Relentless Pursuit of Wisdom and Liberty

Open letter to Rep. Rodriguez

2009-04-30T10:08:00.001-05:00

Rep. Rodriquez,

First, thank you for signing onto the St. Patrick's Day letter to the AG's office with 64 of your colleagues, advising him not to pursue the ineffective legislation he mentioned his office was considering. Your inclusion in that number made me a happy constituent.

However, your most recent email to your constituents contains a bit of obfuscation that I hope you can clear up for me. In part, you wrote: "that includes smuggling an iron river of over 10,000 American guns in to the hands of the drug cartels in only 2007 and 2008."

First of all, thank you for not blindly repeating the ridiculously fallacious "90%" number that the Executive Branch and some of your colleagues seem to love throwing around. The 10,347 number which reflects the number of guns, seized by Mexico & turned in to BATFE for tracing, that turned out to indeed come from a US source, makes up only 36% of the total number of arms seized by Mexican authorities over 2007 & 2008. So thank you for that.

However, there is absolutely no evidence (none deemed suitable for public consumption that I can locate, at any rate) that all 10,347 were smuggled across the border illegally. It may not have been tactful to suggest this in your recent visit with President Calderon, but it certainly seems relevant to wonder how many of these 10,347 originated as a fully-legal shipment of arms, supplied directly by US manufacturers to the Mexican military (or that of other Latin American countries) via US Dept. of Defense contracts, only to find their way - God only knows how - into the hands of the cartels? How many of these 10,347 are of a type that aren't even legal for civilian purchase in the US (that is, fully-automatic, etc.)? Additional gun control measures aimed at restricting the civilian market in the US will do absolutely nothing about that portion - whatever it turns out to be - of the 10,347 that fits those descriptions.

One would certainly expect BATFE to maintain some kind of records of what kind of arms these are that it's tracing, and where they came from - otherwise, how would it be able to determine anything else about them? Is there a way you - or a citizen, through a FOIA request - might gain access to that kind of breakdown of these 10,347 arms that were traced and originated here? That kind of information should certainly inform any policy decisions that are being discussed along those lines, and which shouldn't be carried out with only gross, aggregated statistics like, "over 10,000 of these guns originated in the US".

Thank you,
Jason Trippet

Two bits of good news today

2009-03-18T15:35:00.003-05:00

That are worthy of coming off hiatus:

First, the DoD rescinded the new policy that would have severely impacted price & availability of ammunition - expended brass can continue to be sold to ammunition remanufacturers. Thanks to the steadfast Senators from Montana for personally bringing this wrong-headed policy to the right people's attention.

And then, wonder of wonders, 65 Democratic Congressmen signed a delivered a letter to Attorney General Holder (PDF) as a response to his recent comments that he & the Obama administration will seek to impose a new (so-called) "Assault Weapons" ban. Their response? "Don't even think about it." The letter even specifically points out the two main reasons why it was a pointless bill: that it was ineffective in changing anything crime-related, and that (so-called) "assault weapons" are not special in any way vis-a-vis other perfectly legal firearms that are available today, and have been for over 70 years. And guess whose Congressman is on that list? I may not have voted for Rep. Rodriguez in November, but he just got a big pat-on-the-back email from yours truly.

Hat tips to Of Arms and the Law

On Hiatus

2008-11-30T15:07:00.000-06:00

Well, there's been plenty to write about, what with a presidential election and all that entails (which mostly would have been me wondering aloud why in the world everyone thinks the President should be so important and/or hold so much power), but with my two wonderful boys at home to play with I just haven't felt the impetus grab me strongly enough to tear me away from them to blog. So I imagine I should just put a little notice up here that I may be back sometime, but for right now, let's just say my priorities are in order.

Thanks to the two of you who've been back every once a while,
Jason

When candy is outlawed...

2008-08-13T11:58:00.003-05:00

...only outlaws will have candy. Showing now in Scotland, the logical end-result conclusion of nanny-state policies like, "sorry, you're allowed to neither fight back at all, nor own, possess, or carry an implement likely to aid you in fighting back."

A man caught carrying a large gobstopper ["jawbreaker" for those unfamiliar with Willy Wonka - JT] in a sock has been fined £400 after it was found to be an offensive weapon.

Sheriff Kenneth McIver told him that, even though it was not in the same category as a knife or axe, it was capable of inflicting a nasty injury.

"You will be aware of the ongoing national debate on offensive weapons including knives," he told Harvey.

"But all too often this court has to consider other improvised weapons like this."

And people wonder why we rail against the folks who would make law-abiding citizens in the US just as vulnerable to violent criminals as those in the UK.

Heller - "the people" WIN

2008-06-26T09:46:00.002-05:00

If there was ever a circumstance that would lift me to the grandiose heights of actually posting something more frequently than every two months, this is it.

Supreme Court Strikes Down D.C. Gun Ban, Upholds Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Woohoo! Still reading the opinion and the two dissents, but the salient points are these:

1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2–53.
(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative
clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2–22.
(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved.

Anyhoo, back to reading the 157-page release!

Open letter to Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison

2008-05-01T15:57:00.003-05:00

1 May 2008

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
284 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-4304
202-224-0776 (FAX)

Senator Hutchison -

First, thank you for your service to our state and the many sensible positions you hold (and for which you continue to be re-elected) in representing us to the federal government. Thank you especially for joining the other Senators & Congressmen in signing the amicus brief for D.C. v. Heller, argued in the Supreme Court last month.

However, in your comments at a Heritage Foundation event on February 7 covering that amicus brief, you made some comments that should be addressed and corrected.

In the Q&A session [just before the 35-minute mark - JT], when asked by a Dallas reporter your position on the "Assault Weapons Ban", you stated that you supported it, for the reason that a regulation of its kind was analogous to those regulating shouting "fire!" in a theater. You reasoned that both regulations clarify that there's a category of action under a Constitutional right that's deemed to be separate and distinct from the basic right (of speech or keeping & bearing arms), that we restrict in order to protect the public from harm by those who would "abuse" that right.

There are two important facets to that approach to regulation: whether the concept makes sense in general, and whether its specific applications are successful. Conceptually, the idea is to very specifically restrict certain actions that would normally be protected by a guaranteed Constitutional right, but in certain and specific cases where that action would cause harm through malicious abuse. Sounds reasonable. So we restrict the shouting of "fire" in a theater, and as a result we don't have people being trampled trying to get out of a theater that's not on fire. But notice that we don't restrict the shouting of "fire" in an open-air park, nor the act of shouting, nor the ownership of a loud voice.

For the same reasonableness & effectiveness to apply to a ban on a particular class of firearm, the regulation should have to jump through the same hoops. Where the free speech regulation restricted the joining of several elements which are normally, taken separately, unrestricted - being in a theater, shouting, speaking "fire" - what confluence of elements did the "Assault Weapons Ban" restrict, that when taken separately are unrestricted but when joined create a situation that puts the public in greater jeopardy than it would be without?

Did it restrict firing rates? No, the 1934 National Firearms Act and 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act were already in place, restricting fully-automatic machineguns. Similarly, semi-automatic (one bullet per one trigger pull) weapons were as available during the life of the 1994 federal law as they were before and after, so the law didn't even mandate a backwards step to bolt-action or otherwise "single-action" (manually cycle between each shot to load a new round) firearms. Firing rates remained unchanged by the "Assault Weapons Ban".

Did it restrict the use of more powerful ammunition that can cause relatively "more" damage to a target than one might use for home defense? No, the 1994 federal law didn't affect the availability of any particular type of ammunition, from common hunting calibers like .223 and .308 to the less frequently-used .50 caliber. Any regulations on special "armor piercing" ammunition and the like, reserved for law enforcement, were already on the books and were not mentioned by the 1994 federal law.

Did it restrict smaller, more concealable pistols that could conceivably be snuck into crowded places by those with nefarious intent? No, and in fact, during the 20-year period from 1986 to 2006, states in a sweeping trend were passing liberalized concealed handgun laws that allowed law-abiding citizens to carry their small, concealable pistols in public for self-defense - the number of states with such "shall-issue" laws grew from 9 to 39 in that span, which included the period of the 1994 federal law.

Did it restrict silencers that could conceivably be used by shooters to hide their location and evade capture? No, restrictions on silencers were included in the aforementioned 1934 NFA, and the 1994 federal law didn't mention them at all.

So what did the "Assault Weapons Ban" really restrict in order to protect the public from harm by those who would abuse the right to arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment? It banned the manufacture and sale of certain models that had two or more of the following features, considered by most to be merely cosmetic:
- pistol grip
- folding/collapsible stock
- flash suppressor/muzzle brake
- "large-capacity" detachable magazine
- bayonet mounting point
- grenade launcher mounting point

In short, the 1994 federal law restricted a very specific class of weapons that 1) were not appreciably more effective in killing people than those firearms that were left unrestricted are, and 2) were used in a very small percentage of crime to begin with, even pre-1994 (estimates ranged from 2% to 8%). Those two facts contribute directly to the fact that the ban didn't appreciably affect the crime rate during its 10-year period, as concluded by separate DOJ and CDC studies.

So hopefully you can see, Senator Hutchison, that the 1994 "Assault Weapons Ban" did absolutely nothing to "protect the public from harm by those who would abuse" an otherwise Constitutionally-protected right. The terms of the ban didn't make any sense conceptually, and so it's no surprise that the application of the ban wasn't successful either. If, in your remarks at the Heritage Foundation, you were specifically speaking about those restrictions placed on fully-automatic machineguns, armor-piercing ammunition, and silencers and the like, well, that's a completely different conversation, and has nothing to do with the now-defunct 1994 "Assault Weapons Ban".

Again, I applaud your decision to support the defendant, Dick Heller, with the amicus brief signed by your colleagues, and thank you for your efforts in that regard. I do however encourage you to correct the impression you have about the merits and effectiveness of the "Assault Weapons Ban" that, at the end of the day, was decried by both sides of the gun control debate as being a useless piece of poorly-thought-out and ineffective legislation.

Sincerely,
Jason Trippet
Helotes, TX

Hat tip: JR

Virginia Tech remembered

2008-04-17T09:42:00.005-05:00

Yesterday was an emotional day for those involved in last year's shooting, and it was remembered by folks nationwide. One of the activities that took place on campus was the reading aloud of the accomplishments of the victims, among them Professor Liviu Librescu, who used his body to barricade the door to his classroom, delaying the shooter while his class escaped through a window.

An internationally renowned aeronautical engineering educator and researcher, with a host of honors from many countries, he embodied profound courage throughout his life, even in its final moments.

Among the honors he received is the Grand Cross of Romania, for his heroism, awarded to his wife at his funeral in Israel.

It's hard to imagine anyone arguing against the selfless sacrifice offered up by Prof. Librescu, or its efficacy in saving the lives of some of his students. It's unconscionable to disagree with his courageous actions.

Unfortunately, for many, that's where the thought stops. But let's put our thinking caps on and go for a ride on the logic train, shall we?

1) Prof. Librescu embodied profound courage
2) That courage demonstrably saved lives by delaying the shooter
3) The actions of courageous people on the scene of a shooting can save lives
4) Deploying self-sacrificial courage to save lives is an action to be praised & encouraged, not condemned
5) More effective actions by those courageous people can be more effective in saving lives
6) If Prof. Librescu could have delayed him longer, more lives would have been saved
7) Stopping the shooter is the most effective form of delaying him - effectively "delaying" him infinitely
8) The most effective means to stop the shooter is to render him unable or unwilling to shoot
9) The most efficient and reliable way to render him unable to shoot is to shoot him
10) Ergo, logic forces one to wonder, how many more lives could have been saved had Prof. Librescu, who we all agree is to be counted among humanity's bravest souls, been armed?

Folks that don't (or refuse to) take this path from "Prof. Librescu was a great man" through "what he did that was great" to "how could he have been even greater" seem to me to be just willfully short-sighted. Why would we deny the Prof. Librescus of the world the ability to save more lives than they would if they're empty-handed?

Change the name in that logic train to "Jeanne Assam" and the location to "New Life Church, Colorado Springs, CO" and the situation moves from hypothesis to empirical evidence. Through Prof. Librescu's heroic effort at Virginia Tech, some number of lives were demonstrably saved, but 32 people still fell victim to the shooter, over a time span covering over two hours. Through Jeanne Assam's heroic effort at New Life Church, some number of lives were likewise saved, but the shooter only had a matter of minutes to do his damage and as a result only 2 victims were killed. The difference is stark and undeniable.

LttE - Pollution of language

2008-03-27T14:37:00.001-05:00

Submitted to the San Antonio Express-News on 27 March 2008:

The story about Chief McManus' recommendations for toughening the DWI laws was fine for what it was, a straightforward presentation of the Chief's recommendations, with some statistics and such. Obviously input from law enforcement is invaluable, but the people's representatives will still decide what to press for and what to leave on the back burner (thank God for separation of powers).

Cary Clack's accompanying opinion column about drunk drivers was a little bit "Boo!" and a little bit "let's take some personal responsibility", and was, for the most part, not too bad. Labeling people who make bad (possibly dangerous) decisions as "terrorists" toed the line of poor taste, but based on the very malleable definition of "terrorist" these days, it was just barely enough to start getting my hackles up.

Then letter-writers Jacque Petterson and Judy Halfant wrote in over the weekend and took it a step further. A like-minded Jerry Neely added his two cents in the following week. Each one of them leaped enthusiastically over the line and specifically called drunk drivers "murderers", something so callous and uncalled-for that neither Chief McManus nor Mr. Clack had the audacity to do likewise. Mr. Clack even specifically stated that killing is not a drunk driver's intent: "I was still at the mercy of countless other unintentional yet possible killers."

Causing someone's death does not make one a murderer. The dictionary definition of murder requires the element of intent - the taking of a life has to be purposefully done. State laws agree - and there are different degrees to account for premeditation - but provide for other charges like negligent homicide and manslaughter to punish those who've taken lives without intending to. To my knowledge (and I'm no lawyer), no one ever convicted of taking a life while driving drunk has been convicted of (or even charged with) murder.

Words are important. They're how we communicate and interact in the free marketplace of ideas that makes this country great. Words are like the currency, the medium of exchange, of that marketplace. Imagine what would happen if, in a grocery store, a customer tried to pay for an item with a $5 bill, only to find that the checker would only admit that the bill was worth $4. That's why it's so important that we temper our emotions when we contribute to the marketplace of ideas and make sure we use the words we choose with accuracy and precision. As the saying goes, we all need to call The Same Thing The Same Thing in order to make sense to each other and ensure that fellow citizens are treated fairly and equitably. Nowhere is the need for this more pronounced than in the casual tossing about of criminal charges by noninvolved parties.

I know "murderer" is easier to write and much more "zing!"-worthy than "negligent homicidal driver" or "manslaughterer", but please, let's at least try to keep the pollution of the language to a minimum.

LttE - Tony Kosub's positions

2008-03-03T15:34:00.002-06:00

Submitted to the San Antonio Express-News on 3 March 2008:

Tony Kosub, the Republican challenger for State Rep. district 122, sure sounds good on paper. He talks about limited (and efficient) government, lower taxes, Second Amendment rights, ending eminent domain abuse, etc. Where he's curiously silent is on education, his website only touching on this important issue in two glib-sounding bullets that are void of substance, addressing the affordability of college tuition and improving the never-defined "quality" of education. He's a middle-school teacher, so one might be forgiven for thinking any candidate might have very detailed points on an issue specific to how he or she makes their living, informed by the very expertise that allows them to make their living in that field.

In fact, that's what worries me about Kosub. He's been endorsed by three local chapters of the American Federation of Teachers - not surprising given that he's a public school teacher and one would assume a member of their union (affiliated with the AFL-CIO). With the AFT.org website posting strong positions opposing any form or degree of school choice, vouchers and privatization (three subjects that should be near and dear to any conservative Republican's heart), one is left to just read the sparse bullets on Kosub's website and wonder how much sway the AFT's positions hold for him. If he were to win office and a vote on vouchers were to come up in the next session, how would he see it? Would he vote for his political constituents or his professional colleagues? Especially worrying is the recent California court decision regarding homeschooling - if a vote came up to protect Texas' vibrant homeschooling community from a similar threat, how would our new state Rep. vote?

