The Real Issue Is Preserving the Republic

For John, BLUF:  I hear people, like The New Yorker's Susan B. Glasser saying:

Faced with such challenges, President Biden seemed finally ready to abandon the pretense that he could once again unite the fractured nation and heal our Trump-distorted politics with some old-fashioned bipartisan Senate dealmaking.  That comforting fiction helped him defeat Donald Trump in 2020 but has been comprehensively debunked by Biden’s subsequent struggles in governing.  In remarks to reporters on Wednesday, the President previewed his new, more partisan message for the campaign to come:  “This is about a lot more than abortion,” he said.  Republicans are radical and dangerous, not only anti-woman but anti-gay, anti-personal freedom, and anti-democracy.  The Trumpist maga movement, he said, “is the most extreme political organization that’s existed in recent American history.”

[Shouldn't MAGA be all caps?]

So, Bipartisan Biden was a pretense to get elected.  I don't think Ms Glasser respects either honesty or our system of government.  Would she destroy the Constitution to allow infanticide.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Irrational, Misguided Discourse Surrounding Supreme Court Controversies Such as Roe v. Wade

Here is the sub-headline:

The Court, like the U.S. Constitution, was designed to be a limit on the excesses of democracy.  Roe denied, not upheld, the rights of citizens to decide democratically.

From the Greenwald Substac, by Reporer Glenn Greenwald, 3 May 2022.

After several introductory paragraphs, Mr Greenwald gets to the nub of the issue:

Every time there is a controversy regarding a Supreme Court ruling, the same set of radical fallacies emerges regarding the role of the Court, the Constitution and how the American republic is designed to function.  Each time the Court invalidates a democratically elected law on the ground that it violates a constitutional guarantee — as happened in Roe — those who favor the invalidated law proclaim that something “undemocratic” has transpired, that it is a form of “judicial tyranny” for “five unelected judges” to overturn the will of the majority.  Conversely, when the Court refuses to invalidate a democratically elected law, those who regard that law as pernicious, as an attack on fundamental rights, accuse the Court of failing to protect vulnerable individuals.

This by-now-reflexive discourse about the Supreme Court ignores its core function.  Like the U.S. Constitution itself, the Court is designed to be an anti-majoritarian check against the excesses of majoritarian sentiment.  The Founders wanted to establish a democracy that empowered majorities of citizens to choose their leaders, but also feared that majorities would be inclined to coalesce around unjust laws that would deprive basic rights, and thus sought to impose limits on the power of majorities as well.

The Federalist Papers are full of discussions about the dangers of majoritarian excesses. The most famous of those is James Madison's Federalist 10, where he warns of "factions…who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”  One of the primary concerns in designing the new American republic, if not the chief concern, was how to balance the need to establish rule by the majority (democracy) with the equally compelling need to restrain majorities from veering into impassioned, self-interested attacks on the rights of minorities (republican government).  As Madison put it:  “To secure the public good, and private rights, against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our enquiries are directed.”  Indeed, the key difference between a pure democracy and a republic is that the rights of the majority are unrestricted in the former, but are limited in the latter.  The point of the Constitution, and ultimately the Supreme Court, was to establish a republic, not a pure democracy, that would place limits on the power of majorities.

Remember what Dr Benjamin Franklin replied to the woman as to what the Constitutional Convention of 1787 have given us?

A Republic, if you can keep it.

The end of Roe v Wadd will not end abortions, nor will it end abortion on demand in many parts of our Great Nation.  It will mean that in those parts of the nation where the Citizens think there should be limits to abortion, there could be such limits.

It might also mean a certain internal dignity for those women who conceived a child in difficult circumstances and carried that child to term.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Golden State

For John, BLUF:  When illegl immigrants are leaving and returning home you should recognize that you have a problem.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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'The US isn't an option anymore':  why California's immigrants are heading back to Mexico

Here is the sub-headline:

Years of anti-immigrant policies from the Trump administration have been magnified by insecurities resulting from the pandemic

From The Guardian, by Reporter Maanvi Singh, 31 December, 2020.

