For a long time I’ve been an opponent of birthright citizenship. In most countries of the world, a newborn’s citizenship is based on that of the child’s parents, not where they happen to be living when they are born. In the entire world, only about 33 countries have birthright citizenship. Some have it conditionally, but most of the world’s almost 200 countries don’t have it at all.
So why does the USA have it? Because of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. This was the amendment the made it clear that freed slaves were citizens. But the wording applies to anyone born within our borders. Is that what we meant to do, or is it the result of a poorly worded amendment? I don’t know.
But this can only be changed by a Constitutional amendment that supersedes any other related provisions of the Constitution, as previously amended, the establishes:
Citizenship of anyone born in the USA is based on the citizenship of the child’s parents.
It wouldn’t be quite that simple, but that’s the basis of the amendment. I believe President Trump is wrong to think this can be done by an executive order. Even an act of Congress would not be enough.
Could such an amendment pass and become part of the constitution? Maybe. I’m not as sure of this one as I am about the last one I posted on.
When the Constitution was written, the framers wanted a way to distribute power away from any one person or group, and to have a means of checks and balances so that no part of the government could become a bludgeon someone would wield. So one thing they wanted to do was make the courts as independent of the Executive and Legislative branch as possible.
Hence, the Constitution provides that judges are nominated by the president (executive branch), approved by Congress (legislative branch), and serve for life (or, as the Constitution says, under good behavior). Removal of a judge could be only by impeachment by Congress for violation of the Constitution. The thought was that so long as judges didn’t have to worry about fixed terms and being subject to reappointment, they would be independent of both the executive and legislative branches. One other thought that went into that was that once a judge retired, rather than serve into their dotage, they would have no means of support, what with pensions being unknown.
But times have changed. The lifespan of judicial nominees is much longer than it was in 1787. Rather than the likelihood of serving ten or a dozen years, the norm is now 20 or 30. Judged now get good pensions, so if they decide to retire, their support is firm and generous. And Supreme Court justices are in great demand as speakers and command hefty speaker fees. So at least two of the thoughts about what would make judges independent have disappeared. Maybe it’s time to remake the court.
The financial need for lifetime appointments has disappeared. Now, the only reason for lifetime appointments is keeping S.C. justices independent is to not subject them to limited terms and reappointment. My thoughts are: change lifetime appointments to fixed terms, and do not allow for reappointment. That keeps them independent, and the lack of support being a reason for lifetime appointments is gone. So appoint justices for fixed terms, require them to retire, and keep the court rotating.
How would this work? Change the Constitution to fix the number of associate justices at eight (thus getting rid of the idea of court packing that rears up every decade or so). Have the justices serve for sixteen years, then retire. The rotation should occur in odd numbered years, so that the selection process doesn’t happen in an election year. Make the chief justice still a lifetime appointment.
Thus, in each presidential term, two justices would be appointed. The entire supreme court, not including the chief justice, would turn over every sixteen years. There would have to be a transition period from lifetime to fixed terms, but this could be done based on longest serving associate justice to newest. The transition would start beginning with the odd numbered year after a ratification of an amendment to make this happen.
What about a vacancy due to a death or early retirement? You either make the new appointee be a justice only until that term is over, or you leave the seat vacant, or perhaps you make the new appointment for the remainder of the term plus 16 years. Each of those keeps the judges independent, as they would not be subject to reappointment.
All of this would have to happen by an amendment to the Constitution. Could such an amendment be passed? I believe it could. Most Americans would welcome a more frequent turnover of justices, independence of justices is preserved, the specter of court packing is forever gone, and you get a balance of appointees among all the presidents.
Nazi salutes, or an expression of prayer from across the room?
I’ve not don’t much following of the “Nazi salute” by Elon Musk flap. I’ve seen the photograph, and heard snatches of commentary by talking heads. But I’ve not gone out of my way to learn the whole story.
I assume the photo of the salute was pulled from a video, though possibly it was a still photo. As one who has given a talk or two when photographers were on hand to capture a shot for the newspapers, I’ve watched those photographers wait for the exact moment to get the most embarrassing shot—perhaps when you scratch your nose or ear. Or they wait until you make a gesture and take the photo.
