Dissent is born from the simple reality that government must prove its case to us, NOT vice-versa.
--Dolly's current fave aphorism, stolen from Dante
Thursday, September 09, 2010
So. Checked Out...
RIGHT NETWORK on their opening day. Apparently, it's a cable network -- sort of like LOGO -- so (you know), call your cable provider to get it on. First day, three whole, complete episodes. Interesting. Production values seem kind of community-access-cable like. Content, dynamite. Literally. It will cause leftists' heads to explode. Love it. Give them time, and they will sharpen it up. But I predict a hard, uphill slog. May God grant them the strength and Murphy the fisc to pull it off.
Mark Philip Alger
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The Cloud Observatory
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Observation #913...
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Wednesday, September 08, 2010
So, The Ad Goes...
Q: HOW CAN YOU IMPROVE on Mythbusters?
A: More Kari.
see more Lol Celebs
With which I cannot argue. Howsomever... I think it was a bad choice to retread an old episode for the first time out, even if it was the boomlift catapult, which was one of the most awesome eps ever.
And reminds us that, before Kari, there was Scotti.
But then, it's apparently not aimed at me, so what do they care about what I think?
Mark Philip Alger
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Wednesday, September 08, 2010
You Know What Harry...
TRUMAN SAID ABOUT this: If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog. And the self-actualization crowd says, "Be your own best friend." So, circular reasoning included, Obambi's plaint here, while not off-topic, nevertheless misses the point.
Mark Philip Alger
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Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Aaaarrgghhh! Friggin’ SHEEP...
ANTHONY WATTS proudly displays a new toy -- an energy fetishist's wet dream machine. See, in California, (and, sadly, elsewhere), instead of increasing supply of electricity to meet demand, the fucking green fascists are trying to throttle demand by means of intrusive regulation and distortion of the market. And all the people lap up that thin, runny crap as though it were salty brown gravy, handily forgetting that the whole purpose of electricity is to ease human existence. Chasing economy for its own sake is a perversion, and the tyrant wannabes pushing it on you deserve no better than the back of your hand -- hard -- to the chops.
Oh, come ON, Alger! Isn't it a good thing to save energy?
No, Dolly, it's not. Like everything else in life, it matters why. If the why is a perversion, or causes a degradation of the quality of life, rather than an enhancement, it can hardly be progress. Instead of conservation, think of it as starvation. Is it a good thing to starve a child? After all, you use less food!
But that's different!
How? Because the victim is specifically a child instead of non-specifically "just people" -- who may or may not be children?
How is there going to be a victim from using less power?
Now it's my turn to go, "Oh, come ON, Dolly!" Surely you can't be so naive! What's the proper merchant response to an increase in demand?
Initially and temporarily, to increase prices.
Why?
To gauge demand.
To what end?
For the next step: to increase supply.
And this program of the greens is going to do that... how, exactly?
...
Hmmm?
Er... It's not?
Right. And why not?
Because the greens believe there is a limit to human expansion set by available resources.
And who first proposed these limits?
Malthus.
Correct. And was he right?
Nooo.
And how soon was he proven wrong?
Before his conjectures were even published.
And has there ever been a situation where this kind of thinking was borne out?
No.
In fact, it's been spectacularly wrong every time it's been put forth, hasn't it?
Yes.
And when the ideas have been put into force, they have, in fact, caused considerable suffering and death, correct?
As in the Ukraine under Stalin, yes.
Whereas reliance on human ingenuity, the genius of the marketplace, and the abundance of nature has propelled the most prosperous societies in the history of civilization. Right?
Right.
Now. You've heard me on this before. When you turn a machine or other device against its design purpose, what is that?
A perversion.
Correct. And is it a perversion to make a machine consume less energy without increasing its efficiency?
Yes.
And does the device Anthony Watts described make the machines in question more efficient? Does it help them do their designed jobs while using less energy?
We don't know enough to tell. We're up against the knowledge problem. We don't have and cannot get sufficient data to make an informed choice. However, we must assume, because the machines were designed to consume energy in a standby state, that there was some reason for this, and that cutting off the power supply to a machine in standby will 1) probably damage the machine and B) prevent it from providing the service to human beings it was designed to provide.
Very good, Dolly. You may have a cheese Danish.
