Guard Dog

A good Op-Ed should have some zing in it. This one does: http://reason.com/blog/2018/06/28/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-socialism-dsa

We could do worse!

Now reading: The book is definitely better than the movie. Not that that was a high bar to leap over. I also bought this. I've been interested in the story ever since the scene in Jaws where Robert Shaw talked about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9S41Kplsbs

I'll say one thing about the court now. We can stop having the "constructionist vs activist" debates. It's activism all around nowadays.

By that definition it is safe to say that Trump will nominate another liberal justice (meaning yes man who consistently votes according to what State(Trump) wants) He didn't get that with Gorsuch. He sided against the government as both plaintiff & defendant three times this term. Any President wants a justice that will do what they are told. But that is not what their job is. "Is it legal?" If their answer is "no" they are going to rule against you no matter if you appointed them or not.

I don't think I'd agree with that. Thomas has been my favorite justice (Gromnir is grinding his teeth right now) for a few reasons. He has been the most consistent champion of Federalism and the 10th Amendment (defers all power not specifically enumerated to the federal government to the state governments and to the "people"). He is also a judicial minimalist which I think is more virtue than vice. He dissented in Obergfell and I disagreed with him there but I follow his reasoning. Alito & Roberts dissent was about upsetting tradition. Scalia & Thomas dissented on the way the majority applied the 14th Amendment. Personally, I'd say Nulla poena sine lege. But that is not a "conservative" position either.

Well right now there is only one. Alito. When he makes a pick then I'll comment. The conservative and liberal labels don't really apply to judges they way they do politicians. A justice should look at an issue and ask "Ii this legal?" And that is it. Far too often people want their justices to ask "Is this moral?" One is subjective. The other isn't. But a lot of people think subjective standards are OK as long as they like the standard. I don't. Sotomayor has become a consistent champion of the 4th Amendment. In the American definition of the word liberal (meaning deferring to the State over the citizen) that is an illiberal position. Alito in the same cases tends to favor the state position on the 4th Amendment. In the American political definition of Conservative that is an un-conservative position. They all tend to speckle the spray chart on different issues. Alito, Kagan, and Breyer are the most consistent in one orthodoxy or the other. Heck just last week in Pereira v. Sessions they went 8-1 against a government position on immigration. Most notably refusing to apply the "Chevron Deference" (short definition is when the law, in application of a regulatory agency, is ambiguous the court defers to the agency's interpretation of that law). Now, I don't know what was in the minds of the 8 who decided against the government but deferring to the power of regulatory agencies is a decidedly statist and liberal position but all four "liberals" went to other way and the one "conservative" Alito dissented. The point being, the political labels just don't apply real well to judges. You really have to look at their background and history ans even then you don't know.

Gromnir. No, not entirely insular. But hard to argue it's not trending that way. Especially when you look at the lengths the D & R go to keep other parties off the ballots, out of the debates, etc. The things I found most entertaining about Trump & Sanders, as unacceptable as I found them as candidates, is how much the "establishment" didn't want them. That does give me some hope. Too bad the "anti-establishment" types turn out to be dumpster fires. Did the ACA violate liberty (as I understand the word)? An emphatic yes. I don't like the notion of the government telling me I HAVE to buy something and they get to pick WHO I have to buy it from. Did it violate the law? Was it a tax, was it a fee? Well, I guess not. Not that it did more to me than drive up my health care costs such as they are and vet bills. Affordable? Maybe to some folks. Not so much for others. Not something I have to worry about now anyway. But I had a problem with it on principle. Not so much I was willing to "refuse my poll taxes" over it so there is that. In the unlikely event of the jackbooted thugs kicking down my door to get my guns it might well be my fellow citizens that sent them. But I do not have to acquiesce. What I do that day will be my own version of civil disobedience. Or un-civil disobedience. The armed citizen will be the only real free man left then. They cannot compel me to obey. All they can do is shoot back. Anyway, that will not likely happen. Collecting +300M guns from Americans, many of whom would rather start a Civil War than hand them over is beyond a nightmare scenario despite what Wayne LaPierre e-mails me every 5 minutes. You might wonder if I really am a "true believer". Do I really think there will be no racist or homophobic refusal of service if all the protections against such were to disappear tomorrow,? Of course there will be. There is more than a few SOBs running around. But I absolutely don't think for a second it will look anything like the 1950's. Not even in the same ballpark. The people who actually saw that with their own eyes are elderly today and were very young then. Most folks today would recoil in disgust if they heard what people were shouting at Jackie Robinson or saw an Alabama State cop shoot Jimmie Lee Jackson. Too many people didn't see anything wrong with it then. That is not the case today. Perhaps you are unrepentantly pessimistic about our capacity for unforced tolerance and decency. Maybe I'm unrealistically optimistic. We won't find out because it's not going to happen. The trend is less liberty not more. More limits not fewer. I am under no illusions that eventually electing a libertarian or two to congress or a state office will suddenly lead to a libertarian awakening. Or even an ascendancy of the LP as a national force. But right now neither major party could be described as a champions of liberty by any means. Under both the government gets bigger, more intrusive, and yes more insular because the lines between Democrats & Republicans are getting blurrier. Republican democracies are not free because they can choose their leaders. They are free because their leaders are not all powerful. But they are getting closer election by election it seems. My best hope is eventually the LP, flawed as it is, might slow it down. And maybe just maybe get people to think about what their relationship with the government actually is or should be.

