More Gun-Control Twaddle

Epitomizing the principle that only Nixon can go to China, Justice Scalia announces that guns may be subject to regulation per the Supreme Court's recent jurisprudence, thus shoring up the rightward boundaries of "respectable" debate.  I can already hear the nasally, high-pitched voices of gun-control fanatics whining that if even an arch-conserative such as Scalia believes that government has this power, anyone disagreeing must be insane.

As usual, I predicted what the Supreme Court would do to the Second Amendment years in advance, which is exactly what the Court has done to the rest of the Bill of Rights -- enforce it to the hilt against the States (who are not bound by it) but poke holes and give the federal government leeway to slip-slide through it (when it was designed specifically to restrain the feds).  Here is what I wrote in 2005:

Modern arguments over the constitutional basis for federal gun restrictions fall into the classic Bill of Rights “trap” that Alexander Hamilton warned of: instead of remembering that the federal government possesses only enumerated powers, people tie themselves in knots by unnecessarily dissecting the lingo of the Second Amendment in order to figure out what their rights are (forgetting that rights are not enumerated). The simple, proper answer lies in the silence of the main body of the Constitution on the subject of gun control – such silence signifies that while States may regulate gun ownership, the federal government may not.

Assuming we chose to ignore the entire structure and purpose of the main body of the Constitution, and instead chose to let only the Second Amendment decide the issue, the same result would follow. The Second Amendment states: “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.” Advocates of federal gun control cling desperately to the first half of this sentence, overlooking 1) that this is only an introductory clause; 2) that a “Militia” is an association of private citizens who, while possessing arms in their daily lives, stand at the ready for service if called upon; and 3) that the main concern of the Bill of Rights is the freedom of a State and its citizens as against an overbearing central government. To interpret the Second Amendment as somehow securing the federal government’s “rights” as against the very persons whom the Constitution seeks to protect is simultaneously laughable and insulting.

Even the modern left’s legal champion, Laurence Tribe, has concluded that the Second Amendment cannot be seen as protecting a federal governmental “right” in this regard. For the time being, though, the federal government continues its illegal regulation of firearms pursuant to the disfigured interstate commerce clause. Most likely the Second Amendment will come to the same ruin as the First Amendment – treated as a “grant” to individuals that neither the States nor the federal government may eliminate, but which both may mutilate. 

And that's precisely what the Court did in 2008.  Under the actual Constitution, States have always enjoyed the power to regulate guns, but the federal government has no authority to do so.  The fact that a "conservative" Justice of the Supreme Court cannot or will not appreciate this rudimentary distinction between State and federal power shows how irretrievable our situation is, within the system anyway.  Thomas Jefferson once said that "the beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."  As Leonidas said on behalf of the Spartans who confronted the rulers of the known world, "Molon Labe!" ("Come and get them!"). 

Un Momento De Claridad

Acabo de darme cuenta de algo:  la vida es un milagro.  Cada día que paso vivo sobre la Tierra es un día bueno.  Por difícil que sea la vida de vez en cuando, la prefiero a la muerte.  Todos morimos más temprano o más tarde.  La cuestión es cómo vivimos mientras que estemos aquí.  No niego que tengo muchas quejas en cuanto al mundo de hoy, pero voy a seguir insistiendo en lo ideal hasta que respire la última vez.  Es posible que yo no cambie el mundo, pero el mundo no me va a cambiar a mí.        

