very seldom contact an expert until after they've made a purchase, so their risk is higher, and they have much less in the way of a "walk-in" clientele, reducing the volume of material they can acquire. Consequently, their profit margins need to be higher to cover their risks and expenses.

In both shows the stars use third-parties as restorers/renovators, adding value to many of the purchases and increasing both their saleability and (hopefully) profitability, thus creating jobs. The people who do these jobs are chosen for their knowledge and skills, and they too are pursuing happiness. Vendor A is chosen over Vendor B because of their reputation, not because A put in a lower bid.

I have to admit, as little TV as I watch, I do occasionally enjoy some of these shows, and I'm pleased to see capitalism given a bit of its due on the nation's cable networks.

This Is How They Think of Us. Seriously.

It's no wonder they can't grok the Tea Parties.

They are going to be so butthurt in November. Worse than 2004, I think.

And One More B4 Bed . . .

I found this amusing:

As Tam Said, So Wrong it's Right

...when she posted her video.

Via AR15.com, I give you "While my Ukulele Gently Weeps":

The guy has talent!

And for the hell of it, I'm going to add this piece, which I think is both freaking amazing to watch, and beautiful to listen to - Andy McKee, "Drifting"

Enjoy!

Clark County (NV) Kids Can't Do Math

No matter what their grades say. Read Vin Suprynowicz on the subject. Excerpt:

Cheyenne High School, with its 2009 "Nevada state Principal of the Year," supposedly made "Adequate Yearly Progress" in 2009-2010, according to Arne Duncan and his federal parachute team. But the main thing the numbers there show is rampant grade inflation — kids who can't pass the test taking home misleading "passing" grades.
At Cheyenne, the Algebra I common assessment test scores held steady — from 96 percent flunking in 2007, to 96 percent flunking in 2009.

After two years, the teaching staff still didn’t know they had a problem? They still want to claim the test is "unfair"?

Meantime, however, in the same years, Cheyenne parents were told 63 to 72 percent of the kids PASSED Algebra I. Similarly, while 90 to 97 percent of kids flunked the standardized geometry test each year, students carried home report cards informing parents 64 to 72 percent of kids had PASSED geometry each year.

RTWT. Ask yourself if your kids are in the same kind of "schools" these kids are.

"...Parasitic Human Infants..."

That's what eco-terrorist James Lee called children in his Al Gore-inspired eco-rant. So here's the logical conclusion to the "save the Earth" campaign, as pointed to by Pascal:

You'll notice that the teacher doesn't kill herself, though.

They're seldom quite that dedicated to saving Mother Gaia.

Watermelons: Green on the Outside . . .

As Instapundit puts it,

It always ends up as mass murder, real or fantasized, with these people. That’s what they do.

So a Greenie comes up with a "clever" ad to make people want to join a movement to reduce their carbon footprint. But first, here's former undercover Weather Underground member Larry Grathwohl on what they had planned for America after the Glorious Revolution:

Here's what Richard Curtis thought would be an acceptable advertisement to help convince people to "voluntarily" reduce their carbon output by 10%:

This is what's known as a Freudian slip.

"No pressure." Just conform or they'll kill you and your children.

Just like they burn down luxury homes under construction and other structures, bomb pipelines and manufacturing facilities, destroy crops, etc. Killing their enemies is merely the next logical step. I mean, listen to this kid:

As I said, the world is full of pissed-off people.

Interesting Question

I received the following interesting question in email today:

Mr Baker:
I am doing a history paper on the Constitution and was wondering what 3 books you would recommend reading. I am looking for books meant for the average person that can discuss the history and philosophy of the constitution and our government. The paper will probably be about how a lot in government view it as a "living document" compared to how it was viewed in the past.

I have some of the brightest, best informed readers on the web. How about it? What are your suggestions?