I assume it’s the same way with a video. With modern moving pictures equipment you can, I believe, pull a single frame out and present it like a still photo. So you could go through a whole take of a talk last, I don’t know, ten minutes, and find the single frame with the most embarrassing gesture and present it for the world to see. The only way to know would be to watch the whole video and see what the man was doing at that moment that looks like a Nazi salute. Or look at all the still photos taken that day. Still, the complete video will be better.
I rather doubt that Musk was giving a Nazi salute. More likely he was gesturing as he talked and his arm momentarily was frozen in the positions that mimics the salute. The fact is that numerous photos of people from both the Left and the Right have been presented. People on the Left present the ones of people on the Right and say, “See, see, all those right wingers are a bunch of Nazis!” People on the Right present the ones of people on the Left and say, “No, it’s not a Nazi salute, unless all these Left wingers are doing the same thing. Quit being ridiculous fanatics.”
At church yesterday, we had a specific time of prayer for someone—in this case for a baby being dedicated and her parents. Often our people are invited to come to the altar at front and lay hands on the person. Or, since that would be a crowded space, in this case to stay in their seat and extend an arm toward the person at front as an expression of prayer. People stayed in their seat and extended a hand. If someone who knew nothing about this practice wandered into the sanctuary and saw the extended hands, they might think it a Nazi gathering.
My point is all this bru-ha-ha about a still view most likely pulled out of context is ridiculous. Are there no better complaints to make about the current administration? No better way to off criticism of government. Let’s do things that are effective, not things that make us feel better about our argumentative self.
An attack was made against ex-president Donald Trump this afternoon, maybe around 5 p.m. my time. We had a game warden program on the TV so the first I heard of it was when a good friend on Facebook posted about it. We finished the program we were watching then turned over to a news station. It was obvious the president was injured.
I checked news sites on-line, but monitored Facebook off and on. The same friend had another post or two as information began to trickle out. Then I saw a post by a woman I went to elementary school with. It was:
He doesn’t deserve a bandaid..
That was quickly followed by this post by a man I went to elementary school with.
That was all a set-up by his people!.
I was stunned. That same man went on to post:
How come nobody else was hurt and where are the bullets. That cut on his ear was self inflicted. They’ll never find the people who fired the shots because it was his people. [sic]
I replied to that with the following.
[name redacted]: Please wait for full reports to come in. They are now saying one rally attendee was killed. Too early to know for sure.
One man who I don’t know had his own reply:
[name redacted] you sire [sic] look like an idiot..get your hate in check…people died today because of this kind of hate,,
Such strange hatred against the former president, and by one commenter against his fellow man. Trump is not my candidate; I won’t vote for him, as I didn’t the last two times. But the posts by those three people are just sick. One post accuses the president of being an accessory to murder. Does this man’s hate not allow him to see what it is he’s saying? Apparently so. I wouldn’t want to be him when the Secret Service comes around reviewing relevant posts.
How terrible a thing hate is. It clouds judgment, send us off on tangents, makes us irrational, and can eventually destroy us. I hope I can avoid it in my own life. I see lots of hate on both sides this election year. I pray that it doesn’t destroy our nation.
An excellent historical account of a traumatic time in our country. Well worth the read.
When we made our road trip back east, the final two nights in New England were in a resort on Cape Cod. In the lobby of the main building was a table of books. The resort made them available to guests. Lynda grabbed one for us to read. Having just finished a Watergate related book, she picked up The Final Days by Woodard and Bernstein.
Years ago, I read a lot of Watergate books, and found I enjoyed the topic. I lived through it, though at the time of the break-in and the first unraveling of the cover-up, I was a busy college student, taking a full load of courses, working a lot of hours, having just started going out with my first girlfriend, and the news about Watergate, if I even heard it, made no impression on me.
So this book was immediately interesting to me. Lynda, having read less on the subject, was also interested. We read some aloud in the resort those two nights, then in car while driving home. It’s a long book, so we didn’t finish it on the trip. Reading it aloud became our afternoon and evening activity during the two weeks between our trips, and we got it done.
I think the book was the basis for a movie, perhaps of the same name. I remember seeing that movie. Hence, as we read and the story line seemed familiar, I was able to tell Lynda what was coming next, and I was usually correct.
This tells about the last six months of the Nixon presidency. The cover-up of the Watergate break-in—that is, keeping the seven people involved in the break-in quiet through the payment of hush money—began to unravel in April 1973, when John Dean, the main architect of the payments, revealed he was talking with federal prosecutors. The firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox came in October 1973, but it was not until spring of 1974 until most of the things going on became public knowledge. Nixon announced his resignation on August 8, 1974 and left office the next day.