Oh, goody! My favorite!
::turns to the readers:: Remember, folks, don't pursue energy savings for their own sake. Those savings are illusory and will end in human suffering. Enhanced efficiency is good. Simply throttling demand with no commensurate increase in efficiency is bad. Evil, in fact.
Mark Philip Alger
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Monday, September 06, 2010
As Likable as Michael Barone Is...
AND AS THOROUGHLY knowledgeable as he is about the political scene in America, he seems to exhibit clear signs of the political Stockholm syndrome that overtakes people who spend too much time inside the Northeast Liberal Establishment Media Bubble (NLEMB). In an Examiner article, referenced by Glenn Reynolds, (to whom a tip o' the tam-o-shanter), Barone goes all inside baseball on a semantic point of argument between himself and Barney Frank.
In the comments, there's a firestorm of acrimony, because Barone mentions almost in passing, "Chairman Frank, whom I’ve known and admired since I was in college."
I have to agree. Ecumenity aside, Barney Frank is an enemy of the people and deserves execution for treason for his behavior in the housing bubble alone, without regard to the rest of his tenure in Congress. But then, I think that of most nationally-elected Democrats. If they're not actively involved in making political war on the People and Constitution of the United States, giving aid and comfort to our enemies, they're passively complicit in supporting a program of treason by participating in partyline votes. It's kind of like felony murder: If you commit a crime during the commission of which somebody is killed, you're guilty of murder, even if you never actively moved to kill the victim. If you vote in favor of Democrat treason, you're a traitor. Deal.
The "T" word, Alger? Over the top much?
Not at all. Go read Kim du Toit's essay on why Democrats are traitors. In a nutshell, it's because, in subverting the Constitution to pass their agenda, they are, in effect, making war on the U.S., the People, and the Constitution.
WHAT. EVerrr.
But worse... Well, no. Not worse. But perhaps more aggravating in Barone, who really ought to know better, is his even engaging in the semantic pattycake with Frank in the first place. The contretemps is over whether the Porkulus bill should be properly referred to as a Stimulus or a Recovery act.
It. Doesn't. Matter.
Everybody knows that the naming of bills and acts is one of the most cynical acts of political fuck-you-ism practiced by legislators. Politicians lie when they name bills, and it's one of the main sources of frustration with the would-be ruling class that they can't seem to tell the truth to save their lives. It's like, "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH." No, chairman, you wouldn't recognize the truth if it bit you on the ass. Which, as they say, is about to happen, come November.
In the comments to the article, somebody advised Barone to get help. I'd second that notion. Almanackally, he is too valuable a resource to have him go off the rails chasing useless ecumenity with people who, in the final analysis, aren't fit for office.
Mark Philip Alger
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Sunday, September 05, 2010
Can’t Fathom...
WHY PEOPLE THINK if I follow a link from their page, I am therefor done on their page. It's real simple HTML, folks: target="_blank". Opens the link in a new window/tab. These days, modern browsers have these miraculous things called "tabs". You can have a dozen or two sites open at once and hardly notice the performance hit. Beats the hell out of the frustration of "Where'd that site go? I wasn't done yet!" Do your visitors the courtesy. Don't dump them unceremoniously out the door. Target equals blank. Real easy.
Mark Philip Alger
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Saturday, September 04, 2010
Caturday: Jazz...
THIS YOUNG LADY is the odd one of the triplets. I say "odd" because she's a blue-point, whereas Sky and Aqua are both seal-points. (Sortof -- they're all mongrels, so the terminology isn't entirely ept.) Her name is Jazz -- Jazzy Jazz Jazzbo for short. She was named that because her creche collar was a checkered flag pattern with salmon pink plastic flowers. And the name stuck after the collar came off.
She likes to get down in the wee, smokey hours of the morning, in venues where the acoustics are cool and hot and the room has a lively sound. She likes to riff on the lonely sound of her own voice, scatting in wordless rhythms. She really wails.
Somehow, the sounds seem to have become associated with hunting behavior. Jazz will chase a foam rubber ball all over the house, yowling her cooldaddy riffs. She'll stop the chase in front of us and look up at us with what Toni calls bedroom eyes (and I think is just a worried expression -- and we're both anthropomorphizing), as if to say, "See what a mighty hunter I am!"
