Perils of an unwritten constitution

In the US, we have a Constitution that is a written document. While there are a lot of unwritten constitutional rules, the formal written text of the US Constitution sets the ground rules, by which everything is run. And in 2000, when there was some question about the result of the Presidential Election, this fact meant that everything was settled (even if it took some time) in a way that could not be contested.

Contrast Britain, which has a "constitution" that includes some Parliamentary laws (which can be changed, however, by simply passing another law, unlike our difficult amendment process!) but is mostly an accumulation of traditions. Right now they are trying to sort through the results of an election in which their House of Commons (which combines the role of a house of Congress here with that of the Electoral College) is without a majority.

According to one of those traditions, the sitting Prime Minister is given the first chance to try to "form a Government" (he has to put together a Cabinet and first have it approved by the House of Commons, unlike our system, where the Cabinet, though requiring Senate approval for each individual position, need not be in place for the President to take office).

On the other hand, there is the strongly-held belief that the leader of a party which has won the largest number of seats in the Commons, particularly if that party received the largest vote in a general election, should be given the first chance. And in this case, the incumbent Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, leads a Labour Party (that's how they spell it there), which has finished a rather distant second in seats (306 to 258), and was also far behind the Conservatives in votes. Furthermore, the third place (Liberal Democratic) party leader, Nicholas Clegg, is on record as agreeing with ths second proposition, that the leader of a party which has won the largest number of seats in the Commons, as well as the largest vote in a general election, should be given the first chance. And Clegg's position is important, because the Conservatives can get a majority if they join with the Liberal Democrats. So both Gordon Brown and the Conservative leader, David Cameron, believe they deserve the first chance.

Well, the way it works now is that Cameron has sent emissaries to talk with Clegg's people, but Brown's resignation has not taken place. And in fact Brown is fulminating that he deserves a chance first. But in fact, the Labour and Liberal Democratic parties together do not have enough seats (Labour's 258 plus the Liberal Democrats' 57 make 315, and 326 are necessary) to make a majority. So even if Brown could convince Clegg to join him, he would still need support from some small minor party.

And further complications ensue because a lot of British Conservatives feel they should not make any concessions to the Liberal Democrats to make a majority, but should try to govern without a majority. British practice permits such a minority government, but only if enough small parties agree not to oppose the Prime Minister's party to prevent its defeat on a no-confidence vote. And the Liberal Democrats' size is such that this is the only party that could provide this non-opposition in sufficient numbers, and Clegg is not likely to agree to do it without concessions. So that solution is a non-starter.

Isn't it great to have a written Constitution?

Arizona's new anti-illegal-immigrant law

It is interesting to see left-wingers railing against Arizona's new anti-illegal-immigrant law (or as they like to call it "Arizona's new anti-immigrant law," ignoring its direct targeting of illegal immigrants).

Of course, many of the left are simply pandering to Hispanic voters, who sympathize with the illegal immigrants because many of them (even if they themselves have become U. S. citizens) have illegal immigrant relatives).

And in turn those Hispanics seem to feel that this country ought not to enforce its own laws. Though, I wonder what they would think if the country refused to enforce its other laws, and countenanced, say, the discrimination of people against Hispanics in violation of its anti-discrimination laws!

All Arizona has done is to say that, if you're in violation of U. S. law by your presence in this country, and if you're in the State of Arizona, you are also in violation of Arizona State law, as well. And no sensible person should have any objection to this.

But some people say that jurisdiction over immigration law is preempted by the Federal Government under the Constitution. It is true that Article VI Clause 2 of the Constitution establishes the supremacy of Federal law over State law in matters under Federal jurisdiction (and the Federal government, by virtue of the Constitution's grant of power over foreign affairs, has power over immigration, even though immigration is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution), but certainly Article VI would only invalidate Arizona's law if it were in conflict with Federal law. It is not; it in fact, directly incorporates Federal law into Arizona law!

In fact, if anything, those States that have attempted to legalize "medical marijuana" like California, are the ones who should be called on the carpet for trying to nullify Federal law. (I put the phrase "medical marijuana" in quotes, because it is clear that marijuana has no valid medical purpose.) But the leftists who are taking Arizona to task would not do this to those States, because these people approve of such actions.