Headlines You Have Never Seen (And Likely Never Will)

Keith Richards Dies Of Drug Overdose

IRS Agents On Strike; Refuse To Perform Further Audits Until Demands Met

Economist Who Built A Career Attacking Keynesian Economics And Central Planning Wins Nobel Prize

Increasing Numbers Of Americans Refusing Social Security Money; Call It A Ponzi Scheme

Chamber Of Commerce Vociferously Opposes Bill That Would Grant Amnesty To Illegal Aliens

African-Americans Evenly Split On Republican And Democratic Presidential Candidates

UN Panel On Climate Change To Seek Input From Prominent Scientists On Both Sides Of The Debate

Family Courts Are Found To Grant Custody To Fathers In Majority Of Divorces

President Gives Rousing Speech To Slash Federal Spending On Both The Military And Domestic Programs To Balance The Budget; Says That America Must Act Responsibly Now For The Sake Of Future Generations

Hollywood Couple Beats The Odds And Stays Married Until Dying Together Fifty Years After Wedding

Supreme Court Overturns Roe V. Wade, Calling It An Unfortunate And Longstanding Encroachment On The Tenth Amendment

American Bar Association Places Moratorium On Accreditation For Law Schools; Calls The Legal Market "Glutted"

American Civil Liberties Union To Launch Campaign Of Vigorous Lawsuits Against State And Local Laws Curbing Economic Freedom And Private Property Rights

Men's Rights Group To March On Washington; Demands Parity In Selective Service Registration And Funding For Prostate Cancer Research

The VMI Tragedy

It is certain that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment had no intention of erasing the distinctions that States often draw between men and women. Besides the fact that the Amendment’s purpose was to forbid state-sponsored racial discrimination against former slaves, the men who authored the Amendment harbored attitudes tempered by history and common sense but now condemned as “patriarchal” and “misogynistic.” Therefore, any modern effort to compel the States to treat men and women identically cannot honestly claim kinship with that Amendment. In our enlightened and gender-sensitive times, though, honesty is no barrier to expediency.

In the 1970s the Supreme Court began treating gender classifications as quasi-suspect and deserving of an “intermediate” scrutiny only slightly below the intense “strict scrutiny” aimed at racial classifications. Whereas racial classifications had to bear a “strong relationship” to a “compelling” State interest, gender classifications had to bear only a “substantial relationship” to an “important” State interest.* Although this intermediate scrutiny has left many gender distinctions standing, the Court deemed it powerful enough to topple the Virginia Military Institute (“VMI”) because, supposedly, the Old Dominion does not have a substantial interest in preserving its martial tradition.

Established in 1839, VMI dedicated itself to transforming young men into citizen-soldiers, a mission it performed with excellence and faithfulness. Yet in 1996 – one hundred fifty-seven years after VMI was established and one hundred twenty-eight years after the Fourteenth Amendment was passed – a faithless Supreme Court demanded that VMI justify itself.

This tragicomedy opened with a complaint by a female high-school student who had been denied admission. Aided and abetted by the U.S. Justice Department, her challenge ricocheted around the lower federal courts while Virginia hurriedly set up an all-female counterpart to VMI.** Unsatisfied with this solution, the Justice Department made the unflattering argument reminiscent of Brown v. Board of Education: an all-women’s school could never equal an all-men’s school. In other words, the only way women could experience the unique atmosphere of VMI was to attend VMI, which of course would render VMI no longer unique. Despite the fact that VMI drew attention to this inherent contradiction at oral argument, the Supreme Court hammered another nail into the Constitution’s coffin by ordering VMI either to admit female cadets or go private. To add insult to injury, the Court assigned the task of authoring the lead opinion to arch-feminist Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Not long after her sanctimonious words became public, South Carolina’s own military academy, The Citadel, conformed itself to the ruling and effectively ceased to exist.

Unsurprisingly, VMI soon became yet another outpost of civilian pathology.  The strict standards of personal grooming and physical fitness were watered down.  Pregnancies began appearing among the new student body, and when VMI sought to punish cadets participating in such fraternization, there was the inevitable backlash. Last but not least, a federal court ordered VMI to cease conducting prayers before meals lest it violate the new and improved First Amendment. This ruling was upheld on appeal, and the Supreme Court refused to review it. Surely the federal government and its henchmen are delighted by the ruthless efficiency with which they have obliterated another vestige of honor and tradition.

