2022 archive
American Taliban 0
The editorial board of the Las Vegas Sun sounds a warning.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society,” Originalist Sin Dept. 0
Michael Paul Williams has some qualms about “original intent” as interpreted by the current majority of Supreme Court:
Follow the link for context.
“A Republic, If You Can Keep It” 0
William Rivers Pitt fears that we cannot.
Courting Disaster 0
At the Des Moines Register, John and Terri Hale explain why they disagree with four recent, major Supreme Supremacist Court decisions. Their article is notable for its clarity and simplicity and I commend it to your attention.
Here’s their take on one of them (emphasis in the original):
Our view: Public dollars are for public schools that take on the challenge and the opportunity of educating everyone, regardless of skin color, abilities, beliefs, primary language, gender identity, or sexual orientation. They should not be used to support the teachings of any particular faith nor any institution that discriminates in admissions or hiring.
Twits on Twitter 0
Yet more racist twits, these ones reacting to Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas’s condemnation of the Supreme Supremacist Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade:
“This is stuff I haven’t seen since” the civil rights movement, she said.
A Tune for the Times 0
Mangy comments at the Youtube page:
America leads the world in one category in which no one else would desire that leadership, mass shootings. By making weapons of war available to damn near everyone, we provide significant numbers of unstable folks with the ability to kill large numbers of people with stunning efficiency, all to prop up gun manufacturers’ profits, which is shared through lobbyists with politicians for their complicity in the sales scheme.
Elsewhere, Michael in Norfolk observes that we are becoming a nation of hostages.
Tell Them What They Want To Hear 0
Jeff Shapiro writes of Virginia Governor Trumpkin’s–er–loose relationship with consistency, particularly as regards his position on abortion. A snippet (emphasis added); follow the link for the evidence.
“Ban Ladders” 0
David discusses the ridiculous pretzel logic that gun nuts use to pretend that the proliferation of firearms is in no way related to the proliferation of persons using firearms to randomly rub out large numbers of persons (warning: short commercial at the end).
Courting Disaster, Conflict of Amendments Dept. 0
At the Hartford Courant, Samuel Teixeira suggests that there is a logical flaw in Samuel Alito’s reasoning in his decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. (Of course, the moral flaw is obvious, but the law and morality are only occasionally related.)
Here’s a bit from hit article:
The Ninth Amendment effectively makes unconstitutional just one method of construing — interpreting –– the Constitution: an interpretation that denies or disparages a right because other rights are explicitly enumerated –– listed.
Teixeira’s reasoning is interesting, perhaps even correct, but irrelevant.
Alito’s opinion was not based on logic or reasoning and certainly not on precedent. It was based on dogma, and the arguments he made in it are nothing more than Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes for “because we can.”
(Broken link fixed.)
Whitewashing History 0
Georgia is among the states that have outlawed teaching truthful American history. At the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Maureen Downey writes of the dilemma that teachers face now that said law has gone into effect in Georgia. A snippet:
Never mind that there are many chapters of U.S. history that should cause anguish — the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre where Colorado cavalrymen slaughtered Native American women and children, the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court Plessy v. Ferguson decision that legalized “separate but equal,” the 1906 Atlanta race riot where 5,000 rampaging white men and boys murdered at least 25 Black Atlantans going about their daily lives and destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses, and the forced relocation and incarceration of 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II.
Under the new divisive concepts law, a Georgia parent could complain that a teacher’s comments during a discussion of the Atlanta race riot crossed into what the bill defines as “‘race scapegoating, assigning fault or blame to a race.” Such a complaint could land the school system in front of the state Board of Education facing sanctions.
Follow the link for a discussion of possible strategies that teachers can use to avoid falling prey to the proponents of prevarication about the past.