Ted Barlow is very disturbed
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But completely hilarious. He had this on his site.

September 24th, 2002 | General | no comments

Judge Rules Federal Death Penalty Law Unconstitutional
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Judge shoots down death penalty law

Basically, the judge said that the law did not provide sufficient due process protections, and thus violated the 6th Amendment:

“IF THE DEATH penalty is to be part of our system of justice, due process of law and the fair trial guarantees of the Sixth Amendment require that standards and safeguards governing the kinds of evidence juries may consider must be rigorous, and constitutional rights and liberties scrupulously protected,”he said.

One assumes that he believes one or both of those standards is not being met by the federal law.

I will try and find a link to the decision later.

I imagine that this decision is going to be appealed.

September 24th, 2002 | General | no comments

Original Intent and Fundamentalism
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As I mentioned before, I am working my way through papers regarding the concept of Original Intent. I started this little project because the Constitutional Law text book we use is absolutely in love with the practice, but provided very little in the way of description or justification for its use. I assumed there had to be more than they had space for. So far, I think my assumption may have been wrong.

I am not done working through the material that I was pointed to (by, among others, Prof. Jeff cooper and Jay Reding, and, of course, my Prof.), so I will withhold judgement on the details of the argument until I have. However, what has struck me - and I am sure I am not the first to notice this - is the similarity between original intent and religious fundamentalism. Both forms of thought rely on a reverence for the past, and both forms of thought do not allow for possibility of wisdom.

On the surface, I admit, the connection may look a little tenuous. The type of Fundamentalism I am referring to is biblical literalism - the idea that everything in the Bible is an absolutely accurate account of a given event. Nothing is parable (unless words to the effect “the following is a parable” appear), nothing is poetic for effect, nothing is simplified for understanding. Original Intent is the notion that we can know what the drafters of the constitution meant when they wrote a particular passage, and we should base our reading of the Constitution on that understanding. In one case, literalism is supreme, in the other, interpretation and historical research. I believe, however, that both are essentially rigid, inflexible systems that allow for no growth in a society.

To a literalism, the story of Sodom and Gomorra(sp?) is a condemnation of homosexuals. I do not see that condemnation in the story of Sodom and Gomorra. Informed by the brutal history of mankind in the last two thousand years, and informed by the teachings of Christ as a whole, I see a warning about treating people - even strangers - kindly. I think a literalism would probably not make that connection, as it would not occur to them to read the passage as anything other than a history. Justice Scalia’s contention that Catholicism supports the death penalty because the Church once interpreted the scriptures so is another example. Scalia’s vision does not allow for the Church to have gained wisdom. It does not allow for the Bishops and Popes to look at the words of Christ and re-examine their meaning in light of what history and experience has taught them about the sanctity of life and the effects of the death penalty on the souls of their parishioners and the nations those parishioners inhabit. In other, words, the Church can never, ever learn from its actions - it must be forever tied to its original perceptions.

Original Intent has very much the same effect. Scalia believes that the death penalty is Constitution because, in part, the writers of the Constitution did not believe that the death penalty was “cruel and unusual punishment”. Because the experiences of the first generation of Americans taught them one thing, we as a people are never allowed to take what we have learned as a people and apply it to the words of the Constitution. there is no room for growth, no room for greater understanding, no room for anything but the past.

I am not the same man I was when I was eighteen. I have lived more, experienced more, and I like to think I have gained some wisdom in the process. The same can and does happen to societies as a whole. We should welcome that wisdom, but Original Intent does not. It runs from it, and tries to hide behind the revealed wisdom of the Founding Fathers, much as Biblical literalists depend upon the revealed wisdom of Scripture. Both modes of thought are a recipe for stagnation and, eventually, repression. Whether or not their proponents admit it, societies do grow. The people of those societies will not turn their back upon the wisdom they have earned, even if their lawmakers do. At some point, there will be a conflict between the hard earned wisdom of a people, and the revealed wisdom of the past. No society remains unchanged, and Original Intent limits the ability of our society to apply those changed wisdoms to our understanding of the Constitution. I believe the word for that process is “stagnation”.

September 24th, 2002 | General | 3 comments

Moran on Germany
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The Germany that can say %u2018no%u2019

An interesting look at how American foreign policy shaped German democracy, and how uncomfortable the American establishment is with the operation of that democracy:

But shopkeepers with the right to vote. And therein lies the dilemma for the United States. Having successfully taught the Germans not to follow their Fuehrer blindly, we now bristle when they question the orders of them to follow the uber-Fuehrer - the United States.

This is indicative of a larger problem. Democracy should be the central, overriding goal of American foreign policy, yet our government only seems to approve of democracy when the voters do what we tell them to do. It is a habit of the Cold War, and one that we need to kick if we are every going to be safe.

September 24th, 2002 | General | no comments

Blair’s dossier
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Excerpts From Britian’s Dossier

Here is a bullet point list of Blair’s accusations agaisnt Saddam:

–Continued to produce chemical and biological agents.