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* Meanwhile, the Court was making it clear that States had free rein over what the Court considered a much less important area of individual freedom, namely earning a living. Since the Court deemed this sort of freedom “economic” in nature, States had to show merely that a challenged economic rule or regulation was “rationally related” to a “legitimate state interest” – a non-burden that States almost always meet. Again, the importance of this unusual judicial deference lies not in the fact that States enjoy a great deal of leeway to regulate economic matters – which they undoubtedly do – but rather in the fact that the Court is playing favorites for no discernible reason other than its own political philosophy.

** The federal government’s participation in this siege on VMI’s tradition strikes a parallel to the Civil War, in which VMI personnel such as Stonewall Jackson fought with devastating effectiveness to resist armed invasion of their homes (until it became apparent that the North had more bodies than the South had bullets). The federal government could not resist the temptation to re-enact that invasion in the safer confines of a courtroom.

The Colorado Massacre

The barbarism engulfing Western society continues to escalate.  Most of the barbarism is now systemic (e.g., government violence unleashed from legal restraints, a "culture" that scorns virtue while praising vice, etc.).  But this act of barbarism is a solar flare erupting amidst general chaos.  I can make an educated guess why this studious and intelligent young man lost his marbles, but I won't offer it before learning more facts. 

For now, I'll observe simply that the political reaction is opportunistic and utterly predictable.  The state craves crisis to justify expanding; more often than not, the state generates crisis and builds its own destructive power in a feedback loop of lawlessness, but sometimes a crisis is handed to the state on a silver platter like this.  Although far more people die in car crashes than in shooting rampages, it is the gun rather than the automobile that the state will seek to take away from us.  Why?  For the same reason the Framers added the Second Amendment to the Constitution -- the state fears an armed populace.  That is a healthy fear and easily worth the price of enduring incidents such as this, since the alternative would be far worse.  If the right to bear arms means I run the risk that a private citizen will gun me down, it is a risk that I (and any lover of liberty) prefer to trusting a large collection of armed men claiming the "right" to gun me down, as the federal government now declares it indeed possesses.  At least if I am armed, I have a fighting chance.  Better to die standing than live on my knees.       

UPDATE:  

An interesting article picks apart what is known so far and smells a rat.  I am in no position to say this was a false-flag event; given what I know about history and government, however, I can easily say that it's possible.

Question

Do people care about doing what is right simply because it is right, and not for some personal advantage?  I seriously doubt the concept has purchase anymore.  The concept has vanished from every profession I'm aware of, which now operate solely as businesses.  The concept is nowhere to be found in political discourse, which focuses on all the goodies that a pimp representative can procure, and which often resembles an ad campaign for competing brands of soap (I even hear the word "brand" openly tossed around in the political context, verifying that the mindless consumer has vanquished the purposeful citizen). 

I believe there is no language of righteousness anymore because it judges and discriminates.  The libertine, materialistic, and hyper-egalitarian America of today cannot abide judgment or discrimination (except against those who dare to practice them).

Handcuffing Criminal Law

I have a small but devoted readership, especially here in Missoula (Google Analytics is a wonderful thing).  It's been a while since I posted on the Fourteenth Amendment, and you might be wondering whether I've abandoned my efforts to de-program you from the bilge that government schools pumped into your brains during your formative years.  Rest assured that is not the case, and let the re-education continue.

Most Americans possess at least some familiarity with criminal law, given the innumerable police shows and courtroom dramas dappling the television landscape. In many of these shows, there arrives a painful moment when a damning piece of evidence – be it a confession, a murder weapon bearing the accused’s fingerprints, or a corpse stuffed in the accused’s home – is excluded from evidence because the police obtained it illegally. Most of us clench our teeth in anger, while self-styled pensive viewers opine that however infuriating it is for someone who is guilty to go free, the law must be upheld. Sometimes a television show even reveals that the accused is in fact innocent, thereby driving home the official lesson that the “exclusionary rule” barring admission of illegally-obtained evidence is the price of justice. This is a lie. Nothing in the Constitution requires the exclusion of incriminating evidence because of the manner in which it was obtained, and there is certainly no basis under the Fourteenth Amendment for commanding the States to follow such an artificial rule. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s avidness for reform hit its zenith with criminal-law issues, and we are much less safe as a result.