Here is the lede plus three:

California’s most vulnerable immigrants have faced unprecedented challenges this year, with some weighing whether it’s worth staying in the United States altogether.

Ten months of a pandemic that has disproportionately sickened immigrants and devastated some of the industries that rely on immigrant labor, combined with years of anti-immigrant policies by the Trump administration have exacerbated insecurities for undocumented people and immigrants working low-wage jobs across California.

For immigrants at the bottom of the economic ladder, it’s never been easy in the US, said Luz Gallegos, the executive director of the immigrant advocacy group Training Occupational Development Educating Communities Legal Center (Todec).

“But California was also always a place where my family – my parents and grandparents – believed they could build a better life,” said Gallegos who was born into a family of immigrant activists and organizers. “It was always a place with potential.”

However, notwithstanding the Trumpian spin, the Blogger, Professor Glenn Reynolds, says of this Grauniad article:

HOW BAD A JOB HAS GAVIN NEWSOM DONE?  EVEN THE MEXICANS ARE LEAVING IN DISGUST.

I tend to agree with the Blogger.  Since President Trump has dealt with COVID-19 in a Federal way, these problems fall on the Governor and not the President.  It is easy to blame President Trump, but it is really on responsible state and local officials, empowered by the Tenth Amendment, shirking their duties.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Ruler Isn't Omnipotent

For John, BLUF:  I find it interesting that President Trump would sign a declaration honoring Saint Thomas à Becket.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Trump Honors Catholic Martyr St. Thomas Becket for Defense of Religious Liberty

From The Daily Signal (the Heritage Foundation), Ms Mary Margaret Olohan, 29 December 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

President Donald Trump declared Dec. 29 the anniversary of the Roman Catholic martyr St. Thomas Becket, honoring the 12th-century English bishop as “a lion of religious liberty.”

“Thomas Becket’s death serves as a powerful and timeless reminder to every American that our freedom from religious persecution is not a mere luxury or accident of history, but rather an essential element of our liberty,” the president’s proclamation said.  “It is our priceless treasure and inheritance. And it was bought with the blood of martyrs.”

The president highlighted Archbishop Becket’s martyrdom in a proclamation issued Monday, describing how knights of King Henry II of England murdered the Catholic saint in his own church after he refused to acknowledge the king as his supreme ruler.

“His last words on this earth were these,” the proclamation said, “‘For the name of Jesus and the protection of the Church, I am ready to embrace death.’  Dressed in holy robes, Thomas was cut down where he stood inside the walls of his own church.”

That President Trump would honor this Saint suggests that he does have some inkling about the separation of powers within our Federal Government and the idea that the Tenth Amendment exists.

Regards  —  Cliff

Tenth Amendment Democrats (For Now)

For John, BLUF:  I think of Senator Schumer as a bit of a grand stander.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren are all for state autonomy — when the GOP's in charge

Here is the sub-headline:

Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren want states to decide their own marijuana policies. They're big federalism fans — when the GOP's running America.

From USA Today, by Law Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds, 23 April 2018.

Here is the lede plus one:

If hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, then Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has delivered a whopping tribute to the constitutional doctrine of federalism.

In a series of tweets, he announced:  “Today, I am formally announcing my plan to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level.  It’s time we allow states, once and for all, to have the power to decide what works best for them.  I have long believed that states should function as their own laboratories of democracy.  My bill is a step in the right direction aimed at removing the barriers to state legalization efforts.” —

Schumer was joined by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who said: “The federal government needs to get out of the business of outlawing marijuana.  States should make their own decisions about enforcing marijuana laws.”

Ah, the idea that the individual States are the “laboratories of democracy” meme.  I think it is just political opportunism.  But, when you are losing to President Trump you need to exploit your opportunities.

