Finally!

Matt Taibbi gets it right (again!), this time on the Wright “controversy”.

Fantastic Post

Here is a fantastic post on Constitutional interpretation and a theory of a living constitution that has me wondering whether it is possible to have a static constitution within a legal system that makes opinions in individual real-life cases. Any respect for law limits (slows) change, but any interpretation of law is necessarily from some judge’s perspective. Even judges who claim to interpret the constitution as the founders originally meant it are really interpreting it as THEY think the founders originally meant it. It is, therefore, interpreted from a current or modern perspective: it can not be any different.

The “originalism” argument is a trope. It isn’t about process it is about results. Those who claim to be originalists are really saying that they like the result that their modern belief about what long dead 18th century men thought. There really is no debate about whether the constitution is a living document or not. It is alive: indeed it wouldn’t be relevant if it were not. All judges want to change what they think are incorrect decisions even if they feel constrained by relience or “stare decisis” from making a change. This human desire to fix what is perceived as broken is what makes the constitution alive.

What originalists are really saying is that they want to make changes that result from their modern prejudicial view of what the 18th century was about. Nothing more. All that the label “originalist” tells you is what arguments for change are most likely to work with that person.

Here is a great Lincoln quote on this, as presented in the post linked to above

“Faced with a deeply unjust decision, Dred Scott v. Sanford, Abraham Lincoln once said
that Dred Scott was law, and should be respected until it is altered or
overturned, but “we mean to do what we can to have the Court decide the
other way.”Here Lincoln articulated the basic premise of a living Constitution as a process.”

More on the Wright thing

from digby — worth a read.

Damn it,

I don’t understand these “threatened tribalists“. They’ve got everything already. Are the right wingers so sure that they are stupid that they have to sink to this level to keep women, African-Americans, and anyone at all different from them down? Come to think of it, maybe they’re right. Maybe they are so stupid that without crushing more than half of the other citizens, they couldn’t achieve anything.

I just don’t understand racism. I mean, I know that it springs from fear and weakness and a lack of self-confidence, but really are they that weak?

I am outraged!!!!

This is about the mis-use of research and sources, but it raises many questions of import to all engaged in research. Read this and then think about the following or whatever else it brings to mind.

1.
How unethical is trimming away at a quote to change the meaning? It
seems to me that there has been an increase in this type of behavior
recently, am I wrong?

2. Why is it that many people with whom I
talk think nothing about fictionalizing history? How insidious are
“historical novels”?

3. What about Kennedy? Is he a dupe? Does
he care? Have we just moved to a result oriented world so that
“reality” is what is convenient?

One is reminded if this: “The aide said that guys like me were “in
what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people
who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of
discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about
enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the
way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire
now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re
studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again,
creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how
things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you,
will be left to just study what we do.” From here.

Another good post

This time the second amendment and historical research!!

“God” I hope that this is true!!

Read to the end — the punch line is hysterical.

“There is a rich, deep kind of irony that must be shared.
I’m blogging this from the Apple store in the Mall of America, because
I’m too amused to want to wait until I get back to my hotel room.

I went to attend a screening of the creationist propaganda movie, Expelled, a few minutes ago. Well, I tried … but I was Expelled!
It was kind of weird — I was standing in line, hadn’t even gotten to
the point where I had to sign in and show ID, and a policeman pulled me
out of line and told me I could not go in. I asked why, of course, and
he said that a producer of the film had specifically instructed him
that I was not to be allowed to attend. The officer also told me that
if I tried to go in, I would be arrested. I assured him that I wasn’t
going to cause any trouble.”

More, read on!

Great Post

On the racism percolating among the right wing since Rev Wright. Read it.

Writing

Arrgh — I’ve gotta write and it’s killing me. OK, not really, but I have such a hard time and my writing sucks — almost as bad as my typing. It’s hard I’m having a lot of trouble writing, editing, coming up is what I want to say. Perhaps if I go and work on the book, that’ll help. But I don’t know. God, I’ve gotta learn how to type.

So, I’ve been thinking about society. What is it that we should base a society on? What are the basic rules?

