Author: Kevin

Wait a Minute… Nobody Told ME that Jointogether.org had Left the Field!

I just popped over to Jointogether.org to see what they had to say about Sam Alito’s nomination, and found this:

THIS IS AN ARCHIVE WEBSITE

This site was last updated May 27, 2005. Although Join Together’s gun violence project has ended, we encourage those interested in the issue to visit the action center and national directory to locate national, state and local organizations working on this important issue. Former subscribers to Join Together’s email news service on gun violence prevention may be interested in similar services from the Freedom States Alliance.

Michael Barnes is leaving the Brady Campaign because of continuous legal setbacks, the Million Moms are losing chapters for lack of interest, Jointogether has ended its “gun violence project,” next thing you know, the Violence Policy Center will be shutting its doors!

(Well, one can hope.)

I can’t help but wonder if Jointogether’s decision to end its gun violence project had any relation to these two stories on their archived page,

Nonprofits Cry Foul Over Government Scrutiny

and

IRS Reports Widespread Tax Abuse among Nonprofits

Y’think? I do have to wonder if the VPC has anything to fear from an audit…

Judge Alito Receives the Brady Campaign Seal-of-Approval!.

If he puts their panties in a twist, he’s all right by me:

“MACHINE GUN SAMMY,” A PERFECT HALLOWEEN PICK

Washington, D.C. – How could it have gone in any other direction, from a White House that just gave blanket immunity to the gun industry, which refuses to bar terrorists from buying guns, that broke a campaign promise and put Uzis and AK-47s back on America’s city streets, and insisted that records of gun purchases be destroyed before the sun sets on them twice?

Dammnit! I keep checking my city streets and I NEVER FIND THE UZIS or AKs. Not one! Promises, promises.

It had to be a Supreme Court pick that favors legal machine guns.

And Hallelujah for that!!

In 1996, Judge Samuel Alito was the sole judge who dissented from his Third Circuit Court of Appeals colleagues when they upheld the authority of Congress to ban fully automatic machine guns.

Er, no. Ban the sale of new ones to the general public. Ownership of the currently possesed roughly quarter-million full-auto weapons currently in private hands is still legal. I know people who own some of them.

“Earth to Sammy – who needs legal machine guns?” asked Jim Brady, chair of the Brady Campaign. “The Chicago mobsters of the 1930s would be giddy. But the man I worked for, who gave us Sandra Day O’Connor and signed the 1986 machine gun ban, would be shaking his head.”

“Judge Alito’s ludicrous machine gun decision is bad enough. But it also indicates that a Justice Ilito[sic] would attempt to prevent Congress from passing other laws to protect Americans from gun violence,” said Michael D. Barnes, President of the Brady Campaign. (Outgoing president of the Brady Campaign. I love saying that. Don’t let the door hit you, Mike! – Ed.) “If Judge Alito had his way, the federal machine gun ban would have been struck down as unconstitutional, and the private possession of these weapons would have become legal.”

I’ve got news for you, Mike, it still is.

# # #

As the nation’s largest (But shrinking), non-partisan (but almost wholly Democrat), grassroots organization leading the fight to prevent gun violence (by eliminating lawful gun ownership), the Brady Campaign, working with its dedicated (but diminishing) network of Million Mom March Chapters, is devoted to creating an America free from gun violence (by making it free of guns, and that has worked so well everywhere it’s been tried, hasn’t it?), where all Americans are safe at home, at school, at work, and in our communities.

And only the government has guns. A mistake a free people get to make only once.

UPDATE, 11/3: The Violence Policy Center ratchets up the rhetoric with a five page PDF format press release.

Department of Our Collapsinged Schools, Michigan Division.

From the Michigan.gov website:

The United States Constitution as a Living Document

This unit builds the constitutional foundation for the study of nineteenth century American history. Students examine the structure and functioning of the United States government under the Constitution through the principles of checks and balances, separation of powers, federalism, limited government, and popular sovereignty. In exploring what life would be like without government, students learn about the purposes of government, the social contract theory of government, and the meaning of a constitutional form of government. They examine primary and secondary sources to understand the problems faced by the new nation under the Articles of Confederation. After constructing and debating possible changes to the Articles of Confederation, students simulate a constitutional convention to work out the various compromises achieved by the framers. They then investigate each branch of government with particular focus on the powers, limits, structure, and function of each using both current and historical examples. Through an interpretation of its text as well as historical events and court cases students analyze how the Constitution fulfills the purposes for which it was created. In examining the protections afforded by the Bill of Rights and the purposes for its inclusion in the Constitution, students explore its place in their daily lives. They explore situations in which the principles of the rule of law and limited government operate to protect individual rights and serve the common good. The unit culminates with a discussion of why the Constitution is considered a “living document.”

