Another good reason not to shut down the Senate

House passes parental notification bill 270-157

Kevin Smith on "Revenge of the Sith"

Spoilers!

See - I told you Lucas wouldn't fuck this one up! :p

Today's roundup: the Pope and Howard Dean

Two interesting articles this morning:

US NEWS reports on how different Howard Dean's style as DNC Chair is from his predecessor, Terry McAuliffe:

McAuliffe would limo around town, dropping in at the Palm to huddle with Washington big shots. The 2004 presidential hopeful, by contrast, takes the bus or subway, buying his own $1.35 ticket. Sometimes he bums rides from staffers or walks the four blocks to the Capitol for meetings. "Please Call Me Howard" never flies first class and always carries his own bags.

The parent demographic

Taegan Goddard notes that the Progressive Policy Institute - a Dem think tank - has conducted a study attempting to describe why their party got slaughtered in the "married with children" demographic last year:

[L]ast year's presidential election "revealed a striking gap in the political leanings of people who are married with children: They favored the Republican, President George W. Bush, over the Democrat, Sen. John Kerry, by nearly 20 percentage points -- 59 percent to 40 percent."

"But Democrats will not do better with married parents until they recognize one simple truth: Parents have a beef with popular culture. As they see it, the culture is getting ever more violent, materialistic, and misogynistic, and they are losing their ability to protect their kids from morally corrosive images and messages. To be credible, Democrats must acknowledge the legitimacy of parents' beef and make it unmistakably clear that they are on parents' side."

About Benedict XVI and conservative views

This post - and some of the comments - are reproduced from something I posted on a message board, and subsequent discussions.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Christian, I'm somewhere on the skeptical side of deism at this point.

I have to admit that I'm baffled when people say things like "I'm a Roman Catholic, but I disagree with the Vatican on points x, y and z". If you disagree with the Catholic church, how are you a Catholic?

If you challenged the Pope to justify why he holds the views that he does on homosexuality, abortion, birth control and so on, I'm willing to bet that he could give you a lengthy essay on precisely why, peppered with references to scripture. Yet, when you challenge those people who disagree with his views, or object to his "conservatism", those people rarely (if ever) attempt to refute his textual arguments, or explain how he's misreading scripture - they simply contend that the church's morality should more closely resemble their views, without any reference to scripture. By implication, it seems to me, they contend that the church should be based not upon the text of the Bible, but rather - cue Antonin Scalia impression - upon "society's evolving standard of decency".

Any authoritative text - whether it's the Bible or the United States Constitution - has to be understood to mean what it meant when it was written. If it isn't interpreted that way, then ipso facto, it isn't authoritative. "Society's evolving standard of decency" is of no relevance whatsoever; the only variables are our understanding of the original intent of text, informed by the context in which it was written, and how the text can be reasonably interpreted to apply to contigencies which it does not take into account. The context has been obscured by the passage of time, but the meaning does not change per the same; it means today what it was understood to mean at that time.

In order to dispute the views of the Pope - a man who has spent a lifetime studying the text and context of the Bible - it is incumbent upon you to demonstrate why the interpretation or translation of the text on which he bases his views is wrong, that this isn't what the Bible says. If you can't do that, or if the basis for your argument is anything other than the text itself, your argument is on very, very shaky ground.

I don't agree with the new Pope's views - or those of the old one, for that matter - on homosexuality or bith control any more than most my friends on the other side of the aisle do. Solution? I don't become or claim to be a Catholic! Being a member of a religion, to my mind, is not like being a member of a political party. You don't get to pick and choose which sections of the New Covenant you like; this isn't Burger King, you can't "have it your way" - you either accept it in toto or reject it in toto.

Lest it seem that I'm horribly cold-hearted about this, the truth is that I do feel for those people who find it difficult to reconcile their social and political views against their purported religious beliefs - but the church can only stretch so far. Dogma can be challenged, biblical interpretation can be challenged, but at the end of the day, the definition of a catholic is someone who is a member of the catholic church; to be a member of the catholic church, you have to accept the teachings of the catholic church. If you're a Christian who doesn't, then - by definition, it seems to me - you're not a catholic - you're a protestant.

The bottom line is - the church does not dictate policy to God, neither does Pat Robertson or Al Sharpton, and most certianly, neither do you or I. If you think the Church's teachings are heretical, if you believe that they are a departure from the expressed and implied message and teachings of Jesus Christ, then you need to demonstrate that, textually, and if you can't do so, you should find another church. Ahem. There is another alternative, which is of course that maybe you accept that what the church teaches is in fact accurate to the expressed and implied message and teachings of Jesus Christ, but you simply disagree with those teachings. And if that's the case, I think you are occupying territory that is very, very tough to defend.