Well that was a flat out whipping. Sweden came to play.

That is sort of how the NRA got started. Minus the militia part. That was before they found out there was big money in political agitation.

Take a look at the arguments of folks who speak out against flag burning, or of law-enforcement types who want to outlaw strong cryptography. Or folks who object to state actions that they see as Establishment Clause violations. Anyhow, the answer to your question is that gun-rights advocates are sometimes met with a raised eyebrow because many people simply doubt that this particular legally-granted right merits such treatment. Everybody expresses themselves, has stuff they want private, and doesn't want to be thrown in jail. Not everybody sees the need to own devices designed to make holes in human beings. Aside, as a practical matter, this is really the more promising way to change American gun culture than legal restraints. Eventually, we'll get to where folks who own/carry a handgun are viewed in the same way as folks who own/carry a katana, and it'll make for a safer place to live. You of all people know I hold gun control and anti-flag burning nonsense in equal contempt. Evil begins when one person thinks they know better how another person should be living. Whether you think the right to bear arms should even be a right at all is a discussion this country has been having for a long time. But it IS a right. If you want it changed all you have to do is change the Constitution. I think you know how likely that is. It's not an unlimited right for sure. And even I don't think it should be. edit: damned auto correct edit to the edit: Perhaps you are right Enoch. Perhaps the days will come when the attitude of society will change. People will not buy or own firearms and over the years the 2nd Amendment will go the way of the 3rd. I'd be fine with that. I will not change. No doubt in my mind about that. But, speaking of Hobbes, most folks these days seem to just accept that the "collective will" of the people embodied by the state has supremacy over the individual. By coming to this board and elsewhere talking about things like "individual rights" I'm already showing what a dinosaur I am.

I'm working on a project with a representative of one of our State Senators. She is very smart and my first though is "what is she doing here?". State legislator staff positions are not well paid and pretty far down the political food chain. Well last night we got dinner together (not like that we each paid) and she got to talking. She has a BA in Asian Studies and a second degree in International Business from Vanderbilt University. This poor girl is so far in debt she can't even afford an apartment. And she can't find work that takes advantage of her qualifications. I gave her the best advice I could: get out of Tennessee. She really needs to be looking for work on the West Coast, or even better, abroad. It really sucks. She has the equivalent of a mortgage with no house. She could have gotten the exact same education from Middle Tennessee State, UT Martin, or any number of others for half what she paid. Attending a top university is a mixed blessing at best IMO. Thinking back on my own education I was quite a bit older than most of my peers. I was in my later 20's and early 30's then. I had an idea what the job market was really like and what knowledge was valuable and where. Universities do their students a disservice in that respect. they don't really teach how to apply the instruction they offer to the "real world". By the time people learn they are tens of thousands of dollars in debt and have a head full of knowledge no one wants.

Holy crap that is a lot of writing! The legend of the "wandering jew" is an old one. It sounds like that inspired his work here. I remember a very old book, Melmoth the Wanderer IIRC. It was also a take on that story. I though Anne Rice did a pretty fair service to the problems of immortality in her vampire books too. Although like most book series it went off the rails after the 2nd book.

