Quote of the Day
You can never plan the future by the past
Edmund Burke
Bob Schieffer's Snyder v Phelps (Westboro) FTN Commentary:
Thumbs UP!
First of all, I have written what I believe may be the best layman's essay (at least of the ones I have read to date) on the Supreme Court's wrongly-decided decision. I am not going to let these so-called "judges" get away with a perfunctory Voltairean "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". Let's hear a round of applause for the politically and morally courageous justices for paying lip service to the objectionable nature of the Westboro Baptists' deliberately provocative attacks on private citizens. Perhaps the justices will next exonerate the Westboro Baptists if they start spitting at Gulf region military veterans or mocking disabled veterans as constitutionally-protected symbolic "speech"...
The justices don't seem to be able to make a common sense distinction between in-your-face emotional assault and disagreeable speech. When you are trying to bury your son in peace, you shouldn't have to put up with people telling you that "the world is a better place because your son died", or "maybe if you had been a better parent in the first place, your son would not have lost his life overseas in vain".
I'm getting a little annoyed by sophistical arguments raised by the enablers of the uncivil, e.g., arguing that the time and place argument wasn't relevant because Mr. Snyder was unaware of the Westboro protests until after his son's funeral. As far as I'm concerned, if the irresponsible media are giving the uncivil protests the oxygen the WBC is craving and the Snyder's found themselves assaulted in the privacy of their home or badgered by media for a response to the picketing of their son's funeral, even a 1000-foot barrier is all but irrelevant.
In the alternative posts I've read to date, nobody has made the point I did in my decision post: look, SCOTUS, if you are arguing this is protected political speech, why aren't you looking at context? For example, WBC could protest at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, the Mojave Cross, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the steps of the Supreme Court, the front of the White House, Capitol Hill, or the Afghanistan Embassy. (Note to patriotic conservatives: I'm not promoting these actions; I'm just trying to make a point.) Why are you allowing these unprovoked uncivil agitators to cruelly, unilaterally assault innocent people (not policymakers), under some intellectually pretentious, lipstick-on-a-pig justification for invading their privacy and thoughtlessly exacerbating their grief? Don't the unenumerated rights of these private citizens outweigh the tyrannical imposition of incivility?
I'll finish this segment by quoting Bob Schieffer's commentary:
But here is the part I don’t understand. The courts have long held that free speech can be limited in rare circumstances. We can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater if there is no fire because it would endanger public safety, people might be trampled in the chaos. The First Amendment has done just fine with that limit. But if that is so why isn’t public safety endangered when a mob hurls brutal abuse at an innocent citizen who could be scarred with severe and lasting emotional damage?
In Dishonor of Vivian Schiller, former CEO of NPR
Who Disgracefully Fired and Smeared Juan Williams
Who Disgracefully Fired and Smeared Juan Williams
Fired NPR news analyst Juan Williams should have kept his feeling about Muslims between himself and "his psychiatrist or his publicist," the network's CEO told an audience at the Atlanta Press Club earlier today.
Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD): Safe Haven for Heroes Act:
Thumbs WAY UP!
This is a last-minute edit of today's post, sparked by tonight's related discussion on FNC's On the Record. From last Wednesday's Supreme Court decision post, here is my concluding paragraph:
If it was in my power, I would enforce a consistent ban on political activity for at least an hour before through an hour after within vicinity of funeral events, including churches/facilities, final resting places, and any funeral procession drive.
It's like Dutch read my mind and/or my post:
Thumbs UP!
I was getting exasperated by what I have considered a politically inept Wisconsin Republican governor and Senate. I think other people, columnists I admire like Charles Krauthammer, have separately made similar observations, but this isn't rocket science: the first time I heard that Wisconsin budget bills require a special cloture requirement, it took me about an eighth of a second to ask: Do other bills require cloture requirements? Does collective bargaining have to be included in a budget bill? Maybe it's because I'm a problem solver by nature, but I can remember thinking that (1) the Democrats would do everything in their power to prevent a vote on collective bargaining, and (2) the Republicans were for some odd reason putting collective bargaining reforms in the one type of bill that gave Democrats leverage to protect their crony special interests simply by preventing the bill the only way they could--not by votes but by preventing a vote. I never understood why the Senate Republicans were shooting themselves in the foot.
In the event readers are not convinced I had not discussed this approach, let me quote my February 24 post:
First things first. I would have grabbed the union's essentially forced concessions on pension and health care and gotten the budget deal done. Next, I would be talking about collective bargaining reform: providing a framework for discussing things like merit pay, evaluation methods, and layoff priorities, but empowering voters, not teachers, to make the final decision.
The Wisconsin legislature is doing it in reverse sequence, but the salient point is the separation of collective bargaining reform only makes sense if the Senate approval processes differed.
I have to chuckle at other sources calling this the equivalent of a "nuclear option" (as in the US Senate where there has been talk about using majority vote to arbitrarily lower filibuster cloture, hence weakening minority rights). The Wisconsin Senate and the US Senate diverge on treatment of budget bills. In the US Senate, budget reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered. In Wisconsin, quorum calls are part of the Constitution and are specifically required for fiscal matters. State senate Democrats, who can be, and now will be, sanctioned by the Wisconsin constitution for minority abuses of power, were repeatedly warned that the Senate was prepared to act on legislation not requiring a quorum call.
I heard a late evening interview with Fox News Greta Van Susteren whom discussed an irate state senate Democrat arguing that the GOP senators had not provided proper notice (cry me a river...), claiming that Wisconsin people are going to rise up and take their state government back (he mentioned 8 recall petition drives against GOP senators, but there are also 8 against Democratic senators). (Gov. Walker and the remaining senators cannot be recalled for a year following their entry into office.)
For all the clueless progressives: this is all about empowering the taxpayers whom pay the ultimate price for blatantly corrupt, interest-conflicted Democratic legislators and governors making sweetheart deals with their public union supporters, making unsustainable promises: promises that will crowd out necessary government services while paying pension benefits far beyond those for private-sector taxpayers. The fact that many pensions are not properly funded and may require escalating payments is morally unjust. Do these state Democrats really think that voters are going to validate unsustainable promises at their own expense? I wouldn't bet on it.
Post Quote of the Day
Because of the insane union contracts in Wisconsin, one Madison bus driver, John E. Nelson, was able to make $159,000 in 2009 – about $100,000 of which in overtime pay... Seven bus drivers took home more than $100,000 that year. When asked about the outrageous overtime pay for bus drivers – totaling $1.94 million in 2009 alone – Transit and Parking Commission Chairman Gary Poulson said: "That's the contract." " - Ann Coulter
Political Humor
A few originals:
- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) points out how hard it is to cut the federal budget: the loss of (critical 7% federal) funding would no doubt lead to the collapse of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. How cowboys managed to survive for 100 years without any comparable outlet for rhyming, I don't know... Without such critical funding over the past 25 years, aspiring cowboy poets would have had no outlet beyond books, music, the Internet, rodeos, .... We just may have to also halt any federal funding of the National Coal Miner Limerick Contest, the National Lesbian Sonnet Invitational, and the National Truck Driver Haiku Convention.
- Libyan dictator Qaddafi may not quite understand the concept of a no-fly zone. He pointed out the mosquito netting around his tent and said it does a good job of taking care of all flying pests.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Bee Gees/Céline Dion, "Immortality"