AAAARRRRGGHHH!!! This from the “sample core curriculum for Michigan schools.”

Considered by whom??? What about those of us who DON’T consider it to be a “living document”? I guess all that twaddle about “diversity of opinions” and “tolerance for the beliefs of others” is just that – twaddle? Nope, let’s continue the brainwashing of young skulls full of mush, and if they show any signs of a personality, then dope them with Ritalin or some other mood-altering chemical.

Long – very long post coming, I think.

Via the Geek with a .45 I found this article from the December ’95/January ’96 issue of the late, unlamented political magazine George on my favorite Appeals Court judge, Alex Kozinski – he who wrote the most eloquent dissent to the Silveira v. Lockyer decision not to re-hear en banc. (Warning, it’s a PDF file of scanned pages, and it’s SLOW to load.) Here are some highlights from the piece (with my commentary.)

After graduating first in his law school class in 1975, Kozinski clerked at the U.S. Court of Appeals and then for Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger. He was made chief judge of the U.S. Claims Court at age 32 and a Ninth Circuit Federal appeals judge at 35, which made him the youngest person appointed to the federal bench in this century. During the Reagan-Bush years, it was an open secret that Kozinski was being groomed for the Supreme Court – an appointment many think will occur if a Republican wins the White House next November.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, but now is the perfect time to nominate him for O’Connor’s seat.

Unlike recent Supreme Court nominees, Kozinski doesn’t hesitate to trumpet his judicial agenda: “I want to change the face of American jurisprudence,” he has declared.

Which is why, I beleive neither he nor Janice Rogers Brown will be offered the seat. Bush wants to avoid conflict at home.

But it’s time and past time for that conflict, IMHO. It’s time to drag out the Left and make them expose themselves completely to the general public.

Note these comments:

The conservative judge Richard Posner calls him “one of the best and smartest judges in the country,” and Harvard constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe considers him “on of the few genuinely interesting minds in the Federal Judiciary.”

Note the author while he pointed out Posner’s political leanings, he didn’t mention that Lawrence Tribe is (accurately) a self-described liberal – one, I will note, who seems remarkably intellectually honest.

Clint Bolick, the litigation director for the Institute of Justice… says if he were “advising a president on the Supreme Court, Alex would be on the top of my list.”

—

“Alex is one of the true conservative libertarians in public life today,” says Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz.

Dershowitz is an überliberal – also un-noted.

“He shakes his finger at fellow conservatives and tells them to scrutinize government at all levels, not just where it helps their wallets.”

Regardless of this praise, I imagine few on the Left would be pleased with him. For example:

“Kozinski gets away with a lot because he is so funny and charming,” says Nan Aron, president of the liberal Alliance for Justice.

Given the two earlier examples, if the author concluded that noting the Alliance for Justice is “liberal” was required, it must be damned near Stalinist. Continuing:

“But he is also very dangerous, especially with regard to the rights of immigrants, workers, and the poor. Property rights always trump human rights for him.”

Someone should inform Ms. Aron that property rights are human rights – the human right to acquire and keep property. That’s how the poor stop being poor.

Fellow Ninth Circuit judge Stephen Reinhardt, a passionate liberal and close friend of Kozinski’s, is also one of his harshest critics. “What do I think of his views? Not much,” he says bluntly. “Alex is one of the brightest of the right wing, but he focuses too narrowly on property and is terrible on affirmative action and other civil rights. I would hate to see him on the Supreme Court, where he could do some really serious damage.”

Instead of on the Ninth Circuit, where he is overwhelmed by the majority of liberals who keep him from correcting any of the damage they continue to do. Reinhardt wrote the original 69 page Silveira decision that Kozinski, in his dissent to the denial to hear an en banc appeal characterized thus:

The sheer ponderousness of the panel’s opinion—the mountain of verbiage it must deploy to explain away these fourteen short words of constitutional text—refutes its thesis far more convincingly than anything I might say. The panel’s labored effort to smother the Second Amendment by sheer body weight has all the grace of a sumo wrestler trying to kill a rattlesnake by sitting on it – and is just as likely to succeed.

Those “fourteen short words” being the Second Amendment. And yet, they’re friends. Unless and until Kozinski is in a position to make a real difference. I guess then you find out who your true friends are.