Here are my thoughts on Mary Jane:

1. It should be legal, like alcohol.
2. It is bad for you, but, free will and all that.
3. Smoking it in public is not just impolite, but perhaps bad for the health of those around you.
4. No Government entity is going to make money off the taxing of the sale of marijuana.
5. People under the age of 23, at which point the brain is pretty well formed, should be banned from using it

The Author, Professor Reynolds, the InstaPundit, wonders, further into the article, if Senators Schumer and Warren would feel the same way about guns and abortion.  I doubt they would.  I doubt they are all that happy with the Electoral College.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Tying Trump's Hands

For John, BLUF:  Think of it as weaponizing the Judiciary to thwart the will of the voters.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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California Attorney General:  'An Executive Order Is Not a Law'

From Pajama Media and Reporter Bridget Johnson, today, 26 April 2017.

The lede plus two:

California's attorney general insisted that the jurisdictions within the state are locking up dangerous illegal immigrants despite the Trump administration's argument that sanctuary cities endanger public safety.

Xavier Becerra, former chairman of the House Democratic Caucus who was appointed to fill the attorney general's post vacated by now-Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), told CNN on Tuesday after a federal judge granted an injunction against the administration's vow to strip all federal funding from sanctuary cities that the White House is "in denial."

"You just have to read the constitution. It's very simple. You can't force states to do things that the constitution lets them do. And public safety is one of those items that a state has the responsibility to take care of, not the federal government," he said.

That is the trouble with giving young kids large responsibilities.  They lack institutional memory.  Like when the Federales threatened to withhold Federal Highway Funds if individual states didn't set the highway speed limit at 55 mph.

I wonder if we here in Lowell can get money back from the Federal Department of Housing and Ubran Development (Sec Ben Carson), which they took back because they (HUD) thought a local homeless organization wasn't following their policies.

I see chaos as unintended third order consequences kick in.  On the other hand, Congress can fix this when it does the FY2018 Authorizations and Appropriations, come 1 October.  Or SCOTUS can fix it, or not.

Hat tip to PJ Media.

Regards  —  Cliff

All Are Created Equal, But Not in Every Regard

For John, BLUF:  Another case of too much is too much.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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If You Demand Rights That Aren’t Unalienable, You Don’t Get America

The readily observable fact that we no longer think politically in terms of unalienable rights is a perfect measure of how much we have abandoned the Founders’ vision.

From The Federalist by Mr Robert Curry, the 8th of February of this year.  The lede:

Others before the American Founders had dreamed of a political order of liberty and justice, but every previous attempt ended in failure.  That men again and again, admittedly fitfully and never successfully until the Founders, struggled to hold that ideal above the dreadful historical reality is perhaps Western civilization’s most honorable claim to greatness.  The Founders’ solution is the crowning glory of that noble tradition.

Basically, if we don't ground rights in something, and limit those rights, we risk the American Experiment.

Read the whole thing.

Regards  —  Cliff

America's Responsibility for the San Berdoo Terrorist Event

For John, BLUF:  The Progs are bending over backward to push the "Gun Control" meme.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From The New Yorker, today, is an item by Mr Adam Gopnik, which tries to steer the recent shootings out in San Bernardino back upon the American People, due to their love of guns.

"Our Shared Blame for the Shooting in San Bernardino"

The collective responsibility that all Americans share is the responsibility of allowing too many people to have too many guns; guns of a kind that no civilian ever needs can be bought in this country by almost anyone who wants one.

That is an interesting sentence.  How many is too many guns?  Can I get a number?

My Middle Brother, living in California, with fairly strict gun laws (Senator Barbara Boxer was bragging about them the other day), claims there are no gun control laws, since bad things happen.  What I don't yet know is if he would still feel that way if we confiscated all the guns of legal gun owners and only criminals, with illegally obtained guns, were using them?  Maybe he will leave us a comment.

