| Wednesday, July
20, 2005 The day we went into space
to stay...
Well, we thought we had, anyway. But
see mail...
Judicial Restraint and the
Supreme Court
The President has decided to appoint a Constitutionalist opposed to
judicial activism to the SCOTUS (I hate those acronyms). Barbara Boxer, who
probably never heard of him until three minutes before her speech,
immediately denounced him. Move On and People for the American Way were
shrill within the hour. Those are good signs, but not very good, because
they have no idea who he is; this is knee jerk opposition to anything that
lessens the influence of the court on American life.
This appointment is important because a return to judicial restraint is
important. If courts continue to substitute their judgments for that of the
legislature, the result is easily foreseen: it will take more and more force
to subdue the population to the will of the court as sovereign rather than
the consent of the governed; and that power, wielded supposedly on behalf of
the courts, will actually be executive power and continue the trend to
Imperial presidency. When Eisenhower sent troops to Arkansas to subdue Orval
Faubus in the name of SCOTUS, do you really believe that this enlarged the
power of the Court as much as that of POTUS? When power is taken from the
states, in theory to protect the rights of people within the states, we are
at the edge of constitutionalism. The 14th and 15th Amendments took power
from the states and gave it to Congress, explicitly stating that Congress
should have the power to enforce those Amendments. (http://www.usconstitution.net/cp_const.html )Congress chose
in general not to do so after a flurry of Reconstruction activities, and
meanwhile the Supreme Court whittled away at the new found rights of the
freedmen (See the Slaughterhouse Cases, as an example; fashions on SCOTUS
change, and it was not always pro-civil rights). The argument made after
Earl Warren was that since Congress wouldn't act (since its majority was
Democrat, sustained by the Solid South which never elected Republicans; and
the Democratic Party would rather have a majority in Congress than do much
to help the black Southernors) the Courts had no choice; which is a bit like
saying the US had no choice but to invade Iraq since no one else would.
In fact the various Court interventions made a shambles of Federalism in
this country, but it was the Congressionally mandated Voting Rights Act that
actually transformed the South. The results of the well intentioned judicial
activism of the Civil Rights days are with us yet, and may well last until
the end of the Republic (if we can still be said to have a Republic).
Transfer of great power to the executive and centralizing decision making in
Washington -- a city that notably failed to lead by example, and so had to
turn to imperial force -- has proven to be far more lasting and far more
important than all the Civil Rights acts put together. The end of Jim Crow
was mostly due to the determination of Southern politicians to win black
votes -- as it should have been. Voting rights coupled with some measure of
protection of voter registrars -- an executive action in accord with the
laws -- transformed the South; but by then the whole notion of
self-government, rule of law (as opposed to judicial decree), judicial
restraint, and separation of powers had been dealt a mortal blow.
What SCOTUS gives, SCOTUS can take away from citizens; but when SCOTUS
gives power to POTUS, it never gets it back.
Appointment of a Justice who believes in judicial restraint is important;
but I doubt anything can restore self government to the people of the United
States. But, as I never tire of saying, despair is a sin...
===================
Incidentally, in looking up the text of the Amendments, I found MSN
search a lot more useful than the commercialized Google which insists on
reserving many of the first place hits for people who paid to be there no
matter how tenuous their connection with the subject matter. I now keep both
Google and MSN search tool bars in my Explorer.
===================
In all the furor over Joe Wilson (a career FSO
promoted by Ronald Reagan to what was supposed to be a non-political post)
and Valerie Plame (whose name appears in Wilson's Who's Who entry as well as
other standard biographical references to Wilson), has anyone looked into
whatever arrangements Wilson had with the CIA before he went to Niger? I
seem to recall there used to be contracts on what you could and could not
release from reports you wrote on the Company's dime. Did Wilson go to Niger
as an overt CIA operative? If not, didn't he blow his own cover when he did
his op ed piece about his report? And does that compromise any sources he
spoke to in Niger?
/begin fiction
"What the hell is this thing in the Post? Who is Joe Wilson, and why is
he writing about yellowcake in Niger and calling the President an idiot?"