2012

I'd like you to to read some pieces and then come back here for mine. There are four, and they are in large part repetitive, but I think they're worth your time. They are:

The Decadence of Election 2010

WWIII ahead: Warfare defining human life by 2020

Hatred is killing your profits; new meltdown ahead

And, finally, America on the brink of a Second Revolution

The first piece is by Peter Morici - "a professor at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission." The last three are Market Watch op-eds by Paul B. Farrell - "the author of nine books on personal finance, economics and psychology, including The Millionaire Code, The Winning Portfolio, The Lazy Person's Guide to Investing. Farrell was an investment banker with Morgan Stanley; executive vice president of the Financial News Network; executive vice president of Mercury Entertainment Corp; and associate editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. He has a Juris Doctor and a Doctorate in Psychology."

There are a lot of specifics in these three pieces that I disagree with, but the overall conclusions? I'm pessimistic enough to go along with most of those.

Peggy Noonan said it in her 2005 column, A Separate Peace: "tough history is coming."

Though he explicitly states that the problem is bipartisan, Paul Farrell lays most of the blame for the coming chaos at the feet of the Right. I really don't give a damn who's to blame. I'm convinced that it's the inevitable result of Thomas Sowell's "Conflict of Visions." I'm reminded of two quotations - Ambrose Bierce, who said "Revolution is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment," and Arthur Koestler who said "Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means."

Koestler also said "The most persistent sound which reverberates through man's history is the beating of war drums."

We're a nation of pissed-off people in a world of pissed-off people. The "greatest generation" in Tom Brokaw's analysis is the last one to have known true hardship. Each successive generation has been progressively (in all meanings of the term) infantilized. We've been promised free ice cream all of our lives, but that ice cream is running out. Still, as Farrell says, most of us are in denial, and will continue playing on the railroad tracks until the oncoming freight train runs us down.

As Billy Beck says, the Endarkenment cometh. We're not voting our way out of this.

Our Pubic Schools

I posted that (click on the pic for the backstory), because it's a perfect lede for this:

IAmA HS teacher: This is a list of "suggestions" we got in our mailboxes today on how to dumb-down our classes even more than they already are. I'm so angry I can hardly see straight.

Of course, as in most workplaces, "suggestions" are requirements-in-waiting. I'm sure if I don't adopt these "new methods" I'll get a bad review come June.

They talk and talk about improving our state test grades, but once the news cameras are gone this is how they really want us to run our classes -make them so easy everyone can pass without doing any work at all. Then they blame the low test scores on "lazy teachers" and the Union. It's beyond sick.

Here's the list:
Multiple Choice

Consider open book tests using page references

Limit to one word or short phrases

Provide only one choice per letter (eliminate: A and B & All of the Above)

Eliminate: None of the Above

Offer a maximum of 3 choices

Avoid using negatives in questions (Which of these is not...)
True-False

Avoid negative or comparative wording (which is NOT, etc.)

Avoid the use of specific determiners (always, never, and no)

Balance the number of true answers to the number of false (Ex: tell the students "there are 5 true and 5 false")

If this is impractical, at least tell the student how many of each (5 true, 7 false)

Eliminate the need to rephrase false statements to make them true
Fill-in & Completion

one word answers or short phrases only

Provide a word bank and/or page number clues

Give the first letter of the answer

Limit the number of fill-in-the-blank responses to 1 per question (Ex: President [blank] was the 1st President of America, his vice president was [blank] is not recommended.)
Essays

Weigh the merit of using any essay questions at all

If you must use essay questions:

Allow students to list answers without complete sentences

Provide "answer starters" (provide the first sentence or paragraph from a well-written essay)

Consider providing open book or notebook time

There were several other references to "consider giving open book tests with page references" that I eliminated as redundant. Geez, I wonder what they want all our tests to be from now on, but can't come right out and say it? I could never guess...

I'm proud of one of my posts drawing 571 comments. This one has (at the time of this writing) 2876.

(h/t: Unix-Jedi for the latter link.)

Finished Monster Hunter: Vendetta

Damn, that was a fast, fun read!

Next!

Larry Correia is going to be in Scottsdale in October for a book signing. I may have to make a trip up there to see him again.

From the Grave

This appears to be real. Here's the obituary posted at the funeral home website. Here's the newspaper edition:

(Click for full size.)

From an email from my brother. (Now, back to reading.)