The new Pope isn't shy to speak his mind

Story.

Last summer, Ratzinger entered an argument among U.S. bishops about whether Catholic politicians -- such as Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), then running for president -- should be denied Holy Communion because of their support for abortion rights. "Consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws" was a "grave sin" that must disqualify a Catholic from receiving the sacrament, Ratzinger wrote, and so is voting for such a politician out of support for abortion rights.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Liberal U.S. Catholics on Tuesday expressed dismay at the choice of a conservative new pope and doubted he will heal an institution racked by disillusionment and tarnished by a sex abuse scandal among the clergy.

The election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI rankled those who advocate married priests, a bigger role for women within the church and softening its policy on homosexuality, birth control, euthanasia and abortion.

Hamdi v. Rumsfeld

A fellow I enjoy debating on a message board I visit recently noted his dissatisfaction in Justice Scalia's dissent in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. So we've been batting this back and forth for a couple of days. Just for fun, I'm going to collate and repost my reading on the case here. :) Not for the first time, I concur with Scalia's view, which he summarized thus:

"This case brings into conflict the competing demands of national security and our citizens' constitutional right to personal liberty. Although I share the Court's evident unease as it seeks to reconcile the two, I do not agree with its resolution. Where the Government accuses a citizen of waging war against it, our constitutional tradition has been to prosecute him in federal court for treason or some other crime. Where the exigencies of war prevent that, the Constitution's Suspension Clause, Art. I, §9, cl. 2, allows Congress to relax the usual protections temporarily. Absent suspension, however, the Executive's assertion of military exigency has not been thought sufficient to permit detention without charge. No one contends that the congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force, on which the Government relies to justify its actions here, is an implementation of the Suspension Clause. Accordingly, I would reverse the decision below." Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. __ (2004), SCALIA, J., dissenting, at pp. 1-2.

John objects to Scalia's dissent, on the following grounds: "My objection to Scalia is twofold. The first is that he is wrong that Congress hasn't suspended habeas corpus. The did not issue a blanket suspension of habeas corpus, but they have allowed for the President to detain individuals who are in Al Qaeda, regardless of their citizenship. They did so in the Afghanistan War Resolution. They did not do it in Iraq, which is why the prisoners from Iraq have been treated as POWs under the Geneva Convention and those captured in Afghanistan have not. The second objection is that Scalia believes American citizens are secured their constitutional rights when they leave the jurisdiction of the United States. If this was true, Michael Fay could not have been beaten with bamboo. For practical reasons, its simply wrong that the Supreme Court has jurisdicition to even hear this case, much less rule that Al Qaeda gets due process". I can't support John's conclusions on either point. Let us take the simpler mattter first.

John contends that an American who goes abroad loses their constitutional rights, citing the case of Michael Fay, an American "who travelled to Singapore and was arrested for vandalism. He was sentenced to corporal punishment- being beaten with a stick of bamboo. This could never happen in the US, as corporal punichment applied by the Judiciary is unconstitutional. However, since the US Federal Courts had no jurisdiction over Singapore, they had no power to overturn the conviction or commute the sentence, and it would be crazy to say they did".

I dispute his underlying contention, and I see little or no corrolation between the Fay and Hamdi cases. Fay was arrested for the commission of a crime under the laws of the nation in which he was located, and was tried pursuant to that nation's legal system; consequentially, at no point during the commision, trial or punishment of the crime was he under US jurisdiction. It should go without saying that the United States cannot handily enforce the rights and priveleges of its citizens when its citizens leave the jurisdiction of the United States, but that in no way means that those rights are waived or suspended - they are merely beyond enforcement. However, Hamdi was arrested by US military forces. His rights, as I have just described, are conditional upon his citizenship of this nation, not his immediate locale - "it is the birthright of every American citizen when charged with crime to be tried and punished according to law"; Ex Parte Milligan, 71 US 2 (1866), at 119 - those rights may not be removed by government fiat - "citizenship is not subject to the general powers of the National Government and therefore cannot be divested in the exercise of those powers"; Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958), at 92; see also, Perez v. Brownell, 356 U.S. 44 (1958) (WARREN, C.J., dissenting); Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 738 at 827 - and his ability to insist on those rights, conditional upon being under US jurisdiction, which no-one contests that he was. Since, unlike Fay, Hamdi was under US jurisdiction following his arrest in Afghanistan, merely by being a US citizen and being physically under US jurisdiction, unless Congress had explicitly suspended the writ of habeas corpus (Milligan, supra, at 115-116), Hamdi has a legitimate right to assert the rights of any US citizen held in detention under US jurisdiction.