–Military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, including against its own Shia population. Some of these weapons are deployable within 45 minutes of an order to use them.

–Command and control arrangements in place to use chemical and biological weapons.

–Developed mobile laboratories for military use.

–Pursued illegal programs to procure controlled materials of potential use in the production of chemical and biological weapons programs.

–Tried covertly to acquire technology and materials which could be used in the production of nuclear weapons.

–Sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa, despite having no active civil nuclear power program that could require it.

–Recalled specialists to work on its nuclear program.

–Illegally retained up to 20 al-Hussein missiles, with a range of 400 miles, capable of carrying chemical or biological warheads.

–Started deploying its al-Samoud liquid propellant missile, and has used the absence of weapons inspectors to work on extending its range to at least 125 miles, which is beyond the limit of 90 miles imposed by the United Nations.

–Started producing the solid-propellant Ababil-100, and is making efforts to extend its range to at least 125 miles, which is beyond the limit of 90 miles imposed by the United Nations.

–Constructed a new engine test stand for the development of missiles capable of reaching the U.K. Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus and NATO members (Greece and Turkey), as well as all Iraq’s Gulf neighbors and Israel.

–Pursued illegal programs to procure materials for use in its illegal development of long range missiles.

–Learned lessons from previous U.N. weapons inspections and already begun to conceal sensitive equipment and documentation in advance of the return of inspectors.

Well, yeah, we knew this already. Once again, the argument devolves into “Saddam is a bad man”. Yes, but so is Putin, so is Musharref, so are the clerics running Iran, so is the leadership of Iran, so is the president of Uzbekistan, etc, etc,etc.

Why is Saddam the bad guy at the top of the list? Why is Saddam no longer deterrable? Once again, the proponents of the war have not even attempted to answer the only relevant questions.

September 24th, 2002 | General | no comments

A nice history lesson from Krugman
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White Man’s Burden

Remember when Rove was comparing Bush to McKinley? Well, McKinely built our 19th century empire:

Moral clarity aside, the parallel between America’s pursuit of manifest destiny a century ago and its new global sense of mission has a lot to teach us.
First, the experience of the Spanish-American War should remind us that quick conventional military victory is not necessarily the end of the story. Thanks to American technological superiority, Adm. George Dewey destroyed a Spanish fleet in Manila Bay without losing a single man. But a clean, high-tech war against Spain somehow turned into an extremely dirty war against the Filipino resistance, one in which hundreds of thousands of civilians died.
Second, America’s imperial venture should serve as an object warning against taking grand strategic theories too seriously. The doctrines of the day saw colonies as strategic assets. In the end, it’s very doubtful whether our control of the Philippines made us stronger. Now we’re assured that military action against rogue states will protect us from terrorism. But the rogue state now in our sights doesn’t seem to have been involved in Sept. 11; what determines whose regime gets changed?
Finally, we should remember that the economic doctrines that were used to justify Western empire-building during the late 19th century - that colonies would provide valuable markets and sources of raw materials - turned out to be nonsense. Almost without exception

September 24th, 2002 | General | no comments

Can you say hypocrite?
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BBC NEWS | Politics | UK ’sells’ bomb material to Iran

So, is Blair now an evil doer?

British officials have approved the export of key components needed to make nuclear weapons to Iran and other countries known to be developing such weapons.
An investigation by BBC Radio 4 programme File on Four will disclose that the Department of Trade and Industry allowed a quantity of the metal, Beryllium, to be sold to Iran last year.

That metal is needed to make nuclear bombs

(snip)

Beryllium is a metal with a limited number of high-tech uses in civilian industry, but is mostly used in defense applications and is a vital component in a nuclear bomb.

So, we need to kill the one person in the region that we know for a fact is deterrable, but we can sell the parts needed for a nuclear weapon to the one nation in the region ruled by fundamentalist clerics who believe in the concept of martyrdom.

Makes perfect sense to me….

September 24th, 2002 | General | no comments

Credit where credit is due
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Yahoo! News - Gore Denounces Bush’s Iraq Efforts

I am not a big Gore fan. He was a “hold my nose” vote, but credit where credit is due. His speech - even though it would have been nice to hear this a month ago - raises issues with regards to Bush’s Iraq policy that need to be addressed.

“After Sept. 11, we had enormous sympathy, goodwill and support around the world,” Gore said. “We’ve squandered that, and in one year we’ve replaced that with fear, anxiety and uncertainty, not at what the terrorists are going to do but at what we are going to do.”

(snip)

“If we end the war in Iraq the way we ended the war in Afghanistan ( news - web sites), we could easily be worse off than we are today,” said Gore, who told the crowd he would decide in December whether to challenge Bush again for the presidency in 2004.

these are questions the Bush team has not come close to answering. Why, exactly, should we trust Bush and company to rebuild Iraq considering how poorly they have done in Afghanistan? Why is removing Saddam worth squandering the goodwill of nations we will need to fight the people who are actually shooting at us?

September 24th, 2002 | General | 2 comments