House of Eratosthenes

We’re fortunate to live in a country where popular opinion is so important. In fact, of all the news stories that clamor for our attention, probably none is so important as the reaction of the public-at-large to all those news stories…that’s probably the biggest one of them all.

This creates an interesting dilemma for us, living as we do in a nation where we have the absolute God-given right to form whatever opinion we so choose to form, independent of outside coercion. Do we? Do we, really?

Two things happened yesterday. One, the attempted Senate filibuster against Samuel Alito, was permanently consigned to the mists of history as it became clear Democrats lacked the 41 votes needed to sustain it. This raises the question: What was that all about? It was not about popular will, because if it was, a filibuster would not have been needed. It was not about “loyal dissent,” since the threshold for obstructing Senate action through that loyal dissent, surpassed what could be ginned up by a margin of thirteen votes. Nor was it about the principle of the thing, because for every principle believed to be “defended” by the filibuster, even by the most intellectually reckless, there were two or three more principles to be defended by getting Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court where he belongs. The Judiciary Committee had a whole week to show us how Alito would fail us on the Supreme Court, and all they managed to show was how much Alito had to teach them about American constitutional law.

The other thing that happened, with the filibuster episode safely relegated to the sands of time for all eternity, was that the opinion poll machinery came out of hibernation, brushed its fur, scratched its back against a tree, and started looking for fish and honey. Extra! Extra! Bush support down to 42 percent in poll!

The rating is the worst for a president entering his sixth year in office since the Watergate scandal downed Richard Nixon and reflects war fatigue, persistent discontent on the economy, ethics concerns and rising interest in Democratic alternatives in a midterm election year, ABC reported.

Funny, I didn’t see one single opinion poll about whether the Democrats were on the right track filibustering against Alito.

I would argue that a filibuster poll is more newsworthy than a Presidential approval-ratings poll. If the filibuster is protecting the right of the minority to dissent…don’t we deserve to know what kind of minority that is? Shouldn’t we know whether it’s an almost-majority minority, or a moonbat-minority? Or a flat-earth, “we never landed on the moon” minority? Or…a “handful of senators who are worried sick about raising funds for the midterms” minority? Would that not have been an important thing to know?

President Bush, meanwhile, appears to be doing exactly the same thing about the War on Terror, and about the economy, that any responsible President would be doing, Republican or Democrat. Oh, I’m sure there are millions of people who disagree with me about that…but they’ve had four-years-plus to get their 527 groups started and make the case to me exactly what a better President would have been doing, and all I’ve heard is a lot of “YEEEEEEAAAAARRRGGGHHH!!!” and “Bush LIED!!!” and rumors about Haliburton and Skull-n-Bones. So if my opinion stands that the whole War on Terror is just something any President would do…after one discards the downright irresponsible Presidents we could be having, and thank God we don’t have one of those right now…how does the opinion poll even matter? To say nothing of the fact that, according to the Constitution, President Bush can’t be re-elected again.

We are supposed to be thinking for ourselves in this country. We have the right to do so. All established institutions, private and public, are supposed to be supportive of us in exercising that right — regardless of who disagrees with whom.

And we are supposed to be jealously guarding that right, to form opinions of our own. In fact, if & when we find ourselves agreeing with a great multitude, that’s supposed to be a coincidence…or what happens naturally, when self-evident facts are impressed upon a large number of intelligent, preceptive, independently-thinking conciousnesses.

And yet, our print media tells us when Vox Populi matters. Without much justification. How long do you really have to wait before the next Presidential approval-ratings poll? You’ll see dozens of them, before Memorial Day, and everybody knows this. We expect it. Nobody questions it anymore.

And by omission, it also tells us when Vox Populi is entirely irrelevant. Had we had a Democrat President, and a Republican Senator uttered the syllables “fili” — you would have seen an opinion poll, a la Clinton Impeachment, 1998, before he got to the “buster.” This go-round, however, the press somehow just didn’t find the time to get one going. Too sleepy. In effect, our media decides for us, when we are supposed to be concerned about what everybody else is thinking, and when we are not.

We let them.

Why?

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Feelings First, Education Second II
Sunday, January 29th, 2006

Feelings First, Education Second II

I submit that this is being done by highly intelligent and ethical people who have accumulated vast amounts of experience in the print media…acting with the absolute best of intentions.

And yet.

On October 31, the Sacramento Bee printed a story called “Young Futures on the Line,” subtitled “First in an occasional series on the California High School Exit Exam and its impact on the class of 2006″ (link requires registration). The Bee began following around a handful of high school seniors with lukewarm gradepoint averages, and started to monitor how their school careers would be affected by the California State Exit Exam.