Her fur is bunny soft, and she likes to cuddle on the couch. She also likes to sleep with humans on the bed, but Aqua and Loki are more forward, so get there first. Jazz will hop up on the bed, uttering a cute litttle bblleerrp! of effort, then, seeing one of the others already there, turn around and leave with the most dejected set to her shoulders. It's sad and comical all at once, but it would be cruel to laugh -- even in sympathy.
Mark Philip Alger
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Saturday, September 04, 2010
Oh, HELL Yeah!...
Mark Philip Alger
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Saturday, September 04, 2010
Can’t Help Wondering...
WHENEVER LEFTISTS try so hard and still manifestly don't get it whether they're bound and determined to not get it, or they're just plain bog stupid. Hard to tell.
Yet to find a leftist who can reason his way out of a paper bag.
::sigh:: Good grief.
Mark Philip Alger
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Saturday, September 04, 2010
Sounds Like...
A PASSABLE enemies list.
Mark Philip Alger
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Saturday, September 04, 2010
Chris Matthews...
YEAH, YOU...
Pluperfect?
By this, we're supposed to infer you're -- what? -- literate? Classically educated? Read Julius Caesar in the Classics Illustrated version?
Mark Philip Alger
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Saturday, September 04, 2010
The Bourgeoisie Are Revolting...
(THEY CERTAINLY ARE) Rich Lowry, here, continues this week's analysis of the 8/28 rally last weekend. And he argues...
The tea party’s detractors want to paint it as radical, when at bottom it represents the self-reliant, industrious heart of American life. New York Times columnist David Brooks compares the tea partiers to the New Left. But there weren’t any orgiastic displays at the Beck rally, nor any attempts to levitate the Lincoln Memorial -- just speeches on God and country. It was as radical as a Lee Greenwood song.
But I would remind Mr. L. that, just as in days of lies, telling the truth is a revolutionary act, in facing down a revolution, being solidly bourgeois is radical.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Mark Philip Alger
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The Cloud Observatory
Friday, September 03, 2010
Observation #912...
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Friday, September 03, 2010
Sad in a Way...
THAT IT'S CONSIDERED remarkable that "right wing" crowds are so well-behaved and leave so little litter behind them. I remember when that was the norm, and the rudeness and animalistic behavior of "counter culture" crowds was remarkable -- all the more so considering their putative support for -- scorn quotes -- "ecology."
Even when I was in those crowds, I always carried out more than I took in and tried to leave not even footprints.
Mark Philip Alger
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Friday, September 03, 2010
Og Reports a Contretemps...
AVEC HIS l'iPhone. It keeps autodialing someone. His boss?
Which reminds me of a good one on me. When I was new to cell phones and hadn't yet learned to ALWAYS (always-always) lock the keys, I pocket-dialed Toni. Who, it turned out, was on the phone with Number One Daughter, or somebody, so the pocket dial went to voicemail -- me all unawares. And Toni later got an hour-long message of me, trucking around Kroger or Sam's or someplace similarly mercantile in nature.
Mark Philip Alger
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Thursday, September 02, 2010
Observation #911...
Mark Philip Alger
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Thursday, September 02, 2010
You Saw This Linked At Instapundit...
BUT YOU DIDN'T GO did you? But I'm telling you, go and read this: Glenn Beck, I Saw What You Did There. It's important stuff. Don't miss.
Mark Philip Alger
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Thursday, September 02, 2010
Just Wait for the Police...
RADIO COMMERCIAL for an alarm system, offering advice to disarmed victims. Wife on the phone LD to her hubby when she hears sounds of a breakin. After the pitch for the alarm system, we hear him urgently advising her, "Just wait for the police!"
Yeah. Right. Can you say, "Chalk outline"? Sher ya can.
As everybody's favorite librarian says, "Carry your gun. It's a lighter burden than regret."
...
ON THE OTHER HAND Roberta X reminds us of the importance of, among other things, OpSec. Agreed. In fact, one should not even discuss in public one's armed or carry state. That is, after all, the point of concealed carry, innit? To keep them guessing?
Mark Philip Alger
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Thursday, September 02, 2010
Yes, Sarah Palin...
REALLY DID REFER to the lamestream media as "Impotent, limp, and gutless."