Frankly, the answer to those questions, with such long-term implications for the education of my own not-yet-school-age kids, is not something I'm comfortable guessing on.

Molon Labe - whys and wherefores

2008-02-29T10:01:00.002-06:00

Well, that "I've got stuff to write about!" didn't work out too well, eh? 3 months later and I finally make the time to post something. In this case, it's a very compelling re-telling of an event that should get most reasonable folks' hackles up, and in this case prompted the writer to re-evaluate and eventually confirm & escalate her philosophy of resistance to thuggery. Simultaneously, you wish no one (especially loved ones) would have to go through something like that in order to come to the realization she has, and you wish your loved ones would come to that same realization somehow.

Open letter to Times Online's Kate Muir

2008-02-04T15:28:00.001-06:00

Ms. Muir -

"The dark ages" was an interesting choice of title for your piece, and I hope you'll permit me to explain why, amid what I'm certain are copious amounts of email in your inbox full of all kind of angry hate-mail from other gamers. "Other gamers" - yes, I also play PC & video games, but I like to think of myself as being of the more level-headed variety. I'm also 33, married (since I was 27), and have two adorable little boys (4 months & 3 years) with whom I can't wait to start playing games of all stripes: board, card, sports (gasp! outside even), and video.

I find it interesting that you lay a large piece of the blame for families getting started later than they used to right at the feet of the desire of men to play video games for a couple hours a day, on average. The fact that families are starting later is well-documented, but I think the reasons for those are as diverse as there are people in the world. It would be as irresponsible of me to assert that it's happening because more women these days are putting college educations & professional careers of their own ahead of their desire to start families as I believe it is for you to make your assertion.

In the interests of keeping this short, I'll cut to the chase. The reason I believe your assertion is baseless is the reason I find the choice of title interesting (you were wondering if I was going to tie back to that first sentence, weren't you?). "The dark ages" connotes a regression to some period in the past where conditions were less than ideal - but to me it was just another evocation of what videogames really are, in the grand scheme of things: a medium of storytelling.

Think about it: the earliest form of entertainment was storytelling, and indeed, one might argue that all entertainment is storytelling of one form or another. It started, pre-written history, with verbal traditions and legends, passed down through generations' memories. Until we discovered that we can write these legends down and therefore not lose them to the winds of history. Then someone decided that they'd have more impact if the action in those legends were acted out on-stage. Theater was predominant (though books, God bless 'em, have withered the tides and remain popular still) until the Industrial Revolution gave us electricity & radio waves, at which point the drama troupes started broadcasting their acted-out stories over the air. This was followed by television (theater productions broadcast with visuals, then by larger-scale productions on the big screen. It's all just storytelling, through media that evolved as time and technology advanced.

An interactive movie is just the next logical step in the evolution of storytelling, and if there's a better two-word descriptor for video games than "interactive movie", I honestly don't know what it is. If you had perhaps looked into the demographics & usage data more deeply, you might have found that during the time period where game-playing time has increased among the ever-important "males 18-34" set (only one year left in my membership therein), their time spent watching TV & movies have decreased by almost the same proportion. We men aren't eschewing family & careers in favor of video games; we're eschewing other forms of entertainment - nee storytelling - in favor of video games.

There are many factors that are leading people of both genders to postpone marriage and families later than in generations past, but despite what you and Ms. Hymowitz have asserted, the form of entertainment we choose to partake in is hardly a credible option for inclusion into that list.

Respectfully,
Jason Trippet
San Antonio, TX USA

Missing in Action

2007-11-16T14:38:00.000-06:00

Well, I've been out of writing mode for a while, and I have two reasons why. One is the huge project at work that was in crunch time and finally got done (as much as one can actually say they are done) a couple weeks ago.

Here's the other one - 16 September 2007

Things are getting back to relative normalcy and there have been some writings about that have made me want to write a bit again. So stay tuned (all 2 of ya).

Why we fight

2007-08-20T15:32:00.000-05:00

Curious as to why we fight against any incursion against, or any abridgement of our natural, human right of armed self-defense? Here's a thoughtful and pointed answer.

In September, 2005, somebody gave law enforcement officers orders to confiscate legally owned firearms from New Orleans homeowners. Homeowners who had broken no laws, threatened no person, and who desperately needed those guns for self defense were the target of this confiscation edict. The big question that gun owners had pondered for years was finally answered.When given the order to seize weapons and trample on the US Constitution, many officers did not question the legality of the order.Instead, they willingly carried it out. Armed peace officers entered private homes like storm troopers, forced citizens to the floor, seized their only means of protection, and then loaded those defenseless citizens in military trucks for processing and shipment elsewhere. The unknown answer to the most fearful question was supplied to gun owners by the very actions of the officials involved. Undeniable actions yielded an undeniable answer. Yes, armed law enforcement officials will act on illegal orders from God knows where if the order is given a cloak of authority. Gun owners can no longer trust law enforcement to abide by the US Constitution over an illegal edict declared by rats who will later run and hide any trace of having given the order. Innocence was lost in New Orleans. Reality was seen.
...
The next time anyone says to you: 'Are you just afraid or paranoid?' Look them straight in the eye and say: Remember New Orleans.

If they ask you, 'Why does anyone need to own a gun?' Remember New Orleans.

If they say to you, "Why does anyone need a high-capacity magazine?" Look them straight in the eye and say: Remember New Orleans.

What's wrong with a 15-day waiting period? Remember New Orleans.

What makes you think the government would ever confiscate your gun? Remember New Orleans.

Is the second amendment relevant in the 21st Century? Remember New Orleans.

That's our battle cry and let's never, ever let them forget it.

A retraction of my opinion on HR 2640

2007-07-28T10:49:00.000-05:00

I'm a little late to the party here, but it looks like I and a ton of others jumped the gun on excoriating HR 2640. Clayton Cramer, friend to gun owners across the nation, had this to say in correcting those of us who did jump the gun:

1. Current law and regulation (as I have previously discussed) required a person to be adjudicated by a court or other due process situation. The D.A. calling the police and telling them, "lock this guy up" doesn't qualify. At a minimum, this guy may have some trouble getting his carry permit back, but if the D.A. thinks this makes him permanently ineligible to own a gun, he better go check the federal statutes and regulations on this.

2. HR 2640 hasn't been passed--and yet this guy has already been disarmed for life, according to Gun Owners of America. HR 2640 doesn't change the existing law at all about what categories of commitment disable you from gun ownership. It only expands the reporting. Let's say that somehow the D.A. managed to persuade a court (not the police) to involuntarily commit this guy. Anywhere in America, under the current federal law, he can't own a gun. Since many states are failing to report this, he might pass the federal background check, and be able to buy a gun. But if he comes to the attention of authorities, he's now in the same pile of trouble as a convicted felon in possession. HR 2640 doesn't change anything in terms of legality.

3. However: HR 2640 provides a procedure by which someone involuntarily committed might be able to get his rights back again (assuming that Congress funds the program, which they might or might not do). Right now, once you have been adjudicated mentally incompetent or involuntarily committed with appropriate due process, you are unable to ever own a gun. There is no procedure for getting this straightened out--ever. HR 2640 makes it at least possible.

I still don't like HOW the bill was passed (unrecorded voice votes = Reps unaccountable to their constituents), but I feel much better about the bill BEING passed.

How our legislature works

2007-07-10T10:48:00.000-05:00

Ever notice how long it takes for some bills to get debated, amended, sent out of committee, gutted, re-amended, referred to a second committee, and finally passed? People say watching the process is akin to watching sausage get made - not exactly something you're going to want to do often.

What's even more disgusting is when our beloved Congresscritters decide they know best and can introduce a bill, two days later "consider" it for all of 45 whole minutes, vote to suspend the freaking rules and then pass it with an unrecorded voice vote. A VOICE VOTE! Which means we have to take the word of the guy taking notes that the vote actually went that way - we don't even have a record of any of the following:
- how many votes were Yay, how many were Nay
- which way each Rep voted
- how many Reps were there in the first place and voted at all

I give you HR 2640. Awesome. Why am I so concerned with this vote, on a bill with such an ostensibly noble purpose as preventing any more Virginia Tech-style massacres by making the NICS (the background check system) stronger so that guys like Cho can't legally buy guns? Let me count the ways:

First and foremost, because this law is directly touching law having to do with the free exercise of the rights guaranteed (not granted, but safeguarded by) the Second Amendment - the one element of the Bill of Rights that safeguards the rest - and for a bill of that magnitude to proceed in this manner is unconscionable, regardless of its motives, noble or otherwise.

What this bill essentially does is codify into law the guidelines and regulations used by the BATFE (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives) in the NICS, which were explicitly explained in a May 9, 2007 letter to every State Attorney General, in which it was pointed out that a "lawful authority" as low as a private practice psychiatrist has the power to "adjudicate someone a mental defective" for even giving the appearance that someone "may be a danger to himself or others". The BATFE even explicitly states that they interpret "danger" as meaning "any danger", not just "substantial" or "imminent", but "ANY". Think there are any mayors, cops, or prosecutors out there who don't like the fact that you're a supporter of the Second Amendment in the sense Tench Coxe and Patrick Henry had, and who'll be able to get a shrink to sign off that that belief alone makes you "a danger" to those around you? That's exactly what happened three weeks ago in Harrisbug, PA.

Horatio Miller was at a speech on a community college campus, the Concealed-Carry permit holder breaking no law by having a legal handgun in his backpack, and was arrested and committed for saying something stupid. He made a comment to the guy next to him that it'd be worse than Virginia Tech if a criminal stole the guns he had in his car and at home (he owned three handguns total). For that lapse of judgment, here's what the Assistant DA had to say:

"Because of the statement I was greatly concerned about this fellow," Chardo said. "I contacted the sheriff and had his license to carry a firearm revoked. And I asked police to commit him under Section 302 of the mental health procedures act and that was done. He is now ineligible to possess firearms because he was committed involuntarily."

Get that? He was never charged for any firearm possession crime (PA restricts Concealed Carry on the campuses of elementary and secondary schools, but not colleges), but nonetheless, Second Amendment rights for this guy, gone for life, because a prosecutor didn't like something he said.

Or they will be, should this law pass and codify into law the guidelines and regulations the BATFE have added over the years regarding, among other things, "adjudication of mental defectiveness".

UPDATE: on my opinion of HR 2640 here

NASA chief's common-sense approach to climate change

2007-06-01T10:13:00.000-05:00

NASA Chief Administrator Michael Griffin laid out a very common-sense approach to global warming in an NPR interview yesterday:

"I have no doubt that global — that a trend of global warming exists," Griffin told National Public Radio's Morning Edition in an interview aired early Thursday. "I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with."

Ok, fine so far. Everyone's entitled to their opinion and interpretation of the evidence available, and he certainly has more access to that evidence than Joe Blogger does. But his next couple of comments are spot-on:

"To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had, and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change," Griffin said.
...
"First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown," he continued. "And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take."

This is the missing voice of reason in the whole global warming debate (and it is still a debate - one side just saying it's over doesn't make it over): the voice asking, "What the heck can we do about it, given the history of the world and our minor place in that tapestry?" Whether it's really happening or not is one piece of the question; if it is happening, what the root causes are is yet another piece of the question; and if it can be shown both a) that human activity significantly causes or contributes to it and b) that the reduction of certain human activity can reduce it, then by all means let's come up with some ways that might help, if they're put into practice. The other major question at the end of all that is how much do we want government to force people to act a certain way? That's a question for a much larger audience than just me or my readers, but by no means is it a settled question.

One more quote from Administrator Griffin:

"Nowhere in NASA's authorization, which of course governs what we do, is there anything at all telling us that we should take actions to affect climate change in either one way or another," Griffin told NPR. "We study global climate change — that is in our authorization. We think we do it rather well. I'm proud of that, but NASA is not an agency chartered to, quote, battle climate change."

Bravo to a federal government employee who actually takes the laws that authorize his agency's work seriously and doesn't try to unilaterally circumvent them when he feels like it!

LttE - What's good for the goose....

2007-05-23T15:32:00.002-05:00

Submitted to the San Antonio Express-News on 23 May 2007:

Heather and Tyler Smurr’s letter on Saturday the 19th decrying the legislature’s decision on teacher pay raises made an excellent point about the relationship between teacher pay and the desire of teachers to work at public schools: “Texas doesn’t want the best teachers … Who wants to work for a state that doesn’t want to pay you anything?” They’re absolutely right: pay scales are one way (perhaps the most important way) that businesses compete for employees in the free labor market that we’re blessed to have in this country. The good news for teachers is that they can take their expertise and labor and bring it with them to another educational institution where they’ll be paid more.

Now consider Michelle Martinez’s article from Thursday the 17th highlighting charter schools and the way they offer varied curriculums in order to compete (there’s that word again) for students. Some students will want what those charter schools are offering more than they want what their normally-assigned district schools are offering, and they’ll decide to go there instead. The good news for those students is that they can take the tax money that pays for their education and bring it with them to their new school where they’ll get the education they want.

With these two stellar examples of how free-market competition continually makes things better, it’s beyond unfortunate that the choice afforded to teachers to choose who benefits from their labor and the choice afforded to charter school students to choose who benefits from their tax dollars is vehemently denied to those students who want to take their tax dollars to other schools who are offering curricula that are different still from the very limited number of charter schools in operation. When will we take our blinders off regarding school choice and recognize that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander?

UPDATE: Printed

Maybe we're not all wussies after all

2007-05-22T12:03:00.000-05:00

Great stories from the past week:
Concealed-carry permit holder holds off murderer/bank robber until police arrive

11-year-old girl foils her own kidnapping and gets the guy apprehended

Lesson: when faced with adversity of any kind, be it an injury, disease, or hostile strangers with malicious intent, for the love of God, don't go quietly into that good night!

Welcome, visitor from the NRA!

2007-05-14T14:41:00.000-05:00

I had a hit today from the National Rifle Association, who MSNed (as opposed to Googled) Utah concealed carry permits and found their way here (or, more accurately, a cached version of the page).

Welcome!

Emailing my congresscritters re: HR 297 & S 1237

2007-05-10T14:11:00.000-05:00

Sent to Sens. Hutchison & Cornyn:

As good law-abiding Texans, I'm sure we agree that the right to own a firearm for personal, family, and community defense is one of the most important rights we have, and should not be surrendered lightly. In the strongest possible terms I urge you to work against the passage of one of your colleague's bills, Sen. Lautenberg's S 1237. This bill gives entirely too much power to those in power to assign an arbitrary label to individuals as being "suspected" of certain activity, which would unconstitutionally restrict that individual's ability to own a firearm for any reason, whether that label was justly applied or not! Obviously Sen. Lautenberg threw out the presumption of innocence our legal system was founded on when he wrote this bill. The way this bill is written, any activist protesting anything (from the latest tax increase to the ingredients in fast food) can be labeled a "suspected terrorist" and therefore not trusted to own a firearm! The application of a restrictive legal status without probable cause or due process is unconstitutional and unacceptable.

This language must NOT become law, and your constituents are depending on you to make our voice heard.

Thank you,
Jason Trippet
Helotes

Sent to Rep. Rodriguez:

As good law-abiding Texans, I'm sure we agree that the right to own a firearm for personal, family, and community defense is one of the most important rights we have, and should not be surrendered lightly. In the strongest possible terms I urge you to work against the passage of one of your colleague's bills, Rep. McCarthy's HR 297. This bill gives entirely too much power to those in power to assign an arbitrary label to individuals as being "mentally defective" (even a high-school guidance counselor can do so!), which would permanently end that individual's ability to own a firearm for any reason, whether that label was justly applied or not! The way this bill is written, even if a doctor orders an individual to undergo observation and the observation reveals no defects of any kind, that individual ist still considered to "have been forcibly committed", and therefore not trusted to own a firearm!