The most frequent rationale offered in favor of the exclusionary rule is deterrence of police misconduct. Indeed, the Supreme Court relied heavily on that rationale when first deciding to apply the exclusionary rule to the federal government in 1914, as well as when extending the rule to the States in 1961. Yet the very concept of an exclusionary rule was alien to the Founding Fathers, who placed their faith in a far more effective weapon for combating police misconduct: lawsuits. Under prevailing state law at the time of the Constitution’s drafting, if law enforcement officers violated a suspect’s rights when obtaining evidence, then the suspect could sue those officers for damages. By the same token, though, if the evidence established the suspect’s guilt, then the officers had a valid defense to the lawsuit. Under this approach, the beneficiary of the deterrent mechanism is the innocent man rather than the guilty criminal. Moreover, this approach allows citizen juries, rather than government personnel (such as judges), to mete out police punishment. The generation of the Founders knew that government officials are always hesitant to punish their own, which is precisely why they embedded the state-law remedy into the Seventh Amendment by requiring that lawsuits for damages be tried before a jury.

In the midst of inventing the exclusionary rule, the Supreme Court also set to helping the rule find its way into ever more criminal cases and frustrate justice. Specifically, the Court created new requirements for the gathering of evidence that, when not followed dogmatically, would result in that evidence’s being deemed illegal. Chief among these was the new requirement that all police searches must have benefit of a warrant unless a Court-crafted exception permitted a warrantless search.* Yet the Fourth Amendment, which the Court claimed to be interpreting, does not require warrants for all searches. As a matter of fact, the founding generation wanted to make warrants the exception, not the rule. Warrants were heavily disfavored because they cloaked police searches with a veil of legitimacy that a wronged person could not overcome when suing the offending police officers for damages. All the Fourth Amendment requires is that searches and seizures be reasonable, no more and no less. Warrants receive mention in a separate clause of the Fourth Amendment, and with good reason because warrants were deemed necessary only for searches and seizures of contraband, not of generic evidence of criminal activity.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

By transplanting warrants from the second clause of the Fourth Amendment to the first clause, the Supreme Court has rewarded the guilty and punished the innocent: guilty men can more easily challenge evidence of their guilt, whereas innocent men cannot seek recompense for unreasonable searches of their property and their persons. Perhaps this folly would affect fewer of us if the Supreme Court had confined it to the federal government, but sadly, the Court once again abused the Fourteenth Amendment and straitjacketed the States, thereby destroying their freedom to craft new and innovative solutions to the eternal problem of crime. Many criminals doubtless express their gratitude.

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*According to modern jurisprudence, warrants are not necessary in the following circumstances: consent by the person (or homeowner) to be searched; emergencies requiring immediate action to avoid harm or destruction of evidence; searches of automobiles upon a reasonable suspicion of illegal items within; “hot pursuit” of a person who has just committed a crime; items in plain view; “stop and frisk” upon reasonable suspicion that a person has or will commit a crime; public arrest; and searches pursuant to arrest.

Sex Versus Civilization

Civilization is a revolt against nature, and a young one at that.  The majesty of human history over the past five or six thousand years is a drop in the bucket when compared to the oceans of savage millennia coming before.  We are out of the jungle, but the jungle is not out of us.  Our struggle is well documented and symbolized in imagery such as Dionysus versus Apollo; Satan versus God; sense versus sensibility; reptilian brain versus frontal lobe; or below the waistline versus above.

The modern West has enjoyed so much freedom and prosperity that it has forgotten their source, i.e., the latter examples appearing above, which took centuries of observance to bring us the unparalleled wonders of today.  Born into ease, however, the modern Western regards it as birthright and views any lingering displeasure or restraint as unacceptable.  When we consider modern "rights" such as universal healthcare, social security, public schooling, or homogamy, it is rather obvious that the modern Western is a moral idiot and spoiled brat.