The book concentrates on the last six months, but of necessity tells of other activities. Much time is spent on the taping system Nixon had that recorded much of the dirty work of the cover-up and Nixon’s involvement. The court wrangling, various decisions on how to minimally comply, and the toll it took on the lawyers and other in the administration are all covered in some detail. I enjoyed reading about it all.
The authors’ sources were unnamed, but it was easy to guess who some of them were. They were well-connected to the administration, especially to the legal teams. I liked how various “underlings” were brought into the story and what their roles were. I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense, but sometimes the secretaries or aides not involved in policy decisions played unsung roles and it was good to know about them.
One key topic was resignation vs. impeachment. Those around Nixon, both his lawyers and other key staff, realized he could not remain as president after having committed the crimes he did. But convincing him to resign rather than fight it out was a delicate process of helping him to see that his actions in the coverup were not as innocent as he claimed. Perhaps he drifted into the coverup somewhat innocently, unthinkingly, but he still was a key participant.
The books is excellent. I give it 5-stars, and recommend it for any Watergate buffs who haven’t read it yet—or anyone who wants to know some details of that part of our history. But it is not a keeper. Despite its lack of a cover (lost when we got the book), I’m putting it in the donation pile. I don’t think I’ll ever re-read any of my Watergate era books.
I’ve seen this several places. Somehow it grates on me.
This second post in the series about advice found on Facebook somewhat stunned me. It came in a post titled “A Prayer for Removal of the Wicked”. Here’s the text of it.
Father, we ask in the name of Jesus that all WILLFUL WORKERS OF WICKEDNESS be removed from position of power, prominence and prestige. Open the eyes of those being deceived and place people who stand for your righteous cause in the high places of government and influence.
I have to tell you, I have mixed feelings about this. At least until I think about it. Do I want our government to function efficiently, honestly, and ethically? For sure. Would I like to see every government employee be an ethical person and do only good, never wickedness? Of course. Am I so naive that I think everyone in government has good as their only attention? No, I know that in any large group of humans there are plenty of people who meet the definition of “willful workers of wickedness”.
Should we pray for as stated in that posted prayer? You would think so, but I wonder. As Christians, where is our hope? Is it in government? Or in God? If in government, where is there room for God? If in God, why would we pray a prayer so all-encompassing as to ask God to remove all those from government whose conduct does not meet with our definition of goodness? Because, before you declare some people wicked, you have to define wickedness.
Well, that’s easy, you say. Sin is the definition of wickedness. But no two people can agree on the definition of sin; hence, no consensus definition of wickedness is to be had. But surely there is a degree of wickedness so bad that we can agree on that? Let the prayer be limited to the wickedness we all can agree on, and ask God to run all of them out of government. So to pray that prayer means we are setting ourselves up as the ones who define what wickedness is.
I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t seem to be following the law of love. How could we rephrase that prayer—assuming the presence of wicked people in government at any or all levels is a true problem—so that it complies with the law of love? How about:
Father, we ask that you help our government to be a force for good, not evil. We pray that government workers and leaders at all levels work only for the good of their constituents.
That would be a prayer I could pray. As for that prayer suggested on Facebook, I think it better to leave it un-prayed.
I am heartbroken at the war in Israel and, by all appearances, soon to be an Israeli ground war in the Gaza Strip. I understand the origin of this, that Palestinian terrorist group(s) found a weak spot in Israeli defenses and launch an invasion.
It’s difficult to understand the hate that prompts one people to attack another. From my years living in the Middle East, I believe I have a reasonably good understanding of the positions of the two peoples, Israel and Palestine. They were close to peace in the days of prime minister Ehud Barak, yet by all accounts the Palestinians under Yassir Arafat walked away at the last minute when all was finished but the signing. I wasn’t there, of course, but this is what was reported at the time and since.
I’m now at a loss for words. I simply pray for peace in the region, for Israel and Palestine, for Jews and Arabs/Palestinians. Oh God, move upon people to not hate each other.
As I’ve described in other posts, one of the special projects that is taking me from my writing is scanning/saving copies of old letters. The goal is to get rid of notebooks of paper. The letters get saves to the “cloud”, also to my harddrive, and I can get rid of notebooks.
