What’s Wrong with the World

Peter Wehner writes in his Commentary Magazine blog:

Senator Barack Obama has announced his opposition to a California ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriages–a decision that was forced on the citizens of California by the state’s Supreme Court. In a letter expressing his support for extending “fully equal rights and benefits to same-sex couples under both state and federal law,” Obama wrote that he opposes “the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution, and similar efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution or those of other states.”

Continue reading "Obama Supports Same-Sex Marriage, and If You Disagree You're a Bigot" »

I'm given to understand that this site has enjoyed a certain vogue, lately, and has even given rise to a forthcoming book with the same title.

Personally, I find it pretty weak tea. I mean, where are oreos?

Whenever I say anything on the Internet on the subject of brain death, I'm always looking, or even pushing, in two directions at once.

On the one hand, it's overwhelmingly important to resist the misuse of the term 'brain dead' by the media and ill-informed people to refer simply to a lack of mental consciousness and as roughly synonymous with what is called a "permanent vegetative state." The intent in diagnosing brain death is to diagnose physical death, not any degree or type of lack of consciousness per se, and the inability to breathe on one's own (to give just one example) is an absolute sine qua non for the diagnosis. People in a so-called "permanent vegetative state," on the other hand, are usually breathing on their own and are not in any sense whatsoever physically dead. If we do not hold that line and correct the sloppy terminology, we will have people saying that living, breathing, moving human beings are 'dead', which is a very bad thing indeed.

On the other hand, when I say all of that, I worry that it will give the impression that I think the diagnosis of whole brain death is straightforward and unproblematic, whereas in fact I don't think that at all.

And my reservations about the diagnosis of brain death have recently been strengthened.

Continue reading "Serious questions about brain death in new article" »

Justice Scalia's majority opinion in Heller was a tonic for those of us, as Paul notes, waiting in various states of anxiety to learn whether the Robed Masters, ever inclined to practice the techniques of deconstruction upon law, precedent, and both the grammar and syntax of the English language, would again dabble in the black arts. It is, in a word, pathetic - pathetic that this is what the Republic has come to, pathetic that more of us are not prepared to - if the phrase may be pardoned - man the barricades of self-government against such grotesqueries. We have become acculturated to a regime in which each branch of government routinely disgraces itself, so much so that most mistake dysfunction for vitality.

Not everyone, though, was so well pleased by the ruling. In point of fact, it has even been argued that the proscription of the private possession of firearms is integral to the common good, and that opposition to gun control has its origins in Enlightenment theories of individuality, asserted over against the common good. I'll note, in passing, that Feddie of Southern Appeal, who has written an excellent synopsis of the logic of Heller, dispenses with this argument within the span of a few dozen comments in the extensive thread, at least as a legal matter. Rather, however, than descending into the slough of political philosophy in order to demonstrate the errors of assimilating gun control to the common good, and of equating firearms possession with invidious Enlightenment individualism, I'd prefer to make a simpler demonstration.

In 2005, the Court handed down its decision in the case of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, a case which had its genesis in the failure of a police department to enforce a "shall arrest" restraining order against an estranged husband, who proceeded to kill his three daughters after abducting them from the home of his wife, and subsequently was killed in a shootout with police. Gonzales filed suit, claiming violations of substantive and procedural due process rights, and the Tenth Circuit found in her favour, albeit only on the procedural basis. The Supreme Court overturned the decision of the Tenth Circuit, on the grounds that a mandate for the enforcement of the order would not generate an individual right to its enforcement, but that, even if it did generate such a right, such a right could not be considered property under the due process clause. The decision was, though controversial, in accord with established precedent. Even more philosophically, the notion of an individual claim right upon the protection of the authorities cannot be sustained, inasmuch as, the authorities lacking omniscience and omnipotence as powers, many crimes would still occur, generating liabilities on the part of the authorities and their officers. One cannot be held liable for a failure to perform the impossible. The very notion, off at the end, would render governance impossible.

The upshot of the case, therefore, is that there obtains no individual right to protection provided by the authorities from malefactors.

According, moreover, to the detractors of Heller, neither is there an individual right to the most effective, equalizing means of self-defense. In fact, self-defense is apparently a dubious concept only tenuously connected to the common good.