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This joint resolution may be cited as the `Authorization for Use of Military Force'. SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES. (a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons. (b) War Powers Resolution Requirements-
(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.
(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS- Nothing in this resolution supercedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.

"Though they reach radically different conclusions on the process that ought to attend the present proceeding, the parties begin on common ground. All agree that, absent suspension, the writ of habeas corpus remains available to every individual detained within the United States. U. S. Const., Art. I, §9, cl. 2 .... All agree suspension of the writ has not occurred here." Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. __ (2004), per curiam, p.18

Now, arguably, in the current war on terror, Congress should suspend the writ, or at least, circumscribe its use. "If at any time the public safety should require the suspension of the powers vested by this act in the courts of the United States, it is for the legislature to say so". Ex parte Bollman, 8 U.S. (4 Cr.) 75, 101 (1807). The legislature has not thus spoken; it did not do so in S.J.Res.23, and the absence of Congressional suspension is not contested by the government nor any concurring or dissenting Justice of the Court in Hamdi. Therefore, Hamdi's constitutional rights remained in effect.

Funny

I found this funny and clever...

Ten Reasons Why Gay Marriage is Wrong

1. Homosexuality is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4. Heterosexual marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if homosexual marriage were
allowed; the sanctity of Brittany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6. Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Homosexual couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Since I have some time…Roper v. Simmons

This is something I've not really commented on, although I've been stewing about it for a couple of weeks, until I ran into this excellent blog post about it, and I thought I'd repost my reply to the author here.

That was an excellent piece...I agree with virtually all of what you said. the underlying problem seems to be this notion of "the living constitution" - an idea supported by Justices like LJ Breyer - and a legal doctrine that Justice Scalia has warned will ultimately rob the Constitution of all meaning.

Like you, I am generally opposed to the execution of minors; I think it's wrong that society allows it to be continued, in any but the most heinous of cases.

But when did something being wrong make it unconstitutional?

This is the key underlying problem with Roper and many of the Court's other recent decisions: their desire to establish new rights has overriden their constitutionally ordained role; they are dreaming new rights into the text which have never been there before. The constitution is not a malleable document through which a lordly government tells us what rights we have; it is the charter through which "we the people" established a mutually agreed delegation of powers to the government. The 8th Amendment does not ban the execution of minors; neither the death penalty or its application to minors was considered "cruel and unusual" in 1791; no amendment has yet been ratified into the constitution which so defines the execution of a minor. Thus, there is no possible grounds to declare the execution of a minor "unconstitutional".

Now, that isn't to say that it's a good thing that it isn't unconstitutional. Maybe it should be. Luckily, the Framers gave us a handy dandy way to change the meaning of the Constitution. That process is spelled out, though, in Article V - not Article III (one could argue that, if the Framers intended the meaning of the Constitution to be updated by the Supreme Court from time to time, why provide a legislature-initiated amendment process at all? Why not just write into article V, "from time-to-time, the Supreme Court will update the Constitution, on examination of the evolving standard of decency in the nation and in foreign case law?" For that matter, why not just grant the court such a duty/power in Article III section 2 - which, of course, they very conspicuously did not). Just as with the 2nd Amendment, if the execution of minors is such a bad thing, if the ownership of assault weapons is such a bad thing, convince enough people and pass a constitutional amendment. Lobby your state legislature to pass a law. But to claim that it's unconstitutional is a nonsense.

I think that the problem is that many people - as a result of the spread of this pernicious doctrine of "the living constitution" are no longer able or willing to accept that just because something is morally repugnant that it can't still be (and isn't) legal and constitutional.

This is not merely legal nitpicking - it's goes to the very heart of what the Constitution means. If the constitution does not mean what it says, if its meaning can be changed through time or circumstances, then we should stop pretending and get rid of it. If the costitution is a "living document", as LJJ Kennedy, Breyer, Ginsburg, Stevens et al contend, then the constitution is moot. It is of no value whatsoever, because the only value of the constitution is that it makes government the servant of the people, rather than their master, by forcing the government to operate under the framework we and our forefathers granted it by ratifying its charter. Government can offer the people revisions to its charter, and the people can accept or reject those amendments per procurationem their State Legislatures - but the day that any branch of government is yielded the authority to redefine its charter, we will take a step towards tyranny. Roper v. Simmons - for all its undeniable good intent - is such a step; it is the court ruling what is moral, not what is legal. And as Justice Scalia noted in his dissent, "the court hereby proclaims itself the sole moral arbiter of the nation". The Founders would be appalled, and it's a mystery why the populus are not.