This language must NOT become law, and your constituents are depending on you to make our voice heard.

Thank you,
Jason Trippet
Helotes

Senators and their reading habits

2007-05-03T09:04:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not talking about novels or poetry, I'm talking about the bills they're foisting on the rest of us. Check out this quote from a U.S. Senator - I've removed the name of the Senator and the specific issue so that everyone reading this can look at it with an unbiased, critical eye.

[This congresscritter] said yesterday he no longer supports [this bill] that he helped pass in the Senate.

"I would not vote for the same bill," [he] told reporters yesterday morning, saying that after the bill passed the Senate he had a chance to study its effects and decided it led to too much [of something].

It's a major reversal for a man who is listed as one of seven original sponsors of the bill, along with [other big-name Senators], who spearheaded the bill.

Everybody with me so far? He not only voted for the bill, he was one of the seven original sponsors who got it in front of the Senate in the first place!!! And now, only after it passes, he's got time to study the text and its effects and decides that it's no good? I'm all for a guy discovering new information and admitting error and correcting his position in light of that error - but doesn't it make sense that these guys should do these kinds of studies before they pass a law that affects all of us regular Joes?

But wait, there's more - his spokesman had this to say:

"The congressional landscape has changed with no [his party]-led House conference as a backstop, and the provisions of the bill that the senator did not care for would not likely improve after a bill was passed by a [other party] Senate,"

Oh, well then Senator, that all makes sense. You couldn't take the time to actually understand the bill you authored and sponsored, so you decided that you'd just pass it, leaving the responsibility for vetting it and stopping it if it turned out that it's no good on the other chamber of Congress, but now that that other chamber is of a different composition than you thought it would be, you've changed your mind. Awesome. This is why I don't trust congresscritters, and why a) the 17th Amendment should be repealed and b) current office-holders shouldn't be able to run for a higher office while already serving.

By now you've probably figured out who said all this and the bill he's talking about, but here's the article just in case.

A couple more comments for San Antonians

2007-05-03T07:30:00.000-05:00

I just couldn't resist posting just a couple more things in response to some of the comments on the page linked in my last post:

"Law enforcement officers are trained to respond to volatile and violent situations where the average CHL has none of that training and are more able to make mistakes and cause unnecessary injuries to others."

Are you sure about that? Have you educated yourself on the training that a CHL applicant goes through and what material it covers, from shooting techniques to ethics, from legal implications to situational decision-making?

As for law enforcement being less prone to make mistakes and cause unnecessary injuries, I'd challenge you to read Overkill by Radley Balko, formerly of the Cato Institute, who found a disturbing trend of police killing innocent people my mistake. I'd also challenge you to come up with one incident of a lawfully-carrying citizen trying to defuse a violent situation and shooting an innocent by mistake. Concealed-carry supporters can point to several instances where the situation was ended successfully, but I have yet to see any press on a situation where Joe CHL Holder shot a bystander by accident (and don't you think the media would inundate us with that story, should it happen?).

And:

"BUT MANY PEOPLE DON'T HAVE MUCH SELF-RESTRAINT. AND NO CLASS OR COURSE IS GOING TO CHANGE THAT.
...
THERE ARE TOO MANY ANGRY PEOPLE WITH ITCHY TRIGGER FINGERS (GOOD AND BAD)
...
THE FIRST TIME JOHN Q. PUBLIC FEELS INTIMIDATED BY THE BIG TATTOOED GUY AT THE VALERO,... AND BAM, SOMEONE DIES...
...
THE REASON THAT CARRYING GUNS WAS RESTRICTED IN THE FIRST PLACE IS BECAUSE PEOPLE AREN'T RESPONSIBLE, GENERALLY SPEAKING."

That may be your gut instinct, and that of many of the other posters here, but the empirical evidence over the last 20 years in the 40 states who have enacted shall-issue concealed-carry laws says different. Florida was the first state to do so, in 1987, and through the first decade out of 400,000 permit holders, there was exactly ONE murder conviction. Here in Texas the arrest rate for CHL holders has been 2/3 LESS than the rate for the general population.

The millions of citizens around the country who have been legally carrying concealed for two decades (260,000 in Texas last year) WITHOUT the predicted Wild West/O.K. Corral bloodbaths shows that this isn't some new idea that should scare people. CHL holders have proven themselves over the years to be sensible, law-abiding, and - most important of all - willing to take personal responsibility for the safety of their families and the strangers around them.

Comments on Gov. Perry's statement re: concealed-carry

2007-05-02T13:32:00.000-05:00

For some head-shakingly amusing (and yet depressing) comments, solicited by this article in the San Antonio Express-News, click here.

I contributed twice:

This might be the wrong forum to pit statistics and figures against emotional outcries, but here goes.

"Get a bad grade, shoot the teacher." "Get drunk, get in an argument, shoot the other guy." "Get in a car accident, shoot the guy that hit you." "We're going back to the Wild West, the O.K. Corral all over again!" "When the psycho pulls out his gun and 20 other citizens pull out theirs we'll have an uncontrollable shootout!" "The streets will run red with blood!"

You know what? These predictions have been heard, and heard often. We heard them in 1987 when Florida passed the first non-discretionary "shall-issue" concealed-carry law. Did violent crime & shootings skyrocket, as predicted? No - in fact they decreased FASTER than the national rate was already decreasing. We heard them in 2004 when the so-called "assault weapons" ban expired. Did we have a rash of multi-victim massacres, as predicted? No - in fact violent crime continued its decades-long descent with nary a blip in the graph. Those in Utah also heard them in 2004 when the state legislature specfically allowed concealed-carry on college campuses (by legally-licensed holders only, of course). Did students start shooting their teachers, as predicted? Nope - no campus massacres either.

Folks, you have to remember that nobody's talking about issuing handguns with driver's licenses or student IDs. The only people we're talking about are those who have put in the time and effort to attend 10-15 hours of education & training, prove their proficiency, pass the strictest of background checks, and who continually keep their noses (and records) clean through periodic renewals. Of the 34,791 criminal convictions in the state of Texas in 2005, only 129 were perpetrated by Concealed Handgun License holders - .37% to be exact (and they all lost their licenses for it). Sounds like exactly the kind of level-headed and responsible people I'd feel good about trusting with the responsibility.

And:

To the folks stating that the crime rate WILL go up, and not believing any statements about keeping the crime rate down, please do your research before posting. In the midst of the great nationwide decline of violent crime rates over the last 3 decades, the 40 states that have enacted "shall-issue" concealed-carry laws saw their violent crime rates drop FASTER and FARTHER than those states with the more restrictive "may-issue" or "no-issue" concealed-carry laws.

The National Academy of Sciences in 2005, the CDC in 2003, and the AMA in 2000 released studies that could not statistically correlate a reduction in violent crime with a single gun control measure - not one.

Legally-carried firearms are used to stop crimes far more often (estimates range from half a million to 2 million times a year) than illegally-carried firearms are used to commit crimes (~350,000/year). It's as simple as that.

There are quite a few good comments, like this one, hitting on the same point I made in my last letter to the editor:

Since when has Texas become a state that doesn't care about property rights? Property rights has always been a major concern in this state, but over the last few years it's fallen by the wayside. Smoking bans circumvent property owners ability to choose the way they run their property, and Perry wants to do the same thing with handguns.

I'm sorry, but it's my property. If you have a gun, no badge, and are on my property, you are unwelcome and therefore trespassing. Businesses, office buildings, parking lots, schools, etc, should all decide for themselves whether or not to allow any type of weapon on their premises without interference from the State government.

This is Texas, after all.

But here are some lowlights:

Everyone on here with a concealed weapon permit has just succeeded in making me more scared that I am not safe at work or school.

(So she's felt safe in the vicinity of CHL holders in the past, just as long as she didn't know about it.)

If you're so insecure and frightened about going out in public that you need a concealed weapon to feel adequate, then you don't have the stones to shoot anyone anyways. So why put yourself in that situation? You'll shoot yourself in the foot out of panic before you shoot someone who's already openned fire on you..you Sally. Life isn't a B movie and you're not Dirty Harry so stop contributing to the problem. Where do think the criminals are getting the guns from anyways? The short answer: They're stealing them from low-browed,slack-jawed, mouth-breathers like you who weren't going to use it to begin with!

(Nice. Classy.)

What a crazy idea, especially if we are trying to teach kids to be non-violent and having arms only pertuates [sic] the chances of people being hurt. Certainly, bearing guns has a place in our crazy society to be able to protect ourselves against those that are deranged and evil. But, taking guns anywhere contributes to a police state.

(Don't worry - I did a double-take on that logic too.)

If a person is allowed to carry a weapon, I feel that it will just give them the feeling that they can use it anytime they feel threatened.

(Feel, feel, feel - what is it with these guys and their preference for feelings over cold, hard facts?)

I can not get a CHL, so why should any of the other stupid idiots that loose control because of alcohol be able to carry or have one. we do not need to revert back to the lawless days of the old west.

Welcome to the OK coral - only in Texas.

(Yeah - 'cause shootouts have been happening non-stop in the 40 states with shall-issue concealed-carry laws.)

This is ridiculous; as a person in a school everyday with some kids who already scare me, how many 18 year old seniors would get to show up at school with their guns ready when we're telling them who will graduate and who won't?????

(Hello, if you're under 21 you can't get a CHL anyway!)

Get pissed at teacher for a bad grade, shoot the teacher in class, then someone shoots the shooter excellent idea.

Sometimes it's embarrassing to live in this backward state, where the governor would have us walking around like we're living in the Old West. Did he take anything from the Va. Tech tragedy?

(Why yes he did, that's the genesis of the suggestion, thanks for asking.)

Seriously, do these people even take the 5 minutes it would take to learn about the subject under discussion before posting irrational and pointless comments like these? It's obvious they have no class, but I thought at least they'd find out what requirements are met by each and every CHL holder in the state, what kind of training they go through, etc. Can you believe some of those people were attacking the straw man of high school seniors (who can't get CHL permits in the first place) carrying at their school? Sheesh. There's even the obligatory "ban all first-person shooter video games" suggestion.

LttE - Rights: property & self-defense

2007-04-17T17:36:00.001-05:00

Submitted to the San Antonio Express-News on 17 April 2007:

Clay Robison’s article about the conflict between the private property rights of business owners and the self-defense rights of their employees hit the nail right on the head. Kudos to him for presenting the history & state of the issue without injecting any bias either way!

It is indeed a very thorny issue that should make every respecter of rights nervous about choosing a side in the debate. The way existing TX law is written regarding self-defense and the extension of the castle doctrine to personal vehicles (in practical terms at least, with peaceable journey and no retreat in place) would seem to indicate that an individual’s car and its contents are part of his castle, and if a business allows employees to park their cars on company property the company should be aware that they have no say in what is in those vehicles.

On the other hand, if we value the private property rights of the business and hold to the ideal that the business should be able to use its property as it wishes, who is anyone else to say that the company can’t allow on-site parking for one set of employees but deny it to others? That kind of “condition of employment” shouldn’t be government’s business any more than other arbitrary hire/fire decisions that the business makes on a daily basis.

Thorny indeed, and worthy of very thoughtful consideration by the freedom-loving among us, of all stripes.

UPDATE: printed

An excellent analogy to keep in mind this April 15th

2007-04-12T08:37:00.000-05:00

Saw this on a blog comment and it rang so very true I had to post it here.

The great thing is that people hate the IRS, but somehow manage to forget that it is the Congress which created the IRS, keeps it going, and makes it have to collect 50% of the produce of the free product of the US people. Sort of like hating the mob hit guy, but being okay with the actual mob boss.

That is spot-on, period and point-blank. We all love to rail against the IRS 'cause that's who we're making all the checks out to, especially this time of year. But in our ire for the tax collectors we too often forget about the busybodies in the legislature who keep spending all that money, and keep voting the same spending-like-a-sailor-on-leave schmucks back into office! In short, we may hate the IRS, but it's Congress who keeps them in business!

LttE - Patriot Act Abuse

2007-04-11T09:53:00.001-05:00

Submitted to the San Antonio Express-News on 11 April 2007:

Letter-writer Stephen Lehman insists that the Patriot Act is necessary and challenged the Express-News to name one citizen whose rights have been violated by the Patriot Act and who has not been linked to terrorism. Since I doubt the Express-News' policy allows it to respond directly to challenges of that sort, I'll gladly fill in and accept the challenge.

In fact, I'll give him a whole case full of citizens: Las Vegas business owner Michael Galardi; former [Clark County] Commissioners Lance Malone, Erin Kenny, Mary Kincaid-Chauncey, and Dario Herrera; and former Las Vegas City Councilman Michael McDonald. Each of these citizens were investigated (including phone taps and subpoenas for financial records) by the FBI utilizing Sections 215 and 314 of the Patriot Act, those sections having to do with records searches and money laundering.

This was a corruption case involving business owners bribing public officials to influence regulation at the city and county levels. At no point in the 5-year investigation, case, or trial, nor in any of the very public interviews with Nevada Congressmen and Senators, did the investigators or prosecutors ever even suggest that any of the defendants were associated in the slightest with terrorism. But they sure did like the power the Patriot Act gave them to make their case against the defendants.

Mr. Lehman asserts that "The federal government is too busy to take personal information gathered from justified surveillance and use it to illegally badger or intimidate innocent citizens." Unfortunately Mr. Lehman appears to have forgotten that the federal government he apparently sees as an entity unto itself is made up of people - people just like the rest of us with the same strengths and weaknesses, the same ambitions and failings. The federal government as a whole might seem too busy, but Joe Special Agent at the FBI with a job to do and his own agenda clearly is NOT. When we give a government agent a specific power to do something, we should not be too surprised when he uses it as he sees fit, regardless of what Congress has to say about it.

THAT is what critics of the Patriot Act are critical of, after all - the overzealous, irresponsible, and unconstitutional abuse of powers with no oversight by the legislators who passed the 1000-plus page law without even reading it.

UPDATE: Printed

Why am I nervous?

2007-03-19T13:54:00.000-05:00

It was kinda cool, back in this blog's heyday (such as it was) of the 2004 election, posting about government employee unions, to see hits from such places as school districts, the CA DoE, etc. I got a little excited thinking about a union punk reading my stuff!

Why, then, do I get nervous when I see hits like this appear?

Nothing but good news these days

2007-03-14T14:17:00.000-05:00

On Monday this week the Texas Senate unanimously approved a Castle Doctrine bill, which basically states that an unwelcome intruder in one's home is legally presumed to be there for a nefarious, life-threatening purpose, and no retreat is legally required for the homeowners to defend their lives with force, including deadly force. This is good news for those who deplore hearing about the burglar who breaks into someone's house, has violence done upon him by the defensive homeowner, and promptly sues the homeowner for assault and/or attempted murder.

This comes on the heels of the bigger news of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals handing down on Friday a very well-reasoned and well-decided decision, ruling that the citizens of the District of Columbia (having been subjected to living in the murder capital of America for the past decade) could not be prohibited by the District's government from owning handguns for self-defense and keeping those handguns in a loaded, usable state in their own homes. You can read all about it here, scrolling down to the March 9 entries and working your way up from there. The way the ruling was written (and it's very understandable by the layperson) makes it sound very favorable to a comprehensive "Individual Right" reading of the Second Amendment, and those who enjoy their freedoms are excited about the prospect that this ruling might finally be taken up by the Supreme Court and our most critical (though perhaps not our most cherished) Right be upheld once and for all!

The country's not down the tubes quite yet!

Looks like we left Kalifornia just in time

2007-02-15T15:09:00.000-06:00

I keep checking the OC Register every day for interesting headlines from my former home, and am sometimes rewarded with head-shaking chuckles that make me glad we're gone from that place.

proposed legislation by San Francisco Bay Area Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, that would make it a crime to spank a child younger than 4. The penalty: up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Wow. Criminalize spanking. Just.... wow. What's next, a minimum allowance?