Today on the Sean Hannity radio show.
Heh. She said, "Limp."
Mark Philip Alger
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The Cloud Observatory
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Observation #910...
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Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Innit Delightful How...
THE LEFT PROVES the case of those In the Right -- that their arguments carry no weight, that their policy stances are more style than substance, that their politics cannot stand up in a fair fight in the Arena of Ideas?
The argumentum ad hominem, as we all know, instantly renders invalid the position of one using it. It demonstrates so clearly that one cannot refute the opposition with reason or logic, and that all one has left is to attack the person and character of your opponent. As Billy Beck points out in reporting a call made to bring down Glenn Beck; as Sean Hannity has demonstrated on his radio show Tuesday by playing a voicemail message left by an apparently Bubbleheaded Bleach Blonde voicing all manner of vituperation and (actionable) threats. (Apparently nobody told her that it's a bad idea to make threats against persons receiving Secret Service protection, such as -- oh, I dunno -- a former Vice President.) While it's funny when she runs out of steam, it's rather ominous that anybody thinks this is valid political discourse.
But that's leftists for you. As P.J. O'Rourke says, leftism is basically the ideology of the spoiled brat. And nothing says "overweening sense of self-entitlement" like a good-old ad hominem rant.
Mark Philip Alger
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Wednesday, September 01, 2010
For Those of You In Ohio House District 1...
EVERYTHING STEVE DRIEHAUS says in his current TV ad is total bullshit. In a typically -- you know -- Democrat kinda way. Everything he says is no doubt... weasel-wordedly accurate. But, stripped of context, it makes him sound like a staunch conservative, worthy of the votes of the rock-ribbed westerners in Cincinnati.
But... As I say: bullshit.
What you need to remember about Driehaus is that he's a Democrat, and when the chips were down, he was on the left (wrong) side of that straight party-line vote -- on the stimuli, on Obamacare, on the whole lot of the progressive programs voted on in this session of Congress.
So don't fall for it just because he's making all the right noises now. Remember: friends don't let friends vote Democrat.
Mark Philip Alger
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Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Spokespeople for Presidents...
WHO HAVE TO OUT-GRIMA Wormtongue. Such as Robert Gibbs. Seems nobody ever told him that honesty is the best policy. Although, you gotta wonder if it's that he's stupid, mendacious, or just ill-prepared.
Mark Philip Alger
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Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Y’All Know What Litmus Paper Is...
THE STUFF THAT TURNS red when exposed to sufficient acid and blue when exposed to something too basic. Figure out your own metaphors. You know you can.
Sarah Palin is like that. You can tell a lot about a person by how they react to her. As Eratosthenes notes in a hilarious, spot-on list.
Mark Philip Alger
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Sunday, August 29, 2010
So the EPA Notices...
THAT IT DOESN'T HAVE the legal authority to ban lead ammunition. Huzzah! Anybody point out to them that they don't have the legal authority to kneecap the economy by regulating carbon dioxide, either?
Mark Philip Alger
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Saturday, August 28, 2010
Quote of the Day...
It cannot be referred to as a state of freedom when anyone must beg permission to produce under threat of force.
Mark Philip Alger
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Saturday, August 28, 2010
I Must Admit to Being Conflicted...
OVER THE DICHOTOMY encapsulated in the formulation, "Better a thousand guilty men go free than a single innocent be punished." Or variations.
Yes, I am on all fours with the notion that permitting the punishment of putative wrongdoers on any but certainty stands at the top of a very slippery slope, at the bottom of which is arbitrary and capricious administration of "justice," which is no justice at all, but oppression.
On the other hand, to set even one guilty man free represents justice denied to the victim(s), and increases the probability of there being more victims at this guilty man's hands in the near future.
On the third hand, I can't really see where punishing the wrong man for a crime is really very just at all.
For those who rail at technicalities, I'd remind you that the purpose of the technicalities is to ensure that evidence and testimony are untained and therefore (presumably) trustworthy. Punishment on false evidence of -- like as not -- the wrong man... isn't this where we came in?
I can't really see a single, right and easy path.
Mark Philip Alger
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Saturday, August 28, 2010
Happy Annivesary...