I Picked Up My Copy

. . . of Monster Hunter Vendetta. Don't expect to see much posting for a while.

...Or Their Pets

Today's 365 days of Dilbert cartoon calendar entry:

I Find I Dislike Cass Sunstein Very Much

...despite the fact that Glenn Reynolds and Eugene Volokh (both men I admire) seem to think well of him.

I heard an audio clip on the radio on my way home this afternoon. (Yes, I was tuned into Glenn Beck for the 15 minute drive home. My iPod is on the fritz until I can reload the operating system.) That clip was taken from this C-SPAN interview:

Here's the key portion of the transcript:

Let me explain the division among conservative legal thinkers. Some conservative legal thinkers like Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas think that the Constitution means what it originally meant. That means we should understand the document by going into a kind of time machine and capturing the public understanding of the public that ratified the document a century, or more than a century ago.

So that is a very distinctive approach. It would involve quite radical changes in our existing Constitutional understandings, and Justice Thomas is entirely clear on that. He's voted to overturn the Supreme Court's own precedents over twenty times.

He says that like it's a bad thing. I'm sure Professor Sunstein doesn't object to Brown v. Board of Education in which the Supreme Court overturned its own precedent.

I've stated precisely where I stand on the question of Originalism and why in Cut-'n-Paste. Let me repeat some of the quotes that piece opened with:

On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed. --Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p. 322 Paul K. Sadover

--

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.... If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield. - George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

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Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government. - James Madison

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The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now. — South Carolina v. US, 199 U.S. 437, 448 (1905)

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A provision of the Constitution, it is hardly necessary to say, does not admit of two distinctly opposite interpretations. It does not mean one thing at one time and an entirely different thing at another time. - Justice Sutherland (dissenting), Blaisdell (1934)

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I quite agree with the opinion of the court that whether the legislation under review is wise or unwise is a matter with which we have nothing to do. Whether it is likely to work well or work ill presents a question entirely irrelevant to the issue. The only legitimate inquiry we can make is whether it is constitutional. If it is not, its virtues, if it have any, cannot save it; if it is, its faults cannot be invoked to accomplish its destruction. If the provisions of the Constitution be not upheld when they pinch, as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned. - (Ibid.)

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The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections. - West Virginia v Barnette (1943)

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Judges know very well how to read the Constitution broadly when they are sympathetic to the right being asserted. We have held, without much ado, that "speech, or...the press" also means the Internet...and that "persons, houses, papers, and effects" also means public telephone booths....When a particular right comports especially well with our notions of good social policy, we build magnificent legal edifices on elliptical constitutional phrases - or even the white spaces between lines of constitutional text. But, as the panel amply demonstrates, when we're none too keen on a particular constitutional guarantee, we can be equally ingenious in burying language that is incontrovertibly there.

It is wrong to use some constitutional provisions as springboards for major social change while treating others like senile relatives to be cooped up in a nursing home until they quit annoying us. As guardians of the Constitution, we must be consistent in interpreting its provisions. If we adopt a jurisprudence sympathetic to individual rights, we must give broad compass to all constitutional provisions that protect individuals from tyranny. If we take a more statist approach, we must give all such provisions narrow scope. Expanding some to gargantuan proportions while discarding others like a crumpled gum wrapper is not faithfully applying the Constitution; it's using our power as federal judges to constitutionalize our personal preferences. - Judge Alex Kozinski, dissenting, Silveira v Lockyer denial to re-hear en banc, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, (2003)

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I respectfully dissent from our order denying rehearing en banc. In so doing, I am expressing agreement with my colleague Judge Gould's special concurrence in Nordyke v. King, and with the Fifth Circuit's opinion in United States v. Emerson, both taking the position that the Second Amendment secures an individual, and not collective, right to keep and bear arms.