Off sick

Felt pretty crummy this morning, went to the doc at lunch...I have strep throat of the infectious variety, so I'm banned from the workplace until weds morning...and the shot they gave me us making me super woosy...And they syringed my ears. Which makes me dizzy...blah…

NASA - facing the loss of 1/3 of its budget - mulls killing VOYAGER

Story.

In a cost-cutting move prompted by President Bush's moon-Mars initiative, NASA could summarily put an end to Voyager, the legendary 28-year mission that has sent a spacecraft farther from Earth than any object ever made by humans. The probable October shutdown of a program that currently costs $4.2 million a year has caused consternation among scientists who have shepherded the twin Voyager probes on flybys of four planets and an epic journey to the frontier of interstellar space.

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, destined originally for a five-year journey to Jupiter and Saturn, have been extended repeatedly ever since. Most systems are functioning well, and both spacecraft are expected to provide usable data until their plutonium power sources are used up -- probably in 2020.

Today Voyager 1, about 9 billion miles from Earth and traveling at 46,000 mph, and Voyager 2, about 7 billion miles away doing 63,000 mph, are flirting with the edge of the solar system, where the sun's magnetic field and the solar wind give way to interstellar wind. Virtually nothing is known about this boundary. Data from the spacecraft show periodic jumps in radiation levels -- expected when the solar wind is no longer able to block incoming cosmic rays -- followed by smaller declines.

"By 2006, the spacecraft may have crossed into the outermost layer of solar atmosphere, where the supersonic wind has slowed and heated to a million degrees as it interacts with the interstellar wind," said California Institute of Technology physicist Edward C. Stone, Voyager's chief scientist from the outset. "If Voyager is terminated, we will lose the opportunity to observe [this] interaction."

DLC leaders make their bid for Dem party's future

Story.

In an attack on the party's dominant left wing, anti-war base, and a warning for new Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean "to do no harm," the centrist-leaning Democratic Leadership Council said it is "a delusion to think that if we just turned out our voters, we could win national elections."

Instead, the DLC called on the party to dramatically change its message to "recapture the muscular progressive internationalism of Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy and convince voters that national security is our first priority."

"To win back the White House in 2008, our party must change. We must be willing to discard political strategies that may make us feel good but that keep falling short. We must finally reject the false choice between exciting our base and expanding our appeal, because unless we both motivate and persuade, we'll lose every time," said DLC founder Al From and President Bruce Reed in a new manifesto for their party.

The fat lady - err...Speaker - sings on Social Security reform

Well - maybe, anyway:

Story.

As was widely reported yesterday, House Speaker Denny Hastert (R) of Illinois is quoted in the National Journal saying he doesn't believe the Republican Congress will be able to pass a Social Security phase-out bill in 2005.

He says it will have to wait until 2006.

Now, the idea that [supporters of reform] are going to have the fortitude, shall we say, to pass a phase-out bill within six months of an election when they were too scared to do it eighteen months before an election is preposterous.

So what Hastert is saying is that Social Security phase-out is over in the 109th Congress. Mind you, that doesn't mean I think it's over. But that is what he's saying, for all who have ears to hear it.

The Pope

There's almost nothing I can say or add to the chorus regarding the death of the Pope, so I'm staying out of it, except for expressing my disgust at the reaction of the New York Times.

Howard Dean Enjoyed Minutes 8-10 of “Fifteen Minutes of Fame” Most of All

Story.

MONTPELIER, VT – Current DNC Chief and former Democratic Presidential candidate Howard Dean had a wild ride while trying to reach the White House during the 2004 Democratic primary. It was a roller coaster, filled with peaks and valleys, hills and depressions.

What Governor Dean experienced is what many people call “Fifteen Minutes of Fame,” where a person becomes wildly popular for a very short time, before drifting into oblivion.

“It was nuts,” Governor Dean said. “The first two minutes were a blur – everything happened so fast I couldn’t possibly have absorbed it all.”

Governor Dean said that minutes three, four and five were filled with hard work, and were therefore, less enjoyable. “We were working so hard, I really didn’t enjoy them as much as I should. Sometimes you have to step back and smell the roses. Unfortunately I didn’t do that in minutes three through five.”

Butting heads with Pat Buchanan

Pat Buchanan on Ex Rel. Schaivo

"...Conservatives are hypocrites, they charge. The Right opposes judicial activism and preaches states' rights. But in Terri's case, the Right clamored for judicial activism and rejected states' rights.

But this is absurd. The judicial activist in Terri's case is Greer, who sentenced a brain-damaged woman to death by starvation and dehydration. If this is not judicial activism, in violation of a citizen's right to life, due process of law, and not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, what is?