A side note on this is the question of if gun regulation should be a Federal or a State issue.  I was in a discussion this AM in which I was looked at with incredulity for suggesting that the Tenth Amendment limits what Congress might be able to do.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

I suggested that maybe the Federal Government was given no role in this issue by the Constitution.  That Congress may have thought that way at one time is the way the Federal Government death with machine guns, the "assault rifles of the 1930s.  The National Firearms Act of 1934 (“NFA”) imposes a tax on the making and transfer of machine guns and certain other weapons.  It was enacted by Congress as an exercise of its authority to tax, suggesting Congress thought it lacked direct authority.

Today, of course, the ignorance of the US Constitution, or the rejection of it, may cause some to argue that Congress may act anyway, or the President should act on his own, since there is a "need".

But, then the writer goes on to say:

(And those who encourage hate speech directed at health clinics share responsibility for what happens when people take them seriously.)  They are responsible in the same way that we are all responsible for the bad consequences of our beliefs, in exactly the same way that Wahhabi imams who preach intolerance are responsible for the consequences of their words.  Sometimes you can avoid such horrible consequences with a minimal effort at thinking and acting responsibly.  And when you can, you should.

Is that a slap at me because I believe that the fetus after 20 or so weeks should not be aborted for the convenience of the Mother?  Is holding that view "hate speech"?  Does holding that view make me the same as some Saudi Wahhabist Imam?  We need to be clear on this.  Is hold any degree of pro-life views something that should not be allowed under the First Amendment?

Or is it a kind of "Doonesbury" slap at Charlie Hebdo, who our Secretary of State suggested brought their attack upon themselves.

In the penultimate paragraph the author suggests that the recent Paris Terrorist Event was different because Daesh had to smuggle guns into France.  Here, in the United States, the terrorists can buy the guns they need at their local gun store.  Passed over in this paragraph is the fact that these two terrorists also had pipe bombs, which they did not purchase at their local gun store.  So, if they had used only the pipe bombs (IEDs, so to speak) would Mr Gopnik have dropped his snark against the NRA?

Then there is the last paragraph:

If the gun lobby ever spoke honestly, what they would say is that of course we are broadly responsible for these killings, but regular mass killings of innocent people is the price we pay for the liberty to own whatever guns we want, in order to be protected from a phantom threat we cannot name. That is their actual belief, although one sees, on examining it, why they never want to state it quite so clearly. So there will be ever more mass gun murders, some to be accepted blankly as the cost of liberty, others to become the occasion for surrendering liberty to a militarized state. Like the song says, only in America.

Why does Mr Gopnik think that the United States is immune from dictatorship?  Early in the article he talks to the collective responsibility of the German People for the horrors of World War II.  Would Mr Gopnik condone the use of revolution by Germans to replace the National Socialist regime?

Maybe Mr Gopnik believes in American Exceptionalism, his idea of it being that we could never go off the tracks and become a dictatorship that could do awful things.

His mouth to God's Ear.

Regards  —  Cliff

Gov't Lawyers Spanked

For John, BLUF:  Government needs to be predictable.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Commentator Byron York, writing in The Washington Times, says "Federal judge slams Obama lawyers in immigration case".  Here is the lede and following paragraph.

A federal judge has issued a scathing rebuke to lawyers for the Obama administration in a case involving the president's unilateral immigration action.  In an order issued Tuesday night, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, who had put a temporary hold on the action, not only refused to lift the hold — he also came very near to accusing administration lawyers of flat-out lying to him.

The administration's assertions in the immigration case have been "misleading," "troublesome," and "belied by the facts," Hanen wrote.  "Any number of federal judges, given this misconduct, would consider striking the government's pleadings."  Doing so would effectively end the case altogether, and Hanen wrote that he had decided not to take that action because the issues at stake are of great national importance.

The idea of the pen and telephone as a way of governing is a disturbing thought, but the idea of Government Lawyers prevaricating is even more disturbing.  What is that old line?  "Truth, Justice and the American Way."