I’m currently working on a notebook that contains letters from 2003-04. This was a time when:
I was still working fulltime, in a fairly stressful job;
We had four foster kids, up until June 2003
I was a moderator at two different internet poetry boards—successively, not at the same time.
I had a different e-mail address, one that I later abandoned and lost whatever e-mails were stored on its servers when it went defunct.
What I did back then, not thinking much about the future, and still somewhat stuck in a pre-internet mindset, I printed e-mails and instant messages, saved the papers, and deleted the electronic files. I know, what was I thinking? I obviously wasn’t thinking about a time, almost 20 years in the future, when those notebooks of paper files would be a heavy burden to get rid of.
On the other hand, since I printed and saved these communications, I still have them in 2022 even though those electronic files are lost. So, that is the silver lining to this.
In February, 2003, I agreed to become a moderator at the Poem Kingdom website. This was another “what was I thinking” moment. The site was the main place where I learned poetry, and how to critique poetry. I had been to other sites earlier—Wild Poetry Forum and Sonnet Central—but PK was what I needed in my early learning process. I studied hard and learned fast.
Alas, the site was beset by strong personalities that clashed, and argument after argument came upon the site. The better, more experiences poets and “critters, ” as we called ourselves, left. They formed other poetry message boards and started over, bringing people from PK to their site. It was when PK was already in this decline that I was asked to join the mod squad there.
As I described it to one former member who tried to recruit me for his site, it was like putting a Volkswagen engine in a battleship and trying to get it turned and moving back in the correct direction. It could be done, but would take time.
Scanning and saving these paper files from that era has brought back a lot of memories, many of them not that pleasant. We had a poetry war in early April 2003, as poems for and against the then-raging Iraq war were posted and critiqued. Strongly opinionated people let their feelings come out and did more than critique poems.
There had been poetry wars in October 2002 and January 2003 and February 2003, each of which resulted in much poetic talent leaving the site. ‘Twas sad times, and sad communications from those times.
But good also came. I had many written conversations with other poets about the art and craft of poetry. I forged a few friendships that continue to this day.
As a result of this, I spent a little time on Facebook looking for these old comrades and opponents in the poetry wars. I found some. One man in particular, who was the biggest thorn in my side, I found living in a foreign country. Now married (I think) to an Asian bride, he resides in her native land. His FB posts make it seem like he has done a 180 in his politics. I almost clicked on the “Invite Friend” button, but I hesitated. Did I really want this man back in my life? After reading a few more communications from him, I decided I did not and moved on. He obviously hadn’t come looking for me.
Another one or two people I might message or friend. We’ll see.
Even though this is giving me a significant amount of work, I’m now glad (given that the electronic files were lost) that I printed and saved these communications. I’m only skimming as I scan. I hope someday to cobble them up into a book that I will have printed just for me, and read them at leisure. How was my performance during the Poetry Wars? Did I behave well? Did my attempts at peace-making have any positive results? Did that Volkswagen engine at all move the battleship before the owner let the domain name die and lose the site? Reading these will tell.
Progress is being made in the USA at reducing greenhouse gases. Is the situation really as dire as the media would have us believe?
Nowadays, when the media mentions “climate change”, the assumption is it’s human-caused. You never hear anthropogenic—i.e. human-caused. It’s just assumed that it is all human caused. No debate is tolerated.
Now, it’s obvious that human activities generate heat. If you rub two plates together or drive a piston up and down through its place in the motor, you will generate heat from friction. Consuming energy to move the plates or piston will also generate heat. Those who say that human activities have no impact on the plant aren’t really thinking clearly.
But I’ m not convinced that natural processes don’t have a bigger share in the changes taking place.
Some years ago, I dug into the data that says the climate is changing. That’s the first step: to verify that a change is taking place. Using only on-line sources, I was able to learn a lot, but I wasn’t able to learn the one thing I felt I needed to know: the placement of the climate measuring stations and the distribution of them around the world. I wanted to assure myself that the measuring stations aren’t placed in such a way that the aggregated data is skewed. Alas, I couldn’t find this information on-line.
Not that I think these stations are purposely placed to guarantee an outcome that someone wants, but the principle of due diligence requires that you determine this.
I then wanted to see what I could learn about any natural causes that might be adding to the climate change. It turned out that it was impossible to find any discussion or links to—or even reference to or citations of—scientific papers about natural causes of climate change. It seems to be a taboo subject.
