So The Supreme Court Is Going To Decide The Constitutional Question Of Gay Marriage?

No, it won't. The Supreme Court can say whatever it likes, but it lacks the power to alter or "update" a Constitution that leaves marriage (and most other matters) to the citizens of the several states to deal with however they wish. It's shameful that so many Americans clamor for these nine federal employees to tell them what to do; it's ridiculous that this matter reached the Supreme Court in the first place; and it will be an absolute joke if the Court concludes that the same Constitution that once allowed states to penalize a certain behavior now requires them to sanctify it.

Such a decision will be just another announcement by the federal government that it feels no obligation to follow the amendment process spelled out in Article V of the Constitution. No amount of flowery language about "tolerance" or "love" can make such a decision anything other than what it is: an attack on the rule of law. To the extent any citizen celebrates such an outcome, he is admitting that he is unworthy to live under the rule of law and that he prefers for black-robed functionaries to make the rules rather than follow them.

A mature, responsible person worthy of the Constitution and the rule of law appreciates that some states may choose to recognize gay marriage while other states may not. An immature, irresponsible person who is unfit for the rule of law cannot tolerate interstate diversity and cries out for federal intervention to force everyone into compliance with his wishes.

I wholeheartedly support state governors, legislators, and judges who refuse to toe the line when the Supreme Court plays God in this manner, such as with abortion, separation of church and state, flag burning, and a host of other issues that are none of the Court's damn business. If a joke of a decision comes down the pike, by all means go ahead and do whatever your conscience and the Constitution allow for. Either you follow the Constitution, or you follow the federal government. The former option represents the country as the Founders intended; the latter option is the country as Lincoln and his worshipers re-imagined it.

Victory, And Gratitude

The past few years of my life have not been easy.

Eight years ago I ruptured a lumbar disc and endured agonizing pain day and night, which was nothing compared to learning that I couldn't risk playing soccer or volleyball again (and I was damn good at both). Shortly after that, my then-wife and I decided that we had had enough of where we lived and wished to start a family on the opposite side of the country, settling on Montana. As an attorney, however, I would have to prepare for and take the bar exam again, since Montana lacks reciprocity with other jurisdictions. Despite working a full-time job, I studied every chance I got during mornings, lunch, evenings, and weekends. At last I took the exam and passed it, also securing a job on the same trip and feeling alive with hope for the future. Even though I was taking a massive pay cut, I told myself it was worth it.

Just a few months after shipping all of my possessions to this new place and hunkering down to do my work, my wife ripped my soul from my body. With cold-blooded ease she lied to me and about me in order to engineer a separation and run off into a depraved subculture she had discovered online. The fact that I saw through her lies and exposed her is something for which she will always hate me. At this point she has thoroughly polluted and destroyed herself in mind, body, and soul; as I've mentioned before, I don't consider the creature she has become to be the woman I married, who is long dead. At the time, though, I lacked such perspective and proceeded, zombie-like, to confront my first Montana winter by myself. Each day I would wake up in the early darkness to don a ski-suit and shovel snow out of my driveway so I could go to work (where I had committed to remain), and I often had to shovel again upon returning home. I was in a frigid place where I had no family, no friends, a job that paid peanuts, and no direction.

During all of this time -- both before and after the move -- I had to work with some of the most petty, insecure, egotistical, envious, conniving, and passive-aggressive people on the planet. I could write a book on the outrageous behavior I have witnessed in the practice of law, and I would wager that much the same could be said for any "professional" setting. Stealing credit for my work. Attacking me for decisions that were not mine to make. Saying one thing to me in person, but then sending (and circulating) an email saying the opposite. A general cult-like atmosphere that targets people who desire simply to do their work and live life outside the office. Smothering good, winning motions -- thus ignoring the ethical duty to the client -- because victory might end the file along with the billing gravy train. And of course, the hatred of excellence. This last one has bubbled to the surface on numerous occasions. One time early in my career I was having what I thought was a friendly conversation with a partner and shared my belief that there is no single "right" way to make an argument, since each person has a unique style or voice. I soon was drummed out of her division; when I prodded, I learned that she had told everyone that I didn't care what partners think. Not only had I never said this, but I had won numerous cases for the division on motion practice alone (which is likely what did me in). On another occasion I inquired why my bonus was several orders of magnitude smaller than in previous years, especially considering the excellent quality of my work and my results. The answer was a rare moment of candor: "Quality doesn't matter." I wanted to leave the firm immediately rather than spend another day in such a sickening atmosphere, but I didn't have a path charted yet.

