tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post2769998418485392290..comments2024-03-18T21:52:45.757-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Oligarchy, emoluments, revelations and our path aheadDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-88156727473626488462018-02-08T17:53:13.141-08:002018-02-08T17:53:13.141-08:00onward
onward
onward<br /><br />onward<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-35539673596719647892018-02-07T22:25:57.365-08:002018-02-07T22:25:57.365-08:00Sad but true, Duncan Cairncross. The treasure that...Sad but true, Duncan Cairncross. The treasure that is the government of America has grown to vast proportions, while the mechanisms that protect it from exploitation have not kept pace.madtomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09584394367265677892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-22911286703120205522018-02-07T19:52:32.411-08:002018-02-07T19:52:32.411-08:00I agree with David Brin's point of view regard...I agree with David Brin's point of view regarding allowing immigrants to enter based on the fact that these immigrants are competent. I just hope you also consider it a good thing to avoid the persecution of immigrant women and children.<br />Certainly, they should prevent criminal groups from entering the United States. The mara gang saves trout from San Salvador is a great danger. Drug trafficking groups are more abundant than ever, and certainly, most drug traffickers do not enter the United States as illegals. They enter as tourists, with passports, and often have many American citizens working in the drug trafficking business. It's a complicated issue and certainly, Americans have the right to live in a safe environment. I am not opposed to the manufacture of the wall (A wall that sooner or later will have the same fate as the Berlin Wall, undoubtedly).<br />There is also the issue that while the police of the United States and Canada violate adolescent drug-seeking reviews, (police usually look for small quantities of hidden drugs in private places) (And there are videos of that problem) ( not all policemen do that, I guess not all states have the same procedures) at the same time, border agents pass containers with tons of drugs. (Yes, in the newspapers I found out how there are arrests of border police who let drugs pass) (but that is the fault of the Republican politicians who by majority approve misogynistic and brutal laws)<br />There are many details, but it is important that Americans make the changes they consider necessary to make the United States a safe and prosperous nation.Winter7https://www.blogger.com/profile/16829856315044551289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-48646646881231980572018-02-07T18:16:49.710-08:002018-02-07T18:16:49.710-08:00Hi Madtom
The problem is that your Federal Govern...Hi Madtom<br /><br />The problem is that your Federal Government was not intended to be your main government - the constitution was set up to limit it's powers<br /><br />The idea was that the State Governments would be the important ones the Central Government would only do the stuff that it NEEDED to do.<br /><br />But instead the state governments have eroded away and most of the most important stuff is now done at Federal level<br /><br />So you are left with a Government with controls that are intended for a limited central organisation doing the job of a real governmnet<br /><br />You can't simply have a vote of confidence and get a new electionduncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-10713832042471524932018-02-07T17:38:47.980-08:002018-02-07T17:38:47.980-08:00Thanks for your thoughts, LarryHart. It seems you&...Thanks for your thoughts, LarryHart. It seems you're right about the mechanism being absent. There *is* an established legal mechanism to put someone into office, which requires an oath to the Constitution. But the mechanism of dealing with an oath-breaker is apparently left up to the God the oath was sworn to. Even impeachment names only much more general categories of misbehavior. <br /><br />My first thought is "Of course, the founders lived in a more religious time than ours". My second thought is that swearing an oath to God has a lot more emotional meaning to many of Trump's supporters than to the other 2/3 of Americans. Which makes me wonder afresh about the political utility of publicly stressing oath-breaking by officials - even down to the Town Council level, where I once was. <br /><br />The worth-arguing point being that both the founders and their constituents who accepted the Constitution for the first time, did so based on the clear and obvious meaning of its words. That's what they meant the oath to apply to. Not on a couple of centuries of mission-creep of the executive, riding on the ratchet-effect of ever-more-compliant court determinations of just how far government powers can be stretched. madtomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09584394367265677892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-13708326823385528202018-02-07T12:22:19.850-08:002018-02-07T12:22:19.850-08:00"The crux - mentioned by no pundits or dems -..."The crux - mentioned by no pundits or dems - is that investigators and prosecutors - if they adhere to proper procedures - aren't required to be impartial! That's for judges. Investigators are supposed to want to get their man!"<br /><br />The reason we haven't heard to much from Democrats might be the fact that the FISA court is something that would piss off most American's if they knew how it really works, and NO high level politicians want to bring attention to that fact, because BOTH SIDES (in this specific case) have voted to make FISA this way.