Tagged: law
I Want to Know Obama’s Thoughts
Like many of you, I have now seen (again?) the video of President Obama explaining to us why he had to deport illegal immigrants.
I don’t think showing that video to the rioters and the Democrats will do anything.
What I want to know is Obama’s actual, honest-to-goodness thoughts about his political children and grandchildren. Does he own them? Does he disown them? Does he believe that the CA Mayors and Governor (and elsewhere’s Dem leaderships) are proper democrats?
I want to know Obama’s thoughts.
Some Uncommonly Spoken, if Commonly Held, Thoughts on Passing Scene
I attend a Black Baptist church regularly. To write about Blacks makes me feel weird, because I probably would be asked to leave my beloved church if anyone ever read my thoughts here posted. But the Blacks don’t read blogs anymore than the Whites do. So nothing to fear.
The Blacks will vote for Kamala. It’s like a “thing” for them. I don’t really believe it is intentional, or even thought through and reasoned. I guess I mean that for them it is instinctive. Sure, Kamala is “half”, whatever that means. And, sure, Obama just did his thing, and he is “half”, whatever that means. But that’s not the reason I know they will vote for her. They don’t have “reasoning” in the classic sense. They have instinct. They need to feel united and so will vote in the way that makes them confident that each Black person they see knows they are in the same boat, even if it happens to be sinking. “Together!”
We have seen this since Black lunch tables. I am not suggesting something new. I am just writing it out. For fun.
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I am constantly courted by conspiracy theorists, White and Black. I don’t know why. It doesn’t seem like the proportions are right. I am just a dad working a job and yet I can’t seem to shake, after the weather talk, discovering that some possible new friend believes some really ridiculous shtuff about how humans do “society”.
And they never have any evidence. Zero evidence.
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The Democrats are scrambling. Don’t be fooled into thinking they are simply implementing some perfect plan—they aren’t. It doesn’t even make sense to hate them so much while you secretly believe they are better at life than you. Unless you’re just plain envious. Which would be weird. Cuz they’re paving the road to Hell, as you and I know.
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Trump is something else. I am reminded of the time when it hit me that four men—myself, my attorney, my ex-wife’s attorney, and a mediator—had jumped, for one short afternoon, into the maelstrom whirlpool that is my ex-wife. One squalid woman somehow commandeered the attention of four men, to the total tune of about $750 per hour, plus whatever price you can put on my leisure time. As soon as the realization landed, I thought, “Fuck this.”
In the sour mood of Ike Clanton while losing to Doc Holiday, “That 12 hands in a row, Holiday, sonnuvaBitch, nobody’s that lucky,” I called it quits. What a waste of resources and time and life.
But Trump stirs the world pot.
Don’t be fooled into the idea that someone can explain it. It is inexplicable.
Commentary on the SCOTUS Affirmative Action dissent by Sotomayor
“The result of today’s decision is that a person’s skin color may play a role in assessing individualized suspicion, but it cannot play a role in assessing that person’s individualized contributions to a diverse learning environment. That indefensible reading of the Constitution is not grounded in law and subverts the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection,” dissents Justice Sotomayor (italics mine).
To what is she dissenting?
“In the wake of the Civil War, Congress proposed and the States ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, providing that no State shall ‘deny to any person … the equal protection of the laws.’ Amdt. 14, §1,” as opined by Justice Roberts (the Court).
Can you see the disagreement?
To help, let’s consider another document’s claim regarding race.
St. Paul wrote, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Forget, if you must, that the claim comes from an exclusive Christian teaching. No proselytizing here. But I want you to ask yourself if you can understand how Paul can list sets of two very real groups and then suggest that the very distinctions are abolished/overcome. Can you understand this concept of Paul’s/Christianity’s?
Good.
Justice Sotomayor cannot.
Justice Roberts can. But Justice Sotomayor cannot.
Justice Sotomayor writes over and over that because the constitution and its amendments and other SCOTUS opinions use words like “white” and “Mexican” that the law of the land is “race conscious”. This belief of hers is over and against the concept that the law is colorblind.
But I return again to the question I have posed. Is the simple use of words which delineate some people from others enough to transcend the otherwise transcendent belief that under some higher perspective, the delineations do not exist? Put another way, can the forest be lost for the leaves? Can the bigger point be missed? Or even, should the country have federal laws at all? Or should each dispute be brought before some local judge and the judge decide whatever they please?