Nowhere is this hubris more apparent than in the realm of sex, a primal urge that civilization always has sought to restrain and channel into constructive ends.  But since the 1960s we have told ourselves that sexual restraints are evil and that we must shed them.  The evidence is in, and it has taken only a few short decades for sexual liberty to unravel millennia of progress and gut civil society like a fish.  Rampant divorce, single parenthood, bastardy, disease, and a smoldering hostility between the sexes have left their indelible marks and decimated the family, that once-powerful counterweight to the state (which promotes sexual liberty as a proven method for sowing chaos and destroying political liberty).

Both men and women share blame for this.

The male list of sins is well known (indeed, the media hardly allow a moment to pass without reminding us of them).  His libido unleashed, the modern male can stoop to becoming a Peter Pan who will not commit to a serious relationship, a deadbeat dad who abandons wife and children, a pickup artist ("PUA"), a rapist, a pedophile, or a general thug.  All the misandrist stereotypes we see in movies, television, and commercials have a basis in reality, as stereotypes often do.  

The sin of the unleashed female libido is only one, but paramount -- to reward and reinforce the worst behaviors of men.  What male qualities fan the flames of female passion?  Is it virtue, or vice?  Reliability, or spontaneity? Sobriety, or extravagance?  Character, or personality?  Honesty, or trickery?  Fidelity, or fecundity?  Apollo, or Dionysus?  To ask the questions is to answer them.  While women love to complain about stereotyped men, women also love those same men.  A man defying the stereotypes is viewed as weak and somehow unmanly for choosing the path of Apollo rather than Dionysus, yet it was the Apollonian path that led us out of the jungle and now enables paupers to live as princes.  A man defying the stereotypes also leaves a woman no basis to complain about him, forcing her into the uncomfortable position of looking in the mirror to address her unhappiness. The male qualities that build civilization are "female repellent."

There are exceptions, of course.  Many good men and good women find themselves victims of a tragedy not of their own making, but they are outnumbered and regarded as prudish throwbacks.  It is particularly hazardous that Apollonian men -- who now are labeled as "beta" in an inverted and prehistoric value system -- are checking out of the system in increasing numbers.  No civilization can survive long if these men see no reward from investing themselves in it, and the destruction of marriage as a meaningful and enduring institution has hastened our demise.

Is it possible to reverse course?  Not with the current stock of people born into ease.  Spoiled people do not re-order their worldviews after having them mixed up and set, like concrete, during a bountiful childhood and adolescence.  It will require collapse and a new world of people born into poverty to appreciate the old virtues of modesty, fidelity, dignity, and self-restraint to sustain a healthy society again.  Like the Age of Faith following the collapse of decadent Rome, the age following ours will look back on us with a mixture of wonder and disgust.  We can only hope that the lesson sticks next time.

Thank You, Supreme Court

For your recent trifecta of decisions regarding federalized health care, border security, and state regulation of corporations. You have confirmed to a large swath of the American people something I and many others have been shouting from the rooftops for years:  they are wasting their time fighting for justice or the rule of law within the current system.  The common man sees this for himself as never before.  In politics, as in physics, every action produces an equal but opposite reaction.  If that reaction has nowhere left to go inside the system, it WILL find an outlet.  And it already has, what with rumblings by governors and sheriffs that they will not roll over and die just because nine people in robes decreed that we live under a suicide pact.

If we gaze upon these decisions as if woven together, we find a giant tapestry portraying a government that will employ any trick, artifice, or semantic sleight of hand to increase its own (enumerated) powers and destroy the States' (presumptive) powers.