<br /><br />That's just my opinion, there might be 'good' reasons they (D's) aren't going off on the issue, but I haven't heard too many reasons that sound 'good' to me.Berialnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-20852021765275311942018-02-07T12:10:48.187-08:002018-02-07T12:10:48.187-08:00www.electoral-vote.com has its heart in the right ...www.electoral-vote.com has its heart in the right place, but maybe misses a point. Or maybe the sarcasm is more intended than I thought:<br /><br />http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2018/Senate/Maps/Feb07.html#item-9<br /><br /><i><br />While he was in France, Donald Trump witnessed a large and very impressive military parade staged by the French in honor of Bastille Day. At the time, he mused that the United States ought to do something like that. As it turns out, he has not forgotten, and he is now pressing the Pentagon to get serious about looking into the possibility.<br /><br />The Pentagon, for its part, really wants no part of this. They understand, even if Trump does not, that military parades are generally the province of fascists and dictators, not democratically-elected leaders. <br /></i><br /><br />Yeah? So what's your point, other than what we already know about President Snow?<br /><br /><i><br />Perhaps they might want to show the President a little picture called Triumph of the Will, so that he understands whom he would be mimicking.<br /></i><br /><br />I'm pretty sure he <b>does</b> understand who he <b>is</b> mimicking.<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-23323630076313305062018-02-07T12:10:37.520-08:002018-02-07T12:10:37.520-08:00Challenge accepted!Challenge accepted!Interested Observerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686192811380975495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91006088028092230862018-02-07T12:03:46.771-08:002018-02-07T12:03:46.771-08:00Ohio may be the next state (after Pennyslvania) wh...Ohio may be the next state (after Pennyslvania) where a Republican government voluntarily gives up gerrymandering.<br /><br />I suspect they're afraid of an upcoming Democratic wave leading into a census, thinking that what they did in 2010 might be done to them in 2020.<br /><br />My id says this is a slimy trick, and that Democrats deserve the same chance to railroad Republicans for a decade as the reverse. However, my more rational brain says this is exactly what was needed. Because unfair rules only get changed when <b>Republicans</b> have a reason to change them. We might as well be glad of the opportunity.<br /><br />http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2018/Senate/Maps/Feb07.html#item-5<br /><i><br />While the Supreme Court is considering several cases about the constitutionality of gerrymandering, the state of Ohio is also working on the problem. Much to everyone's surprise, a bipartisan compromise on the subject passed the legislature. (For readers too young to have experienced this phenomenon in their lifetimes, it means both parties agreed to the same bill.) The bill passed the Ohio Senate 31-0 on Monday and passed the Ohio House 83-10 yesterday. Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) is expected to sign the bill.<br /></i>LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-77049430305122880582018-02-07T11:15:28.493-08:002018-02-07T11:15:28.493-08:00Hating on Elon is all that's needed, to show t...Hating on Elon is all that's needed, to show these loonies are anti-competitive, anti-innovation and anti-capitalist. Their cult has come full circle, and opposes absolutely every single thing that enables flat-fair-creative capitalism to function. And the left is too stupid to point this out.<br /><br />onward to the story contest! But you guys keep jabbering here till the next major posting.<br /><br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-45703145254695283392018-02-07T11:14:07.297-08:002018-02-07T11:14:07.297-08:00@treebeard | What space effort would not qualify a...@treebeard | What space effort would not qualify as a ritualistic event from your perspective? (Honest question)Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-11603682572255509552018-02-07T09:49:46.701-08:002018-02-07T09:49:46.701-08:00Yep. Aided & abetted by the liberal Governors...<br />Yep. Aided & abetted by the liberal Governors of the East and West Coasts who are busy thumbing their noses at unpopular federal diktat, Alito and other conservative US Supreme Court judges are laying the groundwork for more State's Rights, legitimising the pending Red State secession when & if the politically correct pro-Globalists seize power again.<br /><br />What's that? You disagree with federal immigration law, border control & drug control legislation, believing that it it is your right to establish Sanctuary Cities, flout federal law, pass unilateral gerrymandering (anti; pro) legislation, agree to international climate change treaties & negotiate directly with foreign powers without any federal authorisation, all while yelling 'Not MY President'? <br /><br />Then, you too are a treasonous Confederate set on the destruction of the good old USA.<br /><br />Keep up the good work, you foolish progs, you succeed at secession where many deplorables have previously failed, and all the Brietbarts of the world have to do is plead 'Oh, please don't throw me in that thar briar patch, Mr. Diversity Bear, that's the last place I wish to be'.<br /><br />Breaking News: All Briar Trump has to do to force the US Democrats to disenfranchise themselves (about shutdown & whatnot) is to endorse the opposite. <br /><br /><br />Bestlocumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-21023274154171497682018-02-07T09:02:08.672-08:002018-02-07T09:02:08.672-08:00...