"He says the CIA sent him over to find out what what was going on, and he
told them nothing was happening and Saddam wasn't trying to buy uranium."
"Holy cow, is that true? Did we blow it for Bush? Who is this guy?"
"Used to be an Ambassador. Speaks French. Seems to have been active in
Democrat politics after Clinton came in. Worked with Gore, it says here."
"So why did the Agency send him?"
"Speaks French, was in Niger in the 70's for a year or so as an FSO. Let
me make some calls." ... "Henry says he was sent because his wife
recommended him as the best guy for the job."
"His wife?"
"Yeah, she works for the Agency in arms control or something. Told her
boss he'd be a good man for this."
"Yeah, sure, good man, does a report and then blows it on the op ed page
of the Post. Sure. So his wife got him the job, eh? Who's my next
appointment?"
"Novak, I think."
/end fiction
And we are off to the races. But no one seems to have looked into whether
or not Wilson violated his contract when he did the op ed piece. We do know
that he got it all wrong in the op ed article, referring to obviously faked
documents he could not have seen when he did his Agency report. And it's my
understanding that the Agency did not consider Wilson's report a very strong
indication that Saddam was not trying to buy yellowcake (or trying to make
it look as if he were trying to buy the stuff), but I haven't seen the
report so I am not sure of that. One does wonder why they don't just publish
his report and have done with it; he has certainly blown any cover he ever
had.
Mr. St. Onge has accumulated
some references that may also be helpful.
And I am pretty weary of the whole subject. I find judicial restraint far
more important. But I have included one
last letter from one who disagrees with me.
=========================
Site Change Proposal:
My own attitude is that what you're doing is fine. If
it ain't broke...
It's true that your page layout is cluttered. For an
example of a clean, uncluttered, simple layout, see my own page.
<http://www.ttgnet.com/thisweek.html>
I would recommend eliminating your separate View and
Mail pages and using one consolidated page that contains both elements. Why
force readers to go two places when you could have all of your stuff in one
place? Also, many readers who would otherwise read your mail don't bother to
load the second page.
Finally, I would recommend that you keep things
strictly sequential. It's very annoying when you go back and embed a new
mail message and response in material that I've already read. I know I've
missed a lot of those simply because I don't have time to re-read everything
looking for a new nugget. When you post something new, please, please tack
it on the bottom, not up in the midst of stuff I've already read.
I think going to a blog-oriented content management
system would be a disaster for you.
-- Robert Bruce Thompson
I think going to a blog-oriented site would be a disaster also.
Bob suggests I end separate pages for Mail and View and integrate them
into one package. I have thought of this, but so far I have resisted since
it is more work. I would think it clear to most that my reactions to mail
are likely to be more "off the cuff" than the more formal essays I do in
View. Also, I sometimes post mail without comment: by keeping it on a mail
page, I hope to make it clearer that in those cases I post it because I
think it interesting, but interesting can be provocative as well as
something I agree with. Sometimes I just don't know: I hadn't thought that
way, but this raises questions; let the readers see and comment. Curtsey as
I think of what to say.
An integrated format would require that I think through a position as I
post mail, or so I have persuaded myself. It would be both easier and more
difficult. Note that I will almost never break mail into paragraphs
and deal with each one; if I break up mail and comment I am more likely to
break it into two different letters because they deal with unrelated topics.
Anyone who deserves publication deserves to be published in his own voice,
not in choppy little chunks with remarks (often snide) interpolated. A
letter that deserves that treatment probably ought not be published at all.
Or so think I.
======================
Record your thoughts on site organization as you
renew your subscription (or start a new one...)
=============
From last night at the Hollywood Bowl:
Dr. Laura Brodian Freas, announcer and music commentator at
K-MZART, just before she joined our party to hear Beethoven's Violin
Concerto and the Seventh. Dr. Brodian Freas is the widow of my old friend
Frank Kelly Freas. Kelly did the illustrations of my first science fiction
stories, although I expect he is better known for other works...
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