The point Justice Sotomayor is pressing isn’t semantic.
When the border patrol is allowed to observe that some man around the border between the US and Mexico is Mexican-looking and subsequently act with suspicion towards him that they wouldn’t use with a “white” man, real people are involved. And when Harvard admissions folks are not allowed to ask, “Brown?”, real people are likewise involved.
The question, then, is are the two situations meaningfully the same situation when viewed from the perspective of “the Law”?
The answer is, “No.”
The reason for “no”, the reason they are distinct (despite both being similar in “gaining entrance” theme) is the constitution applies to US Citizens, not to any person, which is the very question the Border Patrol is tasked with helping to sort out in the first place.
Finally, as probably all of you know, the only question on my mind when I read Justice Sotomayor is, “Is she serious?”
If she were serious (and honest), then her sentences would read, “The result of today’s decision is that [all persons-of-earth-regardless-of-national-citizenship’s] skin color may play a role in assessing individualized suspicion by the US Border Patrol, but it cannot play a role in assessing that person’s individualized contributions to a diverse learning environment. That indefensible reading of the Constitution is not grounded in law and subverts the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection” (italics mine).
For that is her argument. And it is a serious argument, despite being flatly wrong as the 14th Amendment does not apply to every swinging dick which finds itself within the borders of this great country.
In Brief: The Similarity Between the Bible and the US Constitution
Released a couple days ago, Justice Thomas’ concurring opinion says, “Though I do not doubt the sincerity of my dissenting colleagues’ beliefs, experts and elites have been wrong before and they may prove to be wrong again. In part for this reason, the Fourteenth Amendment outlaws government-sanctioned racial discrimination of all types.”
Released a couple thousand years ago, St. Paul’s letter to the churches of Galatia says, “I marvel that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to the gospel we have proclaimed to you, let him be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is proclaiming to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be accursed!”
For my dad: the similarity is that Justice Thomas and St. Paul defend received wisdom. That, and the fact that both passages breathe life and manifest hope.
A Tone-Matching Post On 50 Years of Unhurt Women, Physical Touch, and One of Justice Sotomayor’s Opinions Within Her Dobbs Dissent
I became a gym regular at the age of 16. I mean, I was a nearly five days a week regular. I loved lifting weights. Unlike most of my peers, I used my senior year’s “take an hour off school cuz you work fifteen hours a week” work consortium(?) credit on the first hour, not the seventh. I went to school late. What did I do before school? I went to the gym.
You ladies, especially you unfit ladies, may be surprised to know that gyms are a pretty well-known place for gay men to congregate en masse.
As I get going, a few factual anecdotes may prove salient here.
Back then, I had a buddy who was always more socially aware than I, and we were probably the only two 17 yr olds actively engaging in weight lifting for personal fitness, ie not football, while in high school. Despite my falling behind him in awareness, I was well-aware that one or two of the men at the gym we regularly chatted with were essentially sexual predators, and that my young friend and I were the prey.
Anecdote 1: The one man, 50ish in age—but no more than twenty in appearance (“Black don’t crack”)—offered my friend $200 to publicly shower at the gym. My friend accepted and told me that he figured, “I needed a shower anyhow.” He then told me, “So I shower, the dude walks in, (keep in mind this is a public men’s locker room) and I see him peer in, and then he leaves. Easy money.”
Anecdote 2: I never got an similar offer, but I was always a user of the one private shower, and one morning the door opened and this same gay man see me and says, “Oh, sorry about that,” and closes it. I shook my head. My predominant thought was, “I don’t know if I could stop myself from the same foolishness if an uber fit, attractive (and unconscionably funny and smart and charming…) young woman was showering in the men’s locker room right behind where I took a leak, either.” Or simply, my predominant thought was, “Meh.”
Unlike my buddy, I had more chats with another man that folks always told me was gay, but he never was anything but nice to me. Well, over time he accepted my invitation to watch me play roller hockey in a men’s intramural league. That was horribly awkward. Not sure why I did it.
Anecdote 3: And while he didn’t proposition me, he knew I was promoting a local Strongman Competition and he offered to have his company sponsor it. As I took him up on his offer, he paid me the $250 from his own checkbook—not Frito Lay’s. Lol. He must’ve wanted it real bad. I mean, I’ve been horny, but sheesh.
I could go on, believe me.