The facts are these: The Federal Government has refused to enforce its own laws on immigration, and Arizona has seen fit to take the law into its own hands because the Federal Government has abdicated its responsibility. People clain the new law will lead to racial profiling, as though this is worse than the current situation where illegal immigrants are burdens on law-enforcement, public health, and such.

And it is supposed to be so much of a burden to carry identification to prove one's legal presence here. Well, I'm legally in this country (I was born here!) and the number of times I've had to show identification in recent years is pretty large. If I have to carry identification, it is no great extra burden for them to do so.

Actually, there is one clue that should be emphasized more. These people often say that "nobody is illegal." Thus they talk of "immigrants," lumping legal and illegal immigration together, and totally misconstrue the purpose of the Arizona law. As far as they are concerned, the immigration laws of this country do not have any force, but this selective nullification is unjustified, and once more, I reiterate: violation of our anti-discrimination laws would not be so pleasantly received by these people!

I'm glad I don't live in Florida

There is a pretty good Republican Governor of Florida named Charlie Crist. He had expressed an interest in running for the Senate this year, and at first he seemed to be a shoo-in. Then another candidate, Marco Rubio, joined the fray. Conservatives backing Rubio have made it unlikely that Crist will be able to get the nomination of the Republican Party. So it now appears that Crist will run as an independent. (The mirror image, of course, of what happened to Sen. Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut a couple of years ago.)


Fortunately, this time, just like Lieberman, Crist seems popular enough in his state that he will probably win anyway — though a lot can happen between now and November. It would be a shame for a Republican split to give the seat to a Democrat, as happened recently in a special Congressional election in New York State.


I don't know a lot about Crist or Rubio — I suspect that if I were a Floridian I'd be closer politically to Crist, but Rubio would be acceptable — but I'm glad I don't have to choose between them. If the Democrat, Kendrick Meek (what a name!), ever got close enough that the split elected him because the Republicans could not unite, it would be a tragedy.


Once more, ideological purity is making Republicans weak.

Why I am NOT a "conservative"

On most important matters I tend to hold "conservative" positions, but sometimes I find the "conservative" position to be infuriatingly foreign to my thoughts.

Case in point: Pres. Barack Obama's recent order requiring hospitals to grant family visitation rights to partners of gay patients. We find conservative groups assailing this order as if it were destructive of the marriages of straight couples.

I for one applaud this order. If someone is hospitalized with a serious illness, he should be able to have the company of whomever he considers the most important person in his life. Without exception.

Apparently, a few conservatives are so eager to impose their own religion's concept of morality on people that they have not the slightest shred of compassion for these people.

I really would love to see any demonstration that allowing gay people to have any of the privileges of straight couples in any way reduces the rights of those straight couples.

And so, although Pres. Obama's order constitutes what is considered a liberal act, I see nothing wrong with it. And this is why I cannot consider myself a "conservative," even though I believe that conservatives are basically right on most important issues.

The successor to John Paul Stevens

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has stated that he is about to retire. And of course President Barack Obama will appoint a successor. While many conservatives are gearing up to fight if Obama appoints a very liberal successor to Justice Stevens, I'm not really going to get all agitated.

Why? Because Justice Stevens is just about the most liberal judge on the current court. And so, short of appointing a Communist, Pres. Obama cannot really affect the Court's direction, at least in a leftward turn, by his appointment. And he's not likely to try to move the Court in a rightward direction. So there is no hope that he would do that.

And thus, there is really no reason to worry too much.

Arrogance

Now Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Pres. Obama seem to have forced their health care bill through. Only a court decision that the bill is unconstitutional can derail it. It is certainly arrogance on their part to force this monstrosity through, in the face of disapproval of the American people. The House of Representatives is supposed to represent, which they certainly are not doing in this law.

It is impossible, unfortunately, to repeal the bill, as Senators James DeMint and John McCain are calling to do, at least for the next three years. Even in the wake of an election this coming November, the Republicans may win enough seats to take over the Congress, but they certainly will not have the ²/₃ majority they would need to pass a repeal bill over an Obama veto. So repeal would have to wait until at least January 2013. Only the Supreme Court can save us from this folly.

More "ideological purism"?