BELATEDLY TO MY dear wife, Toni, on the occasion of our 28th. It was yesterday. I sent her a card, but didn't think to post anything here. It's on our geneaology site, so the family picked up on it, but not too many other people. Celebration will be low key, as I'm doing the grocery shopping and herself starts an away gig today. But then, we're pretty much given to low-key celebrations all around, so this is hardly unique. Nevertheless, we are glad and proud of the occasion. Given that 50% of marriages reputedly end in divorce, I'd say we're doing damned good. Yeah, there's friction, but on the whole, I think we're doing damned good.
Oh. I said that, didn't I?
Maybe growing senile together is a good thing.
Mark Philip Alger
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Saturday, August 28, 2010
Yeah, Right Like...
THAT'LL HAPPEN (Howard Stern urges the use of DDT to quell bedbug infestation of New York.) The reason bedbugs (and the anopheles mosquito) are so rare in developed countries is that, back at the turn of the 20th Century, public health officials used DDT to eliminate the pests.
Then witless panic merchant, Rachel Carson wrote and published Silent Spring. A more fact-challenge, emotion-ridden screed has never been published. Despite the overwhelming weight of actual scientific evidence to the contrary, wide-ranging bird die-offs were blamed on DDT, and a new movement of the ignorant led by the mendacious -- the modern (scorn quotes) "ecological" movement was born.
That was 1972 (that the ban was instituted). 38 years ago.
It has been estimated, probably as reliably as is possible, that a million or more preventable deaths are suffered in Africa from malaria every year. 38 million.
Unintended consequences? If you judge progressives by the words of their philosphical forebears, not so much. But does it matter? If a course of action is warned against and a person or group undertakes it nonetheless, and dire result eventuate, how can those consequences be said to be unintended because dangerous fools assert, "We never meant for THAT to happen"?
The bedbug problem is wider spread than anyone seems willing to admit, and demands a strong response. But, given the tendency of government (which is in the driver's seat, given the current ban on DDT) to never fail to fail in these matters, don't expect an appropriate response until the matter becomes disastrous in scope.
As the snarkists say, good luck with that.
Mark Philip Alger
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Saturday, August 28, 2010
As I’ve Said...
MANY TIMES MANY WAYS this is how you do it.
Yes, that's correct: we made a conscious decision not to fly because of the hassle associated with the security nonsense at the airport.
CC: Airline presidents and congresscritters all.
Mark Philip Alger
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Saturday, August 28, 2010
Insty Points To...
AS HE SAYS a question he's never considered, an article at The Volokh Conspiracy which asks the musical questionnn...
Does Dressing Up as a Cop, Staging Fake Traffic Stops, Looking for Drugs, and then Keeping the Drugs Violate the Fourth Amendment?
Well. I have. Considered it. And the answer is, "Yes." The wording of the Amendment is absolute. It does not limit the prohibition to agents of the state. In fact, at the Framing, there were no agents of the state. Professional police forces being a later development. And, As I Discuss below, a right that is enforceable only against the state is no right at all.
Apparently, the judge in the case has his head up his ass, because he disagrees with me. (And, you know, that is a primary symptom of recto-cranial inversion. Disagreeing with me, I mean.)
Mark Philip Alger
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Friday, August 27, 2010
Y’All Know...
WHETHER YOU COMMENT or not, I'm going to assume you have read the screeds below and absorbed the concept, and I'm going to allude to them assuming you have.
Mark Philip Alger
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Friday, August 27, 2010
The Dropped Stitch...
I'D WAGER THAT A lot of folks wouldn't even miss it -- those who made it to the end of the post below in the first place -- but I dropped a stitch in my exposition last night. (That is: the post was written Wednesday night, this is Thursday night to me, and you'll read this Friday and thereafter whenever you stop in.)
BUT....
If you haven't read the post below, please go do so. Otherwise, this one won't make much sense. Go ahead. I'll wait.
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Back already? Wow. That musta been simpler than I thought. OK. Did you notice the dropped stitch? OK. No games. It's near the end, where Dolly says, "Now go enforce it." Instead of allowing as how my logic seems sound, she should have argued that I failed to show a qualitative difference between individual rights and property rights. I even elided the fact that there might be a difference. So here we go trying to repair that. At first, I thought I'd just edit that post to include it. But the longer I thought on it, the longer this text got, and the less graceful an insertion would have gotten.