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

PP&ACA Back to SCOTUS

For John, BLUF:  These things take time to sort out.  The case will be heard by the Supremes in March of 2015.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Volokh Conspiracy, in The Washington Post, talks to "Linda Greenhouse’s reaction to the cert grant♠ in King v. Burwell".  King v. Burwell?  Here is the first paragraph from the Wikipedia page:

King v. Burwell, Halbig v. Burwell, Pruitt v. Burwell, and Indiana v. IRS are a set of related lawsuits challenging U.S. Treasury regulation, 26 C.F.R. § 1.36B-2(a)(1), issued under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).  The challengers argue that the text of the ACA only allows for subsidies on state-run exchanges, and that the regulation as implemented by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), providing for subsidies on state-run exchanges as well as federal exchanges, exceeded the authority Congress granted to it.  All of the "v. Burwell" cases were originally titled "v. Sebelius" until Kathleen Sebelius was replaced by Sylvia Mathews Burwell as United States Secretary of Health and Human Services.

So, we know this is about PP&ACA, and the constitutionality of its implementation.  One would think that constitutionality would be important to our officials in Washington.  Or not.  At any rate, here is the lede from The Washington Post:

Over at the New York Times, Linda Greenhouse has a puzzling column on the cert grant in King v. Burwell.  Greenhouse condemns the cert grant in Burwell as “a naked power grab by conservative justices” because they took the case when there was no circuit split and no emergency. According to Greenhouse, the Court’s decision to hear the case absent a split has had an enormous impact on her view of the Supreme Court as an institution:

In decades of court-watching, I have struggled — sometimes it has seemed against all odds — to maintain the belief that the Supreme Court really is a court and not just a collection of politicians in robes.  This past week, I’ve found myself struggling against the impulse to say two words: I surrender.

Law Professor Orin Kerr, the Fred C. Stevenson Research Professor at The George Washington University Law School, tries to explain Ms Linda Greenhouse's♥ angst and issues.

My quick take is that she is afraid the PP&ACA may be declared unconstitutional and thus go away in whole or in part.  Since the goal of the PP&ACA is so important, the ends (goodness) justify the means (extra-constitutionality).  Frankly, it isn't this case that is the problem, but the long term consequences of deciding that the clear lines of the Constitution may be smudged if it is for a good cause, or what is the good cause of the day.

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  "Cert." is short for Writ Certiorari.  It is issued by a superior court, directing an inferior court to forward the records of a case for review.
♥  Ms Greenhouse is the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph M. Goldstein Senior Fellow at Yale Law School.

Washington Divided

For John, BLUF:  Let People, to the extent they can, do it themselves.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From the Instapundit we have this comment on an article from The Washington Examiner, looking at gridlock in DC.

PHILIP KLEIN:  Washington is divided because it has abandoned federalism.

There has been a lot of handwringing in recent years about how divided Washington is, and how it’s difficult for the parties to come together on anything. But the reality is that the states are divided among themselves.

The architecture of the Constitution offers a natural solution to this problem. Instead of trying to solve every issue at the national level, power should be shifted back to the states. Those states whose residents are willing to pay higher taxes for more government services should be free to do so, as should states whose residents are willing to forgo government benefits in favor of lower taxes. Under such a system, instead of bitterly hashing out every issue in Washington, Congress could be focusing on a limited range of issues.

It’s clear that liberals don’t see things this way. But it should be no surprise that their efforts to impose one-size-fits-all solutions across the nation encounter so much resistance.

And, neither party is immune to this problem, as Professor Glenn Reynolds notes at the end of the blog post:

They rediscover federalism whenever the GOP controls the White House and Congress, but they quickly forget it upon regaining power at the national level. The GOP is only moderately better.