Page A1 above the fold, of course. What could be more important than the future of our children.

By January 25, the students, eagerly looking forward to the graduation ceremony, got back the results of the Exit Exam. Some passed, and some failed (link also requires registration). The Bee followed up with a special installment to the series, probing the emotional impact involved when young people are told their best isn’t good enough. An interesting leitmotif bubbling to the surface of this particular installment, several times, was that the conundrum was a consequence of California having an Exit Exam. It was not a consequence of kids screwing around, or a local education system failing to deliver the goods, or parents creating a home environments encouraging bad study habits. The test was the problem. Kill the messenger.

I note the following:

1. The January 25 installment really doesn’t have a lot to do with the young “futures.” It has to do with the present. As in, the feelings of disappointment involved when you fail to pass the Exit Exam. The implication is that the students have experienced, for the very first time, an episode in which they have failed to perform, and this has an impact on their prospects of getting something they want. This concept appears to pack a lot of novelty for students who are in their final year within the K-12 system. That is really, really disturbing.

2. The real concern that was addressed in the story, was the prospect of graduating with the class. That is not a “future” concern, except to say the actual commencement ceremonies are technical a few months into the “future”. Most of us, when we use the word “future” with regard to young people and their educational careers, refer to something quite different, and quite a bit more important.

3. Retaking the Exit Exam can be done in February and again in May. Should the students pass in February, they have a good shot at graduating with the rest of the class, which means nothing will have been changed by the Exit Exam except for the arrival of a momentary, perhaps well-needed little scare — permanently relegated to the past.

4. Should the February scores fail, the failing students will have yet another chance to take the Exam in May, at which time, should they then pass, they will receive an actual high school diploma — not a GED. They will suffer only to the extent that they will not receive this diploma with the rest of the class.

5. Should they take the Exam in May and fail at that time, then they’ll have to pursue diploma equivalents such as the General Educational Development (GED), or the California High School Proficiency Exam. The California State Exit Exam is needed only for the actual diploma, not for the diploma-equivalent alternatives.

6. As I recall, the way this story was actually printed on the paper, you became aware of #1, above, by reading the first page. You would not have been aware of #2, #3, #4 or #5 unless you took the time to complete the first page and break the newspaper open to pursue the story somewhere inside. I do not know if that was deliberate, nor does it very much matter.

7. The very first paragraph of this installment documents an incident of a named minor deliberately damaging public property. It appears the public is expected to take note of that only for purposes of identifying how frustrated the student is with the notice that he has failed the math portion of the Exam.

8. Further down in the story (and floating over the story in large, bold type, as I recall) is the quote “That ain’t my goal, to go to no night school and not walk the stage.” Someone working at the paper thought it was important for readers to become aware of this quote. The impression that this particular quote conveys to some of us, I suspect, is different from what was intended by whoever chose to include it.

9. As is always the case in the Sacramento Bee, I’m being summoned to feel sorry for poor people who wear much, much, much nicer clothes than I usually wear, especially the shoes which are top-of-the-line, brand-spanking new, and in this case even get a mention at the top of the story.

Now, I don’t mean to imply that people who work in the print media are stupid. Some of them are a lot smarter than I am. Probably, a whole lot of them. But their thinking is flat. It is insect-like; what one of them thinks, it appears that all of them think. That is a great pity, because one of the basic tenets long cherished by the “hive” is that diversity is a positive attribute and, heck, our hive is as diverse as anybody else’s, if not moreso.

But how diverse are they in the field of ideas? Nobody stopped to think that the quote, cited in #8, made the poor high school senior look like a dumbass.

Once you read between the lines, you see this is nothing more than a hit piece on the Exit Exam. We gotta get rid of it, it hurts the kids’ feelings. What this piece does to actually support the Exit Exam, potent as it may be, is unintentional. I’m going to go waaaay out on a limb, and just guess at that.

Such experienced, intelligent, and talented people can collaborate together and put so much effort into putting out Message A, and contrary to their intentions, end up broadcasting Message B. Message B, quite the opposite of A, specifically pointed out that we have these kids whose diplomas would have meant nothing, had the Exit Exam not rescued them by throwing a tiny little bit of personal accountability their way, probably for the first time in twelve years and maybe for the last time in decades. How is it that the experienced, intelligent, and talented people seem to be so oblivious to this? Our print media enjoys First Amendment protections well above-and-beyond what is enjoyed by people in the electronic media…certainly, above-and-beyond what is enjoyed by professionals in talk radio! They’re supposed to have this protection, and the reason for it is that we, their readers, should be introduced to ideas to which we otherwise would not have been exposed.

