Well, this wasn’t what I’d intended to write about today. Oh, well. You go to blog with the jackbooted fascist thuggery you have, not the reasoned discussion of political philosophy you want to have. You should read that linked article,…
Overdue Process: A Return To The Presumption Of Innocence
Something important is being talked around in the discourse around Trump shipping people off to El Salvador. These people are only accused, not convicted. And in the U.S. legal system, the State isn’t empowered to do anything to you until…
High Crimes And Misdemeanors: Everything He Does Is Illegal, So Is He Really President?
At what point, as you shut down all the legally-mandated parts of a State and replace them with illegal actions, does that State cease to be and a new one has arisen? It’s a political science version of the Ship…
No Appeal: When The Supreme Court Goes Bad
“The peace, the prosperity, and the very existence of the Union are vested in the hands of the justices of the Supreme Court.” -Alexis de Tocqueville Which was probably a mistake, but an understandable one. When the Constitution was written,…
No Confidence: The Vote Of Last Resort
Confidence can be useful, but “no confidence” is necessary. When it comes to voting, that is. In the U.S., voters are only given the option of choosing yes or no on some question or choosing one option from a list.…
Taking the 4th: Privacy And The Subcontracting State
The 4th Amendment to the U.S. constitution says: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable…
Change Is Hard: Designing A Path For Change Is Harder
Even if you ignore the “convincing everyone else to go along with it” part. Which is frankly the hardest bit. The easy part is identifying something you don’t like about the world as it is. And it’s not really that…
Hitting Escape: Like Marriages, Sometimes Countries Need To End
Situations change, people change, governments change; and now the United States is not the country they taught you that it was back in grade school civics. And it needs to just end. To be honest, the U.S. has never actually…
No Delegation: The State Should Do Its Own Work
I’m not optimistic on anything being fixable at this point, but we should still think about how to do better next time. Because there will (eventually) be a next time. And when it comes time to write the constitution for…
Calexit: Dumb Name, Smart Idea
So, California has an independence movement. I know; this is not a surprise. (Many states, mostly Republican party strongholds, have California independence movements these days; they love to say they want us out of the Union. We’re one of the…