Now I do. I decided to take the plunge and start my own business devoted to legal research and writing, knowing full well that it could fail because life isn't fair and nobody owes me a damn thing. Armed with that knowledge, I dipped into savings accumulated over thirteen years of thankless toil, and I fought every day either to find work or to do it. I wrote legal articles; created my own continuing legal education course; handed out business cards to countless people who weren't interested, in the hopes of finding someone who was; under-billed when necessary; and generally swallowed my pride to do what I had to. It has worked. New business is coming in all the time from around the country, most often from other attorneys, and I have growing numbers of clients who depend on me on a regular basis. They know that quality does matter, and they also know it's hard to find in a modern world where "just good enough" is the reigning ideology.

This has been the greatest challenge and triumph of my life. If I die tomorrow, I will die a happy man who is independent and free. No treacherous wife. No children. No debts. No Stalinist HR department. No cult of mediocrity. No psychotic, scorned paralegals. And no boundaries. I can rise and sleep whenever I like, or work from anyplace on the planet that has an Internet connection. The world is my oyster, just as I felt it was when I graduated college -- only this time it's for real.

I will be the first to admit that I did not do this on my own. Many friends and family helped me even though it was not their duty, and I feel immense gratitude toward them all. I feel equal gratitude toward every person who has sought to hurt or destroy me; if you weren't the twisted, bitter souls that you are, I never would have gotten here, so my thanks go out to you as well.     

Another "Civil Rights" Tragedy Arises From Wedding Cake

A Colorado "civil rights" official -- who likely has portraits of Stalin, Guevara, and Mao decorating her office at taxpayer expense -- has denounced a baker as a "Nazi" and a "slaveholder." His crime? Declining to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

Let's pause for a moment to engage in critical thought (though I know how difficult it is for many of you out there). On the one hand, we find a private citizen exercising his right to do with his property as he wishes and to associate with whomever he wishes. On the other hand, we find a public official using the power of the state to harass and potentially destroy said private citizen. The citizen is not compelling anyone to do anything nor depriving any couple of the ability to label themselves "man and wife," "man and man," "wife and wife," or whatever else they might dream up. The prefect indeed is compelling someone and depriving him of his ability to live his life on terms that are peaceful and voluntary. She is demanding his labor against his will, which is the essence of slavery.

This evil government wench has slandered an honest man, using terminology that best describes herself in order to slake the totalitarian impulse of a demographic that never feels sufficiently loved. Is this the country my ancestors fought and died for? Is this the country most people in the armed services believe they are fighting for today? No.

You can't run away from this lunacy forever. It will eventually leap off the news page and snag you in its teeth, at which time you must make a choice: bow and scrape with a guilty conscience, or fight back with your own denunciations and resistance.

Civil War Talking Points

People who discuss politics (actual political ideas, not the farce of partisan politics) will sooner or later get drawn into a debate about the War for Southern Independence, more colloquially known as the "Civil War." This is unavoidable because the war lies at the heart of what American life and governance eventually became; those who wish to challenge the status quo must also be prepared to challenge the war.

Indeed, I submit that no one can be a lover of liberty and a fan of Abraham Lincoln, who at best can be said to have ended one (limited and dying) form of slavery in order to establish another (universal and perpetual) one. I find this subject so important that I am devoting a chapter to it in my slow-moving book project. For the time being, I can share this anecdote so that you can prepare yourselves for debate.

A highly-educated friend of mine recently lamented that someone had claimed to her that the war was not about slavery. Her response -- of which she was very proud -- was to point out that slavery was heavily emphasized in the various and sundry articles of secession. But notice the sleight of hand here: she equates secession with the federal government's war to prevent it. This is a non sequitur, for the federal government could have allowed the seceding states to depart in peace rather than make war to prevent them from leaving. A deeper problem is that slavery was legally authorized WITHIN the Union under the Constitution, as acknowledged by the Supreme Court in 1857 and Lincoln himself at his inaugural in 1861 -- Lincoln plainly stated that he had no authority to end slavery where it existed. Therefore, to the extent anyone argues the war was justified to end slavery, this is an admission that the war was unconstitutional, especially considering that the Thirteenth Amendment wasn't passed until the war was already pretty much over.