Nearly two decades later, life/poor judgment drops me off as an assistant manager at a gentleman’s club. Besides alcohol, their business is physical touch. Seriously. In a manager meeting they told us about studies which show that a waitress’s placing their hand on a patron increases tips and spending. They reminded us how some men come in to the club not having been touched ever during the preceding week or so. A handshake from the bouncer/doorman, or at least a fist-bump, is good for business, period. (Unless the gentlemen displays otherwise, naturally.)
Furthermore, at the club, I learned that Hollywood generally gets the lap dance concept wrong. I have witnessed—my own eyes—“regulars” who literally just want the “lady” to sit, cowgirl-style, on their lap, and chat. Or perhaps just sit like that and hug. Song after song after song, dollar after dollar after dollar. No dry humping, no gyrating, just body touching body. Like as much surface contact as humanly possible. Mind you, this was not every man. But many.
All the above builds to my climactic and tone-matched response to the notion that women will be hurt by the overturn of Roe.
The other day, I posted that the evidence and arguments of “women” claiming, “women will be hurt,” really mean that “children-not-yet-living-as-responsible-adults” are who will be hurt. I thought this would necessarily lead someone to ask me how to fix this “irresponsible children will be hurt”situation. But you didn’t bite. So before getting to that interesting question, I want to show another angle of how this “women will be hurt” claim is foolish. The other angle being, “Women will be hurt?? What about MEN!? What about ME!!??”
See, as above, I believe—as a man—that I need touch. I don’t mean “want”, I mean “need”. I mean, like, “can’t live without it” need. And the main touch that I want is unprotected vaginal sex—including orgasm—with a woman.
Before Roe was overturned, before last Friday, I had all sorts of ways to feel this touch, in all fifty states. I told women, “I love you.” I told women, “You can’t get pregnant if we stand/sit/you’re on top/I’m on bottom/sideways/doggy-style etc.” I told women, “I’m rich.” I told women, “My family’s rich.” I told women, “I’m smart.” I told women, “No matter what happens, I’ll make it work.” If none of those dead ringers would achieve my need, I’d dig deep and offer, “You’re so beautiful.” Finally, if fortune was not on my side, or, to be frank, if she was really dumb (“Geez, Pete!”—I know, I’m mean), sometimes, when I really, really needed that special touch, I would tell them, “Come on, baby. It’s not like first trimester abortion is illegal. Just. (Oh that’s it.) Let me. (Yes. More.) Finish in you.”
And now?
Damn you, Justice Alito!!
Nowhere, not in the United States nor in my pickup lines, did I ever have to worry about what State I was in.
Do you understand?
But now, since Friday, when all other winners fail me, when I have to resort to the classic, “It’s not like first trimester abortion is illegal,” line to spread my seed in a woman, I have to consider where in this great country I even am! (And as a Captain, I have a tendency to travel. So this overturn affects me particularly hard.)
I know what you’re thinking. And you’re right. It’s true, I could say, “Even if we’re in one of the states which has banned abortion, I can get you a comp’d flight to a state that has the pills at least.” Yes, that might be a winner. But she’d probably have to be ESL at the least to let that pass. (I’m seeing that in the throws of ecstasy created by yours truly, an immigrant might only recognize “pill” and think “birth control”—and while many women on the pill only take it as a secondary, passive method—still requiring the man to use a condom—some do not. So I may be able to get the touch I need with this line.)
In the end, I want to wrap up by saying, Justice Sotomayor et al’s argument that “abortion rights allow a woman to control her destiny” (paraphrase) is true only conditionally, that is, only with the addition of one word. To make it true, it must say, “Abortion rights allow a stupid woman to control her destiny.”
Two Thoughts For To-day
First, I want, for posterity, to include content from an email to a friend. It’s about the second amendment and Bruen opinion. I know the email will never be deleted, but this is easier to find and I like the compact way I developed my thoughts.
My full attention response to your statement of the crux of the matter is as follows: by virtue of it being in English and law in a political State, the Second Amendment means something. Rather, it meant something. And by meaning something, there are things it didn’t mean. It had nothing to do with SpaceX, for example. Or vehicles in general. The rub is not “regulation”. The rub is “what did it mean?”
To be clear, I’d even be fine with deciding it is unintelligible and we’ve been fools for two centuries-plus for treating it like it had meaning.
