Give Up On The Constitution? Fine.

CBS news ran a segment featuring a typical, statist law professor from a typical, statist university proposing that we do away with the Constitution because it is an unnecessary hindrance on America's modern needs (e.g., gun control and other encroachments that he and his ilk savor).  So even though the Constitution already is effectively dead and 90% of what the federal government does is unauthorized, petty tyrants such as this think the document still has a chokehold on government's ability to do wondrous things to fashion our brave new world.

I'll see his wager and raise it.  If the Constitution is outmoded, then the Union is too, right?  Given that the Constitution was a treaty among the states, the shredding of that treaty means that the states recover their full sovereignty, right?  Somehow I doubt this "professor" would accept these conclusions; surely he regards the Union as sacrosanct and secession as treason, so he is a purveyor of doublethink, as is anyone who believes that rules apply only to the governed but not to the government.  In truth, nullification and secession are more necessary than ever to resist this insanity.

    

News Roundup

The White House rejected various state petitions to secede from the Union, citing in part the War Between The States and a subsequent decision by the Supreme Court deeming secession illegal. So there you have it, secession is not allowed because the executive and judicial branches of the federal government say so. Please ignore that Great Britain also deemed secession from the empire illegal; that the federal government is merely a creation of the states; that the states exercised their sovereignty to create it; that in so doing they illegally seceded from the Articles of Confederation; that several states explicitly reserved the sovereign right to withdraw from the Union if they so chose; that Thomas Jefferson said that a state could and should leave the Union if it chose; that under the Constitution states may do anything not specifically prohibited, whereas the federal government may do only what is permitted, and the latter has no permission to prevent secession; and that the federal government has approved secession elsewhere in the world, such as Kosovo's secession from Serbia, even though a state such as Virginia has far more historical basis for independence and sovereignty.

The person calling himself President of the United States has claimed authority to curtail gun usage and gun ownership by executive order. Critics argue that doing this without congressional approval violates the Constitution, ignoring that it would violate the Constitution even with congressional approval. The federal government has no enumerated power to regulate arms, and the Second Amendment reminds us that the states, in order to remain free as against the federal government, must be able to organize militias of citizens whose right to keep and bear arms "shall not be infringed." The states, on the other hand, are not bound by the Bill of Rights and can regulate arms within their borders all they like. The Supreme Court once again has flouted this simple, clear distinction between state and federal power, holding that "reasonable" regulation is permissible by either one. Governor Cuomo of New York doubled down on the widespread ignorance by claiming that a hunter has no need for machine guns or high-capacity magazines, ignoring that the Second Amendment has nothing to do with killing animals.

Insurance behemoth AIG considered filing a lawsuit against the federal government for a declaration that the terms of the multi-billion dollar bailout were onerous and violated the Fifth Amendment, since those terms amounted to a "taking" of private property for public use without just compensation.  A popular backlash made AIG back down, but apparently nobody has mentioned that the bailout itself violated the Fifth Amendment, and in an even worse way.  Money was taken away from taxpayers and handed to a private company, which is not a "public use" of funds and is blatantly unconstitutional even if the taxpayers do receive adequate compensation.  And once again, the Supreme Court has flouted this by holding that virtually any public purpose imagined by government qualifies as a public use. 

The National Fathers' Day Council named Bill Clinton as father of the year. Fathers across the land now know that adultery and perjury are honorable paternal roles that they should emulate.

Colin Powell has announced that the Republican Party must alter its philosophy because of how America is changing demographically. There is a term for someone who claims that a person's philosophy is linked to that person's demographic, and it's "racist." Why, I myself have flirted with the notion that ideals such as limited government and the rule of law are the products of only a specific people and completely unattractive to most other peoples; now that Colin Powell has said it's perfectly okay to draw these sorts of conclusions, I feel at ease.  But wait, I forgot that only white heterosexual Anglo males (WHAMs) can be racist! Thus any WHAM who heeds Colin Powell's advice and links philosophy with demography is still racist . . . but so is any WHAM who digs in his heels and clings to his principles regardless of what other demographics want. It seems that we WHAMs can't win, so we might as well just do what we like and let everyone else keep whining.

The news may give you facts, but I give you truth.