Here we go.
A lot of people have tried to stick a pin in the nature of the source of human rights. Where do they come from? What's the first right -- the ur right, if you will, from which all the others descend in cascading generations? I'm not sure I could put a fix on the exact lat and long, but I think I can define the nature of it. The core of human rights is at the core of a human being. That concept being rather fuzzy and ill-defined means that rights will be fuzzy and ill-defined -- in a sort of a philosophical version of the Heisenberg principle, you can not observe both the position and speed of a right at the same time -- the one affects the other, and the best you can do is a range of possibilities in a cloud of uncertainty. But it's attached to being a human.
Call it a soul. Somebody said in my hearing recently (and thus it sticks in my mind for the moment, to be forgotten at a later date) that we don't so much have souls as we are souls. Make sense? If a soul defines individuality, and the mind of Man permits him to apprehend that he is a soul, then the mind of Man is the apotheosis of creation, which makes us in apprehension (apologies to the Bard) so like to God. And from the mind/soul duo flows what it is to be a Man (in a generic sense, most definitely including women). So human rights are endowed by our creator (whatever you perceive Him to be, hairy thunderer or cosmic muffin), and inhere to us as individuals to the extent that they do flow from our creation, and are not our own, flawed constructs.
The right to life is inherent in our existence, as is the right to liberty. The rights of free expression, thought, and conscience, while possibly expressed outwardly, are still internal to our being. These rights, as I put it, inhere to the individual and do not require an external expression. The right to own property might be seen as being somewhat similar, as the first property one owns is onesself. But rights in property not a part of onesself require external exercise and cannot be held to be equal to those of the self.
(This is one problem with being an autodidact: you often reinvent the wheel. Right about now, some chromedome is going to come along and say, "Popper wrote about that in...[some book I never read]." If that's so, it's no end of fascinating, but not really relevant at the moment.)
Relevant to the post below (Remember? We're amending that post with this one?), the right to life inhering to the individual, the right to defense of that life -- of the self -- must also do so. That's the takeaway phrase: The right of self-defense inheres to the individual. The exercise of rights in property -- such as defining who may and may not have access to it or use of it -- do not. Not in the same manner or quality. Thus, individual rights being, in essence, superior to property rights, the former trump the latter, and there can be no conflict.
At least, that's the theory. Now let's do the math.
In the case of what we'll call the lunch-counter rights -- the right to equal access to public accomodation, albeit privately-owned accomodation -- the free exercise of said rights is seen as being vital to ordered liberty. In theory, I am forced to disagree, feeling (without proof, I hasten to add) that there must be a better solution, which does not require the abrogation of BOTH private property rights AND rights of free association, yet still satisfies the call for justice in the matter. But, as a matter of practical fact, I do not have a better solution, so must accept the one my society has come up with, however flawed it may seem to be. And, in doing so, I must therefore apply it even-handedly across my entire spectrum of social situations as we -- as a people -- encounter them.
In Second Amendment rights, we have enshrined in our founding charter, the exercise in property of a right which is, in reality, far closer to a human right. The right to bear arms is the outward exercise of the right to life -- and the consequent right to defend that life. And the self contained therein.
The right has recently -- belatedly, and in a niggardly fashion -- been recognized in the courts. (How insidious and despicable is it that the government gets to decide the merits of limits on its own power?)
If we recognize the right of the self to defend itself, then deny it the right to possession, carriage, and use of the most efficacious means of self-defense, are we not being despicable little hair-splitters, tyrants both gross and petty?
So, it follows as night does the day that no actor -- state nor private -- may deny a Man the right to bear arms. Nor, in the case of public accomodation, at least, may private property rights be allowed to trump.
Making any more sense?
(I can't wait until Kevin Baker gets his teeth into THAT.)
Mark Philip Alger
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Thursday, August 26, 2010
No Conflict of Rights...
I'VE DANCED AROUND the perimeter of this question for awhile. This evening, I think I came up with a nutshell formation of the issue, now let's see if I can get it down in pixels.
The relevant part of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads, "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." There are commas in there that, according to modern style, seem irrelevant, and I take the view that they do not affect the sense of the whole, so are irrelevant.