Note to GOP

2007-01-12T16:59:00.000-06:00

If you'd like to win a guaranteed 75% share of the Libertarian vote for president in 2008 - including this one - in the name of all that is decent, don't let the centralizers among you stick us with a choice between Hillary and McCain/Guiliani, and avenge the all-too-soon passing of the federalism revolution spearheaded by the late Chief Justice, for God's sake give this man the freaking nomination. You'll be glad you did, and so will the nation.

Period and point blank.

End of line.

The Bi-Factional Ruling Party

2006-11-08T11:15:00.000-06:00

In case you're wondering why I just can't stomach either wing of the duopoly, here are a couple of examples:

Rep. House leader Boehner:

...as Republicans we must recommit ourselves to the principles that brought us to the majority and renew our drive for smaller, more efficient, more accountable government.

I’ve said since January during my run for Majority Leader that that we as Republicans must return to the spirit of ’94 and its focus on reform. The American people strongly supported our ideas and agenda in 1994, and they still do.

Lip service is all that is, and all we've been hearing from the Big-Government Conservatives infesting the GOP these days.

We made progress this year by instituting greater fiscal discipline, rejecting some $45 billion in wasteful Democrat spending, enacting comprehensive earmark reform,

He's gotta be kidding me - what he forgot to say was "rejecting some $45 billion in wasteful Democrat spending so we could pass hundreds of billions in wasteful Republican spending to a President who can't find his veto pen if his daughters' lives depended on it," and "enacting comprehensive earmark reform to make sure Republican earmarks stay put and Democrat earmarks are minimized to only what they need to buy their votes on other issues."

Not to be outdone, Dem. Senate leader Reid:

From Rhode Island to Washington State, America has spoken, and in overwhelming numbers, they've chosen a new direction — on Iraq, on health care, at the gas pump, and in the economy.

I think I'm going to be sick. Shouldn't have had those donuts for breakfast this morning, they're likely to be not-so-tasty after pondering what Reid has in store for health care (let's be like the Canadians, woohoo!), the gas pump (let's bring back the 70s with price controls, yeehawww!), and the economy (let's ignore the Laffer curve and raise taxes only to see revenues drop, yippee!).

What don't these punks get about Just Leave Me The Hell Alone? As for me, I'll continue to live under the rules they write (I know as well as anyone that there's no place better to live - but that doesn't mean I should keep quiet as I see it getting worse), but I refuse to give my consent and approval for what these jokesters have done or propose to do, especially as long as they're so clearly in violation of the Constitution on so many things.

Fantastic article by Dave Kopel on NRO

2006-10-11T11:47:00.000-05:00

Independence Institute research director Dave Kopel posted an outstanding article on National Review Online yesterday dealing with school shootings, the changes that have already taken place since Columbine, and the resistance that common-sense reforms are encountering from some folks.

A key point:

One reason why adult sociopaths so often choose to attack schools — schools to which they have no particular connection — is that schools are easy targets. It is not surprising that police stations, hunting-club meetings, stateside army bases, NRA offices, and similar locations known to contain armed adults are rarely attacked.

Because of the spread of concealed-handgun licensing laws, now in 40 out of 50 states, whenever you walk into a place with a large crowd of people — a restaurant, a theater, a shopping mall — you can safely assume that several people in the crowd will have a license to carry a concealed handgun, and some of them are currently carrying.

Schools are one of the few places in the United States where the government has guaranteed that there will be no licensed, trained adults with a concealed firearm that could be used to resist a would-be mass murderer.

Since this fact is apparently obvious to random psychopaths, it would be very dangerous to assume that the fact is not obvious to terrorists also. Beslan, Russia, shows that terrorists with al Qaeda connections consider schools to be good targets. There is also the danger of self-starting jihadis, such as the man who attacked the Jewish community center in Seattle. Every Jewish school and community center should very seriously consider having at least one full-time security guard.

Would you like some empirical evidence with that?

Like many states, Utah enacted a concealed-handgun licensing law in 1995. Unlike most states, Utah did not make schools an exclusion zone for lawful carrying. Not only a teacher on duty, but also a parent coming to pick up a child from school, can lawfully carry a concealed handgun in a Utah school building — after, of course, passing a background check and safety training. (See Utah Code sect. 76-10-505.5. In 2003, the legislature expanded the law, by allowing principals to authorize firearms possession by individuals who did not have a concealed-handgun carry permit.)

After eleven years of experience in Utah, we now have exactly zero reported problems of concealed handgun licensees misusing guns at school, or students stealing guns from teachers, or teachers using their licensed firearms to shoot or threaten students. During this same period, we also have had exactly zero mass murders in Utah schools.

Someday the general public will wake up and realize that the upstanding law-abiding citizens who take the time, effort, and expense to legally arm themselves for self-defense are the ones who are willing to put themselves in harm's way to protect their fellow Man - even perfect strangers - and aren't the ones who they should be worrying about going all Wild West on their neighbors, despite the same tired arguments against the Castle Doctrine and shall-issue concealed-carry laws.

CA meddlers must have invaded TX

2006-08-23T11:31:00.000-05:00

And here I thought I was getting ready to move from the People's Republic of Kalifornia to the state with one of the richest histories of freedom in our country. Then I read this. Long story short, the busybodies on the city staff of University Park, a suburb of Dallas, want to ban homeowners (you know, those people who actually *own* their private property?) from keeping basketball goals attached to the front of their homes or portable goals set up in their driveways. Why? Says head busybody-in-charge Mayor Blackie Holmes, "It's just not as pleasing to the eye."

...

Awesome. I just love busybodies who think they know best for other people.

LttE - Senate chicanery

2006-06-30T15:44:00.000-05:00

Submitted to the Orange County Register on 6/30/2006:

The Senate can’t send its immigration bill to the House because it has provisions that have to do with taxing people, because as all good Americans know – and for very good reason – only the House can initiate bills that tax people.

So you’re telling me that the Senate wants to scrap the Senate bill they started, take a tax bill already passed by the House that the Senate’s already considering, replace everything that was originally in the House bill with the Senate’s immigration provisions, pass it and send it back to the House as if it’s nothing more than an amended version of the original House bill? And no one has any problem with this, as long as those paragons of virtue Sens. Frist and Reid slap each other on the back, smile, and say, "Trust us"?

With Republicans doing whatever the White House tells them to and Democrats' only objection being the possibility that this chicanery will result in provisions they don't want, is it any wonder why more and more people are finding their trust reserve is bone-dry?

LttE - Jefferson and free speech

2006-06-22T23:03:00.000-05:00

Submitted to the Orange County Register on 6/22/2006:

Given that Thomas Jefferson said, "were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter," I think we know for certain where he would stand on a flag-burning amendment, letter-writer Jerry Hoosier’s incredulity notwithstanding. He’d probably just ask the "beer-swilling ignorant person" which of Ben Franklin’s brews he wanted to sample next!

Consider also that the federal government has taken us from a Constitution that details a grand total of three federal crimes (treason in wartime, counterfeiting, and piracy) to a federal criminal code that lists over 4000 federal crimes. Do we really need to add the nebulously-defined thoughtcrime of "being anti-USA" to that monstrosity?

LttE - Missing the point of Hudson

2006-06-19T14:16:00.000-05:00

Submitted to the Orange County Register on 06/19/2006:

In responding to the Register’s editorial and a letter to the editor about the Hudson case, Kevin O’Brien missed a major point of his own.

He says the Penal Code’s “knock-and-announce” requirement was enacted “to avoid violent confrontations between people and the police,” then neglects to observe that the repeal of that requirement will certainly increase those confrontations. This is equally true when police confront actual criminals as well as when they bash down the wrong door and find somebody’s innocent Grandma armed for self-defense. See the research done by Cato Institute analyst Radley Balko (quoted in the Court minority’s dissent) for data on how often that happens in a forthcoming Cato paper, and here and here.

Why will this ruling increase these violent confrontations? The immunities that shield the police from prosecution for actions taken in the course of their duties have ensured that civil lawsuits are ineffective remedies to police misconduct, and the “Blue Wall of Silence” ensures that internal discipline is just as weak. The ONLY effective deterrent for police to avoid violations of citizen’s constitutional rights has historically been the threat that illegally-obtained evidence will be excluded, making the whole point of their action meaningless. Because of that threat, they do things right. Removing the only stick from the equation that meant anything to police while leaving the carrot alone will, just as the Register’s editorial and Mr. Balko have stated, only increase the occurrence of violent confrontations not only between cops and criminals but also between cops and innocent homeowners awakened in the small hours of the night to find masked men rushing around their homes with guns.

In all likelihood, this ruling will make O’Brien go to more of those cop funerals he laments, while the rest of us go to more funerals of innocent victims of police mistakes.

LttE - Privatize Brea-Olinda

2006-05-24T17:48:00.000-05:00

Submitted to the Orange County Register on 6/24/2006:

Anyone interested in the re-admittance of the suspended Brea-Olinda students - including teachers, parents, students, and the angry letter-writers who deplore the school board’s decision - should step back and take a cold, dispassionate look at the situation.

The simple fact of the matter is that the district board was forced to re-admit the students because the voting public has – in its infinite wisdom – implemented a public school system that, being run by the government, has created an entitlement mentality among school-age kids and their parents. “Free school for all” (though the accuracy of the “free” part is debatable) is the mantra of this entitlement mentality, and it’s accomplished on the backs of taxes taken from people whether they have school-age kids or not.

Now picture how a privatized school system, free of the chains that come with state and federal funding, might approach the situation. As a privately-owned and –run business, it would “reserve the right to refuse service to anyone” and could decide to admit or expel students on whatever grounds they wish – from students’ drawings to the length of their hair. Worry not about wanton discrimination – for every reason one school can think of to expel a student, there will be another school that doesn’t care about that reason and would cheerfully accept the revenue that student’s enrollment would bring in.

Consider then the other parties of interest. Parents would be free to choose which school to enroll their children in, based on a host of factors like disciplinary policy or whether it teaches evolution or intelligent design. Teachers would be more free to choose at which schools to work and administrators would be more free to employ the teachers they wanted.

Sounds an awful lot like the real world, doesn’t it? The real world has worked pretty well for the past hundred years or so, and at the end of the day, isn’t it the real world that we’re trying to prepare our students for anyway?

Featured letter on restraining orders

2006-04-07T22:30:00.000-05:00

So the OC Register decided to print my humble missive, and I even received a few calls from readers thanking me for writing it. It's flattering and all, but I must admit I'm a little weirded out by the ease with which folks can find my phone number, address, etc. I'm starting to think that if I go on writing on topics that might be controversial (like the bearing of firearms in the People's Republic of Kalifornia) I should at least consider being unlisted.

There was one very interesting call though, from the Executive Director of the California Rifle and Pistol Association. He wanted permission to reprint it in their monthly magazine that goes out to 65,000 members - wow!

On the third point of the below post: the potential Constitutional ramifications of disarming objects of restraining orders who have broken no laws. Obviously this would be a very touchy subject and could have really turned off readers of the Register who otherwise may have taken my points to heart, so it's probably a good thing I didn't include it. But it's still a very sticky point that I think most people are scared to face

What I'm thinking about is this: if an otherwise law-abiding U.S. citizen has the unfortunate luck to have a restraining order issued against him, does he deserve to have his God-given right to self-defense violated by the confiscation of his lawfully-owned firearms and the prevention from buying new ones? The assumption (especially in the Register's articles by Ms. Rhor) is that most restraining orders are issued against abusive male significant others. But surely that can't describe every object of active restraining orders - there are certainly citizens out there who have no criminal record but are the object of a restraining order and are therefore not permitted to own firearms. Is this Constitutionally sound?

If the object of the order has been convicted of a crime that would otherwise revoke his right to own firearms (e.g., a violent felony, etc.), the terms of a restraining order provide no additional muscle to keep him from purchasing any. If the object of the order has a clean record, how can we justify the violation of his rights based solely on the fact that someone was able to talk a judge into believing that he's dangerous? Is that the due process that's guaranteed us by the Fifth Amendment? I believe restraining orders are public records including residence addresses for the objects of those orders. Right there criminals have a tailor-made list of homes that won't be protected by the presence of a gun. Now who's in danger?

I'm not saying these are the only considerations - just one I don't think I've seen addressed anywhere.

Restraining Order series in weekend Register

2006-03-31T13:09:00.000-06:00

The Orange County Register had a Saturday-Sunday series on restraining orders two weekends ago that made some very good points but left others out. The writer Monica Rhor wrote two major articles, one on each day, accompanied by two shorter stories each day highlighting cases where restraining orders failed to protect against the aggressors named in the orders. Those anecdotes certainly do tug the heart-strings of folks (and I'm sure that's what they were meant to do), but the meat of the series is found in the two longer pieces. Hopefully most readers of the series can compartmentalize their attention and sympathize with the very real people highlighted in the accompanying pieces while not giving too much weight to their emotions when they read the facts, figures, policies, and proposals in the feature articles.

I wrote a reader rebuttal and submitted it to the Register - we'll see if it makes it in this Sunday's issue. I would have liked to touch on three major points, two of which relate to victim disarmament - oops, I mean "gun control":

- the lack of legal obligation of law enforcement to protect common citizens
- Ms. Rhor's lack of mentioning the benefits of arming oneself for self-defense
- the potential Constitutional ramifications of disarming objects of restraining orders who have broken no laws

Unfortunately I had to stay under 550 words so I could only address the first two (which I'm sure are more accessible & acceptable to the Register's editors and its readers than the third). If it gets printed I'll link to it here and post a similar piece addressing the last point. If it gets rejected I'll lengthen the original submission to include all three points and post it in its entirety here.

The Fear of Freedom

2006-03-31T12:46:00.000-06:00

Cato Institute analyst Radley Balko has a great post today on his blog The Agitator, in which he quotes a couple of very well-spoken sources about how Americans are increasingly turning to a parentalist (as opposed to paternalist) state to make their decisions for them because they fear being free to make bad decisions.

Some choice quotes:

Our submission is absolute: We want to be operated like puppets and provided for like pets.

The terrorists hate our freedom. But we should be comfortable with that. We hate our freedom, too.

and

And it seems evident that many persons do not want to shoulder the final responsibility for their own actions..[They] want to be told what to do and when to do it; they seek order rather than uncertainty, and order comes at an opportunity cost they seem willing to bear.

China vs. U.S. in the Human Rights department

2006-03-09T16:50:00.000-06:00

China has issued a scathing rebuttal to the U.S.-issued "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" for 2005. I won't pretend to have read it all, but one or two specific things did jump out at me.

Interesting that the authors are shooting to make the point that the U.S. is an egregious violator of its citizens' human rights, but then cite the government's inability to reduce "the unchecked spread of guns" in attempting to show that the government does not provide safety to its citizens. So in the authors' view, the U.S. must restrict one or more human rights (property ownership, self-defense) in order to attempt to provide a higher level of something that's only arguably a human right (to not be murdered by other private citizens). Nice.

In making their point, the authors actually cite the Brady Campaign as a source. The fact that China, that paragon of individual liberty, agrees with the gun control crowd should be a wake-up call to the gun-grabbers in this country - too bad it won't be.

I do like how in their zeal to show how bad the murder rate is in the U.S. they point out how many murders there were in D.C. and Chicago, only to leave out the fact that it's in the very places where the murder rate is highest that handguns have been completely prohibited (not to mention concealed-carry)! So much for the anti-self-defense crowd's assurances that with less guns will come less violence.

To end on a high note, a new scientific study has been published showing that there is in fact no causal link between the availability of guns and the homicide rate.

Unlikely superstars

2006-03-01T18:57:00.000-06:00

And now, for the feel-good moment of the week.