But we have this fire-ant thinking going on. In the print media, worse than what one hears on talk radio. Nobody in the newspapers, particularly in the large metropolitan areas like Sacramento, seems to be searcing for the salient point that nobody has made quite yet. Nobody’s going after the better-mousetrap. And based on what’s appeared in print in front of me, here, it doesn’t look like “diverse” mindsets are being herded into conference rooms to get into intellectual conflicts and emerge with products that offer robust, multi-directional viewpoints on the news that can offer the reader some perspective.

They just covered their front page with a bunch of doom-and-gloom about kids who feel bad because they might not be able to graduate with the rest of their class…kids who use “ain’t” when asked how they feel about failing the Exit Exam, and sprinkle so many multi-negatives into one sentence that you can’t interpret from the actual word structure what they’re trying to say.

If you read the whole story, you’re left thinking “Hooray for the California State Exit Exam.”

And the people who wrote the story, remain clueless. They think they just scored a big hit on it.

Amazing.

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Feelings First, Education Second
Sunday, January 29th, 2006

Feelings First, Education Second

A British school has passed a policy forbidding students from raising their hands, and forbidding the teachers from calling on those students if the students do raise their hands.

A school in London has banned children from raising their hands in class and teachers from calling on students with their hands raised.

“It is every child’s instinct and every teacher’s instinct as well because it is ingrained in us,” said Andrew Buck, the school’s principal.

“Some pupils are jiggling so much to attract the teacher’s attention that it sometimes looks as if they need the lavatory, then when it is their turn they often don’t know the answer. Boys — and it is usually boys — are seeking attention, so they put their hands up before they have had time to think about the question.”

Buck said the same children often wave their arms in the air, but when teachers try to involve less adventurous pupils by choosing them instead, it leads to feelings of victimization, the Daily Telegraph reported Saturday.

To spare embarrassment of the students who do not know the answer, the school has incorporated a “phone a friend” system, allowing one child to nominate another to take the question instead.

I don’t think I quite understand that last paragraph. The teacher calls on a student who did not raise his hand, and the student, in turn, calls on another student? This would be the egghead of the class every time, wouldn’t it? The brainy kid? Bob sits there all day answering questions while everyone else just redirects to Bob?

What a great bullying tactic that would be…with the force of school policy behind it. It would never cease to be a source of amusement.

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Crank Up The Volume, Lose Your Car?
Sunday, January 29th, 2006

Crank Up The Volume, Lose Your Car?

St. Louis is moving a bill along that, if it becomes law, would authorize the police to impound your car if you play the music too loud.

These things are always controversial, and I have a tough time understanding why, because I’m not inclined to appreciate music that makes my head throb. But I do try to understand the other side of things.

Impounding a car for playing loud music is too severe, opponents said, and ripe for abuse.

“It’s almost idiotic for us to take somebody’s car for something like that,” Alderman Stephen Conway said.
:
Bob Pfeiffer, who has been installing custom car stereos for 23 years in St. Louis, said the ordinance could destroy his business.

“I might as well lock my doors now,” said Pfeiffer, who operates Automotion Alarm and Car Stereo on North Broadway.

Not all “tricked out” stereos are used for cruising and thumping music, said Pfeiffer, whose his clients include jazz musicians.

“What a crock,” Pfeiffer said. “It’s really a bogus bill.”

Well, I understand the ripe-for-abuse argument, but it really all comes down to what the environment is like. And this is one of those situations where it’s probably a good thing that I don’t get to decide if this is good or bad, because I don’t live in St. Louis. As usual, though, if called upon to form an opinion, I look first toward the things one side alleges that nobody on the other side disputes, for whatever reason they choose not to. The article makes mention that previous ordinances have carried exactly the same definition of the “auditory graffiti,” as the councilman who wrote the new bill calls it, although the penalties have stopped short of confiscation. That councilman, Graig Schmid, makes mention of windows rattling.

Other aldermen said loud music coming from cars is among their top complaints from constituents. Nobody in the entire article bothered to say “naw, c’mon, it’s not that bad.” Maybe they would have, if asked. But I can only go by what I see here.

No, the opponents to this bill are focused on whining.

But the new measure would outlaw possessing or installing any car stereo with a speaker over a foot in diameter; having more than one speaker 10 inches in diameter; more than 10 speakers overall; more than two amplifiers; and any amplifier over 300 watts.
:
On Friday, some aldermen complained that the measure is heavy-handed. Stephen Gregali, who represents the 14th Ward, questioned whether police would get rulers to measure the length of speakers.

“It’s like killing an ant with a howitzer,” Alderman Charles Q. Troupe said of the measure.