The key point, for me, is that when one has a problem that can't be solved by the group at hand, perhaps it is time to send it back down to a lower level, back where the rubber meets the road.  Too often we are trying to apply a "one size fits all" solution to a complex problem, made more complex because it is not the same problem in Caribou, Maine, as it is in Laguna Niguel, California.  Allowing different areas to solve their part of the problem on their own is the genius of federalism, of our US Constitution.  There is gridlock because people in Washington think they have the single solution to everyone's problem.  And they don't.

Regards  —  Cliff

Anger Management Requirements

For John, BLUF:  Have we reached the Silly Season in gun control?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

Down in Florida a State Legislator wants ammo buyers to have anger management training.  The lede:

A Florida legislator wants anyone trying to buy ammunition to complete an anger management program first, in what critics say is the latest example of local lawmakers reaching for constitutionally-dubious solutions to the problem of gun violence.

Yes, this is Fox News, and not The Onion.

Some will read this and immediately condemn State Senator Audrey Gibson, a Democraft from Jacksonville.  I think we need to give this some consideration, and perhaps expansion.  For example, I would go along with this if it was unbreakably tied to a requirement for anger management training in order to vote, at least in State and local elections.

Test everything and see how it would work in other circumstances.

Regards  —  Cliff

Paying Taxes

When I was young (around 14), after my initial disappointment in bring yanked out of Leavittown, PA, I found [Southern] California to be wonderful.  Then it started to unravel.  Which brings me to the last sentence of this Hot Air piece by Ms Tina Korbe.

No wonder so many Californians have migrated there.

The piece, itself, "Feds to Texas:  You defunded Planned Parenthood, now we’re defunding you", talks about Texas walking away from Federal Funding for Women's Health over the issue of funding Planned Parenthood.

There is something strange here, or would be strange if the Federal Gov't wasn't using Pixie Dust to fund programs.♠  I could be wrong, but it seems federal funding:

1. Comes from taxes that could have been raised locally, but without the cost of the Federal Middleman,
2. Are being taken from taxes raised from the taxpayers in some other State and raked off to help your State, or
3. Are being taken from the taxpayers in your State for the benefit of folks in some other State.

The one reason for going with Federal funding is that most States don't allow deficit spending.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Of course it is really deficit spending, which is, in the long run, like Pixe Dust.  So how long can we go forward on Pixie Dust?  It is fiat money, so as long as everyone says it is money it is.  Let just one person break the circle and it begins to collapse.

Tenth Amendment Republicans

Is Jennifer Rubin♠ correct in asserting that the way forward for Republicans is via the Tenth Amendment? Or is she just shilling for Margaret Hoover and her new book, American Individualism:  How a New Generation of Conservatives Can Save the Republican Party?

Reporting on a comment by Texas Governor Rick Perry during a telephone interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader she noted he was quoted as follows:

But while Texas has written into its constitution that marriage is defined as being between one man and one woman, he said New York’s recent decision to implement same-sex marriage “is New York’s prerogative.”

She then goes on to analyze the Governor's position:

As I have suggested before, a 10th Amendment approach to gay marriage and abortion is both in keeping with the party’s defense of federalism and smart politics.  As gay rights moves from the courts to state legislatures and referendums, it will, I would suggest, become increasing difficult for conservatives to decry democratically approved gay marriage laws.  Social conservatives certainly have every right to try to influence the process and convince others that gay marriage is a bad idea, but it’s dicey for conservatives to argue with the results of votes on public policy by popularly elected state officials.

Refresher:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

What could our Founding Fathers been thinking, back in 1791?

Are we soon going to be adding a new category of Republicans, TARs (Tenth Amendment Republicans), like we now have RINOs?  I sure hope so?

Hat tip to Hot Air.

UPDATE:  Incidentally, over at the Instapundit there is an informal poll ongoing since yesterday and Gov Rick Perry is running 40% as of this morning.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Jennifer Rubin writes the "Right Turn" blog for The WashingtonPost, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.

Individual Rights Strengthened

Law Professor Ann Althouse has blogged about yesterday's US Supreme Court ruling in Bond v. United States .