With health care -- an area of endeavor clearly within the States' jurisdiction and none of the federal government's business -- we see John Roberts, a figure reminiscent of Richard Rich who lied in order to condemn Sir Thomas More and curry favor with King Henry VIII.  Jealous of his personal legacy with the statist scribes of our time, Roberts has murdered precedent and the English language to open broad new vistas of federal authority.  What makes this betrayal so perverse is that Roberts spends a great deal of time reminding everyone of the principles that should produce an opposite outcome.  He reminds everyone that the federal government has only enumerated powers.  He reminds everyone that the federal government's enumerated power to "regulate interstate commerce" does not mean the power to compel activity to regulate. And he reminds everyone that the "necessary and proper" clause is only parasitic rather than a separate fount of authority.  Acknowledging these pillars of the federal system, he proceeds to demolish them by saying that the federal government's power to tax and spend is nigh infinite, unhindered by the enumeration of powers.  I have written about this before, and it is a direct rebuke of the genius and integrity of James Madison in exchange for the wiliness and mendacity of the New Deal Court.  Roberts also characterizes what is a penalty as a tax, the twist that the mainstream media have latched onto, but which should not make a dime's worth of difference to holding this monstrosity unconstitutional.  Roberts also gives a lame explanation of why the "tax" is an indirect tax rather than a direct capitation (i.e., on the head of the taxpayer), showing that he cares little for the Constitution's requirement that direct taxes be apportioned among the States.  This decision is a temporary triumph for Roberts that will be seen by future historians as yet another disgraceful example of how power overcomes truth in a decaying society.

Despite contorting itself into a pretzel to justify an illicit federal program that intrudes on the power of the States, the Supreme Court wasted no time in smacking down Arizona for supposedly intruding on the power of the federal government.  An analogy best serves to illustrate what happened here.  Let us say the tenants of an office building hire a security guard and charge him with keeping out anyone not authorized to enter.  The guard begins falling asleep on the job and letting vandals slip by him; worse yet, he opens the doors to several of his buddies to enter the building at night and steal precious items and information.  The tenants -- who for some insane reason still have faith in the security guard despite his obvious unfitness for duty -- decide to help him by spending some of their own time and effort keeping vandals out.  The security guard notices this and draws his gun on the tenants as the vandals keep streaming past him, and he tells the tenants that it's his job and only his job to keep the building safe.  That's what the Supreme Court did to Arizona, which faces a foreign invasion and now must simply lie down and die while Mexico completes its Reconquista.  The federal government was created by the States to secure the borders, but the federal government refuses to do so.  The federal government was NOT created by the States to regulate health care, but the government insists on doing so.  The contract is breached six ways to Sunday, so it is no longer binding.

Which brings us to corporations and the right of free speech.  Once again, the Supreme Court flexed its muscle to strike down the law of a State (Montana) that is clearly within a State's presumptive power to regulate speech.  Corporations are creatures of state law, so it makes no sense to argue that a State cannot regulate a corporation's ability to engage in speech or any other activity.  As I explained before, the First Amendment was designed as a reminder of the limits of federal power, not as a restriction on the States.  As I also explained before, the outcome in Citizens United was correct (albeit for incorrect reasons) because that case concerned a federal law.  And notice the public outcry at this rare instance of the Court's striking down a federal law -- many Americans truly want an all-powerful central government to care for them, and I would not be surprised if Citizens United were overturned in the next ten or fifteen years for this pathetic reason.

In summary, the federal government is not playing by the rules, so neither should we.  Let us remember that the Constitution itself resulted from an illegal rejection of the existing system under the Articles of Confederation; nine states left the building and set up a whole new set of rules in blatant violation of the Articles' established procedures.  Let us also remember these words from the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it . . . ."  And let us also remember that the author of those words, Thomas Jefferson, refused to concede that federal judges had final say on the scope of the federal government's own powers, a suicidal formula if there ever was one.

These bedrock notions of the American experiment are being dusted off and re-examined, and not a moment too soon.  Real Americans do not meekly follow government into the abyss; real Americans fight to preserve their inherent and inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness against all foes, foreign and domestic.  It makes no difference whether the real Americans are now a minority, for might does not make right, and the minority always drives history.  We need only a critical mass of governors, sheriffs, other officials, and ordinary citizens to continue thinking outside the box and make the choice confronting us:  the rule of law, or the rule of government?