Countries like to claim that they are constituted “with the consent of” their populations. This is generally nonsense. While many countries today have constitutions that were adopted by referendum within living memory, few of them were adopted recently enough that…
Legal Zombies: Laws Should Not Come Back From The Dead
When the courts declare a law to be unconstitutional, it should actually be removed from the books. It shouldn’t just be ignored. If I understand correctly, the actual term is “unenforceable”, but it’s the same thing. The courts will ignore…
Political Party Time: Ezra Klein Is Wrong About A Thing
It’s not really surprising that I’d think that, mind; I see Klein as kind of a squishy centrist’s idea of what a liberal firebrand looks like so I often think he’s wrong about things. This time he’s wrong about something…
No One Thinks You’re Objective: Just Answer The Damn Questions
No one is a completely objective conduit of a judicial philosophy and the law. Not least because judicial philosophies are subjective positions. Declaring a judicial philosophy, “originalism” for example, is declaring a subjective position. And there’s no value to espousing…
Hate: Not Good, Not Fun, But Legal
Having Freedom of Conscience means the State cannot outlaw Hate Crimes, because it cannot make law based on motivations. Otherwise, the State gets into the business of determining what motivations are acceptible. And frankly no State can be trusted with…
Executive Oversight: Gonna Keep Bangin’ That Drum
I’ve been on about this since one of the first posts on this blog (Failed Constitution Check: Executive Oversight): The United States has no effective oversight of the Executive branch. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Witness the ongoing festival of Hatch…
Re-opening Your Business: There’s An App For That
So, my local county has decided to require a cell phone app for employees of “non-essential” businesses. Ugh. Just, ugh. First, this is exactly what I was saying is the wrong approach a few weeks ago in Don’t Get Comfortable:…
Big Data: Meet Big Government
So, you think we can go back to gathering in crowds again, huh? Yeah, but no. First, most of the country very much does not have this pandemic under enough control to do that. But even if we did, our…
Just Go Home: What To Do When The Autocrat Is Correct
We’re gonna keep doing this, huh? Once more, in list-format this time, for the young ‘uns out there … no, they do not have the legitimate authority to order you to stay home yes: they do have the power to…
Again: Not Wrong, Still Stupid
Apparently, we’re gonna deal with this again now. What the hell; it’s been two weeks. Two weeks ago, I posted Still Idiots: Not Totally Wrong. It’s mostly about how, while I do agree with these crackpots that no reasonable reading…