Thursday, March 24, 2005

Peggy Noonan on Teri Schiavo

She pretty much captures the way I feel about this in OpinionJournal today.

The passion of those who want her to die seems so perverse it's hard to understand. Unless you connect the dots in the fringe left. Their compassion is for everything except human beings. They love animals, whales, trees, the environment, the earth. It's people (and, I believe, themselves) they can't stand.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

McCain-Feingold vs Blogosphere

The potential problems this stupid counterproductive "reform" bill is causing for bloggers, who are in fact simply citizens stating their opinions. The problem is, running a blog costs something even though many writers post here on Blogger.com, which is free. Read the whole article here.

Here's the nut, one of several:

The problem facing the FEC is that McCain-Feingold broadly restricts coordination with, and contributions to, political candidates. So what is the agency to do with all those people who use their Web sites to praise a candidate? Computers and Web access cost money, which could be construed as a financial contribution to a campaign. Ditto bloggers who link to politicians' Web sites, or any individual who forwards a candidate's press release to a list of buddies. All this is to say nothing of blogs that are affiliated with political campaigns and coordinate their activities.


Congress should act quickly to repeal this idiotic law. John McCain, admit you screwed up. Please. The problem is, McCain won't. In fact, he (or the sponsors of the bill) sued to make sure the Internet wasn't exempt from the law. And of course, they got an out-of-touch federal judge to agree.

The last election wouldn't have been very interesting at all without the Internet to keep things hopping. In the early days of our nation, pamphleteers were the equivalent of today's bloggers. Would Congress have prevented their activities, knowing how this nation turned out?

Some weeks ago, I predicted that bloggers would be the next group under attack from politicians, in the name of "reform." I'm becoming convinced that when "reform" is spoken, it is almost NEVER the politicians themselves who wish to change their activities. Instead, they will seek to control segments of the public that upset their status quo.

Blog on! (While you can.)

Friday, March 4, 2005

The coming crackdown on blogging

I predicted this, but since my blog's search engine isn't in gear yet, I can't find it (I'll link to it later). But this is precisely the kind of thing I suspected was next after McCain-Feingold got passed.

Wonkette has more on this, and it may not be as bad as it sounds, but if you read the C-Net article, it becomes obvious how out of touch with reality some judges and most bureaucrats are. Not to mention the fact that ultimately, trying to wrangle with free speech on the internet is going to be difficult, time-consuming, and above all, immoral.

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

OpinionJournal on The Supreme Court decision yesterday.

The Blue State Court

As I predicted. And also, as I predicted, Mark Levin dedicated a lot of time to this on his radio show last night.

From the article, this is my biggest issue in a nutshell:

Perhaps the most troubling feature of Roper is that it extends the High Court's recent habit of invoking foreign opinion in order to overrule American laws. "It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty," Justice Kennedy writes. We thought the Constitution was the final arbiter of U.S. law, but apparently that's passé.


If a court can selectively use "international law," or a "consensus" of foreign laws to change and/or overturn our own laws, why have a constitution at all?

Tuesday, March 1, 2005

Supreme Court vs the People

The Supreme Court today decided that the death penalty could not be applied to those under 18, regardless of the crime, or the rules in any particular state. I've just started reading Mark Levin's book "Men in Black," but I'm sure he will react to this as an example of more judicial activism and overstepping.

Justice Anthony Kennedy,not quoted in the article referenced (I heard this on the radio), cited international trends (as well as supposed trends in the US), to voice his portion of the majority's opinion. Understand something, I am against the death penalty in virtually all cases --- for different reasons, but the big point here is that the court is not supposed to make law, or take polls to determine what the law is. The Constitution, so far as I know, does not place age limits on punishments, and several states across the country (19), have decided that the death penalty is justified in some cases for minors. The high court basically is telling the people and their elected legislatures that their laws are morally wrong.

Justice Scalia gets it:

In a dissent, Scalia decried the decision, arguing that there has been no clear trend of declining juvenile executions to justify a growing consensus against the practice.

"The court says in so many words that what our people's laws say about the issue does not, in the last analysis, matter: 'In the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty,' he wrote in a 24-page dissent.

"The court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our nation's moral standards," Scalia wrote.
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