He (Alito) may also be angling for the reverse......<br />He (Alito) may also be angling for the reverse being just as valid. "If a state decides that it <b>can</b> gerrymander, who is the fed to dictate otherwise?"LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-53749958453180958702018-02-07T09:00:38.020-08:002018-02-07T09:00:38.020-08:00@David S,
I think Alito correctly saw that the Pe...@David S,<br /><br />I think Alito correctly saw that the Pennsylvania ruling <b>was</b> entirely a state matter, and his refusal to take the matter to the USSC was on Consitiutionalist grounds. It also precisely avoided any federal level precedent other than "If a state decides that it can't gerrymander, who is the fed to dictate otherwise?"<br /><br />I will give Alito faint credit for not going ahead and doing partisan interference anyway, as in Bush v Gore.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87080923025687337552018-02-07T08:30:20.935-08:002018-02-07T08:30:20.935-08:00The federal supreme court refusing the hear the PA...The federal supreme court refusing the hear the PA gerrymandering case is important, but the court refused to hear it because the gerrymandering was found to be unconstitutional to the Pennsylvanian state constitution. So I'm not sure what this says about the federal courts view on gerrymandering, except that fixing it on a state be state basis by amending each state's constitution would be an option.<br />David Snoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-45945977016923178552018-02-07T07:59:17.764-08:002018-02-07T07:59:17.764-08:00Duncan Cairncross,
Bowie? Sheesh. I'm just ho...Duncan Cairncross,<br /><br />Bowie? Sheesh. I'm just hoping there's no Locnar in the trunk.raitonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-45942264201129254442018-02-07T06:24:42.688-08:002018-02-07T06:24:42.688-08:00madtom:
Something about the even dozen of your bo...madtom:<br /><i><br />Something about the even dozen of your books on my shelf (after Boyd and before Brunner) makes me want to hear your thoughts on the odds or mechanics of activating a legal (or publicity?) mechanism to bring charges of oath-breaking against Trump (and/or a large number of other public "servants") who are often and massively guilty of exactly that. It seems to me that such a finding would be grounds for instant removal from office, at whatever level. <br /></i><br /><br />That's kind of what my position on this administration has been which makes me consider it illegitimate--not that Trump should be <b>removed</b> from office as that he's not technically filling it in the first place, and that his occupation of the office amounts to a sit-down strike.<br /><br />Unfortunately, in the real world that we live in, there's simply no mechanism to act on that, in the same way that Tom Brady's cheating in a previous Super Bowl can't call back the official result. For better or worse, we're stuck with impeachment as the only mechanism available, and the congressional Republicans won't do that because they're complicit. Respected voices on this list, including some in the military, warn of the grave consequences of making declarations of illegitimacy outside the Constitutional order. So absent impeachment, I think the only way we'll get anywhere is if Trump's transgressions get so bad that a Constitutional Crisis is the least bad option.<br /><br /><br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-24194810186846485332018-02-07T02:56:49.600-08:002018-02-07T02:56:49.600-08:00Remember folks: space is not a resource or a front...Remember folks: space is not a resource or a frontier, it's an ALTAR, where would-be gods and priesthoods perform rituals to awe the earthbound masses and assert their power. That was certainly an impressive ritual High Space Priest Musk performed, in the grand tradition of high space rituals like the Apollo moon landings. What's funny is how easily geeks are fooled into thinking that this is anything but ritual--the modern equivalent of the pharaohs building their great pyramids as stairways to heaven.Treebeardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-17237021367861629982018-02-07T01:42:37.999-08:002018-02-07T01:42:37.999-08:00The latter probably requires something like a mult...<i>The latter probably requires something like a multi-generation campaign to snuff out language, literature, and other cultural traits or, if you can't wait that long, genocide.</i><br /><br />Or it requires being the lesser of two evils, as the Western Allies were for Germans in 1945. It's a pity that in 1865 there was no imperial Haiti invading the Confederacy from the south, as if there had been, Radical Reconstruction in the Union-occupied zone would have worked just fine.George Cartyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12170378024031141482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-4680424664620996232018-02-06T23:39:14.460-08:002018-02-06T23:39:14.460-08:00In the case of Lincoln, another year might have be...