Gosh, Alderman Troupe. Golly, Alderman Gregali. I’m not sure I understand what the complaint is. Ten inches? Police with rulers? City councils pass ordinances based on inches, feet, ounces, tons…all the time. When things are outlawed, there are measurements involved. That’s a good thing, too. You wouldn’t want to have a speed ordinance in your neighborhood that says “Don’t drive TOO FAST through here, m’kay,” leaving that up to the interpretation of whoever enforces or adjudicates every single violation of that ordinance. That would be a mess.

It would also be a mess to base it on decibels…which a lot of cities do nonetheless, and for all I know, maybe there’s some language about decibels in this ordinance too. Imagine coralling witnesses to a noise infraction, and having people who don’t even know what a decibel is, say “yeah, whatever it is you’re talking about, that guy was definitely over it.” Ten inch speakers on the equipment — that is about as measurable, and therefore about as fair, as you can get.

Again: nobody in the article is saying that’s too stringent. Nobody in the article is questioning whether that is a problem. They’re arguing against the concept of actually doing something about it…while constituents are complaining, and windows are rattling.

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The Most Liberal Movies
Saturday, January 28th, 2006

The Most Liberal Movies

About six months ago I took out a subscription to TOTALFARK, the premium service provided by the Fark.com website. FARK is so awesome, because it has a format that encourages participation from its users, and this has caused it to explode as a presence on the innernets over the last few years or so. Articles are linked from FARK — and web servers collapse. FARK has become an eight hundred pound gorilla.

The other cool thing about FARK is that it is flooded with liberals. Snotty, self-righteous liberals who think they’ve become political geniuses because they watch The Daily Show. Liberals who don’t know or care about the difference between a fact and an opinion. Liberals who patrol the innernets as self-appointed Thought Cops, looking for evidence of opinions different from their own, be they legitimate opinions or not, so they can “correct” those “wrong” ideas and make sure the “right” ideas always have The Last Word.

So as a paid subscriber, how in the world could I resist linking The Political Teen’s list of the 100 most liberal movies of all time. Political Teen compiled the list by tabulating the amounts of money contributed to liberal causes by each well-known actor in recent times, and then compiling a database of who appeared in what film. From this, a point system was devised where each liberal movie was assigned a negative number, and then the list was simply sorted — with “American President” on top.

The consensus came back rapidly: The list is stupid. The content was stupid, and the concept was stupid. One guy offered a comment, with which I had to agree, suggesting “what about judging the movie based on content, rather than the polictical affiliation of the actors or directors invovled? …me thinks someone has a small penis.”

I don’t know about the penis thing. Mine is anything but small, of course, but more to the point, I have to take similar issue with Political Teen’s list. If the object of the exercise is to keep money out of the pockets of Hollywood liberals, then by all means, the criteria is correct. But let’s be realistic. Robert Redford is not going to the poorhouse anytime soon…and if he ever does, I can guarantee nobody close to him is going to say “you’d be rolling in it if you were a Republican, Bob.” No, Hollywood stars go supernova when the plastic surgery stops working. When they make the wrong enemies. Besides, not that I know any movie stars personally, but I get the impression they’re not known for blaming themselves when things turn sour.

But if the goal is to protest Hollywood’s service as a satellite office of Liberal America, and its investiture as a self-annointed High Priesthood of Truth, presuming to tell the rest of us what opinions we’re supposed to have, a simple change to the criteria can help achieve this. And the FARK person quoted above is right on the money. Content is important. Much more difficult to monitor across thousands of movies, but still important.

Therefore, I offer, just as a rough draft, my own list of “liberal” movies. But just ten, instead of 100.

1. The Contender, which appears nowhere on Political Teen’s top 100.
2. Fahrenheit 9/11
3. American Beauty
4. Philadelphia
5. Fried Green Tomatoes
6. A Few Good Men
7. Dogma
8. The Rainmaker
9. The Pelican Brief
10. Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones

I don’t claim this to be scientific by any means, but it is based on some kind of a “point” system, processed by the computer that is my gut. I might easily have missed…several hundred.

Historical References: Subtle references to real-life history in American politics. For example, there is a line in the Star Wars movies likening one of the lead characters to President Clinton, and the desire by some for Clinton to be allowed to run for a third term.

Down with Mayberry: This is a truly brain-damaged practice in which the story pretends to be promoting something, when it’s really declaring war on something. For example, although American Beauty pretends to be complicated, it’s really not much more than an attack on what some would call “family values.” There really wasn’t too much point to Dogma other than an exercise in annoying Christians. A Few Good Men could easily have come in as an hour’s worth of solid movie story, if the hatred for the military were to be stripped out of it.

