Content by aggieben
Posted at 12:01am on Mar. 13, 2006 Grassroots Support for Immigration Measures
By aggieben
I recently attended my precinct caucus, where I submitted three resolutions; one to abolish the Texas lottery, one to place restrictions on entitlement spending and give the president line-item veto power on spending bills, and most importantly, to require employers to validate the legal status of their employees.
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Posted at 9:02pm on Jan. 4, 2006 Toeing the line on immigration
By aggieben
I always told myself that I would never base my vote for someone on a single issue. I always told myself and others that the only reasonable way to choose a candidate for office is to evaluate as many relevant issues as possible and make an informed decision.
The current slate of elected officials and party elites in the GOP is starting to turn the tide of my reasoning.
Read on for more...
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Posted at 10:17am on Oct. 12, 2005 How did campaign finance become the demilitarized zone of free speech?
By aggieben
Just saw this: "Cyber Loophole. I didn't bother reading the whole article; I just read the summary on slashdot.org.
It doesn't matter though, because my point is this:
How did "campaign finance" become the demilitarized zone of free speech? Political speech normally has dollars associated with it, and is the prime protectee of the first amendment.
Why can't we simply allow anyone to give any amount of money to anything or anybody? If we really thought that money (and the corruption that supposedly goes with it) in politics were the primary problem in politics and we were serious about ending it, then we would simply have a full-disclosure rule. My version of this rule would be simple. If you give over $1000, your name must be publicly recorded as such.
The wonderful thing about this rule is its simplicity; it would discourage office-holders and candidates accepting contributions from entities that might ask for favors later on. That's also not to mention that even if the contributions are accepted, it would be much harder for the officeholder to actually do a favor because of the public scrutiny. That's all there is to it. If the people who elect a particular officeholder care about that kind of thing, then this rule would be incredibly effective. If the voters in a particular district don't care, then why should we? Let them sleep in the bed they make.
Another wonderful thing about a simple full-disclosure rule would be its cost effectiveness. Not only would it be effective as described above, but it would cost very little to implement and regulate. The FEC already does audits. The only additional thing it would have to do is require campaigns to submit lists of names. This would allow it to not spend money trying to make sure that campaigns don't buy TV ads 60 days before elections (can't wait for McCain-Feingold to get obliterated in SCOTUS for being a calloused, blatent violation of the first amendment) and whatever other crap we're asking it to do.
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Posted at 12:35am on Oct. 12, 2005 Specter (and the media) just don't get it
By aggieben
Arlen Specter is a moron. In this article by the AP (which also doesn't get it), he complains that conservatives aren't being fair to Miers and that "on doctrinal grounds they don't understand that she cannot tip her hand on Roe. I really think ... they're failing to understand a very basic constitutional principle of judicial independence".
It makes me grit my teeth to read this. There may be some folks out there opposing Miers because she hasn't said "I would vote to overturn Roe", but Specter should know better; there is honest and weighty intellectual opposition all over the conservative movement to Miers' nomination, and it has nothing to do with her "tipping her hand", as it were.
It has everything to do with President Bush picking a nominee that is obviously eclipsed in stature and qualifications by numerous other bright legal minds that were supposedly under considerations. Alito, Luttig, Jones, Clement, etc, etc, etc.
It has everything to do with President Bush's lack of willingness to go to the mattresses over principle.
It has everything to do with what is obviously, and by definition, cronyism.
It has everything to do with the fact that she is even more unknown than Roberts was, and even he made some folks uncomfortable (and still does) because of that.
It has everything to do with the fact that the White House seems to be worried about President Bush's political power, or "capital", as he calls it and his failure to understand that if this isn't something to spend political capital on, then there is nothing worthy of its expenditure (The irony is that in my estimation, he is expending far more political capital trying to convince conservatives than he would have in the confirmation process for someone from our list of favorites). This is also not to mention that if he could get 46 republican votes for his nominee, he would have been unstoppable because of the gang of 14 and the flimsiness of the filibuster.
Surely, Specter knows all of this. He is then participating in a cheap "bait-and-switch" technique promulgated by the media and other morons by accusing conservatives of "not understanding" or trying to get Miers to promise certain votes. Shame on him for doing something so moronic.
Then again, maybe he doesn't know. Then he's an ignorant moron for not knowing, but at least then he could claim ignorance.
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Posted at 3:14pm on Jul. 25, 2005 Federalist member or not?
By aggieben
Apparently there has been a discrepancy in John Roberts' record of membership in the Federalist Society. The concern is that his membership in that group is one of the things that has encouraged conservatives about his nomination. However, when asked about it, the White House responded that Roberts' doesn't recall being a member of that organization.
Does anyone know better? Is he a F.S. member (or even better, a leader) or not?
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Posted at 5:36pm on Jul. 20, 2005 Re: Constitution in Exile
By aggieben
This entry spawned from a comment posted here on redstate.org.
This is an interesting aspect of the debate to me. Firstly, the phrase itself is new to me, and apparently really doesn't have anything to do with anything, at least according to the guy who actually coined it. He seems to think the phrase has been co-opted in whichever argument is being made with regards to activism. Anyway, that's all neither here nor there.
What is interesting to me is that liberals think that judges that prevent the federal government from usurping powers not given to it in the constitution are activist and radical or extreme. It is entirely backwards to think so. From an op-ed by Cass Sunstein (who?):
Last month, for example, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down a provision of the Clean Air Act, as interpreted by the Environmental Protection Agency, on the grounds that it represented an unacceptable transfer of power by Congress to the executive branch. This remarkable departure from precedent could, if taken seriously, bring much of the activity of the Federal Government into question.