Hence, in this equation, one has no claim right to protection provided by the state, and one has no effective right to self-defense. The common good itself stipulates powerlessness before the random criminal evils of this world. Manifestly, this is absurd, a species of utopianism - at best, the fantasy that the elimination of all implements of violence, along with the alleged "root causes" of criminality, will produce a peaceful society - and at worst, a piece of anarcho-tyranny, by which the lawful majority are to be bludgeoned into submission by both crime and petty proscriptions, the better to impose some whackaloon scheme of social reconstruction. In this instance, it is obviously the former, though I suspect many on the left fall into the latter category. It is, in any event, a violation of the common good for the fundamental units of society, families, to be left bereft of defenses against predation and savagery.

Which is why the Second Amendment, and the rights it enshrines, are in fact integral to the common good, and not contrary thereto.

A quick read of this article will surely leave you outraged. The story is simple enough: a neat amalgam of barbarism and PC bureaucracy, the sort of anarchy compounded by oppression that Liberalism so excels at producing.

A former British soldier endures as his neighborhood terrorized by a pack of feral young thugs (“yobs,” as they call them over there) for several days. He calls the police; they never come. He looks for an officer; finds none. Coming home one day to find his wife in tears and terrified, he finally has enough, and goes out to execute a citizen’s arrest, dragging one of the thugs into house and calling his mother. Thereupon the police arrive with the mother — and naturally arrest the homeowner.

This is justice under Liberalism.

Let it be noted that there was a somewhat similar case in Illinois five years ago, where a man who fought off an intruder in his house was charged with a handgun violation. State Sen. Obama voted against bills to remedy this manifest injustice twice.

Yesterday we all sat around in worried anticipation, hoping the Supreme Court would manage, this time, to maintain the plain meaning of the words of our Constitution and restore to us our self-government. The outcome was a good one — barely. But the tyranny of the Court is still in place. The four Liberals very frequently succeed in persuading Justice Kennedy to join them in their usurpations. They care not one whit about the plain meaning of the Constitution. They do exactly as they please.

Here in America, packs of feral youths exist in appalling abundance, just like in Britain. But most of them are well aware that their potential victims may be armed. On that fact, friends, much of our liberty hangs.

And we are only a tendentious opinion from one of the Liberal Usurpers on the Court, or their creature Kennedy, under the spell of the New York-DC elite adulation — one tendentious opinion citing foreign law, or sweet mystery of life, or mystical evolving standards, away from the same tyranny that would send the homeowner who defends his wife against thugs to jail, while showering the thugs with sympathy.

Jim Wallis, who once claimed that North Vietnamese boat people fled their Stalinist torturers in order to "support their consumer habit", has been thoroughly served on NRO by Pete Wehner. Enjoy:

Continue reading "Sojourner, Heal Thyself!" »

On Tuesday, the buzz from the Supreme Court was Chief Justice John Roberts’ quotation of Bob Dylan in a dissenting opinion (page 36). On Wednesday, that amusing fact was instantly overshadowed by Justice Kennedy’s latest usurpation of legislative authority. I propose that Kennedy follow the Chief Justice’s example instead of his usual trope of sweeping assertions of judicial supremacy. I have just the Dylan quotation for him:

I started out on burgundy
But soon hit the harder stuff
Everybody said they'd stand behind me
When the game got rough
But the joke was on me
There was nobody even there to bluff
I'm going back to New York City
I do believe I've had enough

— “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” Highway 61 Revisited, 1965.

(Update 7/1/2008: This poster was created by my blog brother at, and creator of, Southern Appeal, Steve Dillard)
(HT: Steve Ray)

The saying goes that the just powers of a government derive from the consent of the governed.

That, not to put too fine a point on it, is complete poppycock.

A just power is an exercise of government authority which one is morally required to obey. "Give unto Caesar" is an archtypical example for Christians. One is morally required to give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. One cannot excuse onesself from this moral requirement by claiming that Caesar's powers do not as an historical matter derive from the consent of the governed.

Under the hood the 'consent of the governed' narrative is designed to replace the natural law with consent: to equate what is good with what is willed. It is of a piece with the modern revolt against God and nature.

Today the Supreme Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution forbids capital punishment in all non-homicide crimes, excepting a couple specific “offenses against the State” like treason. The immediate case in question involves the horrifying story of an 8-year-old Louisiana girl viciously raped by her stepfather, who was subsequently convicted and sentenced under a recent (1995) statute which allowed prosecutors to seek the death penalty for the crime of aggravated rape of a child. That statute, along with all others like it, is deemed by the Court unconstitutional.