Horse Blinders: Movies dealing with entire political offices and the people who occupy them, like The Contender, have shown a strong tendency to present a single political issue as the entirety of what’s at stake if person A gets into that office as opposed to person B. In real life, of course, most high-profile political offices that have a bearing on one issue, have a bearing on many other important issues as well. The Vice President of the United States has to make decisions about other things besides abortion rights — assuming the VP has much of anything to do with abortion. And you wouldn’t know it from watching The Pelican Brief, but a Supreme Court justice decides on a lot of other issues besides environmental protection.

Left-Wing Whining: This is where the movie’s story depends mostly, or completely, on the dictum that conservative politicians or powerful corporate conglomerates are out to screw the little guy. My habit of avoiding these movies doesn’t have quite as much to do with conservative activism, as judicious spending of my entertainment dollars. I’ve found once a movie has pushed a story involving hearty, threadbare and ethical people being pushed around by greedy, profiteering white males, such movies don’t appear to be pressured to do too much else. By itself, that’s not the way I want to spend three hours and nine dollars.

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Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… II
Saturday, January 28th, 2006

Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… II

And so I shan’t.

Travsite.com: The “Impeach Bush” Van

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What Big Brass Ones
Thursday, January 26th, 2006

What Big Brass Ones

Obviously, today is a Samuel Alito day.

Sean Hannity mentioned this just minutes ago, and it took lots of floundering around with Google to find a link to back it up. But here it is. Sen. Kerry calls for filibuster of Alito.

You’ve got to hand it to Kerry. He has got balls. He’s also living proof that that is not always a good thing.

Update: The clock was somewhat unkind to James Taranto, OpinionJournal.com. The New York Times editorial calling for this filibuster made his cut-off time, but Sen. Kerry jumped and asked “how high?” a little bit too late to make today’s Best of the Web. Nevertheless, “Best” is, as always, fresh, topical, enlightening reading.

Update: I’m instructed by my senator what opinion I’m supposed to have on a Wednesday, and on Thursday another senator announces his intent to filibuster just to make sure things happen the way the first senator said they should. Yeah that’s right. Agreements are violated without a second thought, elected representatives dispatch opinions down to their constituents rather than the other way around, dividers call themselves uniters while calling the uniters dividers.

Had to say something.

Dear Sen. Boxer,

Two weeks ago I wrote to you, pointing out how fractured our nation’s political discourse had become. I pointed out that since President Bush had sent to the Senate the nomination of Samuel Alito, Jr., who is acknowledged by everyone paying attention (including you) to be highly qualified for the Supreme Court — this was an historical opportunity to unify. Had you chosen to support this nominee, we would have seen our President and our Democrats in Congress putting aside their differences and finding common ground, to work together.

Your reply said many things, most notable among these things that 1) you chose to oppose Alito’s nomination, and 2) Bush’s nomination of this judge was the incident at fault for dividing us, and not uniting us. In short, you chose to embrace the concerns with which I had written to you, and the course you chose was one hundred and eighty degrees off from tne one I requested.

With all the respect due to you and the office you hold, Senator, I don’t know what you’re thinking. My logic was sound; when Republicans and Democrats put aside their differences and work together, reasonable minds may disagree about what’s being done, and I suppose some may say what’s being done is a bad thing. That’s a case of being entitled to your own opinion but not to your own facts. Division is division, and unity is unity. Obviously, you and I both prefer the latter of those two — but since you’ve chosen to oppose a candidate I have persuasively argued is a good fit for the Supreme Court and would be a unifying force, I am, or you are, terribly confused. It has to be one or the other.

Well, who is confused? You are the one who said “I do not deny Judge Alito’s judicial qualifications. He has been a government lawyer and judge for more than 20 years and the American Bar Association rated him well qualified. He is an intelligent and capable person.” You are also the one who said, “We certainly do not need Supreme Court justices who do not understand this fundamental [Fourth Amendment] constitutional protection.” When you call the same judge “well qualified,” “intelligent,” “capable” and then offer the opinion he does “not understand this fundamental constitutional protection” — I think most people would agree that looks like confusion.

You’re asking me to believe the President has shown himself to be a dividing force by nominating an intelligent, capable, and well qualified candidate — and you are uniting us by opposing that intelligent, capable, and well qualified candidate. Run that by me again?

Senator Kerry of Massachusetts has given you one more chance to unite the country, if this is the issue by which it is done, according to this CNN report posted just minutes ago: http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/01/26/alito/. Sen. Kerry has gone on record asking for a filibuster against Alito.