CBS has a spot featuring a NY state high school student named Jason who's the manager for his basketball team and happens to be autistic. He's sociable and articulate, so he may not seem to fit the commonly-accepted definition of autism, but he's obviously very well-regarded by not only the team who know him well but the rest of the school also. In the team's last game this season, he got the opportunity of his young lifetime by getting suited up. Then his coach surprised everyone by putting him in with 4 minutes to go in the game. The crowd (not to mention the rest of his team) went wild just to see him in the game, and as the team engineered a couple of shot opportunities for him, they went even crazier when his third shot went in for two points. But it wasn't over yet - it was Jason's turn to blow everyone away. He proceeded to hit 6, count 'em 6 three-pointers in the final few minutes of the game, including one last one at the buzzer, at which point the team and the crowd rushed the court and mobbed him in celebration. He had never set foot on the court with the clock running before, and he was flat out on fire, dropping 20 points in under 4 minutes. Amazing!

A similar story was in the Orange County Register in February, about a student named Kevin with cerebral palsy. He was the manager of Fullerton Union High School's basketball team, and like Jason, got to suit up and play at the end of the last game of the season. He also scored and got mobbed by fans and - better yet from his perspective - cheerleaders!

And some people don't get the point of sports. Sheesh...

LttE - We're all hardworking people

2006-02-12T23:40:00.000-06:00

Submitted to the Orange County Register on 2/12/2006:

Hector Preciado of the Greenlining Institute opposes a border fence and deportation of illegal immigrant felons. He says, "We're not terrorists, just hardworking people trying to make a living." So in his view it doesn't matter if one breaks the law, as long as you're a hardworking person trying to make a living.

I can guarantee that if a hardworking person who worked 80-hour weeks at two minimum wage jobs trying to make a living refused to pay their Social Security and Medicare taxes, the government would not let them skate on breaking that law. Thanks to the situation with the Piecemakers, it's been shown that government will come down on hardworking people trying to make a living who only skirt some of California’s myriad business regulations – much less commit a felony.

Given this simple reality, there's no reason why any level of government should let hardworking Mexican citizens trying to make a living continue to break the law by entering this country illegally – and that’s especially true for the felons among them, who, lest we forget, are the only focus of the new Costa Mesa policy.

Wisdom and Liberty's Impetus Returns!

2006-02-09T15:23:00.000-06:00

Longtime readers (are there any out there?) will remember that back in the early days of this humble, one-guy-in-his-free-time blog the topic of choice was more often than not Social Security reform. It's the topic of several of the letters I've sent newspapers as well as the subject of the commentary article the OC Register published almost exactly a year ago. Since Congress gave up and the debate was taken over by the promoters of the status quo and their horrendous logic, little has been said about it here, though my opinions haven't changed one bit.

Well, it's back! It's being widely reported that the Bush Administration actually put provisions establishing private accounts into its proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year:

But this year, with no fanfare whatsoever, Bush stuck a big Social Security privatization plan in the federal budget proposal, which he sent to Congress on Monday.

His plan would let people set up private accounts starting in 2010 and would divert more than $700 billion of Social Security tax revenues to pay for them over the first seven years.
...
In the first year of private accounts, people would be allowed to divert up to 4 percent of their wages covered by Social Security into what Bush called "voluntary private accounts." The maximum contribution to such accounts would start at $1,100 annually and rise by $100 a year through 2016.

It's not clear how big a reduction in the basic benefit Social Security recipients would have to take in return for being able to set up these accounts, or precisely how the accounts would work.

One would hope that some other system is devised (you're keeping about 1/3 of the total being contributed to the glorified Ponzi scheme on your behalf, counting your 6.2% and your employer's 6.2%, so it would seem simple and logical to cut each hypothetical benefit check by 1/3), but I'm quite confident that I'm not the only person who would gladly give up 100% of my future Social Security benefits for the opportunity to keep any of my own tax money in my own hands. A bird in the hand, you know.

MacGyver is still The Man

2006-02-06T15:34:00.000-06:00

For the best of yesterday's Super Bowl commercials, see below:

The best part is the little flashback at the end showing Mac buying ahead of time all the little knick-knacks he needed to pull off his daring escape!

LttE - Confused over states' rights

2006-02-03T13:48:00.000-06:00

Submitted to the Orange County Register on 2/3/2006:

Letter-writer Bob Constantine makes a perfectly logical assertion when he says that our two illustrious senators represent the values and wishes of the majority of Californians. After all, we keep sending them back to Washington, don’t we? We’ll leave the statistical analysis of calling 7 million votes out of 22 million eligible voters a “vast majority” for another time.

With this logical leap behind him, I found his list of issues with the Bush administration amusing to no end. He rightly decries the federal propensity to trample states’ rights, but doesn’t notice how the rest of the items on his list conflict with that view. Allowing current workers under 50 to opt-out of Social Security (hardly the “dismantling” he fears) would return federal tax money to hard-working citizens to invest as they wish, at the same time freeing states to consider implementing their own state-funded pension plans if they wish. The much-touted “woman’s right to choose” comes from an edict handed down by the federal Supreme Court, handcuffing a state’s right to define for itself what constitutes murder and what is an allowable medical procedure. Federalized health care would make obsolete any programs necessary to individual states but useless to others, just as federal marriage regulations (defining who can marry who) would make obsolete any decisions states have made for themselves on that topic.

Notice that in each case, regardless of his stated concern for states’ rights, Mr. Constantine wants more federal intervention rather than less. Sounds like someone’s confused, and it ain’t the Register or “the kooky right wing of Orange County”.

Florida's got the right idea

2006-02-01T12:54:00.000-06:00

For those of us familiar with the Cory Maye case in Mississippi, all is not lost, for there are still places and people in this great nation who see right and aren't in Imperial Awe of - cue the choirs of angels - The Police. A Florida man over two years ago shot a police officer who had invaded his property without permission or a warrant. The homeowner had been robbed twice previously, was in fear for the safety of his then-pregnant wife, and let's face it - when a flashlight is being shined into your eyes, in your own home at 12:40 in the morning, there's no way you'll be able to tell whether the guy holding it is a cop or criminal.

The good news in this case is, it only took 30 minutes for the jury to hand down its verdict completely exonerating him from wrongdoing in the case. The bad news is that through the cops lying about what the defendant did (they claimed he peeked out a window, saw they were cops, and fired anyway), he's lost his job, home, and two years of his life to house arrest while his son was born and is now 19 months old.

Now with the recent shooting, by nearby San Bernardino Sheriff's Deputies, of an unarmed USAF Airman who was only obeying the deputy's order to stand up (after being the passenger in a chase), and it's becoming ever clearer why people don't trust - cue dastardly music - The Police anymore.

LttE - Second-guessing out of place

2006-01-23T10:03:00.000-06:00

Submitted to the Orange County Register on 1/23/2005:

All of this second-guessing about Bill Hill’s action to protect his family is unbelievable. He saw an armed predator (unless anyone thinks a carnivore’s claws and teeth aren’t weapons?) on his property and in close vicinity to his house and his neighbor’s. In that situation, no one is a more “proper authority” than the property owner. Letter-writer Thomas Chao had it right when he said that should the lion have attacked someone (as has happened before, all too recently), the outcry over inaction would have been just as bad.

Chao lost many of us, however, when he counseled readers not to “question the legality of Hill owning and using a firearm” because “he was a trained law enforcement officer.” Every American, police officer or otherwise, has a legal right to own a firearm, and a moral obligation to protect their families from predators, human and animal alike.

Obviously letter-writer Christine Tillemans thinks homeowners don’t have that right and obligation, as she accuses Hill of committing a crime by “shooting a firearm in a residential area.” Fortunately the law allows for a law-abiding resident to fire in self-defense on his own property – or does Tillemans think it would have been just as much a crime if Hill found an armed human predator on his property and defended his family from him?

LttE - Someone else deserves the attention Tookie is getting

2005-12-13T13:08:00.000-06:00

Submitted to the Orange County Register on 12/13/2005:

With the recent turmoil over the execution of Tookie Williams, I’d like to bring another case to the attention of those who fought for clemency, one where the defendant is much more deserving of the national attention that found its way to Williams.

In Jefferson Davis County, Mississippi a black man by the name of Cory Maye sits on death row after being convicted of the murder of a white cop who happened to be the son of the chief of police. Cory Maye was living, with his 18-month-old daughter, in the back half of a duplex, the front of which was occupied by a drug dealer. The police executed a no-knock midnight raid on the dealer, during which they also broke down the door to Maye’s residence. Confronted with an unknown intruder in his home at night, he shot and killed the cop who broke down his door before surrendering when he realized it was the police.

Mr. Maye was not a suspect of any crime, not named on the search warrant, had no criminal record, and had done nothing wrong. This didn’t stop a jury from convicting him of murder and recommending execution in a sentencing session so short (less than a day) it’s unprecedented.

Decide for yourself: who deserves more attention and assistance, a four-time convicted murderer who bragged about the killings but who now professes to have straightened up his act, or a man with no criminal record defending his daughter’s life in his own home?

LttE - Preference vs. reason

2005-11-16T11:01:00.000-06:00

Submitted to the Orange County Register on 16 November 2005:

Patrick O’Brien’s letter was long on personal preference and short on reason. For starters, the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791 – long after the Revolutionary War was over – and was written to guarantee the pre-existing right to arms in self-defense, to allow the citizenry to defend itself against both foreign invasion and any future tyranny from its fledgling government.

He calls the notion that a gun can protect a good guy from a bad guy “pure sophistry”. Perhaps he’s unaware of scientific studies that have shown that defensive uses of firearms by law-abiding citizens to prevent crimes outnumber incidents of criminal gun violence by a factor of 4-to-1.

His personal preference is that he’s never had a need for a gun. Good for him, but what makes him think that’s everyone’s personal preference? Personally, I’d rather have one and not need it than need one and find someone preventing me from having it.

Glimmers of third-party hope in New London, CT?

2005-11-11T18:37:00.000-06:00

WTNH.com - Independents win two seats in New London:

After a campaign focusing on rising taxes and the eminent domain controversy, New London voters have sliced the Democrats' City Council majority from three to one.

The upstart One New London Party won two council seats, losing a third seat by only 19 votes. The new seven-member council will consist of four Democrats, one Republican, and two aldermen from One New London.

One of the successful One New London candidates, Charles Frink, says the three-party City Council must work together or risk deadlock in what he called dangerous times for New London.

Two of One New London's unsuccessful candidates had lost homes in the city's taking of the Fort Trumbull neighborhood. The U.S. Supreme Court confirmed those seizures, setting off a national outcry against eminent domain.

Maybe all it takes for people to realize that there's only a dime's worth of difference (though some would quibble) between the Demopublicans and the Republocrats is just to get really good and pissed off...

LttE - The cost of opting out

2005-11-11T17:56:00.000-06:00

Submitted to the Orange County Register on 11 November 2005:

I join Professor Galles in decrying the failure of Prop. 75, and in his optimism for the future of those public employee union members who supported it.

However, I’m a little more cautious in hoping that huge numbers will begin opting out of political contributions, for the simple reason that for just about every public employee union (though not all, I've been informed) opting out means becoming an “agency fee payer”. This entails essentially becoming a non-member, but still paying the rest of one’s union dues and still being subject to the terms of the contract, while losing one's vote on union leadership and collective bargaining issues – the very thing an employee is ostensibly paying his dues for in the first place.

The act of opting out may or may not be considered "easy", but its ease or difficulty says nothing about the costs, hidden and otherwise, of actually opting out.

LttE - No socialized health care

2005-11-07T18:45:00.000-06:00

Submitted to the Orange County Register on 7 November 2005:

Letter-writer Norman Ewers tells us that Sheila Kuehl’s SB 840 is good for both business and labor. Sure, I suppose in some twisted sense socialized health care paid for entirely by the state might be good for business (they could eliminate their voluntarily-provided employee health coverage with impunity) and for labor (they’d get what they want – more state employees).

But the complete removal of the last vestiges of a free market in the medical industry is about the WORST thing for patients (see Canada for examples) and taxpayers (didn’t we vote down this kind of state meddling with insurance the first time we saw it, when it was called Prop. 72?). I may not be business or labor, but I sure don’t want the state of California getting between me and my doctor – any more than it already is, of course.

Myths of gun control and of the origin of gun rights

2005-10-20T13:48:00.000-05:00

I'm unsurprised that a column of this caliber came from John Stossel, and encouraged that this pro-freedom stalwart holds a position in the mainstream media as co-anchor of CBS's 20/20. Now if they'll just let him do a show based on this column, we just might get somewhere...

Excerpts:

The Centers for Disease Control did an extensive review of various types of gun control: waiting periods, registration and licensing, and bans on certain firearms. It found that the idea that gun control laws have reduced violent crime is simply a myth.
...
What's the special risk? As Alex Kozinski, a federal appeals judge and an immigrant from Eastern Europe, warned in 2003, "the simple truth -- born of experience -- is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people.

"The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do," Judge Kozinski noted. "But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."

LttE - Why do we still have unions?

2005-10-17T21:49:00.000-05:00

Submitted to the Orange County Register on 17 October 2005:

Letter-writer Bob Tucker praises unions for giving us "the eight-hour day, workplace health benefits, family leave, retirement benefits and a living wage." This just begs the question, though - with all of these things either codified into law or universally accepted by employers and employees alike, just what function are unions still serving today?

UPDATE: Printed on Wednesday 19 October 2005

It's a lock - Prop. 75 is good to go

2005-10-17T20:06:00.000-05:00

This just in: the Left Angeles Times interestingly argues that its opposition of 1998's paycheck-protecting Proposition 226 in no way conflicts with its support of this year's Proposition 75. The editorial board says that the narrowing of the prop's focus to only public employee unions is the clincher, and makes perfect sense.

Oo-rah!!!

The Greatest Game Ever Played

2005-10-17T15:43:00.000-05:00

This, dear readers, is why I find myself respecting Notre Dame head football coach Charlie Weis more every day:

At exactly 7:15 p.m., Weis took several steps into the Trojans locker room and offered his congratulations.

"That was a hard-fought [bleeping] battle," said Weis, as the USC players shushed each other to hear the Notre Dame coach. "I just want to wish you good luck the rest of the way. I hope you win out."

He also, in the postgame press conference, refused to place any blame on the officials for the situation of the last play, when the clock appeared to run out but the officials ruled on the field that Leinart had fumbled it out of bounds, which should have stopped the clock at :07. What a complete and total class act. I hope that guy coaches ND for 20 years.

Debating Prop. 75 over at OC Blog

2005-10-13T15:23:00.000-05:00

I've put some effort the last few days into arguing logically and rationally for the passage of Prop. 75 to restrict public employee unions from taking union members' dues for political purposes without permission. I admit I'm kinda proud of the arguments I've used to support my position and the calm, rational way in which I've presented them (thanks, Dad!), and feel like saving them here for my once-in-a-great-while readers to see. Enjoy!

In chronological order starting on Monday this week, there's Window Into Public Employee Unions, then Propositions Polling Ahead!, and More On Polling.

Bad news from GWB's tax reform panel

2005-10-12T18:10:00.000-05:00

Apparently, the panel of geniuses put together by our esteemed Republican president has decided not to make any case for, not even suggest the possibility of or even say, "it would be nice to do this, if someone could only figure out a way to make it work", any major reform of the tax code. No flat tax, no FairTax, no VAT, no national sales tax replacing the vile progressive income tax, nothing. Instead, they found all kinds of ways to squeeze just a little more revenue juice from the already-oversqueezed American taxpayer by reducing deductions for home mortgage interest and premiums for employer-financed health insurance.

Translation: we're so hooked on the revenue from the even more vile AMT that we can't get rid of it without raising taxes on everyone who doesn't already fall under its boot heel.

Here's an idea - how about reducing spending by something more than a trifle? First, DeLay and Hastert go on and on about how the decade-long GOP majority has cut spending pretty successfully (HA!) and that there's little to no fat left to trim (they did both read and sign the transportation bill, didn't they?), and now this? This is what we've brought all these Republicans to Washington for? To hear them say there's no more money to save and that they're going to take even more from us 'cause they can't figure out how to make the tax system simpler? Sheesh.