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My feeling on the passing scene is the Left will always insert straw men (“it’s about safety” or “it’s about how far does the second amendment limit regulation”) because the most plain meaning of the words (if there is any meaning at all) is, “Citizens ought be able to instill fear in the hearts of seeming attackers AND, if attacked, connect the remaining space between threat and action with certain death.” And the Left will never admit this paraphrastic or philosophical meaning because they are the attacker.
There’s no sweet spot, D-. There’s meaning. Should citizens be able to make this connection between threat and action or not? What do we believe? I say absolutely. And I mean this regardless of whether there is a second amendment, regardless which country I am in. I believe the best political philosophy on weapons is citizens must bear them. Did the second amendment teach me this? It doesn’t matter. Does the second amendment mean this? I believe it does. And part of the reason I do is that these men were revolutionaries themselves. Had they not had weapons, they wouldn’t have founded anything. By way of analogy, a mathematician who denied numbers are useful to his profession would be the same as a Founder meaning otherwise than I believe he did by the words of the second amendment.
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Random slaughter? That’s also not a concept in the sense that you meant—unless the holocaust and all the major atrocities of people with guns against people without guns are included. In church world we say, “The Gospel levels the field.” In the same sense, so do guns. We’re all sinners. We’re all possible victims—and we ALL should be. No man, not the government, not “you or anyone else” gets through this lifetime without fear of attack.
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That’s the email content and first thought for today.
Second, I want to say that I love hearing from people who I disagree with. In this case, I have been doing my best to understand the “women will be hurt” argument on the Pro-Choice side of things.
So far as I can understand it, in the end, the argument doesn’t really mean “women”. By “women” they really mean “children”. No, I don’t believe they mean “female people under the age of 18 will be hurt.” Instead, I believe that the “person” they mean by “women”, in the sense they employ, has not yet achieved adult status.
Adults have to make decisions. “Should I live here or there?” “Should I date this person or that?” “Should I rust out or wear out?” “My primary circumstances have changed, how does that affect my next decisions?” These are inescapably adult decisions.
“I want my way here and now, there and now, and now and forever—without consequence”, that’s a child. That’s a child, no matter the age, no matter the sex.
I believe this is a wise assessment. But I also believe it furthers the conversation in a good way by providing something meaningful to respond to. So if you disagree with the big overturn or how I have characterized this “women will be hurt” part of your stance, and if you enjoy conversation, then please comment below. I’d love to hear how I’m misunderstanding things.
Not Quite Able To Finish Today
I’m close. Page 108ish, I want to say. I was trying to make it to the end of the Bruen opinion and dissent, but my eyes are closing. All I want to capture in this blog post is that the dissent, as you may have heard in a summary article already, spends great effort to declare the following, “Guns are for killing people.”
Isn’t that what I just said the other day? And in, like, five words?
Man, I feel like how genius’s must feel.
Justice Breyer gives out, in a belabored manner, all the statistics which show that locations with many guns also have many gunshot deaths. OMG. Really?!
Next someone is going to take time to state that snow-capped mountainous regions have more downhill skiing, oceans have more ships, and racetracks have more racecars.
Why stop there? Women have more babies. Men have more penises. And children are short. That’s a sock-knocker-offer.
Then there’s the fact that airports have more air traffic than restaurants.
What else?
Basketball courts see more running than bowling alleys.
Justice Breyer says the issue is whether the Second Amendment can allow states to regulate gun ownership, but then he proceeds to argue that guns are for killing people.
Snark aside, there is plenty of interesting nuance in the document, but as a super poignant summary, back in Heller, Justice Scalia defined “Militia”. Now in Bruen Justice Thomas used his opinion to define “Right”, and in Bruen, Justice Breyer defines “Ends” or “Purpose”.
Good work, Justice Breyer. Now if we could only hear how that relates to the concept of a “right”, I’d be all ears.
An Example of Tuesday’s Post
The Twin Cities have announced that January 19th begins a new rule for restaurants. On that day you gotta provide proof of vaccination or negative test from last 72 hrs in order to receive service.
It’s being decreed by Mayors, as it is only for the two cities (and mayors are kings of political units called “cities”…)
So now what? Who do the folks affected seek relief from? Another government official? Say, the governor? I doubt that would result in the desired relief.
The politicians are backed by doctors.
So to whom do we petition as we seek relief?
A judge?
Peter Drucker handily explains in his tome on management that the reason written, or even spoken, propaganda never actually works is that eventually people lose faith/ignore it. He suggests that there is just something inmate in us that recognizes the difference between experiences and false descriptions of experiences. “You’re happy! Believe me!”
