Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

New Justices Provide Glimpse of Future Reshaping of the Court

From the Washington Post: 

The two newest Supreme Court justices took off the robes and took to the stump last week, providing glimpses of the fresh personalities that will reshape a court that had remained constant for more than a decade.

It's a court that is in need of reshaping too. Altogether too many of the court's opinions over the years have been full of so many shades of gray that there is almost no contrast in the picture. Too many new "rights" that were never written into the Constitution or its amendments have been created by the court. U.S. law has become muddled with the fuzzy thinking of foreign courts that were ruling on issues that had nothing to do with U.S. law as written.

Still, the concept of "reshaping" the courts is a troublesome one. If the court has stuck to its role of interpreting the law rather than making law it wouldn't need reshaping. If every pet cause of the left, and even of the right, had not been brought before the courts as a way to get law enacted that politicians accountable to the voters wouldn't dare enact, the court wouldn't need reshaping.

If the Legislative branch of our government had taken its responsibilities to interpret and obey the Constitution a bit more seriously it wouldn't have been up to the courts to decide that the first amendment only applies to major media outlets and "527" groups near an election. If the executive branch had taken the oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States" a bit more seriously and faithfully executed it, it wouldn't have been up to the court to declare the first amendment dead (or is that a "living document" subject to the whims and mores of the present). This is something that both Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito understand.

On the Senate campaign trail this fall, the formula that many Democratic candidates used to show they would be judicious but not recalcitrant when it came to Supreme Court nominees was that they would have voted for Roberts but not for Alito.

Whether there will be that much difference between the two men in their judicial philosophies will be played out over the years.

Both, though, had similar messages last week. Alito said that "all public servants, not just judicial officers, play a role in shaping our law, interpreting our Constitution" and that it is wrong for "any public officials to ignore questions about the bounds of their authority in our constitutional system and simply say that the courts will sort that out for them."

Roberts said nearly the same thing. "The great gift of the founding generation was the right of self-government," he said. "We shouldn't give it up so easily to think that all the important issues are going to be decided by the Supreme Court.

Of course the Democrats weren't interested in letting anyone but the courts decide the important issues. Especially as long as the courts continued to erode the plain meaning of the words of the Constitution and its amendments in favor of foreign jurisprudence. The sophistry exhibited by the Democrats on the campaign trail makes that clear.

London mayor objects to Muslim criticism

From the United Press International... 

LONDON, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- London Mayor Ken Livingstone has compared recent criticism of British Muslims to prejudices faced by Jews in the late 19th century.

... 

"Over recent weeks we have seen a demonization of Muslims only comparable to the demonization of Jews from the end of the 19th century. As at that time, the attack on Muslims in reality threatens freedoms for all of us, which took hundreds of years to win -- freedom of conscience and freedom of cultural expression. Every person who values their right to follow the religion of their choice or none should stand with the Muslim communities today."

He's right you know. Muslims have as much right to follow their religion as anyone. I don't think they have a right to "special accommodation", but they do have a right to freedom of religious expression.

We do need to make a distinction between Muslims in general and the Islamic Jihadists that are hell bent on destroying the west. Just because all Islamic Jihadists are Muslims does not mean that all Muslims are Islamic Jihadists.

Why else would the Jihadists and terrorists turn their attacks on other Muslims?

Institutional racism supporters prepare to go to court

The people of the State of Michigan voted overwhelmingly (58% in favor) to prohibit race and gender based preferences. Such preferences are on their face racist or sexist. In Saturday's Washington Post we find that officials in Michigan are still in denial.

"The proponents of this initiative packaged it and sold a bill of goods to Michigan voters, and played into the fears we have," said Linda Parker, director of the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, who said backers "deliberately racialized the issue." She is studying contracting rules and talking with California counterparts.

Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm (D) and her Republican opponent, businessman Dick DeVos, opposed Proposal 2, as did much of the state's government, business and civic elite.

They lost at the ballot box, so now they're going to attempt to have the courts overturn the will of the people. The so-called American Civil Liberties Union is helping to lead the charge...

The first attempt to block the new law in court was filed soon after the election, although courts have upheld a similar California law.

"There will be both offense lawsuits and defensive lawsuits filed to understand what this actually means for Michigan," said Kary L. Moss, executive director of the Michigan office of the American Civil Liberties Union. "I do think it's necessary for the courts to slow this thing down and . . . interpret some of the language."

...

UM President Mary Sue Coleman vowed to fight on. At a rally the day after the votes were counted, she said she will consider "every legal option."

"I am standing here today to tell you that I will not allow this university to go down the path of mediocrity," Coleman said. "That is not Michigan. Diversity makes us strong, and it is too critical to our mission, too critical to our excellence and too critical to our future to simply abandon."

It seems to me that going down the path of mediocrity is exactly what the University of Michigan is doing. Jennifer Gratz sued the university in 2003 over their race-based preferences policy. Sadly she lost the case but the school made a strange argument...

To back the contention that Gratz did not suffer because of race, the university points out that 1,400 white and Asian students with lower grades or test scores than hers were admitted that year, while 2,000 whites and Asians with higher test scores were denied admission.

