SEPARATE, BUT EQUAL?

 

If "separate but equal" is unacceptable for the US, then it should likewise be unacceptable in Israel!

The separate "two-state solution" for resolving conflicts between Jews and Arabs was embraced by the US years ago and recently buttressed by Pres. Biden. It purports to "give" Arabs an "equal" voice in Middle East affairs, but it is based on the utterly specious ethnic distinctions between Jews and Arabs.

What OUGHT to happen is that Israel immediately transition from a theocratic monolith to a single SECULAR state made up of BOTH Jews and Arabs as equal, full citizens, with MINORITY protections from the tyranny of the majority. But, I ain't holding my breath. Given the history of the iron-clad establishment of Israel in Palestine as a JEWISH state, I doubt it will ever change.

And that renders Israel as a recipient of US aid and diplomacy "invalid," in my book. I have no use AT ALL for theocracies of any sort, including the absurd US diplomatic relationship with the Vatican, which is NOT a country! It's a CHURCH, for Christ's sake! I firmly believe that the establishment of diplomatic relations with any such is UNCONSTITUTIONAL, as the First Amendment SPECIFICALLY prohibits Congress (including the Senate) from making any law "respecting the establishment of religion." 

The fact that Pope Pius XI  got together with with Italian Dictator Mussolini in 1929 to declare that the Vatican is a separate "country"  ought to be dismissed OUT OF HAND as pathetically STUPID! It is just amazing that those in the American government feel they must honor such nonsense!

US taxpayers have no business being burdened with the costs of same. The US Supreme Court ought to have the guts to put a stop to such crap, but it won't.

But, I guess I'll get outvoted, AGAIN, in Happy Witless Duh-mock-racyland!

Goddammit!

WHEN RIGHTS COLLIDE?

  Not long ago I was listening to Keyris Manzanares on VPM News “Focal Point,” presenting a special program reviewing when disagreeing people’s “rights” conflict with each other. I realize that there is plenty of disagreement of expression in the world today, but I would respectfully suggest it is a collision of OPINIONS, not of “rights.”

I do not believe that people’s rights collide within the United States. That notion implies that “rights” are conditional or limited and in possible need of curtailment, lest their exercise produce unacceptable conflict. That notion is further due to a widespread misunderstanding of what, exactly, “rights” are. Rights belong to individuals, not groups. Individuals surely have a “right” to act in groups with like-minded other persons, but the “rights” still belong to each individual, only.

No government or court or judge or army can take our rights away from us. Every official in the United States, federal, state or local, including all military officers, lawyers and judges, are SWORN to support the United States Constitution and its implicit guarantees of our rights. But, our “rights” are not dependent upon nor even granted by that document. The ONLY thing that any government official can do, including EVERY judge, is simply to ignore our rights, in blatant violation of the solemn oath to support them. Sadly, that happens on occasion.

Most often, this is seen where two (or more) individuals express differing opinions, in conflict with each other. But the EXPRESSION of opinion is not what is in conflict. It is the opinions themselves that are in conflict, and no one has a “right” to cut off or censor the other’s expression, even if they don’t like it or agree with it. Each of us must endure hearing those opinions, whether we agree or not. Ugh.

As someone else said, the answer to offensive speech is MORE SPEECH! Not censorship. This does not mean, however, that people have a “right” to attend and disrupt a public meeting. The chairs of such meetings are obliged to enforce rules to allow the orderly conduct of business, including an orderly expression of opinions, but that does not include a power of censorship. I see no conflict of rights there if the “rules” are strictly observed.

It is also well to observe here that our “rights” are only with respect to government activity and with respect to those who are acting “under color” of government authority. There is no guarantee of “rights” enforcement against individuals OR businesses regarding private, one-on-one relationships. But neither individuals nor private institutions can conspire to have “government” deprive others of their rights.

There are no such things as “special rights,” a phrase one hears from those who are offended by someone they dislike demanding enforcement of his or her rights. Everyone’s rights are the same rights we all have, including “rights” of protection and enforcement. And, it is important to remember that really despicable people have those same “rights,” and we are obliged to respect that fact, even if we vehemently dislike the individual claiming or exercising such rights. Admittedly, that it really difficult to honor, sometimes, but it is necessary. Also, no one has a right to “feel good” about something. Feelings are internal, subjective and constantly subject to injury or offense. Just get over it!

States have constitutions, too. They are nothing more than governments that have transitioned from being mere colonies in rebellion (at the time of the Revolutionary War) to states, endowed with powers by the people living therein. States can’t just “do” whatever a majority wants. They don’t have a “blank check” of unlimited powers, nor should they. They must be constrained by their own constitutions, and if that document does not grant a specific power, then in my opinion that power does not exist. Of course, finding a judge or politician with the spine to enforce that may be problematic!