The panel opinion holds that the Second Amendment "imposes no limitation on California's [or any other state's] ability to enact legislation regulating or prohibiting the possession or use of firearms" and "does not confer an individual right to own or possess arms." The panel opinion erases the Second Amendment from our Constitution as effectively as it can, by holding that no individual even has standing to challenge any law restricting firearm possession or use. This means that an individual cannot even get a case into court to raise the question. The panel's theory is that "the Second Amendment affords only a collective right," an odd deviation from the individualist philosophy of our Founders. The panel strikes a novel blow in favor of states' rights, opining that "the amendment was not adopted to afford rights to individuals with respect to private gun ownership or possession," but was instead "adopted to ensure that effective state militias would be maintained, thus preserving the people's right to bear arms." It is not clear from the opinion whom the states would sue or what such a suit would claim were they to try to enforce this right. The panel's protection of what it calls the "people's right to bear arms” protects that "right" in the same fictional sense as the "people's" rights are protected in a "people's democratic republic."

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About twenty percent of the American population, those who live in the Ninth Circuit, have lost one of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights. And, the methodology used to take away the right threatens the rest of the Constitution. The most extraordinary step taken by the panel opinion is to read the frequently used Constitutional phrase, "the people," as conferring rights only upon collectives, not individuals. There is no logical boundary to this misreading, so it threatens all the rights the Constitution guarantees to "the people," including those having nothing to do with guns. I cannot imagine the judges on the panel similarly repealing the Fourth Amendment's protection of the right of "the people" to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, or the right of "the people" to freedom of assembly, but times and personnel change, so that this right and all the other rights of "the people" are jeopardized by planting this weed in our Constitutional garden. - Judge Andrew Jay Kleinfeld, dissenting, also from Silveira v Lockyer denial to re-hear en banc, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, (2003)

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It is literally true that the U.S. Supreme Court has entirely liberated itself from the text of the Constitution.

What 'we the people' want most of all is someone who will agree with us as to what the evolving constitution says.

We are free at last, free at last. There is no respect in which we are chained or bound by the text of the Constitution. All it takes is five hands.

What in the world is a ‘moderate interpretation’ of the text? Halfway between what it really says and what you want it to say? - Antonin Scalia, excerpts from a speech quoted in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, 3/10/04

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Something has gone seriously awry with this Court’s interpretation of the Constitution. - Clarence Thomas (dissenting) Kelo v New London (2005)

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Obliterating a provision of the Constitution, of course, guarantees that it will not be misapplied. - (Ibid.)

The interview with Sunstein seems to be from 2006 during or just previous to the Alito Supreme Court nomination hearing. Sunstein had just published his book Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts Are Wrong for America. You'll note that he doesn't seem to have a problem with extreme Left-Wing courts.

Some of Sunstein's other books:

Free Markets and Social Justice. - I'd like it if someone could just define "social justice" and illustrate how it differs from plain old everyday justice.

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness - Co-written with Richard Thaler, this book is described at Barnes & Nobel thus:

Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we are all susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes make us poorer and less healthy; we often make bad decisions involving education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, the family, and even the planet itself. Thaler and Sunstein invite us to enter an alternative world, one that takes our humanness as a given. They show that by knowing how people think, we can design choice environments that make it easier for people to choose what is best for themselves, their families, and their society. Using colorful examples from the most important aspects of life, Thaler and Sunstein demonstrate how thoughtful "choice architecture" can be established to nudge us in beneficial directions without restricting freedom of choice.

Who is this "we" that is entrusted to do the "design(ing) of choice environments"?

I suspect that it would be Thomas Sowell's "Anointed" - the intellectual elite.

Or, how about:

Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions, described at B&N:

Cass Sunstein and Martha Nussbaum bring together an all-star cast of contributors to explore the legal and political issues that underlie the campaign for animal rights and the opposition to it. Addressing ethical questions about ownership, protection against unjustified suffering, and the ability of animals to make their own choices free from human control, the authors offer numerous different perspectives on animal rights and animal welfare.

What, we humans get "nudged" but animals don't?

And then there's:

A Constitution of Many Minds: Why the Founding Document Doesn't Mean What It Meant Before - Like HELL it doesn't.

And finally, this:

The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever - If you needed any more evidence that Cass Sunstein doesn't understand the founding philosophy of this nation, that book title is enough all by itself.