Good news for CA's Special Election

2005-10-10T18:29:00.000-05:00

The latest polls, sponsored not by any of the interested campaigns but by California TV stations, have all 4 planks of the Governator's reform agenda significantly positive. While it appears that some of the results might appear to be huge unexplainable swings away from prior polls, possibly indicating errors in the polling, consider that the surveyor, SurveyUSA, was the second-most accurate pollster in 2004 statewide contests (.xls file). Also consider that a recent study from San Jose State's Survey and Policy Institute resulted in the interesting conclusion that while most people voice disapproval for Schwarzenegger and don't want him reelected, a 49%-40% plurality want him to succeed (PDF) (hat tip Dan Weintraub). My admittedly amateur read? People are buying into the spiteful ads they're seeing on TV that the Governator is a bad, bad man, but have learned enough about the Propositions in his reform agenda that they recognize they make sense and want reform to happen.

Miers, Bush, and ... Charlie Weis???

2005-10-05T17:21:00.000-05:00

First, let me get this part out of the way: I don't know enough about Harriet Miers to have an opinion on whether she'll be a great judge who will bring an originalist interpretation to the SCOTUS or the complete opposite. So in that respect, I don't oppose the nomination. But I do know enough about Janice Rogers Brown to know that she absolutely would have brought that interpretation to the Court, so in that respect, I'm a little disappointed.

A few of the more common points being made regarding this nomination are (from those who are disappointed) that we should have gotten the Scalia/Thomas disciple like the President said he would appoint and (from those who trust the President and his nomination) that with the President's back against the wall with low approval ratings due to Iraq, Katrina/FEMA/Mike Brown, etc. this was the best (read: pragmatic) nominee we could hope for without a protracted, potentially damaging knock-down drag-out confirmation fight and we should just trust him that he knows what he's doing. National Review's Jonah Goldberg made a stellar point today (and I'm sure others have made it but they've been lost in the landslide of op-eds and blog posts the last few days):

But President Bush has put himself in the awkward position of asking his base to trust him at precisely the moment the base was expecting Bush to demonstrate their trust was well-founded in the first place.

What in the world does this have to do with Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis, you say? Simple. Charlie Weis also made a promise, to someone who would have trusted him with their own life and happiness. He promised a dying 10-year-old ND fan that he'd run Joe Montana's pass play on the first offensive play two Saturdays ago. He also found himself with his back to the wall, where keeping his promise meant risking changing a very bad situation into a potentially very damaging one. His team was on their own 1-yard-line, a situation you never pass from, especially on first down. The difference is, where Coach Weis said, "Damn the torpedoes, we're keeping our promise come hell or high water," the President essentially said, "Trust me, even though it looks like I'm breaking my word."

Now it may turn out that Miers will turn out to be a justice in the Scalia/Thomas mold, and say what you will about the difference in stakes between a football game and a SCOTUS nomination (Luke 16:10 comes to mind here) but at this point in time it's very easy to see the practical effect of the two different responses: Weis's fanbase was energized, and he gained newfound respect from loads of people outside of his normal channels of influence, while Bush's base is disillusioned and disappointed, some even vocally railing against him.

LttE - Tenure vs. competition

2005-10-03T11:43:00.000-05:00

Submitted to the Orange County Register on 3 October 2005:

Writing about teacher tenure, Chris Dornbush asks, “what other professionals go through this eggshell period each time they move or want a better opportunity?” He’s actually complaining that he has to wait five long years before he magically secures lifetime employment, seemingly revocable only in the case of a criminal conviction.

I’ve got news for everyone who’s never held a non-government job: everyone goes through that eggshell period, and the eggshell period never ends. It starts with an interview where you have to convince someone that you’re the best choice for the job, but it doesn’t end there – you have to continue convincing them, year after year, that you’re still the best choice, or you might get replaced. It might seem harsh if you’ve never experienced it, but this mechanism of competition is exactly what has made America the economic dynamo that it is – and its addition would improve the quality of our schools like no other measure can.

News worth waking up for

2005-09-26T19:09:00.000-05:00

What did it take to pulll me back from the brink? To get me back to blogging after a month-long hiatus? Just a couple pieces of good news, that's all!

First, a few rank-and-file members of the CTA are finally using their voices (interesting that they're able to do so without the assistance of, indeed at the chagrin on, their union bosses, eh?) to speak up about the theft of their money through compulsory dues being funneled into political uses. The Contra Costa Times reports on the lawsuit filed by ordinary teachers against the CTA for hiking members' union dues to fund the CTA's fight against the governor and the eminently desirable ballot measures to be voted on in November. The same union blowhards who run ads that say Prop. 75 will "silence the voices of teachers" can be heard here shouting down state senator Tom McClintock's attempt to laud the efforts of the teachers at a press conference about the lawsuit. Heh.

Next, on the patently illegal and indefensible confiscation of firearms in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina - what's that? You didn't know the Constitution was water-soluble, and that some flooding and power outages can render one of our nation's most fundamental rights (and IMO the most important to have during a crisis like post-Katrina New Orleans, as evidenced by the proliferation of parasitic but ultimately cowardly looters) null and void? Apparently law enforcement in New Orleans and Louisiana thought so, and though some out-of-state National Guardsmen and state police who were there helping resisted that order (notably from states who respect gun rights like Texas), others - like those from my beloved People's Republic of Kalifornia - had no problem executing that order and went about it with gusto. Well, a dispossessed gun owner (who had his own effective and legal means of personal protection stripped from him at gunpoint while he was rescuing people in his own boat), the Second Amendment Foundation, and the NRA filed suit in a U.S. district court to put an end to the confiscation and return those seized firearms to their rightful owners, and Friday the court ruled in their favor, granting a restraining order against law enforcement from taking any more weapons. Bravo!

Lastly, not really news in the same sense as the above, but a great story nonetheless: Notre Dame head football coach Charlie Weis shows that he's a class act by granting the dying wish of a 10-year-old ND fan (named after ND alum Joe Montana, no less). Coach Weis visited Montana last week and agreed to let him call the Irish's first play from scrimmage; he picked "pass right" - Joe Montana's play. After a fumble by Washington landed the Irish on their own 1-yard-line for their first offensive play, QB Brady Quinn asked Weis what they were going to do (Weis told the team about Montana's play call before the game). Weis simply said, "We have no choice, we're throwing it to the right." Young Montana didn't get to see the game (at least not with perishable eyes), but the Irish completed the play for a first down at their 14. I challenge any football fan dad to not instantly respect Charlie Weis 10X more than they did prior to Saturday. He's not just coaching football, he's teaching life - and I know of what I speak.

CA legislation news - the good and the bad

2005-08-30T18:59:00.000-05:00

So we saw before that the CA legislature had passed a few new bills through their originating house and they were headed across the capitol for votes in the other house. I also treated you, dear readers, and the Letters Editor at the OC Register to my opinion of a couple of them.

First the good news: it looks like Sen. Joe Dunn has decided to table his "I'd like to make the manufacture and sale of ammunition in CA impossible so let's make it prohibitively expensive by adding useless costs" bullet serialization bill SB 357 for the year, although purportedly it's just for "fine-tuning" so he can bring it back next year, already having passed the Senate. John Gittelsohn of the Register has an interesting take on from beloved Santa Ana Democrat - Dunn says he's tabling it because he doesn't want individual police officers who pay for practice ammunition out of their own pockets to have to deal with increased prices. Everybody get that? He's admitting that his legislation would skyrocket the price of ammunition in this state, but it's ok for Jane Average to have to put up with a massive price hike, as long as cops don't have to (according to Dunn, because their departments don't pay for it - anybody smell a call for more government spending?), 'cause well, that'd be just wrong. Nice double standard, thanks Joe. And people actually say the costs incurred by businesses as a result of government legislation aren't passed along to consumers? Here's a Democratic state senator who's admitting that they are indeed passed along, but he doesn't care.

Another piece of (kinda) good news, AB 352, which would require that any handgun made or sold in CA would have to "microstamp" the model and serial number of the handgun on each bullet, as it fires (HA!), has been put in the inactive file at the state senate, where it will stay unless a senator takes the initiative to schedule it for a vote (which hasn't happened since it passed out of committee a couple weeks ago). If it stays in the inactive file, author Assemblyman Paul Koretz will likely turn it into a two-year bill, putting it in the same state as SB 357 and trying to get it passed by the state senate next year.

And for the bad news, AB 996, which puts additional pointless regulation on how gun shops store ammunition (does anyone think gun shops are the safest place for criminals to break into looking for stuff to steal?), passed out of the state senate last week, and is headed back to the assembly for a concurrence vote on the amendments made by the senate. Let's hope that the assembly vote is against it, like it was back in May before a second vote passed it. Today is the first day the assembly can consider the concurrence vote, so stay tuned.

Gas too expensive?

2005-08-19T15:56:00.000-05:00

If you're caught up in lamenting how expensive gas is these days, you'd do well to remember two things: 1) that in real, inflation-adjusted terms, gas prices are in fact not at historic levels; and 2) that there are plenty of other things that are way more expensive per gallon than gas, making gas seem pretty cheap in comparison. The free market is at work here folks - supply and demand is a law just as surely as gravity is, and it's as true in tickets to sporting events as it is with gas: as long as we keep buying whatever it is they're selling at the price they're asking, they'll keep selling at that price or more.

Lots of goings-on

2005-08-19T00:21:00.000-05:00

AKA, the one big catch-up blog post! Here I'll comment on a bunch of things I've been meaning to but haven't had the time to make happen.

First, the Kelo Kicker: As if it's not bad enough that the residents of New London have to surrender their homes to the city and to Pfizer, but now the city is suing the residents for five years of back rent. Seems they've been living on city property, lo these past five years since the city first declared its use of eminent domain and seized the land and buildings. Some of the rent being charged - anywhere from $57K to over $300K over that 5-year span - would be considered astronomical by any rational human being. But let's face it, city council members can hardly be said to have it all together upstairs, especially when they're blinded by the prospect of vastly increased tax revenue. And oh - did I mention that the city is pushing for the "just compensation" part of the Fifth Amendment to be based on what the market values of the property were in 2000? Heh.

Citizens of Kalifornia, your senior Senator and representative of you and your interests to the federal government! I give you, Senator Dianne Feinstein:

"Senator Daschle, the Internet is full of pornography and pedophilia, and until that's clean [sic] up, I don't think the Senate should be on the Internet."

Wow. Just... wow.

Next up, an excellent column in the OC Register from Costa Mesa's mayor, who's also an Orange County Sheriff's Deputy (and therefore a member of the public employee union AOCDS). Finally we see someone stating exactly what Proposition 75, the Paycheck Protection initiative, will do: restore the free speech of each individual member of public employee unions - who are paid out of our taxes - by not forcing them to contribute to political causes with which they disagree.

Finally, via The Heritage Foundation, the US has responded to a UN proposal that would give the UN a whole heck of a lot more power over the private industry that is and runs the Internet - the US basically told the UN, "Hands off the Internet". While that is indeed an admirable response and a principled position, it just makes me wonder where these free market, free Internet, property rights stalwarts were when they and their compatriots over at National Review Online were giving the Republican party line rah-rah to CAFTA, several provisions of which forced the implementation in Central and South American countries of DMCA-style regulations. And of course as any free enterprise advocate knows, the essential result of the DMCA was to stifle legal technological innovation by one industry - equipment manufacturers - in order to protect the profit margins of another industry - music labels and movie studios. Free trade - it seems so simple, doesn't it? Speaking of CAFTA - one thing I never understood was why national governments need to pass laws and treaties about free trade. Wouldn't it serve free trade better just to get governments out of the way entirely?

Another reason I voted for McClintock

2005-08-17T13:05:00.000-05:00

Via California Campaigns:

The rumor is that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may be close to naming moderate (at best) federal district judge Morrison England to the California Supreme Court. England - definitely NOT a conservative - was essentially a Barbara Boxer pick for the federal bench in 2002, when the President's Calif. guy Gerald Parsky was allowing Sen. Boxer to exercise an absolute veto over California judicial nominations. The blow-with-the-wind England sailed through the Senate without opposition in 2002. (The President's more recent picks have been much better).

If this is true - it is a sad choice to fill the seat vacated by the brilliant conservative/libertarian judge Janice Rogers Brown, who was recently appointed by the President to the United States Court of Appeal in Washington, DC..

One of England's recent rulings was to block a move by the Bush Administration to open up some back-country timber tracts for logging - a move that would have helped prevent large fires in the Sierra. England sided with the Sierra Club in blocking the logging operation.

There have been way too many chances for us Tom McClintock voters to shake our heads in abject disgust over the Governator, his policies, his methods, and his lack of backbone. Now we have squishy judicial appointments to add to the list.

The deterrent effect of concealed carry

2005-08-12T17:41:00.000-05:00

There was a story on this morning's KTLA news (nothing online yet) about a pair of armed robbers whose modus operandi is to hit restaurants at night, cleaning out cash registers and customers alike - apparently they hit two places last night alone in the Northridge area, and police suspect they've been doing this for quite some time. With the current controversy between the NRA and ConocoPhillips regarding an Oklahoma law that requires companies to allow their employees to keep firearms in their cars parked in company parking lots - a spirited exchange regarding which can be read here - this story spurred some thought. While the conflict created between the private property rights of a property owner and the self-defense rights of an individual is certainly an interesting dilemma for those of a libertarian bent, I think an important facet of the discussion is being ignored completely - the deterrent effect of a liberal* firearm policy.

Some companies may want to ban their employees from bringing guns (or licensed employees from carrying concealed) onto their property; some states may want to prohibit such bans; some companies and/or states can't be bothered enough to care. But what about those businesses that would welcome the presence of CCW permit holders, thinking that would make for a little bit of extra protection for their employees and customers from criminals and current or former employees who feel like "going postal"? We probably haven't heard much about them because even in California there hasn't (thankfully) been an effort on the part of the state to force all private businesses to ban firearms or concealed carry. And along the same lines of the danger that's posed by a neighborhood (e.g., one near a school) who proudly (and foolishly) posts "Gun-Free Zone" signs, think about the potential value to such a business of posting its firearm policy for all to see. Out of two otherwise identical restaurants next door to each other, do you think this pair of criminals would pull their masks on and charge into the one with a sign welcoming CCW permit holders or the one without the sign? Of course I'm not asserting that all one needs is to post the sign and they'd never get robbed - one can never be too certain of the intelligence of your average criminal, and you'd certainly need to back up your stated policy with the public. But it's kind of like the Club - it's not enough to stop a determined car thief, but it's almost always enough to make the thief pick another car.

I think I smell another column submission to the Register - this one might be pretty different from what they normally see.

* And of course here I mean "liberal" in the classical sense, not in the modern political sense.

Prop. 77 takes another blow

2005-08-10T10:13:00.000-05:00

According to the OC Register:

A state appeals court on Tuesday refused to put Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's redistricting initiative back on November's special-election ballot, saying supporters' use of two versions to qualify the measure was a 'clear violation' of the constitution.

The deadline that the secretary of state sets for a final ruling is the 15th, only five days away, which may not give supporters enough time to appeal this ruling to the state supreme court - though there are about a million Californians, myself included, who want this initiative on the ballot.

I don't have anything particularly pithy to say about this - I've found myself in the same situation with a lot of the recent stories I've read about that in the recent past I might have energetically blogged about: CAFTA, the transportation bill, teachers' unions, etc. I'm just finding myself lately very jaded about the battle for liberty and limited government, feeling like it's a hopeless struggle that I'd be better off just leaving alone so I can concentrate on other, more personal and important things like my family and my career. I try to remind myself why I got started, that "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance", back in the 2003 CA recall election, and the words of John Adams, quoted by Tom McClintock, that wound me up to start contributing in some small way to the battle myself, but I always seem to find something more important to do, like spending time with my son Riley, or more pressing, like my career-advancing schoolwork.