It seems that Senator John McCain is facing a primary challenge from a former Congressman who has since become a conservative talk show host, J. D. Hayworth. One more case of "ideological purism." For Hayworth has been characterizing McCain as someone who campaigns as a conservative but legislates as a liberal. And of course, this implies that McCain isn't "conservative enough," whatever that means. Well, (to quote McCain in another context!) I have news for Hayworth and his ilk: McCain is, by general United States standards, a conservative. The American Conservative Union has given him ratings ranging from the 60s to the 80s, and while some people argue that makes him rather liberal compared with other Republicans, it is still on balance (compared with the US center) conservative.

The thing that bothers me is that the conservatives who want to get rid of people like McCain will, if they get their way, force the United States leftward. Because hard-right conservatives will drive the American voter into the Democratic fold. Even the conservatives' hero, Ronald Reagan, understood this. (See my earlier posting from June 25, 2009.) I had hoped that the recent success of our newest Senator, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, might teach them a lesson. Brown is a Senator because the Republicans, including the conservatives, were willing to back him, even though he was hardly a far-right conservative. If they had refused to back Brown, Massachusetts would have elected Martha Coakley, and Pres. Obama would have gotten his far-left program through the Senate.

John McCain deserves re-election. And if the Republicans reject him in favor of Hayworth, this risks giving the Democrats the seat, for Arizona, no matter how conservative a state they see it as, still can elect Democrats. (How about ex-Governor, now Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano?)

Let us honor Reagan by using Republicans' energy and money to fight Democrats, not defeat genuine conservative Republicans who may simply not be "conservative enough."

I was happy to hear people like the conservative broadcaster Mark Levin proudly endorsing Scott Brown for the Massachusetts Senate seat. But his endorsement of the Hayworth challenge to John McCain is a serious mistake.

What the GOP needs

It has come to my attention that when Scott Brown, the newly elected Senator from Massachusetts, was asked what kind of a Republican — conservative or liberal, for example — he was, he responded

I'm a Scott Brown Republican.

Well, I think that's what the GOP needs — not specifically Scott Brown Republicans, but Republicans who are themselves, not somebody else's idea of what a real Republican is.

We need Scott Brown Republicans, John McCain Republicans, and it's a shame we lost Arlen Specter to the other side because some ideological purists made it hard for him to remain in the GOP.

Don't get me wrong. We need the conservatives, too. But their own hero, Pres. Ronald Reagan, recognized that you can have an ideologically pure party, or you can have a majority party, but you can't have a party that is both.

That's why, for one thing, I'm unhapy that there are people who are challenging John McCain's re-election bid in Arizona. To them, McCain is insufficiently pure as a conservative. It's people like those challengers who will ensure that the Democrats control the U. S. government!

Now, let's come up with a new health care bill!

It looks as if Scott Brown's election has finally brought the juggernaut to a halt. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has admitted she can't get 218 votes to ram the Senate bill through the House, so any bill is going to need to get through both houses again, and Brown will join the other Republicans in a 59-41 vote, at least. And the message is finally getting to President Obama: He's not going to get a health care bill at all, unless they start from scratch and write a new bill that will get some Republican votes.

So let's proceed. The government (alias "public") option already had to go to get the vote of people like Sen. Joe Lieberman. Let's also scrub the mandate that requires people to buy health insurance or pay a fine. (If you have to make them buy health insurance, there must be something wrong with the pricing, the benefits, or both!) And recognize that the way to control costs is simply to get a handle on malpractice suits and the resulting defensive medicine -- we need meaningful tort reform!

That's a start, anyway; let's get going!

Thank you, voters of Massachusetts!

It looks as if the message that Massachusetts voters sent, by electing Scott Brown to the Senate, was picked up. It took a little time, but it looks as if Pelosi et al. have given up.

He did it!

Scott Brown is now the Senator-elect from Massachusetts! If this doesn't show how big a hole Barack Obama has dug for himself, nothing will.

Brown won on one pledge — to vote against the so-called health care reform that Pres. Obama is pushing. If his win does not kill this bad bill in its tracks, our Constitution is a dead letter.

Three cheers for Sen.-elect Scott Brown!

On Martin Luther King and the holiday in his honor

Today is a holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. And it seems that one risks being called a racist if one refuses to think that Rev. King was worthy of such a holiday. But here goes.