States don’t have “rights,” either, notwithstanding a persistent belief to the contrary, especially in the South. As governments, they have only “powers” or the lack thereof. Only the “people” can have rights, subject to their forfeiture by operation of constitutional law or by a constitutional grant of contrary or limiting “power” to such government via the respective constitution.

Powers and rights are two different things. It is important for everyone to understand that difference and be clear about which is being invoked. We, the people, have a right to have our rights enforced and respected by ALL government officials, but our only means of true enforcement is at the ballot box. It is well to keep that in mind at all times.

_____________________________ 

"ASSAULT" WEAPONS

 

Much is understandably made of the preference many jerks have for using "assault-style" guns when conducting their terrors.

But, I must ask if the murderous incidents would NOT have happened BUT FOR the availability of those weapons? Are they the sine qua non of mass killings? I doubt it. And, I don't believe an "assault-style" definition can be written to withstand the strict "due process" requirements of criminal prohibitions. We may all know what it "is," but it can't be easily defined WITH NECESSARY PRECISION. A semi-automatic "assault-style" rifle is still a single-shot-per-trigger-pull action. Fully automatic rifles ("machine guns") are ALREADY tightly regulated by federal law. I have read those laws.

No law is self-enforcing. Criminal laws MUST be logical and unambiguous. A lawsuit against a gun manufacturer may help grieving families "feel better," but if the sale is lawful, how might that generate any liability?

Many journalists Seem to rhetorically demand to know WHY "police" didn't just "stop" the gunmen when "warned" about them. What, exactly, do those people EXPECT the "police" to do? Arrest somebody BEFORE they commit a crime?  Lock them up in jail for their own good, until they can "prove" their sanity? And who, exactly, are the officials "tasked" with checking up on "suspicious" people, and what POWERS do they have to intervene? Who does the "tasking"? By what authority?

I savor the irony of those insisting on exercising their First Amendment rights (quite properly so) demanding that certain "undesirables" have their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights summarily revoked, or suspended, until they pass somebody's "smell test"! Forget "due process"! Just ask those who've been stopped by cops for DWB--"driving while black"!

There are just too many assumptions that the "police" can actually PREVENT a horrible crime from happening, and by my experience, that is almost impossible! Summary authority to intervene and stop people from going about their business is NOT allowable in the US! Real freedom involves assumption of risk that something bad might happen! Sadly, crime "prevention" is mostly a fantasy that exists in the mind.

I certainly believe that larger magazine/clip capacities make such assailants harder to bring down, but those are available for most ANY gun, regardless of "aesthetics." Sadly, I do not believe there is much, if any advance screening of people that could be mandated by law to PREVENT the mass murderers from acting. I think a key may be to only limit their "duration" with mandated smaller clips.

None of that seems to have been proposed, yet, and a "clip" prohibition should be accompanied by a VERY GENEROUS "bounty" offer, to buy up as many of the large-capacity clips ALREADY in circulation as possible! Otherwise, a black market would be immediately established with such a mere prohibition. A "clip" law should also provide severe criminal penalties for people engaging in a "black market" scenario.

The other day on NPR an anti-smoking "advocate" was talking about how RJR Tobacco used the cartoonish "Joe Camel" to promote cigarette consumption by children. I believe a jury so found and awarded big bucks against RJR. How has it been "proven" that children have been influenced to smoke by "Joe Camel," then gotten "government" to censor the silly ads?

I am a lot more concerned about intrusive government than I am about children smoking or possible lunatics with guns.

___________________________ 

DOGGEREL--OFF THE LEASH

 

I'm no longer a "pup."

My blood sugar's up.

My knees don't work.

I've lost my ol' perk.

I use a C-PAP.

Utterly CRAP!

Overwhelmed with pains,

Dragging balls and chains.

All whined out and blustered,

I can't "cut the mustard."

Misspent youth—now afar,

But I can still lick the jar!

10/30/23

I TRUST

Each red waif

Wafts to ground,

Fluttering, helplessly, soon

Rotting to death as soil,

Deserting naked fingers

Stretched outward, upward

Toward blue above.

Piles, fluffs, slick films,

Blanketing surfaces.

Darkening, or yellowing, with

Fleeting late October.

Reds fading now, following 

Already-dead bacterial chloroplasts,

Leaving only yellows, browns and grays.

No more greens except for

Ubiquitous cedars, growing anywhere.

Quieter now.