<i>In the case of Lincoln, another year might have been enough to smother Jim Crow in its cradle, at least partly.</i><br /><br />I'm doubtful. Winning wars is one thing. Winning cultural battles is quite another. The latter probably requires something like a multi-generation campaign to snuff out language, literature, and other cultural traits or, if you can't wait that long, genocide. Sherman's march was brutal, but I don't think Northerners were willing to commit genocide. Long campaigns require long commitments and that wasn't in the cards either.<br /><br />As for the theater, I suspect Lincoln would have been killed later if he avoided that one. Security wasn't such a tight thing then as it is today. Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-11543941787012624552018-02-06T23:00:53.872-08:002018-02-06T23:00:53.872-08:00About that emoluments clause - and several other i...About that emoluments clause - and several other issues, especially some biggies connected with the Bill of Rights . . . <br /><br />Something about the even dozen of your books on my shelf (after Boyd and before Brunner) makes me want to hear your thoughts on the odds or mechanics of activating a legal (or publicity?) mechanism to bring charges of oath-breaking against Trump (and/or a large number of other public "servants") who are often and massively guilty of exactly that. It seems to me that such a finding would be grounds for instant removal from office, at whatever level. <br /><br />No statute required, just proof of failure to faithfully follow the document they swore to uphold, as they were required to before taking office. In most cases, by okaying or enforcing a law that is obviously unconstitutional, from the clearest reading of the document by the average American. Think "civil" asset forfeiture, for starters.<br /><br />A serious condition of employment has been violated so much that we seem to take it's violation for granted. Why? Yet somehow I've never heard of such a removal happening, or even being attempted. Maybe there's a story there. madtomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09584394367265677892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-83603283447258555882018-02-06T20:46:28.249-08:002018-02-06T20:46:28.249-08:00Curious and sad parallel between Abraham Lincoln a...Curious and sad parallel between Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt: each won his war, had grand and noble plans for the postwar period, but died at the moment of victory (give or take a couple of weeks). To some degree, in both cases, the peace was lost; that is to say, its best possibilities were lost; and we can well imagine that even another year of life for these two men might have meant a different and better outcome.<br /><br />In the case of Lincoln, another year might have been enough to smother Jim Crow in its cradle, at least partly.<br /><br />In the case of Roosevelt, what we lost was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bill_of_Rights" rel="nofollow">a Second Bill of Rights</a>, treating on economic rights not covered in the original Bill of Rights. He would have been insanely popular for a while and could handily have won whatever he asked for; it's safe to assume this would have included universal health care (the Canadians got that very thing at about the same time), free college for all, and certainly no Taft-Hartley union-busting...TCBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08153506222271955110noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-70975384219980731682018-02-06T19:48:07.706-08:002018-02-06T19:48:07.706-08:00Falcon_Heavy launch proves that Elon Musk is a rom...<br />Falcon_Heavy launch proves that Elon Musk is a romantic 1980s MTV fan nostalgic for the music of his childhood, 'Bowie & the Boomers can bite me' he was heard to say, and the pending government shut-down may be our last best chance to rescue the American Republican from an eternal Establishmentarian Boot stomping on the human face forever:<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGoF-Msc4Yg<br /><br /><br />Best<br /><br />locumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-75059520579539291122018-02-06T19:19:18.303-08:002018-02-06T19:19:18.303-08:00Alfred / No - you need to tell him not to go to th...Alfred / No - you need to tell him not to go to the Theatre<br /><br />The disaster about your civil war was not the war but the following peaceduncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-85806223650911139362018-02-06T19:00:44.940-08:002018-02-06T19:00:44.940-08:00@LarryHart | No. Letting them go would have been w...@LarryHart | No. Letting them go would have been worse. I'd rather whisper "Appoint better generals now."Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.com