Can you explain to me how admitting students with lower grades and test scores will make the school stronger? It seems to me that the policy is upside down. If there's so much competition to get into the school shouldn't admissions be based on academic achievement?

Affirmative action policies are racist. People who believe that members of racial minorities can't succeed without a boost are perpetuating a racial stereotype and message of low expectations in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It's time that all race based preferences were ended.

It's time for the racists in the "civil rights" movement to start treating people of all races and national origins in a colorblind way. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. He said "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character....".

Affirmative action proponents have turned that dream on its head, and now it has become a nightmare.

Linked at Rightwing Guy.

Voting machine problems in Florida, again.

From the Olympian...

SARASOTA, Fla. - Touch-screen voting machines were supposed to be the answer, a response to the chaos of the 2000 presidential election.

Instead, the discovery of about 18,000 electronic votes recorded as blank in a tight race for Congress has created a new black eye for Florida elections.

A paper trail might have provided clues to what happened Nov. 7, but Florida officials have balked at requiring such backup. The state Legislature repeatedly has killed measures to require a verifiable paper trail, and neither Gov. Jeb Bush nor the secretary of state's office has pushed the idea.

So six years after late-night comedians joked about "bringing democracy to Florida," the state still has not found a way to hold elections without controversy.

The latest totals in Sarasota County show Republican Vern Buchanan leading Democrat Christine Jennings by 369 votes in the District 13 congressional race. But the election has been plagued by questions as to why so many of the county's voters skipped the race.

Comparatively, only about 1 percent of all Sarasota County voters did not make a selection in the senator and governor's race. These are called "undervotes."

Computer problems are suspected, but finding an answer has been difficult.

I'm starting to notice a pattern here. If you're a Democrat and you lose a race in Florida there must be a problem with:

1. The ballots (butterfly ballots).
2. The software (Clinton Curtis).
3. The voting machine.

On the other hand, if you're a Republican and you lose a race anywhere the Democrats raised questions about the voting machines prior to the election you accept it.

Egypt arrests another blog critic

I'm so glad I live in the United States... 

Rami Siyam, who blogs under the name of Ayyoub, was detained along with three friends after leaving the house of a fellow blogger late at night.

No reasons have been given for Mr Siyam's detention. The other friends were released after being questioned.

Human rights groups have accused Egypt of eroding freedom of speech by arresting several bloggers recently.

BBC Arab Affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhadi says blogging in Egypt is closely associated with political activism in a culture where democratic freedoms are severely restricted.

Bloggers are at the centre of Egyptian political activism.

Source: BBC NEWS | Middle East | Egypt arrests another blog critic

Bloggers are at the heart of political activism in a lot of places. At least here in the Unites States our speech is protected. I'd hate to find myself arrested after commenting on the news of the day like Ayyoub.

Linked at Basil's Blog.

New Presidents Dollars to be issued.

This morning's New York Times has an interesting article about a new series of dollar coins.

The United States Mint is planning a series of one-dollar coins to feature every deceased president, with the date stamped into the edge.

The first coin, displaying George Washington on one side and the Statue of Liberty on the other, will go into circulation in mid-February, in time for Presidents’ Day. After that, coins with John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison will be issued at three-month intervals.

Four more will appear, in order of each president’s service, every year until 2016.

This should be pretty cool. I like the state quarters that have been and are being issued. Coin collectors are sure to be happy.

And my kids will both get $40.00 from me sometime after 2016.

All mail voting? Consider the blue bags.

King county is still targeting 2007 or 2008 for the switchover to all mail voting. They claim that this will make elections more secure and trustworthy. I'm worried that it will open up more potential for fraud. From the Seattle PI comes an article about the work still to be done. Here's a highlight regarding vote-by-mail.

Consider the blue bags.

Each polling place is issued a canvas duffel for loading up with absentee ballots dropped off at the polls, before the ballots are transported to a counting center. Procedures call for zipping the bag shut, locking it with a numbered seal and then filling out and signing a packing slip.

But at many polls Nov. 7, the ballots wouldn't all fit in the bag. So workers improvised: They taped bulging, unzipped bags to hold them together, or they stuffed excess ballots into plastic bags. Some packing slips weren't signed. One bag was left in a worker's car overnight.

Of course if King County had moved to all vote-by-mail nobody would have had the opportunity to drop their absentee ballots off at a polling place where they could be mishandled. Then we would have had to worry about our ballots getting lost in the mail, lost in the back rooms at the elections office, or even returned due to insufficient postage. Mail ballots do sometimes disappear after all. The article continues...

Interim Elections Director Jim Buck sees the bag business not as a sign of chronic ineptitude but rather of positive change. It was the department staff that brought the issue before the board, and the problem would have been addressed in any event, he said. That reflects a healthier workplace culture, he said, and a commitment to improve.

"The people here look at it as if it is their responsibility and their duty, and they are taking proactive steps to do things better," he said. "I think that's kind of the change of attitude that has evolved since 2004."

It's good that the culture in the elections office has improved. I still think it's a bad thing to move to all vote-by-mail. But the county council won't even leave that decision up to a vote. I wonder why?

Cross posted at NWBloggers.com.