No robins; no swallows; only

Imperious jays, multilingual mockingbirds, and

Woodpeckers hammering,

Sometimes faintly,

On corded gnarl, twisting up

Toward the fingers,

Black against the blue above.

Imperious crows--hollering insistently

In the distance.

Yellow sunlight slants shadows across

The late-year ground. One last gasp of

Warmth as cold rot begins, with

Tiny buds newly

Forming

On bony fingers.

Soon, I trust.

10/29/23

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?

 

(or, much ado about nothing much)

It is clear that “AI” is now a big deal. Lots of gum-flapping going on, yet it’s obvious that WAY too many people who’ve seen the movie 2001 have “Hal” (the computer) on the brain. The paw-wringing angst is almost suffocating, as such people well remember how “Hal” killed off those who wanted to turn him off! Hal took over the movie mission to Jupiter, and its gravity eventually sucked the spaceship into its deadly embrace, while the human embryo floating in the heavens just looked on passively, and the strains of the “Blue Danube” waltz rose majestically on the soundtrack. Ah. I was sucked in, too!

Yet, about 55 years ago in the early 1970’s, I became an AI skeptic after smoking a lot of “dope” one evening while howling in laughter at the antics of the “Firesign Theatre’s” record album, “I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus.” VERY loosely structured, it is a comedy skit about sending a bus-load of “Bozo” clowns to the Future, where/when “The President” is, by then, a computer granting audiences to The People, answering all sorts of questions it insists be asked by the pilgrims in attendance. One of the Bozo clowns, a fellow named “Clem,” is urged to ask “any question” and The President (with a voice sounding familiarly like Richard Nixon) will surely answer it. OF COURSE we were already weeping with laughter! For those who don’t know, “dope” encourages much silly laughter. Why do you think they call it “dope”?

So Clem asks: “Why does the porridge bird lay its egg in the air?”  a totally ridiculous (and also very funny) question. And the computer has a total meltdown and is ruined, utterly unable to answer Clem’s simple question! Somebody in the background on the record is yelling, “You broke The President, man! You broke The President!” More laughter, still. I could hardly breathe.

My friend and classmate, who’s now been dead for a couple of years, asked me if I knew why the computer had a meltdown, and of course I did not know, and he said “BECAUSE computers cannot answer ‘why’ questions!” I have given that observation a lot of thought since, and I think I know what it’s all about, Alfie.

Computers are very good and fast at answering substantive, factual, data-driven questions and even making data-driven decisions, but machines will likely NEVER be able to make decisions on mere whim, such as starting out to bake cookies and suddenly changing its mind, for the Hell of it, and deciding to shuck and cook corn instead! I seriously doubt that computers will EVER be able to exercise whimsy, to decide “because,” where changes of intent occur on the fly and without any additional human input. Where a computer suddenly decides to ignore human controller instructions and, on its own, decides to kill those humans instead. I don’t believe that a computer will ever be programmable to make such sudden decisions on its own.

IT MAY WELL BE that some “evil” programmers will be able to program computers to turn off all life-support devices if/when they detect certain actions that might lead to their shutdown, but that is not the same thing as the computer deciding ON ITS OWN to do so. (Why would those idiots put all such devices on the same circuit, anyway? Why not just unplug the thing?) It seems to me that a spaceship tasked with going to, say, Jupiter would have redundancy built into the guidance and operational systems, so the idea of just ONE computer controlling all manner of activities is unlikely. Or certainly should be.

No less a credentialed figure as Sir Roger Penrose, an emeritus  professor of mathematics and physics at Oxford (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose) who shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 2020, is also an AI skeptic, and he published a very complex book about human consciousness back in the early 1990’s, The Emperor’s New Mind. I went to hear him speak at the Smithsonian back then and bought an autographed copy. (It is the only “Nobel” autograph I have.) I tried to read the book and got about 50 pages into it, but it was just too “heavy”—way over my head—so I put it on my bookshelf where it sat for about 30 years. It is loaded with theoretical math and physics; lots of stuff about quantum mechanics and subatomic particles and calculus, and I just could not handle it.

After Penrose was awarded the Nobel Prize, I could not stand looking at that book on my shelf anymore, so I took it down and decided to try again to read it; this time I managed to finish it, but it was still substantially over my head. I learned, however, to just skip over the parts that were confusing, like reading a “cock novel,” and get to the “meat” of it further on. It was profoundly influential in my thinking and validated some notions I’d been nurturing. OF COURSE the technology has evolved since, and I may now be wrong in my thinking, but I am still wedded to the notions established by smoking dope and listening to the Firesign Theatre years ago, that computers will never be able to answer “why” questions!