First, and has been argued most thoroughly elsewhere, "the right of the people" presumes a freestanding and extant right, which the document does not seek to grant, merely to affirm its existence and forbid the government from infringing on it.
Or does it? Forbid the government? That prohibition has an interesting wording. "...SHALL not be infringed."
You may recall from your reading of the Amendment, or from other discussions on the topic, that the First Amendment starts out, "Congress shall make no law..."
This, it is argued, springs largely from the fact that, at the time the Constitution was framed, several of the States had state religions, and religious tests for office. This perquisite of state was jealously guarded and nobody wanted the Federal government meddling in the matter. So there was a specific prohibition lain on Congress that it may not legislate in the matter.
But not the States.
But, that being the case, turnabout's fair play. In none of the rest of the Amendments is there the wording specifying that it is Congress being the sole party limited here.
I argue, in fact, that these proscriptions are absolute, as is crystal clear from the wording. No one -- no actor, whether state or private, Federal, State, County, Municipal, Village, or Dog-catcher -- SHALL infringe upon these rights, except as limited by these texts. (SHALL being as though and having the same force as a divine commandment, a distinction largely lost in our linguistically lazy times.)
Nobody -- not even a private person -- may infringe upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
Now, if you think about it, this makes perfect sense. After all, if any Tom, Dick, or Harriet can infringe Willy-Hilly on an individual right, so long as they're not the State or an Agent of the State, then you pretty much have chaos and anarchy -- a state which, the Jefferson Airplane* notwithstanding, nobody is very proud of. For a society to exist in ordered liberty, individuals must respect one another's rights, and the law must recognize that requirement for respect, or ... as I said: chaos and anarchy.
Which means... Those signs in the grocery, with a revolver in black ink on a white background, surprinted with the international "NO" barred circle in red? Pretty much unconstitutional.
Wait just a damned minnit, here, Alger! I saw you palm that card. You just named the conflict between individual right to keep and bear arms and private property rights. After all, those grocery stores am private property, ain' they?
Well, possibly. But ... follow me on this ... they are also public accomodations.
::wobbitawobbitawobbitawobbita::
I understand your confusion. You see, although private property rights are not enshrined per se in the Bill of Rights, they are implied in the penumbrae of the Third, Fourth, Seventh and Ninth Amendments. That is, there is no direct reference to a "Right to Property," but restrictions on infringements on the right would seem to imply its existence. On the other hand, the right to exclude someone from entering your property would also seem to arise from the right of free association. Or the right to freely NOT associate, if you follow my drift.
But history tells us that a consensual society's moral strictures can be turned against it by individuals or groups of ill intent, such as... oh, latter day communists or muslims. And, in the days of Reconstruction et sequelae, such individuals (mostly Democrats, I should point out), engaged in such behavior directed at former slaves and those who resemble them by virtue of enhanced melanin in the skinnal area. That is to say bitter-enders and Progressives used a property rights and free association argument in favor of invidious discrimination against black folk in America. This was not only invidious, but in many cases, it was life-threatening. And so, in the spirit of Something Must Be Done and In A Hurry (and thus my assertion that nearly all bad political ideas are born of impatience), we... well, not "we," since I didn't participate and don't approve ... "we" abrogated property rights and the right of free association in the special class of Public Accomodations, mandating that discrimination in these cases is Hereby Made Unlawful.
Baby, meet bathwater.
But, as we say, the die being cast, turnabout is fair play. If equal treatment under the law requires that private property rights be abridged and rights of free association infringed in this special case, then it also demands that, while you may be allowed to forbid an armed person to come into your home (and good luck with that) ... in your public accomodation -- bar, restaurant, hotel, grocery store, zoo, museum, or amusement park... Not So Much.
OK. Your logic seems sound. Now get it enforced.
Oh, that's not happening for a donkey's years, yet. But Confuscius had to put one foot in front of the other just like everybody else.
WTF?
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
Oh.
...
(*And they are very proud of themselves...)
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There. Let that marinade for awhile and see how it stands up.
Mark Philip Alger
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Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Gee!...
THE DAY AFTER the Obama Administration announces "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, the mee-djya reports a rash of terrorist attacks.
Who'd ha' thunk it?
Mark Philip Alger
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Previously on BabyTrollBlog...