This was fascinating, too:

Kozinski was born in Bucharest on July 23, 1950. His father, Moses, spent most of World War II in the Transnistria concentration camp, where inmates were systematically worked to death.

—

A weaver by trade, and a Communist agitator in his youth, Moses was made vice-president of a textile factory when the Soviet-backed government took over after the war.

Life in postwar Romania was not easy for the Kozinskis, even with Moses’s party credentials. Nor was the gulf between communism’s theory and its reality lost on Alex: At age eight, the boy got his father into trouble by publicly asking him how a government with so many political prisoners could possibly publish a newspaper called Free Romania.

Well, we already knew he was smart.

After emigrating to the U.S. in 1961, Alex embraced being an American.

“One taste of chocolate and bubble gum and I was a capitalist,” remembers Kozinski. “I spent the first several years glued to the television, sucking up American culture.”

It’s a wonder his mind survived it, but it was the early sixties. I shudder to think what happens to our kids today who “suck up American culture” via the boob tube.

After a probably less-than-stellar academic achievement in primary school, Kozinski began attending UCLA in the late sixties, studying engineering – poorly. But he also studied the anti-war movement, then in full swing, and commented on it:

Kozinski, who had just become a naturalized citizen, chafed at his fellow students’ politics. “Most of the protests were really about people justifying the fact that they were chicken,” he says. “Students were seduced by all the anti-American rhetoric. They hadn’t lived under a truly repressive regime.”

Nor do they now.

So outraged by anti-American sentiments was Kozinski that he boycotted (and still refuses to see) Jane Fonda movies – a stance about which he has only one regret: “I wish I had seen Barbarella,” he says wistfully. “Maybe one day I’ll watch the video – if someone else pays for it.”

Don’t bother, Judge. She doesn’t really look any better than most of the exposed actress flesh displayed today.

Kozinski then switched his major to law, barely squeaking in, and after reading that only the top 10% of law school graduates had much of a chance at financial success, he set out with the intention of graduating at the top of his class. The very top, not second or third place. And he did.

So now that we’ve established his bona fides let’s consider Kozinski’s “judicial philosophy,” in his own words:

“Look, we have to realize that ideas have consequences, and legal ideas have more serious consequences for society than most.” The law, in his view, has an ineradicable moral dimension that we ignore at our peril. When, for example, “courts tell us that someone else is always to blame for whatever misfortune happens to befall us, pretty soon we start to believe it” – a denial of personal responsibility that Kozinski derides with his Toyota Principle (named for the company’s “You asked for it, you got it” ad campaign). Lawyers must see the law as “a method for resolving legitimate disputes, rather than a means of extortion.”

—

His remedy for “hate crimes” exemplifies this anti-litigious, communitarian approach. “Our focus on punishing the speaker diverts attention from … the things we can do to repair the damage,” he argues. Society’s first responsibility, Kozinski says, is to reassure victims of their rightful place in the community, to tell them that, despite the wrong suffered, they are not outcasts.

This part particularly got my attention:

Kozinski is not shy about bringing his experiences to bear on his legal formulations. He particularly attributes his sensitivity to free speech and defendant’s rights to his time in Romania. “I know what it means for police to really run amok,” he says. “Seeing people hauled away in their pajamas in the middle of the night stays with you.”

Yes, I imagine it does. And it reminds you that it can still happen today, here.

Although Kozinski brings a certain informality to the courtroom, his constitutional philosophy – the compass guiding his vast array of decisions – is anything but lax. It revolves, he explains, around three principles: textual fidelity (interpretations should be grounded in the actual words of the Constitution), completeness (provisions in the Constitution should not be ignored or emasculated), and consistency (similar phrases should be construed in similar ways). “The Constitution is a complicated, old and multilayered document that is meant to have some play in the joints,” he says. “But it must have limits to its interpretation or else you are simply taking advantage of its flexibility for your own purposes. You can’t just find in it anything you want to find in it.”

And he lives this philosophy. From the aforementioned dissent in Silveira:

Judges know very well how to read the Constitution broadly when they are sympathetic to the right being asserted. We have held, without much ado, that “speech, or . . . the press” also means the Internet…and that “persons, houses, papers, and effects” also means public telephone booths….When a particular right comports especially well with our notions of good social policy, we build magnificent legal edifices on elliptical constitutional phrases – or even the white spaces between lines of constitutional text. But, as the panel amply demonstrates, when we’re none too keen on a particular constitutional guarantee, we can be equally ingenious in burying language that is incontrovertibly there.