This constituent looks toward you, so he can find out if Democrats and Republicans can work together. President Bush has been highly encouraging; he could easily have nominated an intellectual lightweight, determined to swing the Supreme Court to the extreme right, “just because,” and intellectually incapable of answering any probing questions as to why. I think you’ll agree Judge Alito has exceeded that kind of performance, in spades. You, on the other hand, have been a disappointment. Please answer how you’ll handle the filibuster, should Democrats violate the agreement they signed and move to deny Alito an up-or-down vote. Now that you have specifically cited the Senate’s constitutional authority spelled out in Article II, will you make sure the Senate fulfills the obligation that is inextricably intertwined with that authority? Or will you show yourself to be among the senators who believe power can be removed from the associated responsibility, as a banana is removed from its peel?

Is your Article II power a weighty burden to be shouldered through thick and thin, in the spirit of public service — or just something you get to brag about to your constituents when they write in and try to convince you to do what’s right?

Since Article II confers on the Senate the power to advise and consent — I ask you to fulfill the constitutional obligation. Dislodge the Kerry bottleneck. Consent. I can’t think of anything more divisive than constitutional officers who refuse to lead, or follow, or get out of the way.

Sincerely,
Morgan K. Freeberg

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Participating
Thursday, January 26th, 2006

Participating

Throughout several years, I’ve learned that people who offer opinions at the water cooler are far, far, far more numerous than people who contact their elected representatives who could actually do something about the issues that arouse their concern. I don’t understand why that is. Perhaps it’s because most people are more practical than I am, and figure out that when their representative is just a pinhead left-wing hippy — better to sound off to a co-worker with an open mind, but lacking any power to do anything about the issue, than someone with a closed mind, even if the latter person does have that power.

Maybe I just have a learning disability and can’t come to understand that. It seems that a lot of our representatives are, indeed, far more responsive to the internal machinations of their parties than they are to the desires of their constituents, but it also seems to me that that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy when those constituents fail to participate in the process. And I don’t mean “vote on election day” when I say participate. I mean take the time to let your representatives know of your concerns.

Hey look, the congressmen and senators will pretend they listened to you whether they did, or not; whether they’ll be honest when they do so, is up to the people who decide to speak up — or decide not to.

January 11:

Dear Sen. Feinstein,

As you are aware, there are several voters in California who, like me, are legitimately worried about innocent women and children being able to defend themselves when in close proximity to dangerous people.

We have reason to maintain this concern. Last week, Judge Edward Cashman of Vermont, suspended all but sixty days of the sentence of a habitual child molester. You read that right: A man sexually abused a little girl, at least three times over the last four years, and for this will be required to spend only two months in prison. This has been defended as a clever maneuver to make the offender eligible for “treatment,” but of course there is no guarantee that this treatment will be successful compared to the simple and time-honored recipe of simply keeping the perpetrator where he belongs. Away from children!

Because of this, and other legal wrangling by our legislatures and judicial officers, both at the state and federal level, we continue to view the task of defending oneself, and one’s dependents, as well as innocent bystanders, just as much a personal obligation as a function of government — if not even moreso. The reason this should be of concern to you, is simple: As a member of the Senate judiciary committee, you sit in judgment of the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to our nation’s highest court.

The home page on your website indicates you have serious concerns about Judge Alito’s alleged reticence toward maintaining Congress’ traditional, yet unlegislated, authority to regulate firearms. As your constituent, I implore you to “throttle back” on this concern for two reasons:

a) To show your respect to the Bill of Rights, amendment by amendment, as each amendment was written. As you are aware, the text of the Second Amendment specifies the right of The People was not to be infringed. It does not prohibit any particular party from doing anything, nor does it extend any guarantee to any party except for The People. The meaning of this law is clear: We, the People, are to enjoy this guarantee, completely, in perpetuity. It is government’s sacred obligation to us to safeguard this guarantee, so historically, the government has not been lax in dismantling this right; if anything, it has been lax in maintaining it.

b) President Bush has presented to you, and by extension to the concerned voters of California, a unique opportunity to “heal the rift” between blue-staters and red-staters. The committee hearings have made it abundantly clear: Judge Alito would be a fair-minded jurist serving on our nation’s highest court. He would use his authority to do, essentially, what people of conservative and liberal leanings both say they want done on the bench: interpret law, as opposed to inventing new law (or unilaterally gutting old law).

Senator Feinstein, I implore you to do your part to heal our fractured nation. Recognize the excellent candidate who has been placed before you. Restore our confidence that our leaders, of different parties, can work together. Send Judge Alito’s nomination to the Senate floor for a full vote. Oppose any filibuster, be it actually initiated or merely suggested, and vote to confirm Judge Alito for the Supreme Court.

Thank you for your consideration,

Morgan K. Freeberg

January 12:

Dear Mr. Freeberg:

Thank you for writing to me about the nomination of Judge
Samuel Alito, Jr. to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the
Supreme Court. I appreciate hearing from you and welcome this
opportunity to respond.