I can tell you that even 6th grade boys know whether they really beat me in a game of basketball, or whether I threw it.
In any case, this new situation in the Twin Cities is just another example of the definitive reason we can’t stop talking about the pandemic. Who can be called upon to provide relief?
The Two Sides of the Debate, As I See It
Side A: More gun control in some form or fashion.
Side B: The only gun control they’ll respect is repealing the 2nd Amendment–but then they’ll secede.
Sounds crazy, no?
Whether crazy or not, that Side A must advocate nothing less than ‘repeal’ is so obvious to me that I cannot see any other way. I almost want to lead the charge to repeal just to show them how it is done. Isn’t that what Side A wants? If not, if you’re on Side A, please do explain why you don’t want to repeal. I cannot understand how anything less than a repeal accomplishes what you want.
As a reminder, here is the opening of the Declaration of Independence:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Ideas, Ideas
I am nearing a fairly big transition in life. I’ll be finished taking courses and moving on to whatever comes next. But I must confess, besides conversation, I do love thinking. As most of you witnessed, these shootings and our apparently resultant inability to calmly discuss them have set my mind ablaze. One conclusion I have drawn is that perhaps books are the way forward. If we need time to calm down, perhaps we can put our thoughts on paper, and then share them with each other and let each other digest them at our own pace. Perhaps.
My book will be called, “In Time of Peace: How Splitting the Atom Erased the Founder’s Words.” Or some such thing which explores whether my hunch is right that those men lived in a world with a different sense of up and down.
But I have other ideas too. What I don’t have is time to research them all. So, I want to share them with you and see if I get any bites. Of the following topics which intrigue me, do you any find intriguing?
First up – I do not believe the Hebrew or Greek texts of the Bible use any symbols whatsoever. It is generally accepted that they do not have punctuation. It is accepted that they do not contain arabic numerals–that’s seven hundred years later. But they also do not contain Hebrew or Greek numerals either when they mention numbers (IE – they always spell out the word o-n-e, and never put 1 or I or the equivalent). But in the Greek, there is a subscript iota on some omegas, which most scholars do not care to suggest was vocalized. I propose that the omega with the subscript iota was, in fact, uniquely vocalized, and not just in the Bible of course, but in all the written Greek texts of that era–but I need to do more research. (My overall point is that I believe the entire Bible was spoken out loud and that we can confirm this fact by demonstrating that the way the written languages worked back then–different from English today–was to try to capture the sounds with ink. (IE – We don’t vocalize punctuation–well Victor Borge does.) Maybe this one is just me. But I’ve long wondered, as I’ve heard many of you wonder, why everything happened back when it happened and I think I’ve stumbled upon one way to satisfactorily answer that curiosity.)
Next – I have a research comedy in me. I want to admit that I know nothing about women and that this bothers me. So, instead of getting to know you all in person, I devise a plan to use all my newfound library skills to research what “women” are by analyzing how they are represented in the best sellers of the years 2012-2016. I’m thinking I’ll determine which are the 25 best selling books of those five years–regardless the genre–and then analyze the female characters’ speech, actions, and descriptions of them in order to see if I can figure you all out.
Next – I want to philosophically explore the effect of literacy on community. The more I’ve read, the more I’ve withdrawn. I am not the only one who’s been affected in a such a way by the written word. The disjoint comes when I admit that the Bible is really in favor of listening to those in my community as well as observing nature, so I feel like my reading is limiting what the LORD has to say to me. This is troubling.
One more – I have observed at my black church that they use the word “survive” a lot. At first I didn’t think anything of it, but as H- gets older, I kind of squirm in my seat when I hear the adults teach, “You’ve got to survive.” No one ever taught me to merely survive. They taught me to thrive. And to be frank, I’ve always loved the Air Force’s simple slogan, “Aim High.” So I think there is merit to using my cross-cultural experiences to draw out that cultures are different down to their core teachings. And I think that we whites need to listen better, because we do do some things better than other cultures, and yet, YET, the way forward is not simple, not by a long shot. (The answer I’ve received upon stating this difference is, “Well, you’re not black. It’s different for you than us.”) Even suggesting that I think whites do something better makes me sound bigoted–which I am not. But I do mean that teaching children to thrive is about something different than setting up false expectations. Ultimately, however, the only way to get there is together.
You in?
Captain’s Log 