Mexico & Sweden coming up.

The Bill of Rights does not place limits on us, but on government. Yes, I know you know that. Probably better than anyone. Just sayin'. And I also won't argue that affirmative action, EE, ADA, and other such things were needed remedies for things happening in their time. Maybe human nature won't change without prodding. But it DOES change. The problem is the limits that prod change never go away. Indeed they become more and more restrictive over time. Sooner or later the kids grow up you know. They can stay out after dark. And I'd much prefer the hope for Locke's ideas of a marriage between liberty and tolerance over the certainty of Hobbes. His notion of the social contract is a fantasy. What it really is is an agreement to which no one has consented to allow and elite group of people to take whatever they wish from, and do whatever they wish to whomever they wish in the interest of serving some nebulous goal of "social justice" or the good of "society" as only they define it. Let's not forget the paper targets I've been waging a successful campaign against. My steady marksmanship has ensured not one has advanced past my 50 meter range post in all these years. You know it's a curious thing about a "right". No explanation is owed as to why you want it or what you mean to do with it. Except this one. No one asks "Why do you need to be secure in your person or property? What do you have to hide?" Or "Why do you want to criticize your government? Don't you love your country?" But with this one, advocacy comes hand in hand with inquiry. Has that ever struck you as odd? Of course my reasons for advocacy are many and already well known to you so I won't rehash them here. But I have always had faith in the decency of "people" while still guarding me and mine from the ill-intent of a "person".

Gromnir I assume you will not accept the idea that the better angels of our nature might just prevail. That most people might be decent to their fellow humans without Big Brother threatening them. But if you won't accept that then you can expect folks to act in their best economic interests. In the age of Yelp, social media, and public shaming. A coffee shop that refused to serve minorities would find itself world famous real quick and not in a good way. One last thought. The majority of people alive today were not around when McCrory's refused to serve minorities a their lunch counter. And most find it hard to imagine that it even happened. Just a thought.

Oh I think the murder of a public official is just about guaranteed at this point. Too many people actually think a difference of political opinion makes someone "evil". And Trump, Waters, Schumer, and many others are egging them on.

Nah, I'm pretty sure he's Lawful Evil

If I owned a restaurant and the Devil himself walked in and sat down I'd take his drink order and tell him the specials.As long as he had cash or a credit card. But IMO the owner of the Red Hen is free to serve or decline to serve anyone she wants for any reason at all.

The restaurant owner Stephanie Wilkinson, before she kicked out Sarah Huckabee Sanders, had let her staff take a vote on whether or not to serve Sanders. So the restaurant owner was very democratic for a commie. I wonder, if Sanders were black and doing the same job would she still have been kicked out? Would everyone be OK with that?

I saw in the news Pam Bondi. the AG for Florida was assaulted by some angry left wingers (is there another kind ) over immigration at a movie theater down in Tampa. I wonder if they even realize that is a federal responsibility and there is almost nothing a state AG can do about it? Probably not. It was just good old fashioned you're-not-in-my-tribe hate. You know, "Four legs good, two legs bad. Four legs good, two legs baaaaa..."

Maybe, if you started doing it fifty years ago. You'd be a little late to the show doing it now. Of course we're never so low we can't come back. I don't think it's likely though. While we all agree there is a problem, we can't agree on what the problem is. so we definitely can't agree on how to fix it. Trump and his very presence in the WH is just a symptom. A small step on a long road. Ironically though if Hillary Clinton were President not a whole lot would be different. There would have been not tax cut and that farce with NK likely would not have happened. Those are incidental however. Gorsuch would not be on the SCOTUS. That would be the biggest difference.

AI players defeat human players in DOTA contest. Why can't I lose a Total War game then??? CA needs to inquire about buying that AI engine.https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611536/a-team-of-ai-algorithms-just-crushed-expert-humans-in-a-complex-computer-game/ On a related note: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611424/this-is-how-the-robot-uprising-finally-begins/ Just sayin'

You need to be either crazy or a real gambler to invest in stocks today. I got out once it looked like Obama was going to win and never bought back in. Too many factors that have nothing to do with a shares actual value affect it's price.

The tail is wagging the dog