Rev. King, in the early part of his life, was a leader in the struggle for civil rights, and justly deserves praise for this. But later, he took on another cause, for which he deserves, not praise, but condemnation. He became an opponent of the fight against international Communism, particularly in Vietnam, and one must ask,

If freedom for African-Americans was worth giving up people's lives to obtain, why was freedom for Vietnamese (Southeast Asians) not worth giving up people's lives?

There are others I consider more worthy of being given a holiday to commemoriate the civil rights movement. Like Thurgood Marshall, whose work led to the Brown v. Board of Education decision, and became the first African-American Supreme Court Justice.

I suppose some might argue that African-Americans should be allowed to choose their hero. But I cannot see lionizing Rev. King.

Let's work together -- this is good for a change

In 1964, probably before many of the readers were even born, much less old enough to vote, I had my first chance to vote in a presidential election. [You had to be 21 then (unless you lived in Georgia or Kentucky), not 18, so I could not vote in 1960, though I was 18 in 1960.] The Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, who contemptuously dismissed the moderates in the party with his famous quote:

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

I was one of many Republicans who did not vote for Goldwater that year — I felt I was being read out of the party, though this was my first year of eligibility to vote.

Several elections later, the Republicans nominated Ronald Reagan, who was just as conservative, if not more so. But his attitude was much more inclusive: he had named moderate Sen. Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania as a running mate in an earlier election year, and chose the leader of the moderate faction, George H. W. Bush, as his running mate that year. The difference was dramatic: he won.

Last year, the extremists of the GOP rejected Dede Scozzafava as insufficiently conservative and left her so peeved that she endorsed the Democratic candidate, who won the election in a disctrict that had been Republican since 1870. So Nancy Pelosi got one more soldier in her army. Did this help conservatives or the Republican Party?

I'm glad to see that this year they seem to have learned theie lesson. Last night I was listening to a conservative talk radio program hosted by Mark Levin, who seems to be fervently backing Scott Brown, the candidate who seems to the best hope for breaking the filibuster-proof 60-vote Democratic bloc in the Senate. And Brown is the type of moderate Republican they have often criticized as a "RINO" in the past. Thank you. We need to work together. Conservatives enforcing ideological purity have led to people like Arlen Specter and James Jeffords leaving the party, and you really need to ask again, "Did this help conservatives or the Republican Party?" It really did not.

Let's all work together and support people like Scott Brown, as moderates supported Bob McDonnell, who today takes the oath of office as Virginia governor.

The Massachusetts special election

Some of the polls I see show Scott Brown, the Republican, actually ahead in the special election that will fill Edward Kennedy's Senate Seat. For this to be happening in a State as liberal as Massachusetts shows that the people are clearly upset with the Obama administration's health care "reform" bill. If the State that sent Edward Kennedy to the Senate, the only state that George McGovern carried, the bluest of the blue, is close to electing a Republican to fill that seat, it gives us a sign.

The American people are saying, "KILL THIS BILL!" By any means, whatever the opposition to this bill can do, they must do all they can to hold this bill up, because even doing nothing is better than this bill.

On the case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger

As this article points out, today a possibly groundbreaking "gay rights" case starts its path through the court systems: Perry v. Schwarzenegger. If it succeeds, it will lead to as fundamental a change in the legal treatment of sexual orientation as Brown v. Board of Education did to the legal treatment of race. And while I hope it succeeds, I have to worry that it might fail. Because failure might be equivalent to Plessy v. Ferguson, setting the cause back for many years.

Those who have been reading this blog know that I feel that the incremental approach, starting with gaining marriage rights, without perhaps the name, (i. e. the "civil union" approach) and then getting marriage later on after some of the resistance has been dulled by experience — the approach which has worked in Vermont — has more chance of success. I see nothing wrong with the idea of gay marriage, but why not go for the thing you really want — rights — if you can get more support for that than you can get for the word "marriage" itself?

One thing that gives me some hope is that the legal team challenging California's Proposition 8 is led by two lawyers who represent opposite ends of the political spectrum, Theodore Olson and David Boies (the two lawyers for opposite sides in Bush v. Gore.) It has always saddened me to see that the same political Right that generally acts in a "pro-freedom" direction on economic issues often takes the side of bigotry and intolerance on social issues. But here it's different.

If the pro-rights side wins here, it will make me happy. But I'm just afraid it's an awfully big "if."