On The Allure Of Older Women

Many people find it curious, if not a little bizarre, for a man to be attracted to older women.  Not long ago I saw part of a television program in which men in their twenties and thirties dated women a generation or more older.  One of these men met with his older date in a diner that featured several younger women his own age nearby, and who expressed open hostility to their relationship.  "Why is he dating someone older when there are so many wonderful, beautiful young women (i.e., herself) around?" one of them wailed.  As a man who also finds older women alluring, let me offer some insight.

• Young women tend to be needy and neurotic.  Older women tend to be independent and self-assured, so they don't flip out if you say the wrong thing or don't supply them with constant affirmation -- they can just chill out, be themselves, and let you be yourself.

• Young women tend not to see a man as human, but rather as a tool for them to achieve social status or wealth.  Back in law school I dated a young woman who gave up the ghost when explaining why women compete for certain men, admitting that "it's never about the man."  No, it's about the woman and her standing in the eyes of other women; a man who fails to enhance the young woman's standing is disposable because what he is matters more than who he is.  An older woman, however, already has achieved status and doesn't need to get it from a man, so she is more capable of seeing a man as a who than a what, treating him with real affection. 

• Young women tend to be shallow, which is partially a function of youth but also a function of modern child rearing.  An older woman has life experience, perspective, was probably raised with values, and can carry on an intelligent conversation.  An older woman also does not crave constant novelty or entertainment; enjoying one another's company is enough.

• Older women tend not to play head games or -- pardon the expression -- to shit test.  Shit testing is linked to young women's neuroticism, and a man who fails to respond properly to the test is deemed deficient.  I'm at a comfortable stage of life where if a woman shit tests me, I just walk away and find another one.  Older women, being self-assured, have no need for these childish games.

• Older women appreciate kindness and respond to it with affection.  Young women misinterpret kindness as weakness and respond to it with scorn, which is sick.  

• Older women are more experienced, take their time, and know better how to please a man.  

• In the dark, they're all the same.  Physical differences are a wash.

You might accuse me of being unfair and painting with broad strokes, but it so happens that I'm dating a young woman who thankfully lacks many of the traits of her generation.                 

Spielberg's "Lincoln" Delivers . . . Exactly What I Expected It Would

I posted a few months back on how I have re-thought the War Between The States and now view it as a mortal blow against the Constitution and the voluntary Union it signifies.  Within that post I mentioned that Steven Spielberg was coming out with a new movie about Lincoln based on the work of plagiarist Doris Kearns Goodwin, leading me to opine that the movie would be apocryphal.  Having recently watched the movie, I can easily conclude that I was correct and that the movie represents myth-making of the highest (or lowest) order.

The entire plot of the film fuses Lincoln with the 13th Amendment (abolishing chattel slavery), showing his dogged efforts to get it approved in the waning days of the war. Lincoln makes the Amendment of utmost importance, the idealistic goal to which all other considerations are negotiable and pale by comparison.  This is, of course, completely backwards because Lincoln always treated slavery as negotiable and the Union as the paramount goal; at most, slavery provided idealistic cover for Lincoln to destroy the federation and forge a nation through "blood and iron," just as Bismark would later do with Germany. Consider that in his first inaugural address Lincoln touted the original version of the 13th Amendment, which PRESERVED slavery as inviolate where it existed and was meant to assuage the South. The South could keep its slaves, he said, so long as the South respected federal authority in all respects (particularly the collection of taxes, no surprise). After the war commenced, Lincoln repeatedly treated abolition as a negotiable tool to achieve his objective of forcible Union and a strong central government, telling Horace Greeley that if he could preserve the Union without freeing a single slave he would do it. As late as the Hampton Roads Conference in 1865 he was willing to compromise on slavery if the Confederacy would lay down its arms, whereas the movie shows him steadfastly informing the Confederate delegation that slavery must be abolished whether they liked it or not. The entire premise of the movie is thus a lie.

Smaller lies, omissions, and affronts dapple the movie throughout.

Lincoln asserts to a female ex-slave on his staff that after abolition he supposes he will get used to sharing the country with blacks. Yet Lincoln always had advocated for blacks to be re-colonized to Africa and stated on several occasions that he opposed social equality or sharing the country with them.