Which leaves secession as the only remaining justification for the war. There are serious problems with this. For example, the Declaration of Independence was an act of secession; the Constitution itself was an act of secession from the Articles of Confederation; and the federal government has endorsed secession movements around the world -- e.g., Kosovo from Serbia -- and in countries that are not even federations of independent sovereignties such as we are. Thomas Jefferson himself had no trouble saying the following:    
"If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation . . . to a continuance in union . . . I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate.'"

We have good cause to discuss these things, for secession is perhaps our only hope of escaping the clutches of a lawless, runaway government. Secession must be legitimized in enough people's minds to make this happen, and the first stop on this journey is tearing down the pagan idol of Abraham Lincoln (a self-proclaimed atheist who worshiped power over truth).

Great Bumper Sticker

I was driving around town today and stopped at a traffic light behind a truck with a simple bumper sticker, black letters on a white background:

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Smiling, I wondered how many people understood what it means, and more importantly how many of them share the sentiment. I know I do.

American Sniper

I am a longtime fan of Clint Eastwood, but I'm disappointed in him for his latest film, American Sniper, all the more so because he released it on Christmas Day. The problems associated with this film are deep. Eastwood's tone-deafness to them reveals a nostalgic sort of denial prevalent in many older Americans, the ones who read the newspaper and take it at face value; watch 60 Minutes; vote in every election; and who generally believe that the America of their youth still exists but simply has hit a rough patch that will soon be overcome, much like the Great Depression or the "Civil Rights" movement. This attitude ignores that America no longer exists as a nation (i.e., borders, common language, common religious beliefs, common history, etc.). It also conflates nation with government, generating a reflexive admiration for soldiers who fight in whatever war the government hurls them into, no matter how illegal or unjust.

And the war in Iraq was illegal and unjust. It violated the Constitution in that Congress never declared war. It violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter and Nuremberg Principle No. 6 -- which America played a critical  role in establishing during and after World War II -- in that America attacked a country that had not attacked America and wasn't even poised to, replicating what the International Military Tribunal identified as the cardinal sin of the Third Reich. And it violated the rules for conducting international warfare memorialized in the four Geneva Conventions and their First Protocol in that America made war against civilians and destroyed a large amount of cultural property. Under these circumstances, Iraq and every other country on Earth had a legal right under Article 51 of the UN Charter to come to Iraq's defense by making war on America. If this sounds outrageous, the fault lies with the government that put America into this shameful and dangerous position, not with me the messenger.

Which is where Chris Kyle, the sniper eulogized in Eastwood's film, comes in. From what I've read about Kyle, he went beyond the trite argument of "following orders" and relished his role as executioner of men, women, and children who fought to defend their country from invasion. They were "savages" according to him because they dared to attack the sacred uniform bearing the stars and stripes, regardless of the justice of the cause it was serving.

For someone such as Eastwood, it is not for Kyle or for us to question the wisdom of any war the government wages; rather, our duty is to fall in line and kill as many people the government designates as "the enemy" as possible, and disputing this constitutes treason. For someone such as I, Eastwood's attitude itself is treasonous, both against America (which is NOT the government) and against our Maker. The commands of government are inferior to the commands of the law and the Constitution, just as the commands of all men are inferior to the commands of God. The path of righteousness is easily found in the mind and the conscience if one bothers to look. For Eastwood to reject it on the very day devoted to it is profoundly disturbing.

The military has a noble mission, which is to uphold the Constitution and defend America from all threats foreign and domestic. Rarely in recent memory has the military been called forth to perform that duty. Rather, as touted in a current Navy commercial, the military is "a global force for good," meaning that it roams the planet with a sword to violate national sovereignty and inflict unnecessary death and destruction, most often against impoverished people who can barely eke out a daily existence. There is no nobility to be found in this, or in what Kyle performed in Iraq.