Chickens coming home to roost?

In 2008, I posted a lot of reasons why Barack Obama was a bad choice for the Presidency. One of the points I made was that as a product of Richard M. Daley's Chicago machine, he was used to a style of government that would run roughshod over all opposition. Well, the American public did not choose to consider such points, and Obama now sits in the White House. And he's been governing true to form. Anone with any misgivings about the desirability of an Obama policy is simply ruled to be an obstacle to progress, and ignored. The Congress is about to pass a health care bill which the majority of the American public opposes, even believing (as I do) that doing nothing at all would be better than enacting this unfortunate bill. Because the Senate has its 60 Democrats who can override any filibuster threat, there is simply no barrier to this blockbuster, unless the differences between the two chambers of Congress turn out to be so serious that they cannot be reconciled — and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are doing their best to prevent any word of what is being negotiated behind closed doors getting out, so that secret deals will assure a bill that both chambers will approve.

It looks as if the only possibility of derailing this monstrosity is a challenge to the constitutionality of this bill's mandate (buy approved insurance or be fined!) ot another constitutional challenge over the special sweetheart deal that Sen. Ben Nelson got for Nebraska. (Even Nebraskans are embarrassed by this, saying that while they elected Nelson to get Nebraska its share of benefits, this was going too far, and recent polls show Nelson losing if he ran against a challenge by the Republican governor of the state!)

Until these objections on constitutional grounds get to the courts, of course, nobody can tell how the courts will ruled on them. Let us hope that at least in the courts, some sanity reigns.

Abortion and the health care bill

Interesting that the health care bill may founder on the issue of funding for abortions. Frankly, I don't care much one way or the other on this issue, but if it gets to the point where Ben Nelson won't vote for it because it allows Federal funds to be used in a way that indirectly pays for abortions, and it stops the bill from going through, while other Democrats won't vote for it if the Stupak proviso is added, great! It stops the bill, which is what needs to be done!

The bad things in the bill have nothing to do with abortions, of all — the requirement that you must buy insurance or pay a fine, and the "public option" (which the Senate has weakened so it looks satisfactory, but what a Senate/House conference might do I can't predict): these are the gross evils of this bill. But if it's abortion that kills the bill in its tracks, so be it. I don't really care why it fails, only that it fails.

A broadcasting slip?

Last night I heard two commercials for Meg Whitman, former head of eBay, who is planning to run for Governor of California in 2010. The problem is, I live nowhere near California. What was going on?

I just hope the Whitman campaign wasn't billed for those ads. What kind of slip-up permits an ad for a California electoral candidate to be broadcast on a Washington, D. C. radio station, not once but twice?

Perceived (lack of) intelligence?

One thing I have noticed in my lifetime is that liberals seem to be perceived as more intelligent than conservatives. Way back in the 1952 election, Adlai Stevenson was considered the "intellectual" candidate, though Dwight Eisenhower, after retiring from the Army, had been a university president. And John Kerry, in 2004, was quoted as having said "I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot!" Yet looking at Kerry's college grades and George W. Bush's (from the same institution, Yale University!) it seems that the two were about the same, with Bush's perhaps a bit higher, even!

The examples are quite numerous, extending to Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan as well. And the most recent has been Sarah Palin, the 2008 vice-presidential candidate of the Republican Party.

Well, Gov. Palin recently put out a book. And it may be possible that it was to some extent written by others, but I'm sure it represents her thoughts accurately. And I have to say that despite all the negatives I've heard about Gov. Palin, the book (at least the parts I've read; I have not gone through it all) seems to be a well-thought-out work. As I've said before, she is not my preferred choice for the 2012 presidential nomination, but I have no doubt that if she is the nominee, she would be a better President than the person now holding the job. Yes, in 2012 if the candidates are Sarah Palin and Barack Obama, there is no question that my vote goes to her.

Universal health care?

President Obama says we need "universal health insurance." And he means you buy health insurance even if you don't want it, on pain of a fine! That kind of "universality" we don't need or want.

It would be fine if "universal health insurance" simply meant that if your employer didn't want to provide it, or if you just could not afford it, you got help in paying premiums from the government, the way if you're out of work you can colledt unemployment insurance. And that kind of universality -- without the coercion of a fine -- would get my support. What Obama wants, as I said, is just not right.