It is wrong to use some constitutional provisions as springboards for major social change while treating others like senile relatives to be cooped up in a nursing home until they quit annoying us. As guardians of the Constitution, we must be consistent in interpreting its provisions. If we adopt a jurisprudence sympathetic to individual rights, we must give broad compass to all constitutional provisions that protect individuals from tyranny. If we take a more statist approach, we must give all such provisions narrow scope. Expanding some to gargantuan proportions while discarding others like a crumpled gum wrapper is not faithfully applying the Constitution; it’s using our power as federal judges to constitutionalize our personal preferences.

Of course, again some on the Left have a problem with this:

“I don’t think it is possible to have such a strict theory of constitutional interpretation,” says University of Southern California law professor Erwin Chemerinski. “Kozinski follows his theories in some areas and not in others. His opinions involving the takings clause (the portion of the Fifth Amendment that requires the citizens to be compensated when the government “takes” or reduces the value of their property), for instance, tend to be very broad and don’t square at all with his decisions involving criminal law.”

Given the recent Supreme Court Kelo decision, I am personally very happy to hear that. Chemerinski, another far Left-liberal, does not rank high in my esteem as I’ve previously noted. (Chemerinski is a regular on Hugh Hewitt’s afternoon radio show, and I have heard him defend the Kelo decision on the air.) That Chemerinski dislikes Kozinski’s judicial philosophy is mere icing on the cake, for me.

And this observation cements Kozinski’s appeal:

(Kozinski’s) nomination would prove a dilemma for the Republicans: Kozinski’s passionate defense of First and Fourth Amendment rights would give the far right reason to pause. “He’s too unpredictable, he isn’t a Scalia or a Thomas,” says New York University law professor Stephen Gillers. “Kozinski is a truly independent thinker, and we are at a point where presidents only want sure things.”

That would, I submit, make him more like Thomas, not less. We’ve learned a lot about Thomas in the intervening ten years, and he is, currently, my favorite sitting Justice. I think he, Scalia, and Kozinski would make a perfect set. Not mentioned in the piece was Kozinski’s strong support for the individual rights view of the Second Amendment. He has several very eloquent dissents on the topic, and his position has been commented on by other Ninth Circuit judges in their decisions.

But the “sure thing” comment is entirely correct. I think the reaction to Miers surprised Bush, and as I said, I don’t think he has the stomach for a fight.

But one can dream.

UPDATE, 10/29: Both Instapundit and David Bernstein of the Volokh Conspiracy think Kozinski is a great choice.

He hasn’t got a chance in hell…

Further update: David Hardy has details of most if not all of Kozinski’s decisions relating to the Second Amendment, and other things near and dear to our hearts.

Think “snowball in hell.” But Hardy notes that there is an email address, [email protected], and notes:

I’d assume somebody counts the number of emails on a given subject and reports that. If we all sent email entitled, say “please nominate Judge Kozinski,” it might just get someone’s attention. They may be a bit jumpy about the internet and blogs just now (grin).

Perhaps. I think I’ll jot them a note. Kozinski or Janice Rogers Brown. Either would please me.

UPDATE 10/31: It’s Alito, sometimes referred to as “Scalito.” I can live with that.

Redneck Christmas Decoration I Have To Get…

I have just the tree to hang it from, too!

Here’s Someone With a Twisted Sense of Humor!

It Hasn’t Happened Anywhere Else, But…

Owen at Boots and Sabers links to a quite good piece in the Wisconsin State Journal on concealed-carry. Wisconsin is currently debating legislation that would overturn its 133 year-old prohibition against concealed-carry, with the standard opposition meme of “more guns = more death.” However, this piece is, in my opinion, quite fair, and pretty thorough. Entitled, Guns can save your life or get you sent to prison, it explains the realities of concealed-carry well. Read the whole thing, but here are some excerpts:

I had spent most of the previous day with certified firearms instructor Gene German, seeking to learn what sort of training might be required here if the Legislature overturns Wisconsin’s 133-year ban on carrying concealed weapons.

German, an affable and enthusiastic backer of the measure, was invited to offer the training (for a $150 fee) to lawmakers, their staffs and media people by the bill’s chief sponsor in the state Senate, Sen. Dave Zien, R-Eau Claire.

About a dozen of us attended the day of classroom instruction at the state Capitol, while I and Nathan Berken, an aide to Rep. Gabe Loeffelholz, R- Platteville, completed the required coursework at a shooting range in Deerfield.