What does "remarkable departure from precedent" have anything to do with anything, really? Our judicial system uses the principle of stare decisis, not binding precedents on all cases. What if it did bring much of the activity of the Federal Government into question? Wouldn't that expose the decades of decisions by liberal "living and breathing Constitution" judges (of the type I'm sure that Sunstein would love) as activist? The whole purpose of the documents of the U.S. government is to limit the power of the various branches as well as the government as a whole. Why is it activist to actually enforce the limitations instead of vice versa?
Again:
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has recently embarked on a campaign on behalf of states' rights. It invalidated the Violence Against Women Act, Clean Water Act regulations and the Drivers' Privacy Protection Act, which was intended to prevent states from selling information on registered drivers to private companies for profit. All three were ruled beyond the power of Congress.
Sunstein has again seized upon matters that are not legally significant. That the law was intended to prevent states from doing something nasty has zero bearing on whether the federal government has any right to create and enforce such a law.
He continues:
...there is a more extreme, even radical form of conservative thought, led by judges who believe that they have privileged access to what the Framers "really" meant. Such judges are quite willing to strike down laws that depart from their view of the Constitution, even if the result would be sweeping changes in the nature of American Government.
He has no foundation upon which to rest his dislike of originalist thought, so he simply calls it names and then accuses it of arrogance and exclusivity because it can figure something out that he can't. It really just boils down to being childish in the face of superior logic. What he's also saying is that the rule of law should not be as sacrosanct as all of the abuse of power and excess of function built in to the federal government by liberals over the last 40 years starting with the New Deal (which was a Bad Deal) and that any attempt to return the powers of the federal government to a state in which they are closer to the powers outlined by the constitution as "radical" and "extreme". Could anything be less democractic? If the people want the federal government to be significantly different than what it was written to be, then it must be changed by following the rules, not by undermining the law in an elitist, condescending, undemocratic fashion. Whether or not conservatives have "priviledged" access to the Forefathers' intentions is unknown to me. I know that many liberals choose to ignore such intentions, but as far as I know they have access to them.
Further:
All too often, conservative judicial activists ignore other reasonable interpretations of the Constitution to entrench their own and do so at the expense of democratic self-rule.
There are reasonable, yet incorrect interpretations of the Constitution. For example, to think that "the right to bear arms" means that one has the right to go sleeveless is a reasonable interpretation, but utterly incorrect.
Update: I realize that I got the spelling of "bear" and "bare" confused. It doesn't change anything about my argument.
I have not hit every point in the op-ed piece, but I need to finish this post. In conclusion, he writes:
Judges should not hesitate to protect democratic government itself, as in cases where the court shields disenfranchised groups or safeguards political dissent.But some conservative judges are fighting democracy, not working with it. They should be guided by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who wrote that the Constitution "is made for people of fundamentally differing views." The fact that some judges find certain laws "novel and even shocking," he continued, does not mean they should hold that those laws violate the Constitution.
For judges to "protect democratic government itself" would in practice be highly undemocratic. We have laws to protect the parts of our government that we have deemed protectable. To step outside those bounds, even in the name of "protect[ing] democratic government itself" would be self-defeating.
Judges should be primarily concerned with protecting the law as it's written, particularly when the the democratically elected government itself is the assailant. The only way to do that is to interpret the law as it was written.
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Posted at 2:49am on Jul. 16, 2005 The Media is So Lame
By aggieben
I'm sooooo tired of
a) aruba
b) hurricanes
c) kids who wrote essays about how harry potter has changed their lives
d) the Plame game
Can we, oh vaunted Network+CNN+FOX news please talk about something that actually matters? The London bombings would be a good start. Our successes in Iraq would be fantastic.
Who cares about a weak little hurricane that causes a measly few hundred million $$ in damages? Who cares about the dead girl in aruba anymore? The Plame thing? Seriously...no crimes were committed by anyone except the stupid reporters who are out to prove something about concealing sources (more about that in my next post).
Brad Pitt gets the Flu in Africa??? Oh, heavens to Betsy No! Mariah Carey flahes her boobs?? zzzzz...
Christina Who?
A little more of this and this and this and this and this. Also, it wouldn't hurt to hear more about how the FCC, FEC, and the Judiciary are no-so-slowly and surely stipping us of real freedoms rather than evil tx republicans trying to take away your constitutional right to butt sex.
Ok. I'm done venting.
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Posted at 4:42pm on Jul. 15, 2005 My SCOTUS picks
By aggieben
My picks for SCOTUS to replace SDC:
a) M. (Michael?) Luttig - he clerked for Scalia.
b) Edith Jones - a strict constructionist with outstanding credentials
c) John Cornyn - former SCOTX justice and a strict constructionist and a sitting US senator (enhancing the prospects of confirmation)
The worst thing about Cornyn is that I think he's an excellent senator. We in Texas would undoubtedly replace him with another conservative, but getting one of his caliber is another story alltogether...
As for Prof. Glendon...well...how about this?
"During a two-year post-graduate fellowship for the study of European law, Professor Glendon studied at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and was a legal intern with the European Economic Community."
Want more opinions that rely on European law? Also, check out the quote on her homepage at http://glendonbooks.com. She seems to think (assuming the quote is representative of what she thinks) that the ultimate reasonability is to not take a solid position on anything. Do we really want another O'Connor, who apprently missed the elementary school lesson on "separation of powers" and "checks and balances" and subsequently became a judge thinking that she was a black-robed superlegislator?