SPIRITUAL UNIFICATION

Summer is coming, and so is air conditioning, so when the heat gets here (likely mid-June), I've decided to get an early start on my contribution to the inevitability of "global warming," since our biblical "God" (Yahweh) very cleverly sent a rainbow to "promise" to never flood out the entire planet again!

BUT--

He don' say nuttin' 'bout no HEAT STROKE! So, I figure we ARE plunging toward the Sun, being sucked in by the huge gravity wave enveloping us.  And, it's gonna get MUCH hotter!  So hot that, when we're sucked into the Sun, the heat and the crushing gravity will squeeze everything down to sub-atomic particles, and that gravity-driven fusion will then squeeze protons together to form the nucleus of HELIUM! Then the electrons zooming around all over the place will spy those "nekkid" protons, and a pair will quickly lock into the first electron shell and form the atom helium (Atomic Number "2"), which is inert and won't chemically combine with anything else! FOREVER! Permanent "pussy" for those electrons!

SO, that satisfies the Hindu theory of reincarnation!  We will all be "reincarnated" as helium atoms! Then another race of sentient beings on the planet "Zorg" will gather us up and pump us into airships, where we call all violently bump around into each other like shoppers at Macy's on "Black Friday," and we can float around inside their airships for Eternity!

("Goddammit!  I grabbed that sweater first!”)

I've been trying to name this new religion, but Rev. Sun Myung-Moon has already created the "Unification" Church, so that idea is gone, UNLESS I can take it over and make it my own! Hm-m-m!

Howzzat? I think it makes MUCH more sense than the Bible! The Hindus were on the right track, but they just didn't know anything about quantum mechanics back then!

SERVITUDE

13th Amendment, US Constitution:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. [My emphasis.]

Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

No law is self-enforcing.  No one can simply snap his/her fingers and suddenly STOP “abortions” from happening.  Such “prohibition” laws MUST be accompanied by a threat of CRIMINAL prosecution, conviction and punishment for those who intend to proceed with an abortion.  In other words, any new “laws” must suddenly criminalize otherwise law-abiding persons.

Most states provide very little financial assistance to poor women who must raise their children in poverty.  Such benefits are scorned by many well-off people as “welfare.”  So, as I understand the coming scenario, the state will prohibit women from having early-term abortions, and those women will thereby be FORCED to carry their fetuses to term, be FORCED to give possibly painful birth, then be FORCED to spend the next 18-25 years raising those government-mandated children with very little financial assistance, including medical assistance and food.  I just don't understand how that squares with a notion of LIMITED government.

I  know some who are reading this piece are weary of my blatherings about the US Supreme Court’s revocation of ROE v. WADE. I AGREE with those who (like Justice Samuel Alito, the primary author of the recent DOBBS Opinion that seemingly revoked ROE) say that there is no “right” to an abortion openly declared in the US Constitution.  My belief has been, though, that neither the states nor the federal government have the POWER to criminalize any thing done with or to a woman’s body by herself UNLESS another “person's" interests are adversely affected thereby, and that is basically what Justice Harry Blackmun was saying in ROE v. WADE with his famous “trimester” analysis.  That Opinion left the abortion decision to the pregnant woman and her attending physician(s) without government interference UNTIL the seventh month of pregnancy, whereupon the fetus is likely “viable” and might be able to live outside the mother’s womb.  So those fetuses are surely deserving of state protection, just as babies already born are thus protected. 

Yet there is nothing seemingly written into the law that gives a pregnant woman a “veto” power over a political majority in a state legislature.  I have been struggling to “square that circle” by finding a CONSTITUTIONAL argument that voids the presumed power of a state to step in and “protect” all fetuses, irrespective of development, as some are wont to do. That DOBBS decision is BAD law and should be immediately reversed. I hope I have here succeeded in showing the way.

I have finally realized that there is NO SUCH THING as a “constitutional right”!  Constitutions cannot possibly recite all of our rights, and the Framers of the US Constitution did not attempt to do so.  That much is made clear by the 9th Amendment, which Justice Blackmun cited in ROE, and which Alito airily dismissed in DOBBS.  Constitutions are, instead, recitations about government POWERS only—what is required of government and what is prohibited.  POWER flows from the People to government; rights do NOT flow from government to us, the People! We are dependent ONLY on having governments (unlike other countries) that will completely ENFORCE our rights!  The DOBBS majority on the US Supreme Court has, sadly, violated their solemn oaths to support the US Constitution and all the manifestations that flow from it.  They have dishonestly turned their backs on protecting the People, and they should each be impeached and removed.