To get to this conclusion, Dear Leader Mr. Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy begins with a rather striking paragraph:

The Eighth Amendment, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, provides that "[e]xcessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." The Amendment proscribes "all excessive punishments, as well as cruel and unusual punishments that may or may not be excessive." Atkins, 536 U. S., at 311, n. 7. The Court explained in Atkins, id., at 311, and Roper, supra, at 560, that the Eighth Amendment's protection against excessive or cruel and unusual punishments flows from the basic "precept of justice that punishment for [a] crime should be graduated and proportioned to [the] offense." Weems v. United States, 217 U. S. 349, 367 (1910). Whether this requirement has been fulfilled is determined not by the standards that prevailed when the Eighth Amendment was adopted in 1791 but by the norms that "currently prevail." Atkins, supra, at 311. The Amendment "draw[s] its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, 101 (1958) (plurality opinion). This is because "[t]he standard of extreme cruelty is not merely descriptive, but necessarily embodies a moral judgment. The standard itself remains the same, but its applicability must change as the basic mores of society change." Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, 382 (1972) (Burger, C. J., dissenting).

Depending on your view of the Incorporation Doctrine, there are 5 or 6 usurpations of legislative authority in that one paragraph.

The opinion goes down here from there, as Redstate’s Dan McLaughlin demonstrates. Justice Kennedy should be impeached.

[cross-posted on Southern Appeal]

Yes, the same Doug Kmiec who has endorsed Barack Obama for President went on the talk-show, op-ed circuit in October 2005 to support President Bush's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Harriet Miers. This is what Professor Kmiec wrote in a 2005 Washington Post piece:

Continue reading "Doug Kmiec: What He Wrote When He Supported Harriet Miers" »

In a June 28, 2006 keynote address to a group called "Call to Renewal," Senator Barack Obama offered his thoughts on the relationship between politics and religion. This speech has been getting a lot of air play within the past 24 hours because of the critique of it by Dr. James Dobson on his June 24 radio broadcast of Focus on the Family. Although Dobson makes some important points on Senator Obama's reading of Scripture and his equating of Dobson with Al Sharpton, I find these comments far more troubling:

Continue reading "Barack Obama: Religious Citizens Must Sit In the Back of the Secular Bus" »

Senator Barack Obama said this today in New Mexico: ""I'll continue to stand up for equal pay as president _ Senator McCain won't, and that's a real difference in this election."

When I was 8 years old I asked my father to explain to me the difference between communism and capitalism. He answered, “Well, son, in America, a capitalist country, some people own Cadillacs and some people don’t. But in communist countries like the Soviet Union, everyone is treated equally, and no one owns a Cadillac.”

Continue reading "Robbing Peter's Wife to Pay Pauline: Obama Supports Equal Pay for Women" »

I had thought of burying, er, posting this only over on my personal blog, but then I thought that I could put a W4 spin on it by billing it as something right with the world. Which it is.

Most of my audience members here are guys, and I realize that. But I also know that several of you have daughters, some even young daughters, and lots of you have wives. So...

Are you looking for beautiful, classic-style, modest dresses? Are you willing to pay a bit more than Wal-Mart prices? Have we got a show for you.

Continue reading "Something right with the world--Spotlight on Lilies Apparel" »

Hat-tip to the one & only Razib for noticing this fascinating New Scientist report:

"Bad guys really do get the most girls"

"...two studies have confirmed it: bad boys get the most girls. The finding may help explain why a nasty suite of antisocial personality traits known as the 'dark triad' persists in the human population, despite their potentially grave cultural costs...

"The traits are the self-obsession of narcissism; the impulsive, thrill-seeking and callous behavior of psychopaths; and the deceitful and exploitative nature of Machiavellianism...

"...being just slightly evil could have an upside: a prolific sex life, says Peter Jonason at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. 'We have some evidence that the three traits are really the same thing and may represent a successful evolutionary strategy.

"Jonason and his colleagues subjected 200 college students to personality tests designed to rank them for each of the dark triad traits. They also asked about their attitudes to sexual relationships and about their sex lives, including how many partners they'd had...

"The study found that those who scored higher on the dark triad personality traits tended to have more partners...

"James Bond epitomises this set of traits, Jonason says...Just as Bond seduces woman after woman, people with dark triad traits may be more successful with a quantity-style or shotgun approach to reproduction, even if they don't stick around for parenting. 'The strategy seems to have worked. We still have these traits,' Jonason says.

"This observation seems to hold across cultures. David Schmitt of Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, presented preliminary results at the same meeting from a survey of more than 35,000 people in 57 countries. He found a similar link between the dark triad and reproductive success in men..."

Continue reading "The Dark Triad" »