A sympathetic and compelling character played by Hal Holbrook labels Southerners as "traitors," yet Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution states that "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." When the southern states departed from the Union they had voluntarily entered, this was not treason. When the federal government made war on those states and their men, women, and children to prevent their departure, that was treason of the worst sort. When the South fought to repulse the invaders -- not to conquer Washington, mind you -- this was legitimate self-defense.

The movie idealizes Thaddeus Stevens, a despicable man who gleefully heaped military rule and abuse on the South during Reconstruction, and who engineered the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson for the latter's naive belief that the Constitution was the supreme law of the land and dictated relations with all states, Northern and Southern, regardless of the scars of war. In a key moment, Stevens compromises his supposed idealism by claiming to Congress that he supports only equality before the law, not total social equality. This scene is offered to show the importance of incrementalism and compromise, yet it is bone-chilling to consider that social equality is presented as idealistic at all. Social equality is completely incompatible with liberty, for liberty always produces unequal results. Only massive government force and repression can bring about social equality, which is equality of suffering and squalor (except for those in government, of course). When pushed by his congressional antagonists to explain his newfound belief in mere legal equality, Stevens argues rather eloquently that equality before the law protects even them, whom he characterizes as subhuman. In this sense the movie briefly contradicts itself, showing that legal equality indeed is the only kind compatible with liberty, but the overall message remains a sermon that the 13th Amendment was simply a first step and that much work remains to be done even now to make Stevens' utopia come true.

Lincoln's younger son is presented as a vehicle through which the audience may agonize over the brutality of slavery, since he constantly stares at photographs of tormented slaves and asks about their plight. This is grotesquely disproportionate when considering the needless death, pain, and destruction inflicted by the war.

Lincoln is shown as extremely popular, yet he was one of the most unpopular presidents ever during his tenure. This makeover appears at the very beginning of the movie with anachronistic dialogue by a group of soldiers who already have committed the Gettysburg Address -- which was panned by its contemporaries -- to memory and who proceed to recite it, displaying a reverence of the sort only a century and a half of government schooling has managed to instill in the popular mind. Lincoln's mentally unstable wife, who receives a sympathetic portrayal in Sally Field, overtly states several times to Lincoln and others that he is universally loved. Yet the election of 1864 was very much in doubt, so much so that the Republican party temporarily ceased to exist and re-named itself the Union party so as to include Democrat Andrew Johnson on the ticket and broaden its appeal. Lincoln himself doubted whether he would win. His Democratic opponent, former general George McClellan, garnered 45% of the popular vote. Perhaps the only reasons Lincoln won were the speedy creation of three new states (Kansas, West Virginia, and Nevada), generous furloughs for troops around the time of the election, and the presence of such troops at many polling places to intimidate people into voting for Lincoln.

When confronted with a brief recitation of his illegal actions, Lincoln excuses them by saying that the people still chose to re-elect him, which supposedly makes everything hunky dory. Election irregularities aside, this dialogue embraces lawless tyranny and invites the audience to believe that any transgression against life, liberty, and property is okay if only the majority approves it. Once again, this helps illustrate my point that the war helped establish a far worse form of slavery than had previously existed, for boundless mobocracy is indeed what most people today appear to believe (if anything).

At the end of the day, this film is a myth-making project whose goal is to deify the state and make Americans understand that only through government planning and violence can they truly be free. Lincoln becomes the Jesus Christ of our modern paganism, a martyr who gave his life to pay for our sins and save the world. This is apt because Lincoln himself was an atheist and, like all such persons with an inferiority complex, he lusted for power as the only path he knew to immortality, for nothing awaited him beyond the grave. I venture that the same sort of twisted thinking infests people who shoot up schools, since they have no self-worth or identity unless others know them and fear them. Lincoln was worse because he managed to kill hundreds of thousands of people who need not have died, all to make himself feel important and to destroy the old federation whose legal limitations he despised, just as his ideological forebears Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay did.

This is not "just a movie." This is propaganda, for only by believing it can the American people accept and obey the monstrosity that is modern government. Perhaps only a return to true transcendence -- whereby all are answerable to their Creator, and the ends never justify the means -- can save us.