Now that the President has put forth another nominee to succeed
Justice O’Connor, the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which I am a
member, must fulfill its obligation to thoroughly review his record, read
his opinions and evaluate his judicial philosophy.

This new justice will be critical in the balance with respect to
rulings on Congressional and Executive authority, as well as a woman’s
right to privacy, environmental protections, and many other aspects of
Constitutional law. Since Judge Alito has been nominated to fill Justice
O’Connor’s seat, the extraordinary importance of this nomination
cannot be overstated. Having said that, I intend to reserve judgment until
our due diligence and the formal hearings in January are completed.

Once again, thank you for sharing your views with me. I will be
sure to take them into consideration as the nomination process moves
forward. Should you have any additional comments or questions, please
feel free to contact my office in Washington, D.C. at (202) 224-3841.

Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

January 11:

Dear Sen. Boxer,

It appears likely that soon, the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito to the Supreme Court will proceed to the floor of the Senate for a vote.

I’m sure you share the concerns that I, as one of your constituents, have about the fracturing of our country’s political dialog. It seems lately that very little of what a Republican political figure has to say anymore, has any intellectual applicability to any one of his constituents who “lean left,” nor does the material put out by a Democratic leader have any use to a constituent who favors the “right.” This has been getting worse in recent years.

President Bush has presented to you, and by extension to the concerned voters of California, a unique opportunity to heal the rift. The committee hearings have made it abundantly clear: Judge Alito would be a fair-minded jurist serving on our nation’s highest court. He would use his authority to do, essentially, what people of conservative and liberal leanings both say they want done on the bench: interpret law, as opposed to inventing new law (or unilaterally gutting old law).

Senator Boxer, I implore you to do your part to heal our fractured nation. Recognize the excellent candidate who has been placed before you. Restore our confidence that our leaders can work together. Oppose any filibuster, be it actually initiated or merely suggested, and vote to confirm Judge Alito for the Supreme Court.

Thank you for your consideration,

Morgan K. Freeberg

January 24:

Dear Mr. Freeberg:

Thank you for writing to me about President Bush’s nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito to serve as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

As you may know, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the nomination of Judge Alito on January 24, 2006. Below please find a statement that I delivered in opposition to Judge Alito’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court:

Following that Sen. Boxer attached, in total, a statement I found on her website through a search engine. You can read it here.

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You Aren’t Kirk, And Kirk Wasn’t Always Right
Wednesday, January 25th, 2006

You Aren’t Kirk, And Kirk Wasn’t Always Right

How many times have we seen this…

Captain Kirk quickly determines that a planet must be explored, and takes two or three of the highest-ranking officers on his entire starship, plus a guy in a red shirt never seen before, to the surface. They happen to “beam down” to a point on that surface within fifty feet of the guy in charge of running the entire planet, some distinguished-looking caucasian geezer, who promptly introduces himself and speaks perfect English. The guy who runs the planet is a Viceroy, or a Proconsul, or a Tsar, or an Emperor, or an Ambassador, and wears Old-Testament style flowing robes. He has exactly one (1) gorgeous, nubile daughter who has never seen men before and finds Captain Kirk fascinating. The planet is completely lacking in old women, young men, and handrails. The guy in the red shirt dies a horrible, gruesome death. Kirk demands answers. Kirk teaches the nubile daughter how to kiss.

Then the show gets philosophical. Viceroy Flowing-Robes blames some monster, or underclass, or political dissident faction, for the plague, famine, drought, disease, lack of access to vital medicines, violence, or climate change. Kirk thinks it’s possible to reason with the monster/underclass/faction, and Viceroy Flowing-Robes insists that physical force is the only way to prevail. They argue. At this point of the show, there is some plot twist that varies from one episode to the next, culminating in some tricky situation Kirk and Spock can’t possibly survive. Break for commercial. After the commercial, Kirk and Spock triumph against the odds, and as frosting on the cake Kirk manages to negotiate a seemingly-impossible truce between Viceroy Flowing-Robes and the monster/underclass/faction. Viceroy Flowing-Robes bows to Kirk’s superior wisdom, and after Kirk and Spock beam up, McCoy makes some smartass remark. Credits roll.

I’m reading through the letters to the editor about the missile strike in Pakistan, and I’m also reading some of the postings in response to the film clips that show the things Saddam did before he was removed from power (shocking video, not safe for work, view in private, turn down volume, not for squeamish). When the events in our news get ugly, I’m seeing a common theme in the comments offered by those who take the “ostrich approach” to the ugliness. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it has a lot to do with “not descending to their level.” Lots of finger-waggling. Lots of cluck-clucking. Lots of “catch more flies with honey than vinegar” sermonizing.

