As I've had occassion to mention from time to time, Blogger is spastic when it comes to allowing me to make comments. Seldom it does; mostly it doesn't.
So I've assembled a few recent ones I wanted to respond to/approve of. It's a bit of a commonplace book approach, but then, mostly, so is this blog.
Too bad I can't assemble the whole thing into pages and retire on the royalties. I’m sure I could even buy my own island. 🏝
The Constitution was always used to protect the freedom of the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. There was what is turning out to be a brief period from the mid 50's until the conservatives took back over the court where the rest of us found some protections from the wealthy and the power of the state. That is now all ending and we are returning to the previous structure. Nice while it lasted.
I guess that was the "interregnum" Gramsci is always being quoted about. The "morbid symptoms" were as you describe them: "some protections from the wealthy and the power of the state."
Can't have that, now, can we?
The Zimmerman case pretty much abolished the concept of self-defense we grew up with.
1. An unarmed kid, minding his own business, is walking at night.
2. Zimmerman, armed with a gun, assaults the kid.
3. The kid, assaulted by a total stranger, tries to fight back.
4. Zimmerman kills the kid with his gun.
And the law says: Zimmerman is innocent! Self-defense!
Well, to be fair, Trayvon Martin was a black kid; and Zimmerman was a white guy with probably 50 pounds on the kid.
(I'm tellin' ya, you never go wrong if you follow the racism.)
It makes you wonder who farther up might get seditious conspiracy indictments, from what I understand if Trump were convicted of it he couldn't run for public office again, there are certainly a lot of them who should never be able to, our laws allowing the worst to run for office are too lax.
Glenn Kirschner said something interesting about the possibility that some of them might be liable to be indicted for treason, considering what happened Jan. 6th was war against the United States, though I would expect that's something that the Roberts Court would probably not sustain. The definition of treason in the Constitution seems to be dangerously lax to me, considering what dangers have sprung up.
"Seditious conspiracy" is, basically, the statutory form of treason, without the death penalty or the requirement that America be in a state of war. Jane Fonda, for example, was never guilty of treason during her "Hanoi Jane" period because we were never officially "at war" with North Vietnam. As I understand it (no legal expertise being expressed here), the charge involves attempting to overthrow the government. Treason is acting against the government in time of war (the constitutional version, I mean). Sedition is considered a tough charge to prove because it's subject to the defense that the defendants were exercising their right of political speech, which can include actions (like burning flags). I don't really see how it can include attacking the Capitol building and disrupting Congress in order to prevent the outcome of the Presidential election from being enacted; so that defense may not work here.
I think the DOJ is on firm ground, or they wouldn't bring the charge (you don't bring charges you don't think you can prove in court, unless you're Durham charging Sussman). From what I've read, it seems clear this reaches to Trump. Whether the DOJ thinks so, is another matter.
And it's possible the DOJ is letting the Committee lay the groundwork for that charge (Trump's liability) through their public hearings. Which, considering how unprecedented this is (quick: name the last POTUS charged with sedition), is probably not a bad idea.
Tell me how you are going to repeal Title IX sports without repealing Title IX. When the US Constitution fails to have a right to privacy (hey, privacy isn't mentioned in the constitution...), then there really isn't any defense to these kinds of laws. It's also another convenient attack against public schools, private schools won't be subject to these laws.
I had pretty much the same thought: that this is a gross invasion of privacy, with no substantive state interest other than shaming and punishing children. But then I thought, how do you raise that without Roe, or at least Griswold?
Perhaps you can, just on the question of what possible reason the state has for this. But I don't think I'd want to put that argument in front of Thomas or Scalia or Barrett. I may be thinking too simplistically, but at the same time, what parent is going to take the case that far? By the time it was resolved, your child would have graduated college.
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