1. The “Golden rule”, I know that a lot of religious people claim this rule, but it makes a lot of sense. What is the most valuable thing that human has? Their life. Do nothing that inhibits or removes a life of another. Equity; this is subpart b to one, above. What do we mean by equity? too often, people confuse equity with the quality. That’s not what were arguing for. What we need is fairness. What we teach our children treat others as you would like to be treated.

2. How should we protect that which has not yet happened? I believe the Buddhists are correct, that the only reality is now. However, the future does have a claim on us. We owe it something. As far as we know, in our particular way of expreienceing the universe, time is unidirectional. That means, that what is past is past. We owe the past, nothing. However, the future relies on us. It works with what we leave it yet it has no ability to influence the situation in which it will find itself. It is our responsibility to leave the future, no worse than the way we got it.

This has wide reaching ramifications. Our ownership is limited by the claims of the future. I beleive that one can hold almost complete ownership in personal property. By that, I mean that it is possible to have a level of ownership that would allow one to do anything with personal property: destroy it, whatever. However, real property, survives us. People of the future, nonexistent people, have a valid claim on that property. We cheat the future and future people by raping and destroying real property.

3. We are social animals. We live in societies. Since we are social animals and live in a society, we owe something to other members of the society. We cannot allow complete refusal to participate in society. One is tempted to let libertarians stew in their own juices. To let them not fund the fire department, to let them not buy health insurance to let them go off on their own. But we can’t. I would love to allow Libertarian to opt out of the fire department and to let them have their house burn down around them or to allow them to opt out of health insurance and refuse to treat them without payment up front. But that’s nonsensical. We won’t turn our backs even on the stupid. We can’t allow their house to burn, because it may infect our house. We can’t allow them to wander around and die of their contagious disease, because it may infect us. We are members of a society and our freedom of action is limited. Libertarians: deal with it.

4. That being said, we should grant ourselves and each other as much liberty as possible within these constraints. Notice that I did use the overused term “freedom”, I used “liberty” with the connotation of responsibility that includes.

To sum up: we need to form a society that treats everyone as we would like to be treated and that provides opportunity to everyone and that limits our freedoms, our liberties, in a way that we would find acceptable based on a recognition of the future and recognition of the rights and responsibilities of other peoples.

Okay, what does this society look like? Well, we would all like to have a say in how our life is governed. Democracy seems to be the best governmental form to meet that requirement. However, democracy, that is tempered. We cannot allow tyranny of the majority. Next, real equality of opportunity. To make equality of opportunity real, the playing field must be level. Not only is this fair, but at a societal level is selfish. Do we really want to lose out on a brilliant person, because they have the wrong color skin and didn’t get sufficient prenatal support or adequate schooling? Seems pretty stupid to me.

Where our current society falls down is in two areas: one, we do not provide adequate support so that everyone has an opportunity, second we do not recognize the future. By allowing the current holder of title to do it they will eliminates all concern for the future. By allowing such social stratification that children starve, we ignore both the fundamental fairness upon which society should be based, as well as our own societal self-interest.

What changes might engender fairness? Ideas?

Is there no depth to which they won’t go?

“They” will keep going as long as it works.  I think that Orlando Patterson’s editorial in the Times today is an important read.  Racist attacks will continue as long as they work.  HRC should not have used the imagery, but I can certainly understand the temptation.  You’re losing you’re desperate you’ll do any thing.  (Of course understanding the temptation to use bigotry and hatred doesn’t mean that I can understand doing it and I especially don’t condone it).

However, HRC and her campaign are not the only bad guys here, in fact they aren’t the worst.  The worst is all of us, of an American society that rewards bigoted appeals.  It is terrible that the Clinton campaign was tempted to use bigoted appeals, it is far worse that they succumbed to the temptation, but worst of all that the appeal worked.

We can not forget how bigoted this country is.  We must be ever vigilant.  Perhaps the Stetson Kennedy and ADL frown campaign needs to be revived.Clearly and unequivocally reject bigotry7 and hatred. When you hear it, at the least: frown.