Interesting idea, inviting legislators and their staffs to actually sit through a class. Disappointing that so few actually did.

(W)hether you’re pro or con, it’s reassuring to know that the only path to a permit (with some exceptions) is through a class like German’s.

The first thing you learn: Marksmanship isn’t the half of it.

Outside of the sterile environment of the shooting range, in the messy, real world, here’s how my confrontation with the green guy would have gone: Stabbing fear would close around me, leaving me with tunnel vision. My strength would increase exponentially, but my dexterity – my ability to deftly aim the weapon, pull the trigger and hit the target instead of a bystander – would drop. Time would slow down.

My ability to endure pain would increase dramatically, but so would my attacker’s. And, unlike in the movies, he likely wouldn’t fall over with the first shot, or even the first several. Even after a shot to the heart, a person can have full “voluntary function” of his or her faculties for 10 to 15 seconds, enough to do me serious harm.

“Pain is irrelevant to survival,” German said.

But the story of that confrontation starts even before that point, with the decision to strap on a gun at all.

Something you hardly ever hear in the media.

If conflict finds you, four things must be true before you can legally even pull out a gun:

You must be a reluctant participant. Walking into a bar fight to break it up or chasing after a mugger doesn’t count.

You must reasonably believe you’re in immediate danger of death or great bodily harm. If a mean-looking dude simply demands your wallet, you’re better off handing it over; if he’s got a weapon, it’s a different story.

No lesser force will do. Can you resolve the situation by calling 911, fending off blows with your arms or fighting back? You must eliminate those options before reaching for your gun.

Retreat is not practical.

Weighing those questions in the safety of a jury room is difficult enough; staying lucid enough to do so in the heat of a violent attack is perilous.

“You do it wrong, you go to prison,” German said. “These are high stakes.”

The circumstances get even muddier when you decide to intervene on someone else’s behalf.

Thus the anti-gun force’s conniption-fit over Florida’s recent “no duty to retreat” law. Retreat in Florida need not be practical.

Even a justified shooting will have lifelong consequences, German said. First, you’ll almost certainly spend some time in jail until the police can sort out what happened. You may have to defend the shooting in a criminal or civil trial.

Simply unholstering your gun in a confrontation could cost you $10,000 in lawyer fees, German said – and that’s in a state where carrying concealed handguns is allowed.

This is something I think far too few people actually grasp – choosing to be armed can be quite expensive.

But here are the excerpts from the piece that got my attention:

Doubt doesn’t begin to describe the ambivalence I feel about taking on this awful responsibility. I consider myself normally level-headed, but I don’t trust myself to make the right decision when seconds can mean the difference between life and death.

“I don’t trust myself….” That’s fine with me, you can choose to be a victim, but my problem is when people extend their personal distrust of themselves to others, and use that personal distrust to prevent others from protecting themselves. Phil Brinkman, the writer, thankfully addresses this:

But that’s me. To German and thousands of others like him – people who are far more familiar with guns, train regularly and consider violent crime a very real possibility – those doubts are surmountable, and carrying a gun in public is an undisputed right, recognized in 46 states.

“I have the right to be my own first responder,” German likes to say.

They call themselves the “good guys,” responsible gun owners, the ones most likely to apply for permits. The certifiable bad guys – the felons, the drug addicts, the ones with a history of mental illness – aren’t eligible for a permit under Minnesota’s law, or the proposed Wisconsin law.

Good on ya, Phil.

But here’s the kicker – not for what’s said, but for what’s not said:

Others say that whatever the merits of the training it will never make up for the increased risk they see of more people being hurt or killed by guns, including their own.

“I understand there are people who are really trying to get the message out that there needs to be restraint and you must be responsible. That’s a good thing,” said Jeri Bonavia, executive director of the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, which opposes concealed carry. “And yet, I’m just so alarmed about the bill as a whole.”

Bonavia agreed that “a lot of the people who get permits are good guys.” But the often middle-aged, middle-class permit holders are usually also at low risk of being victims of crime, she said. She said she feared that giving them licenses might embolden some to walk into dangerous situations.

What wasn’t said? Well, it’s time for that map again:

There are now 35 “shall issue” states, nine “may issue” states, and two with unrestricted concealed-carry and there has been not one state that has passed concealed-carry legislation in which gun violence went up. But that’s the fear that is pushed each and every time another state considers the legislation – “blood in the streets.”

Not one. But Wisconsin will be the first?