I think we need to round up all the old episodes of Star Trek, and do something with them. Bury them in a time capsule until we’re mature enough to watch them again. I’m not saying Captain Kirk’s message wasn’t good, for the time in which it was produced. Racial tensions, civil rights issues, war protests…in a climate like that, it has a beneficial effect on society when you can get the word out that “just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t make it automatically evil.” It’s a good message, one for the ages.

But probably not a good message for this age. Or more precisely, for the enemy we face. Call me nuts, but I’m having a hard time looking at a fellow with darker skin who is trying to secure the right to vote that was guaranteed to him a century before…or a jew trying to escape persecution, or a woman trying to earn a fair wage, or a homosexual who doesn’t want to be beaten up…and seeing them on equal footing with terrorists. I think since anything that’s a “dialog” by definition involves two parties, you need two votes to keep that dialog on a higher moral road. Pacifism on one side, isn’t good enough. One of the signs that you’ve fallen short of those two votes, is when the other guy is killing innocent civilians just to make a political point. There are other signs, too. Lack of participation in a higher dialog, or demonstrated lack of capacity. If this were not true, we wouldn’t order exterminators when we find termite damage or ant infestation. Sometimes you need two votes…or else, down to the “lower level” you go, and you shouldn’t lose sleep over it.

So yeah, in real life sometimes I think Captain Kirk is wrong and High Commissioner Flowing-Robes has the right idea. In fact, in real life, there would be more than a few episodes where Spock would take the side of Flowing-Robes, and lecture his peacenik boss about the folly of subordinating logic to emotion. We’re living in one of those episodes now…and the people who have obsessed too much about the social messages from Star Trek, are very likely to get some of us killed.

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Healthcare Redux
Tuesday, January 24th, 2006

Healthcare Redux

Hopefully, the Republicans have already won the 2006 elections. Those won’t be happening for another eight months, but there is good reason to hope this. Powerful Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, looking around for some reasons people might possibly have to vote for Democrats this year, has settled on bitching about our healthcare system.

She’s right to bitch, because our healthcare system certainly needs work. But two years ago Democrats learned that when you bitch, the bitching isn’t enough, and voters — damn those voters! — actually want to see a plan before you’ll get enough votes to put you over the top.

Maybe that will come later. For now, it’s just the bitching. It’s all pissing and moaning. It’s…

But she added, “Today, we’re making things worse with deliberate neglect and flawed policies that are diminishing the coverage that Americans have.”
:
Clinton’s comments on health care were the latest in a series of sharp criticisms of the White House. Last week, she took aim at the administration’s handling of the nuclear standoff in Iran, just two days after saying it would go down as “one of the worst” presidencies in U.S. history.

There are some awfully smart people who know more about politics than I do, and make good money managing campaigns, who obviously disagree with me with what I’m about to say — but history backs me up. If you want to take down the status quo and replace it with something else, badmouthing the status quo won’t get you there. In fact, you’re better off saying good things about the status quo you want to displace. It’s called “The Kiss of Death,” and Democrats, for whatever reason, can’t use it. George Bush wouldn’t even be President right now if Democrats had what it takes to say “the guy you got now is doing an okay job, heck, he’s better than okay, but I think we can do better.”

There is a movement afoot in the Democratic party to use the last four words of what I just wrote, “we can do better”. This is not new. “We can do better” has always been a powerful statement

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Vox PopuliTuesday, January 31st, 2006

Feelings First, Education Second IISunday, January 29th, 2006

Feelings First, Education SecondSunday, January 29th, 2006

Crank Up The Volume, Lose Your Car?Sunday, January 29th, 2006

The Most Liberal MoviesSaturday, January 28th, 2006

Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… IISaturday, January 28th, 2006

What Big Brass OnesThursday, January 26th, 2006

ParticipatingThursday, January 26th, 2006

You Aren’t Kirk, And Kirk Wasn’t Always RightWednesday, January 25th, 2006

Healthcare ReduxTuesday, January 24th, 2006

Vox Populi
Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

Feelings First, Education Second II
Sunday, January 29th, 2006

Feelings First, Education Second
Sunday, January 29th, 2006

Crank Up The Volume, Lose Your Car?
Sunday, January 29th, 2006

The Most Liberal Movies
Saturday, January 28th, 2006

Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… II
Saturday, January 28th, 2006

What Big Brass Ones
Thursday, January 26th, 2006

Participating
Thursday, January 26th, 2006

You Aren’t Kirk, And Kirk Wasn’t Always Right
Wednesday, January 25th, 2006

Healthcare Redux
Tuesday, January 24th, 2006