Luckily (?) I don't have tens or hundreds of readers to disappoint by my lack of blogging, but hey, maybe I'll get back to it more steadily one of these days. I just don't have the energy for it at the moment. Thanks for stopping by, and if you really like what you see below feel free to drop me an email (jason (at) trippet (dot) net) letting me know that you'd like to see more.

UPDATE: In case you weren't aware, the California Supreme Court has put Prop. 77 back on the ballot. Its poll numbers have been very strong so far, but it will face some very stiff opposition from incumbent legislators of both parties and the usual suspects who have said incumbents in their pockets.

Riley update

2005-07-31T23:47:00.000-05:00

For those not aware, Riley Dane Trippet is my almost-5-month-old son, and the main reason for the sorry pace of blogging since March - I'm just having way too much fun being a dad!

Anyway, I just posted an amazing 30-second video clip on the Riley Photo Gallery at Trippet.net that the world should see! Kristi is playing with him and he's just laughing and giggling like he's the happiest boy in the world - which of course he is. Go watch it, and check out all the recent photos while you're there. Enjoy!

A night with the Minutemen

2005-07-27T12:16:00.000-05:00

Local columnist Gordon Dillow has an excellent column about his trip to the CA-Mexico border with the California Minutemen. Note especially that the Minutemen were actually shot at from unseen parties on the other side of the fence and did not return fire (so much for being "vigilantes", eh?), but were accosted by San Diego County Sheriff's deputies and told that they'd be arrested if they continued to carry their own firearms. Sheesh.

It's certainly becoming more obvious that this kind of effort is helping (Dillow reports that a truckful of illegals and their smuggler were apprehended after being spotted by a Minuteman patrol, and verbal confrontations with people on the other side of the fence, who ostensibly would have come through in pursuit of whatever goals they had, had the watchers not been there).

Redistricting initiative finds unexpected supporter

2005-07-25T10:52:00.000-05:00

The San Francisco Chronicle printed an editorial denouncing AG Bill Lockyer's case against the proposition as based entirely on a technicality, and that Prop. 77 has earned its place on the ballot. I couldn't agree more.

LttE - Prof. Binder wrong on original intent

2005-07-21T10:17:00.000-05:00

Submitted to the OC Register on 7/21/2005:

Being a law professor at Chapman, I’m sure Tuesday’s Orange Grove author Denis Binder has a much firmer grasp of constitutional law and theory than I do. However, I think Prof. Binder made a mistake in describing the beliefs of adherents to “original intent”.

It’s disingenuous at best (and inflammatory at worst) to assert that if original intent were followed line by line, “women would not have the vote and a slave would only count as 3/5ths of a person.” Is it Prof. Binder’s belief that originalists ignore the First and Fifth Amendments, as he clearly believes they ignore the Fourteenth and Nineteenth?

Originalists believe just as strongly as anyone else in Article V’s prescribed amendment process, and that Article states clearly that once an amendment is duly ratified by both houses of Congress and 3/4ths of the states, it is considered to be as much a part of the original text as any provision found in the first seven Articles.

UPDATE: Dang, I sent this before I saw a letter had been printed making the same argument - so this one likely won't see print.

Police as protectors?

2005-07-19T15:59:00.000-05:00

An interesting take on the deplorable Supreme Court decision Castle Rock v. Gonzales cites a couple of court decisions that make it very clear that law enforcement has no legal or constitutional obligation to protect individual citizens from criminals:

local officials fell back upon a rich history of court decisions that found the police to have no constitutional obligation to protect individuals from private individuals. In 1856, the U.S. Supreme Court (South v. Maryland) found that law enforcement officers had no affirmative duty to provide such protection. In 1982 (Bowers v. DeVito), the Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit held, '...there is no Constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen.'

Later court decisions have concurred.

Yet another argument in opposition to the position of the victim disarmament lobby that individual citizens shouldn't be able to defend themselves with firearms.

LttE - Laffer and Hamilton were on the same page

2005-07-19T15:01:00.000-05:00

Submitted to the OC Register on 7/19/2005:

Editorial writer John Seiler is right on the money when he reminds us about the Laffer curve and the positive effects on total tax receipts that lower tax rates tend to have. What I just realized last week is that the underlying principle of it predated Arthur Laffer by hundreds of years. “If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds.” - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #21, 12 December 1787.

Someday the tax-and-spenders and Keynesians (but I repeat myself) will figure out what our Founding Fathers already knew: that government isn’t there just to spend as much money as it can coerce from its subjects, but only to exercise just enough power to secure and safeguard the unalienable rights with which we as humans are endowed.

UPDATE: A slightly edited version (mostly just wordsmithing but also removing my jab at Keynesians - dang!) was printed here on Friday the 22nd.

Rep. Ron Paul on CAFTA

2005-07-19T14:57:00.000-05:00

The only consistently pro-freedom and pro-Constitution voice in Congress, Rep. Ron Paul gives us another reason to oppose CAFTA (which isn't about "free trade" at all):

The largely government-run health care establishment, including the nominally private pharmaceutical companies, want government to control the dietary supplement industry – so that only they can manufacture and distribute supplements. If that happens, as it already is happening in Europe, the supplements you now take will be available only by prescription and at a much higher cost – if they are available at all. This alone is sufficient reason for Congress to oppose the unconstitutional, sovereignty-destroying CAFTA bill.

LttE - The true effect of Paycheck Protection

2005-07-11T22:37:00.000-05:00

Submitted to the OC Register on 7/11/2005:

Letter-writer Michael Stone makes a false comparison in opposing the Paycheck Protection initiative – Prop. 75 doesn’t address the difference between unions and companies themselves, but the difference between the sources of PAC funding: union members and shareholders.

When corporations make contributions to PACs, the funding they use comes from their shareholders – who can exercise their power of choice to withdraw their support from the company. Each individual shareholder voluntarily chooses whether or not to support the company’s activities.

Unions that have mandatory membership and compulsory dues use their power of compulsion to keep their individual members from having that same choice. Short of quitting their jobs, individual members have no ability to voluntarily extend or withhold their support. Mr. Stone was right in that corporations’ political influence would remain the same – what he’s missing out on is that Prop. 75 would level the playing field by giving union members the same power of choice as corporate shareholders.

LttE - No legal sense

2005-07-06T11:56:00.000-05:00

Submitted to the OC Register on 7/6/2005:

Letter-writer James T. Hamilton is a professor of medicine and as such makes some very intelligent arguments about the effects of marijuana. He falls short though, in claiming that the legal justifications of the Raich decision were right on the money.

It’s interesting to see how far we’ve drifted from where we were in 1919, when it was obvious to anyone and everyone that the federal government had no Constitutional power to ban possession of anything. The only way it could was the 18th Amendment, which took 13 long months to ratify, and required the acquiescence of the legislatures of 3/4ths of the states to go into effect. Contrast that with 1970, when the Controlled Substances Act was passed – it was passed by Congress and signed by the President, but the state legislatures had nothing to say about it.

What changed in the intervening decades that gave the federal government the power to do unilaterally in 1970 what it admitted it couldn’t do without the approval of the states in 1919? That’s the question that must be answered by those who defend the Raich decision.

Open letter to our federal overlords - er, rulers - er, officials

2005-07-05T18:36:00.000-05:00

GeekWithA.45 penned a great open letter yesterday that very lucidly described what we who love liberty expect from them. The whole thing deserves a read, but it can be distilled down to these two magnificent sections, described in engineering-speak as the "is" condition and the "should be" condition:

In truth, it is reasonable to argue that we currently live in a constitutionally inverted situation. The limits of the powers of government cannot be readily discerned, but the individual rights it purports to protect are squeezed into so many unnatural provisos and caveats that they may no longer be simply relied upon.
...
Considerations of petty partisan agenda, and even the pressing needs of our current war must all be held as subordinate to the central question as to whether this government shall entirely abide in the plain terms of its founding charter or not.

The current and coming vacancies in the Supreme Court provide us with both the means and the opportunity to remedy the situation, and to meaningfully demonstrate to the American people your commitment to upholding the plain meaning of the Constitution above any issue or party.

Outstanding words.

SCOTUS litmus tests, circa 1993

2005-07-05T10:55:00.000-05:00

Byron York, writing on NRO's Corner, points out something interesting to keep in mind when Senators (of either party) start talking about applying litmus tests to SCOTUS nominees: that as recently as 1993 during Ginsburg's confirmation, it was SOP that it just didn't happen.

Republicans also chose not to oppose Ginsburg even though she refused to answer dozens of questions during her confirmation hearings. Among others, she declined to give her views on Roe v. Wade, on the Second Amendment, on the death penalty, on the Voting Rights Act, on race-based congressional redistricting, and on adoption rights for gay couples, among many other issues. At one point in her hearings, Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond told her, "In preparing these questions or any others I may propound during the hearings, if you feel they are inappropriate to answer, will you speak out and say so." On another occasion, Thurmond said, "I will not press you to answer any that you feel are inappropriate."

The Democrats agreed:

Then-chairman Sen. Joseph Biden told Ginsburg, "You not only have a right to choose what you will answer and not answer, but in my view you should not answer a question of what your view will be on an issue that clearly is going to come before the court in 50 forms probably, over your tenure on the court."

Let's hope today's Senators (again, of both parties) keep that in mind this summer, and focus their deliberations on a nominee's relationship to the law and their willingness to apply it faithfully regardless of personal views and preferences, rather than on those views and preferences themselves.

How to save Social Security

2005-07-05T10:35:00.000-05:00

The Heritage Foundation points out an opinion piece in the Grand Forks Herald that posits an interesting way to save Social Security and explains how to fully fund the program through its coming revenue deficits, without raising taxes or reducing benefits: use the rest of the federal budget instead!

In the first year of Social Security's cash deficit - 2017 - the shortfall is estimated at $8.8 billion. Using the current cost of government programs, we'd have enough money to make up this shortfall if we eliminated funding for Head Start, the Labor Department's five worker protection programs and the Supreme Court.

By the following year, 2018, the shortfall triples to $26.4 billion. So, added to the first round of cuts, we'd have enough if Congress also eliminated the entire Environmental Protection Agency, the WIC or women, infants and children nutritional program, the National Park Service and the Federal Drug Administration.

In the third year, Congress could make up the additional deficit by also eliminating the FBI, the Centers for Disease Control and the State Department.

Within three more years, in the year 2022, the annual shortfall will be over $100 billion. This represents additional cuts comparable in size to the National Institutes of Health, the FAA, and $12 billion in Title I education grants to local agencies.

I think I'll shop this idea around to some of my uber-Republican friends to see what kind of response it generates.

The good and the bad about Kelo

2005-06-28T16:00:00.000-05:00

First, the good (and funny): Freestar Media has initiated a redevelopment process in the town of Weare, NH to build a new hotel - on the lot currently occupied by Justice David Souter's house. The press release details the same increased-tax-revenue arguments used by New London, CT against Kelo, et al. Efforts are also underway in at least a few states (CA state senator Tom McClintock is hard at work) and localities to more narrowly define "public use" as it pertains to eminent domain and better protect citizens' private property. This could be just the thing we needed, just like the high-profile Chicago suburb handgun ban that went into effect in 1981 and galvanized thirty-some states to immediately pass legislation prohibiting localities from such bans.

Now, the bad: Radley Balko of TheAgitator.com details some of the eminent domain actions that were waiting in the wings for this decision and have been cranked up within a day or two of the decision coming down. Nice.

I'll end on another good: Also via TheAgitator (same post actually), MSNBC is hosting a poll that as of 2:00pm PST today has 112,323 responses, 98% of which say the Kelo decision was a bad one. 98%!!! I've never seen a public opinion poll that high - this lends credence to the idea that all sides of the political spectrum are incensed by this one. And takes away any credence that the SCOTUS somehow "has its finger on the pulse of public opinion". As if that should mean anything to them anyway, being supposedly bound by the Constitution itself.

OC Register's Greenhut on Kelo

2005-06-28T15:42:00.000-05:00

From Orange Punch, their blog, Steven Greenhut updates a classic:

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES
SOCIALISM: You have two cows. You keep one, but must give the other to your neighbor.
COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both and provides you with milk.
FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both and sells you the milk.
BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. The government takes them, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, and then pours it down the drain.
DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both, and then shoots you.
CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point that you must sell them both to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was a gift to him from your own government.
CORPORATION: You have two cows. You lay one off, force the other to produce the milk of four cows, then act surprised when it drops dead.
CALIFORNIA: You have two cows. The state tells you how to milk your cows, when to milk your cows and the most that you can charge for the milk. You go broke and sell the cows. The state calls you greedy and blames you for the current milk shortage.
POST-KELO CAPITALISM: You have two cows. Costco has 30 million cows. The government takes your two cows and gives them to Costco.

When "just give them what they want" doesn't work

2005-06-28T10:45:00.000-05:00

Ask most any cop or politician what to do when mugged or otherwise attacked, and you'll most likely hear some derivative of "Just do what they say, give them what they want and you won't get hurt." Tell that to the Boston area man who was robbed then shot:

Approached by a masked gunman who demanded his gold chain early yesterday on River Street, a 27-year-old Hyde Park man handed over the jewelry only to get shot in the right foot and thigh.

While the victim was being treated at Brigham and Women's Hospital, police combed the crime scene and recovered two cell phones, a spent shell casing and an envelope. Here's hoping they catch up to the trigger-happy bandit as soon as possible.

He handed over exactly what his attacker wanted and still got shot for his trouble. Notice the stellar job the police did after the fact. Lest anyone think otherwise, the only person responsible for your safety and the only person who can truly come to your defense in a timely fashion is you. The cops are primarily report-takers and investigators, not crime-preventers.

More on Kelo v. New London

2005-06-24T13:20:00.000-05:00

Call me lazy, but I'm just much too disillusioned with the decision to really talk about it much. I'm still in the process of reading all the commentary that's been published already (starting with the majority and dissenting opinions of course), but here's a bunch to get you started:

SCOTUSblog
Volokh.com
The Agitator.com
Claremont's Local Liberty
The OC Register's editorial on the subject
And Steven Greenhut's take
Tech Central Station

It's interesting that this decision is being blasted by both the right and the left: the right says it's an attack on property rights and the left says it's a handout to Big Business. And they're both right. Am I a broken record yet by pointing out the huge mass of votes that seem to be available to a principled libertarian occuping the political middle (if there can really be a "middle" anymore - it's more like a grid with quadrants, as shown here)?

LttE - Give public employees the choice they lack

2005-06-24T12:55:00.000-05:00

Submitted to the OC Register on 6/24/2005:

CSEA president J.J. Jelincic attempts to mislead the public with his nonsensical attacks on the Paycheck Protection initiative. First, he wishes that companies require permission from shareholders before contributing to a political campaign. What he misses is that shareholders’ support of companies is voluntary, and they can voice their political opinions by withdrawing their support. Members of public employee unions, from whom dues are compulsorily taken, lack that choice, as do the taxpayers whose taxes fund those dues.

Second, by charging that this initiative will “stifle the collective voice of public employees”, he unsurprisingly clouds the distinction between union bosses who control the purse strings and the regular employees who currently have no choice in whether to pay dues or where those dues go. Did he miss Thursday’s letter from state worker Bill Glasgow who would rather not belong to the union? Clearly, and contrary to Mr. Jelincic’s dishonest assertions, the Paycheck Protection initiative would not stifle Mr. Glasgow’s voice, but give him the voice he currently lacks.

SCOTUS upholds for-profit property seizure in Kelo v. New London

2005-06-23T11:49:00.000-05:00

This just in: the SCOTUS has upheld the right of local governments to seize private property, even centuries-old ancestral homes, and turn it over to private developers, using the justification that the city would make more tax revenue from sales taxes and the jobs created by whatever the H-E-double-hockey-sticks the developer would build there than they make in property taxes from the homeowners. Sheesh. So much for the much-vaunted principle inherent in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that the ownership and protection of private property is essential for personal liberty and freedom.