All governments inside the US cannot possibly have any power that ignores scientific reality, and the “reality” is that a fetus cannot possibly be a legal “person” who merits his/her own protection, unless/until it reaches a state of “viability,” as discussed above, whereby it then becomes its own “person” able to survive, separate and apart from the mother’s body.  The issue of “viability” is a medical issue, NOT a legal issue, so it cannot be autocratically changed by a state legislature mostly full of men. Until such time, the fetus is an integral part of the mother’s body, and its fate is FULLY controllable by her alone.

ANYTHING to the contrary amounts to enforced “servitude” whereby a pregnant woman may be REQUIRED by a state government to carry that fetus to term, give birth, and raise the child at her own expense for many years, all regardless of her own wishes.  She may not be in chains nor out in a field picking cotton, but the state is, nevertheless, attempting to regulate and compel the treatment of her own body against her wishes.  THAT is, in my opinion, INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE and a blatant violation of the 13th Amendment.  And, contrary to my earlier conclusions, it is specifically addressable by Congress per Section 2!

Article VI of the US Constitution, which EVERY state has ratified, declares that the US Constitution is the “… supreme Law of the Land.”  Therefore, EVERY state’s “sovereignty” is subordinate to that ratified declaration.  And Article VI also REQUIRES that ALL officials, both federal AND state officials and including legislators and judges, “to support this Constitution, …” and every one of them has sworn an oath to do so.

So it is.  Let it be.

WHOMPED!

Books!  Books!  Books!

I keep gettin' those dirty looks

Because I haven't "downsized"!

And the car needs to be "Simonized"!

And I'd better not get those fries "Super-sized"!

Oh, Hell, I just realized

The game's on TV

Gotta go see

Them 'Devils get stomped!  Oh, dear!

(It’s a "building" year—)

That much is clear.

They'll fire the coach; he be "whomped."

No matter.  Jes' get fatter.  Listen to some

Clyde McPhatter.

3/25/23

ANTI-TRANS BS

Recently I was discussing with a friend the possible adoption of a "gender identity" enforcement plan by our local public school board.  Some newer members are convinced that persons of the “male persuasion” (i.e., the “wrong” gender) are seeking to sneak a peek at girls’ genitals during bathroom usage.  As far as they are concerned, it simply must stop, whether it's actually happening or not!

I would never countenance such perversions, but it is difficult to distinguish motives here.  My friend is convinced that a middle-school male somewhere unremembered was fraudulently posing as a transgender person and had entered a girls’ bathroom there and raped a schoolgirl in the bathroom.  She was convinced it was "all over the news" a couple of years ago.

I try to keep up with the news, even though I no longer read a daily newspaper.  I sorely miss the ritual, but the newspapers have lost their appeal for me.  I simply had not heard of such a horrible event.  I think I would have likely heard of it had it occurred.  As far as I am concerned, it was NOT “all over the news.”

I told my friend that I was going to check it out, and I have examined what's available on Snopes.com, which I believe to be a reputable rumor verification site.  I could not find ANYTHING there except a cite about an event that involved the rape of a 10-year-old child IN HER OWN HOME by a transgender (former male) person.  Sadly, certain persons with perverted political agendas have projected this event to create the unfounded suspicion that ALL transgender and lesbian persons are potentially dangerous to schoolchildren.  So, my friend mistakenly fears there are “safety” concerns about ALL transgender persons, concerns that are unwarranted and which are being maliciously planted by people with nefarious political agendas.

See https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/miguel-martinez-transgender-bathroom-controversy/

It is sad and frightening that there are certain people so desperate for political power and control that they are willing to lie and misrepresent facts in order to cause trouble for persons struggling to cope with their various gender “misalignments.”  I believe the obsessions of such "Wrong-Wingers" about transexuals and gay people are sick and perverted in their own right.

Local school boards need to address the many problems they already have and quit trying to hassle those who are struggling with their personal gender assignments.  Understandably, local governments must protect their schoolchildren, but they do not have any legitimate power to presume some sort of blanket group criminality and forcibly screen the gender of those using school bathrooms.  In other words, everybody has the unmitigated RIGHT to use any bathroom they legitimately feel is right for them, without having to pass some sort of government gender “test” to do so.

Certain self-proclaimed “conservatives” may presume certain other peoples’ criminal intentions, but that is simply not legally allowed in the United States.

2/21/2023

UPDATE: 

I am now informed that there was a single incident in Northern Virginia about a middle-school troublemaker who was REJECTED by a female with whom he had had sexual relations, but he followed her into a girl's bathroom and allegedly molested her. It was widely reported in media with which I'd had no contact.

5/31/23