I must say here that the internet is a vast library, and that maybe those papers are out there and can be found. But I couldn’t find them despite trying. What kind of natural processes? Well, what about decreasing volcanic activity resulting in less ash in the global atmosphere that prevents sunlight from reaching earth’s surface? What about the gradual slowing of the earth’s rotation? What does that do to the climate.
“Now you’re just being silly and disingenuous,” you say. “The slowing rotation of the earth? Is it happening? And how could that result in climate change?” Well, yes, it is happening. Every now and then the official keepers of the atomic clock announce that a “leap second” will be added. This has been going on for a while. The length of a day has increased by a minute or two over the last 100 years. Before you say this is silly, that is 1/10th of 1 percent added to the length of a day. Small? Perhaps. But that means whatever part of the earth is in sunlight has sunlight 0.1 % longer than it used to, and the same for the part in darkness. What would be the result? Greater extremes, for sure. Longer sunlight means more heating, and longer darkness means more cooling. What is the net result?
And what if it is shown that, though the slowing of the earth’s rotation is small, after a few billion years some kind of point of no return has happened in how this impacts the climate? Let’s be sure of that before we ask people to make drastic changes.
One other thing I never see, and haven’t been able to find online, is life-cycle environmental impacts of different measures proposed. The current administration is really pushing electric vehicles. Sure, they don’t emit the type of greenhouse gases that internal combustion engine vehicles do. But power is being generated somewhere to charge the EVs. New transmission mains, even a whole new electrical grid, is needed to power these cars. What is the environmental cost of the vehicles themselves, the distributed charging infrastructure, and the distribution system upgrades necessary to make it all work with some reasonable similarity to the society we now have? This isn’t discussed.
I bring all this up because those who preach man-caused climate change want us to change our habits so as to reduce or, preferably, reverse these manmade effects. They frequently want to bring about this change by taxation. A carbon tax is most often proposed. In other words, if you can’t get people to change their behavior voluntarily, make it more expensive to maintain the old way of doing things rather than change to the new ways. Taxation is proposed to achieve this end.
Before these massive expenditures of a whole new transportation infrastructure happen, how about we do a lot of study and computer modelling on a macro, world-wide level to rule out every possible natural cause? Volcanic action. Earth’s slowing rotation. Probably some other things. Let’s have that public discussion, laying all the data on the table. Let’s prove through comprehensive studies what the environmental footprint is of those infrastructure changes—cradle-to-grave footprints brought back to an easily stated standard.
I’m going to have a couple more posts about this. They may not be consecutive, however.
Love him or hate him, this is excellent reading of historical significance.
Today should be the day for my writing progress & goals report, but I may be AWOI (away without internet), so I’m writing this post early ad scheduling it for posting on May 2.
The book Reagan In His Own Hand: The Writings of Rondal Reagan That Reveal His Revolutionary Vision For America is a great book. I began reading it a number of years ago, got maybe 1/3 of the way through it, and stopped. Why? Because I found it very intense, and more politics than I wanted to read at that time. I picked it up again a couple of months ago and got back into it.
It’s still intense, but I was able to read the rest of it by choosing a manageable amount per day and read just that. The book contains typescripts of the drafts Reagan wrote mainly of his radio addresses from 1975-1980ish. He wrote these on legal pads, doing what we all do when we draft on paper. He crossed out and inserted. He reworded and moved things around. Some staffer must have edited it. Somehow, it all came together into a script that Reagan read on the radio.
The book includes some other miscellaneous writings. Some are from his early years pre-politics, some from time as governor, some drafts of campaign speeches, and I think one or two presidential papers. Always they were typed from Reagans own writings.
My only complaint about this book is that they typescript includes all of Reagan’s handwritten edits. These would be of interest to a researcher who wants to study Reagan’s composition style. For me as a reader, they were distracting, something I either needed to wade through and read or attempt to jump over and get to what the final version was. I mostly did the latter.
Whether you love Reagan or hate him, this book is good reading. If you hate Reagan, pick up a copy, read through it, get angry, and feed your hate. At least you’ll be reading historical stuff. If you love Reagan, well, what better thing to have than something written by him rather than something about him?
5-stars. It would be 4.5 stars if that were allowed, the 1/2 star lost for putting all the editing stuff in the typescripts. But it’s not a keeper. I don’t anticipate reading it again. Out to the sale/donation shelf it goes.