The linked blog post is a great starting point, but stay tuned for more analysis as the usual pundits (Volokh.com, Claremont Institute, etc.) get spooled up today.

Comments to my Congressman

2005-06-21T11:01:00.000-05:00

Sent on 6/21/2005 to Ed Royce:

I read about the heated debate you spearheaded in the Financial Services Committee yesterday regarding the Frank provision mandating portions of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac profits go to an "affordable housing fund". Just wanted to extend my thanks for standing up against such nakedly socialistic wealth transfers. Even though the Committee passed the Oxley program with the provision intact, hope remains that it won't make it out of the House with it attached.

That said, I was disappointed that you voted the party line on last week's vote regarding the Patriot Act provision granting more power to federal law enforcement to snoop on us common folk. Provisions of the Patriot Act (like RICO before it) have already been utilized against everyday Americans with absolutely no connection to terrorism, without prosecutors even attempting to show any connection at all! Not only that, but the DoJ has consistently inflated its numbers in a failed attempt to show that it's doing any good. The Patriot Act taken as a whole is way too much power for the DoJ to have - as the lack of time for you to even read the whole thing before voting on it should have shown. Each section needs to be rigorously reviewed, debated, and either renewed or sunset - our citizens' freedoms demand a stop to blind, no-debate, "because the President said he needs it" approval votes.

Told ya: firearms the great equalizer

2005-06-17T11:20:00.000-05:00

Via Alphecca's Here's How It's Done series comes a story that happened last week but wasn't reported until Wednesday which I came close to clairvoyantly quoting in this post from Tuesday. My words:

A firearm is the great equalizer, and it can make even an untrained but desperate woman or a 70-year-old wheelchair-bound man into a match for any criminal, sometimes even more than one at once.

And the details from the Maine story:

A man in his 70s managed to fire his .22-caliber rifle at a person who broke into his home last week in what may have been a home invasion by people looking for drugs.
...
During the attack, Tripp said, the intruders blindfolded the woman and ordered her to remain in the living room. The man's feet were bound to the footboard of his bed and a pillowcase was placed over his face.

The man managed to get free while the intruders were elsewhere in the house. Tripp said the man fetched a .22-caliber rifle he keeps by the side of his bed and when an intruder returned to the bedroom, the man fired a shot at him.

"A shot was fired into the wall," Tripp said. "They fled the residence."

Didja catch that? A 70+-year-old man tied to his bed with an itty-bitty .22 rifle in his hand made multiple attackers flee his home by getting one shot off. And just think, the gun-grabbers would like nothing better than to take that unmatched ability to defend oneself away from people just like him, leaving them defenseless against the predatory criminals who would brazenly invade their homes, fearless of the law and unconcerned with what damage and injury they cause.

And now the bad news: Raich claims its first victim

2005-06-16T11:01:00.000-05:00

I know I said I was done talking about Raich, but this just has to be said. Via Of Arms and the Law:A Ninth Circuit court decision, U.S. v. Stewart, upheld the conviction of a man for possessing a firearm while being a convicted felon, but specifically ruled that the activity of building his own firearm for personal use only (even though it was a fully-automatic machine gun) was out of reach of regulation by Congress via the Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court has just vacated that decision and remanded it back to the Ninth Circuit for reconsideration, and yes, the direction actually quotes Raich:

The judgment is vacated and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for further consideration in light of Gonzales v. Raich

One almost gets the impression the Supremes were waiting on reviewing Stewart until after they ruled on Raich, just so they could vacate Stewart just by quoting themselves.

If anyone still thinks the Raich decision was all about marijuana, they'd better wake up.

The good news: House reconsiders, kills Patriot Act provision

2005-06-16T10:08:00.000-05:00

Excellent news indeed. Sanders, the Independent rep from Vermont who authored the amendment, had this to say:

"I think that today's vote will tell the Senate and the House that, wait a second, the American people want some thoughtful re-examination of the USA Patriot Act."

Absolutely. The legislature is the place for reasoned, thoughtful analysis and debate - and that's where the nation needs to hear how Patriot Act provisions are being abused already, by going after people with no connection to terrorism. I applaud the 38 Republicans who listened to their constituents and weren't swayed by the Executive branch's wailings.

"The Patriot Act is an important piece of legislation," Bush told Republican lawmakers at a fundraising dinner. "It gives those folks who are on the front line of fighting terror the same tools - many of the same tools that are used to track down drug kingpins or tax cheats."

Once again, in this situation it should be just as feasible to suggest that the government has too much power rather than too little, and that a viable solution to the "problem" (if it even exists as it's being alleged by the Executive) could just as well be a reduction of government power rather than the knee-jerk increase that seems to come to politicians' minds first. I'm still trying to find a roll call vote on it to see how my Rep. voted - I suspect he voted with most of the other Republicans given his record and committee membership, but if he didn't I'll send him a nice letter of appreciation.

UPDATE: Yep, he voted the party line. Bummer.

Congress votes against U.N. tax

2005-06-15T13:34:00.000-05:00

A bit of good news, just in via The Liberty Committee: Ron Paul's amendment (H.R. 1017) to disallow any levying by the United Nations of a direct tax on American citizens has been passed.

Up next: Another Ron Paul amendment (H.R. 1146) will be up for a vote today or tomorrow to remove the U.S. completely from the United Nations. Let's hope our Reps keep up their courage and vote in favor!

LttE - Our cheating schools

2005-06-15T00:37:00.000-05:00

Submitted to the OC Register on 6/14/2005:

Erica Perez’s article was very enlightening. Every parent of every student in that district should be questioning the ethics of the administrators in charge of the teachers who are teaching their kids.

This article, along with one by the Reason Public Policy Institute’s Lisa Snell, really spotlights the negative effects of the No Child Left Behind Act. Instead of improvement in education, what we’re seeing is less education and numbers-fudging in order to meet arbitrary goals. I’ll bet very few people reading this know that all it takes for a California school to report “adequate yearly progress” in reading is for 13% of its students to score at the 51st percentile on a standardized test.

13% may be good enough for the administrators who are only concerned with keeping the federal funding gravy train rolling in, but it shouldn’t be good enough for parents who want educated children.

California court rules for enforcement of internet sales tax

2005-06-15T00:01:00.000-05:00

Here we go. It's started. While the court's argument that the online activity of Borders.com (owned by Amazon) and the bricks-and-mortar activity of Borders are too closely entwined to distinguish (allowing customers to return online merchandise to physical stores the most glaring example) has some merit, I'm afraid that this is just the first salvo in this battle, and the wrong team scored a hit. What's interesting to me is the verbiage being used in support of the ruling:

But independent booksellers and other "bricks-and-mortar" retailers have been cheering, saying the ruling should remove their Internet competition's unfair advantage.

Got that? Figuring out a better way to run a business that saves customers money is an "unfair advantage". It's not unfair people, it's just competition, and it's a good thing!

"There are a lot of online retailers who are watching this intently," said Tom Dressler, a spokesman for the California Attorney General's office. "Clearly online retailing is growing so one would think the potential revenue problem is fairly substantial."

Got that? There's a "potential revenue problem" (bureaucratese for "we simply must spend all the billions we're spending"), so we simply must find a way to fleece more funds from the public.

Michael Mazerov, senior fellow at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington D.C., said the case "suggests that having somebody in the state conducting activities that facilitate your out-of-state sales creates your obligation to charge sales tax."

Got that? Just having somebody "facilitating" sales creates a tax obligation. How long do you think before UPS/Fedex (or even customers themselves) are considered "facilitators", making every single online sale that gets shipped anywhere subject to sales tax?

In the news: handgun saves three lives

2005-06-14T23:49:00.000-05:00

From Alphecca comes a great story that shows how wrong those people are who believe that a gun is only good for killing somebody. It's well documented that often all it takes is brandishing a firearm to convince a would-be murderer that it just isn't worth it - sometimes it takes a warning shot.

That was the night a person still unknown to her unexpectedly walked into her home while her two children were asleep in the next room.

It was about 10:40 p.m., and Jennifer was at home with her two sons while her husband was in San Antonio attending the Spurs basketball game, when she heard the chime on her front door sound.

“We have an alarm system, and the doors chime every time they are opened,” Jennifer said.

She had not set the alarm because she was waiting for her husband, Gary, to come home.

“I could hear footsteps,” Jennifer said.

She called her husband’s name, and when no one answered, she panicked, ran to the master bedroom, where she had left her sons, and locked the door behind her.

Seconds later, she heard the sound of someone on the other side twisting the doorknob trying to get inside the bedroom.

Jennifer and her children would spend almost the next two hours in fear, hoping whoever was on the other side would take what they wanted and leave. She told the intruder there was an alarm and the police were on their way, but the intruder reportedly stayed in the house turning on all the lights, the television and periodically twisting the knob.

No, contrary to what the so-called "experts" would tell you (that just giving in and doing whatever a criminal tells you is the safest path), oftentimes these people want more than just your property. The story continues:

Jennifer did not have a phone in the master bedroom with her and was unable to call the police herself.

Shortly after midnight, Gary, who was on his way home, called to speak to Jennifer.

He was not concerned when she did not pick up the phone.

“I didn’t think anything of it,” Gary said. “I figured she was asleep.”

Jennifer realized it was her husband but yelled through the door the alarm company was alerting the police.

All the while, Jennifer was trying to comfort her oldest son, who was awake through the ordeal.

“We talked and we prayed a lot,” Jennifer said.

To calm her children, Jennifer took a .357 Magnum from the closet and told her children she would protect them.

“I told them this gun would either hurt this man or he will run away,” she said. “I told them we were going to try and wait for daddy because I didn’t want to shoot this gun. I told them I was between them and the door and I would protect them.”

Then, she heard what sounded like the door lock being picked.

Jennifer pointed the gun at the door and fired once.

The bullet hit the top of the door and entered the ceiling.

The intruder stopped picking the lock, and Jennifer heard the sound of footsteps and the door chime as the intruder left the home.

She and her boys were safe.

Let me quote that last line again, because that's the end result that we're all working towards:

She and her boys were safe.

A firearm is the great equalizer, and it can make even an untrained but desperate woman or a 70-year-old wheelchair-bound man into a match for any criminal, sometimes even more than one at once.

A must-read for anyone with school-age kids

2005-06-13T11:54:00.000-05:00

Lisa Snell, director of the Reason Public Policy Institute's Education program has a great article that details, citing extensive research and hard numbers, how schools and state DoEs have become proficient in "gaming the system" in order to defraud taxpayers (and worse, the very parents of their students) and remain untouchable in their actions. If I needed any more motivation to a) put my own kids in private school or b) fight with all my might for school choice, this, a very pertinent section for me in particular, would be all it would take:

My local newspaper lists area schools that have met No Child Left Behind goals and are compliant with federal law. The article will tell you that every subgroup, from low-income children and Hispanics to special education children, is proficient in reading and in math. It will not say that in California, in order for yearly progress for each subgroup to be considered adequate, only 13 percent of the children in each group must be proficient. Imagine the difference—and how much more helpful it would be to a concerned parent trying to decide what is best for her child—if the newspaper article said, “Here is a list of schools where at least 13 percent of children in each group are proficient.”

The newspaper should also explain what it really means to be “proficient” in reading. To be considered proficient for the third grade in California, you must score at the 51st percentile in reading and the 63rd percentile in math on California’s standardized STAR test. In other words, all it really means when my school is listed as meeting “adequate yearly progress” under No Child Left Behind is that at least 13 percent of third-graders in every subgroup scored at the 51st percentile on the reading test."

Amazing. The fact that schools can get away with saying that because 13% of their students can score at the 51st percentile they show adequate yearly progress is a statement that calls into question the motivations of school administrations and teachers - they have no desire, as an end in itself, to actually educate your kids, they just want to keep those state and federal tax dollars rolling in, any way they can. This just further attests to the horrendous, yet unsurprising, unintended consequences of the No Child Left Behind Act.

LttE - The public wants representation, not frivolous laws

2005-06-13T11:40:00.000-05:00

Submitted to the OC Register on 6/13/2005:

State Senator Joe Dunn wrote on Monday defending his ammunition-microstamping bill, SB 357, asserting that voters want legislation like this. I certainly expect more thoughtful analysis from my own representatives.

We make laws by representation instead of by referendum to take advantage of legislators’ knowledge, experience, and public debate to protect voters from things we want that would harm us more than help us. If the good senator had sought out the expertise of other state legislators with experience in this area, he would have found that similar efforts in Maryland and New York have incurred expenses of up to $4 million a year, with zero results. Maryland’s state police is now calling for its ballistic fingerprinting program to be dismantled for its utter lack of results. Laws like these do not affect the criminal class in the least and infringe on the liberties of law-abiding citizens.

The Teacher's Union - exposed!

2005-06-10T16:31:00.000-05:00

CA State Senator John Campbell's blog has a great entry today uncovering many very interesting facts that relate to the California Teacher's Union and the leadership's political use of their members' dues. I thought of posting excerpts but then I figured I'd just repost the whole thing:

The CTA is spending millions of dollars to criticize Governor Schwarzenegger's policies and organization and goals. The LA Times wants to probe every aspect of the Governor's campaign team and finances. But what about the CTA? Where are the investigative articles on them?

A private research firm called the Education Intelligence Agency collected some very interesting information on this behemoth of Democratic politics. Here is some of what they found:

- The CTA has annual dues revenues of around $95 million, of which about $14 million is spent directly on political campaigns, media buying and government relations. And that is before the recent $18 million dues increase that is intended entirely for the demonization the Governor.

- They have a 21 member Board of Directors which represents the 300,000 members of the union.

- They are not a grass roots organization. In 1998, 70% of their membership supported the paycheck protection initiative Prop. 226, while their 800 member council unanimously oppsed it. The CTA bosses spent thousands of dollars in union dues against their own membership.

- The President, Barbara Kerr, whom you see on all the ads, has not taught a class in 12 years. Getting to the executive level in the CTA ivovles going up the ranks of the union, not shcools. She makes $170,000 per year, plus a $25,000 discretionary fund, plus a CTA owned house in Burlingame, plus 30 days vacation, child care, full pension, income tax preparation and financial planning costs amongst other perks.

- Other executives receive similar packages. They (and the board of directors) fly first class on flights of over 4 hours and get free dry cleaning, a gas card and gym costs.

- They have about 400 employees. The starting clerical salary is $41,000, which is higher than a starting teacher's salary.

So where is Elliot Spitzer to investigate whether the CTA is overcompensating executives while ignoring the interests of its members?

I plan on trying to generate some local interest into these kinds of issues, looking forward in earnest to the success of the paycheck protection initiative this fall.

Perhaps my last post on Raich

2005-06-09T11:48:00.000-05:00

I would be remiss if I didn't include the comments of the accomplished law professor and author who argued the case for Ms. Raich. Here are his just-after-the-decision off-the-cuff comments, and here is his column today on NRO (in which he posits that the Ninth Circuit got the last laugh at the reactions of the Supremes to their being between a rock and a hard place). He makes a few additional comments on that column here.

Raich on the brain

2005-06-09T10:18:00.000-05:00

I hope this doesn't last too long, but it seems that everywhere I look I find more examples of things that make me sad about the Raich decision. Note Glenn Reynolds' comment in a column yesterday about the future of personal fabrication:

When I go to the store, I often have a pretty good idea of what I'm looking for. Usually, I come home with something different. Sometimes it's better than what I thought I wanted; more often it's a second-best choice. If I could design and make what I wanted on the spot, I might well be happier -- and I might well enjoy the process, and the creativity, involved, too, assuming that the process was user-friendly.

With the SCOTUS' affirmation of the federal government's power to regulate personal noncommercial activity if it even hints at having some microscopic effect on overall demand for a substitute commercial activity, this groundbreaking innovation could (and most likely will) be severely hampered, restricted, or outright prohibited (depending on the good produced and its market) by our always-overreaching congresscritters. Sigh.