Yesterday the US Supreme Court ruled that individuals have "standing to challenge the constitutionality of the federal crime" with which they are charged.  Professor Althouse likes this quote from the ruling:

"State sovereignty is not just an end in itself: 'Rather, federalism secures to citizens the liberties that derive from the diffusion of sovereign power.'"

"Diffusion of sovereign power."

Regards  —  Cliff

The Drinking Age

Over at The Wall Street Journal the Instapundet, Law Professor Glenn Reynolds writes about allowing the individual states to lower their drinking ages from 21 to a lower age, such as 18.  It is the old argument that if they are old enough to go to war they should be old enough to (Fill In The Blank).  From the lede:

"If you get shot at, you can have a shot."  That's the rationale behind Alaska State Representative—and Vietnam veteran—Bob Lynn's effort to establish a drinking age of 18 for active-duty service members.

It's an idea that has gotten consideration in other states, and it makes sense. Unfortunately, Mr. Lynn's proposal would violate the 1984 Federal Uniform Drinking Age Act, costing Alaska federal highway money.  This is a battle that Republicans—and fair-minded Democrats—in Congress should join.

The "old enough to fight, old enough to drink" argument has force.  In fact, 18-year-olds in America are old enough to do pretty much everything except drink. Along with joining the military, 18-year-olds can vote, marry, sign contracts, and even take on a crippling lifetime burden of student loan debt in pursuit of an education that may never land them a job.  Yet we face the absurd phenomenon of colleges encouraging students to go into six-figure debt—which can't be discharged in bankruptcy—but forbidding them to drink on campus because they're deemed insufficiently mature to appreciate the risks.

Professor Reynolds notes that over 130 college presidents have joined together to propose lowering the drinking age, through the Amethyst Initiative.

But, that isn't the full story.  My friend and classmate Jeff Levy, a retired Air Force fighter pilot and the head of the Joint Staff's Middle East/Africa Division when I was chief of the Strategy Division, lost his son, Jonathan, when his son was a freshman in college.  Jonathan was in a car being driven by a very drunk classmate.  I remember when it happened and it was a terrible blow to the family.

In an ABC News report from 2008 Jeff, who has been associated with MADD since the loss of his son, argues against lowering the drinking age and for college and university presidents to do more.  (I would quote several paragraphs here except ABC puts the report up in a format that does not allow me to highlight and copy with my iPad.  Shame on ABC.)

Personally, I am torn about this.  The argument for bringing drinking out into the open and "de-glamorizing" it makes some sense.  On the other hand, we have this statistics based ban, but all the other laws conspire to limit the sway of parents and college administrators.  It appears something needs to be done one way or the other.  And, the ability of the individual states to experiment is thwarted by a Federal Government that insists that one size fits all.

With Lowell being a college "town" this seems an apt topic, made more so by our discussion of lowering the voting age to 17 for City elections.

Regards  —  Cliff

School Meals Programs in Massachusetts

There were two Letters to the Editor in today's Boston Globe, which dealt with a bill before the US House of Representatives concerning School Lunch Programs.  The US Senate has already passed their version.

Both letters pleaded for passage.  The authors were:

• MADDIE RIBBLE, of Boston, who is the policy director of the Massachusetts Public Health Association, and,
• CATHERINE D’AMATO, also of Boston, who is the president/CEO of the Greater Boston Food Bank.

I am all for the school programs that provide additional nutrition to students in school, so they can learn better and thus become, eventually, better, more productive, citizens.

My question is, which states do these two women, and The Boston Globe for that matter (they published the two letters), wish to plunder to pay for these local programs?  Are they hoping to take money from Alaska or Texas or North Dakota?  When we ask for Federal Moneys that is what we are doing.  Either that or we think, but are unwilling to say, that Louisiana and Mississippi are incompetent when it comes to feeding its school-age children and we need a Federal program to lead them along.  If THAT is the case we should be gracious enough and honest enough to say it.

Otherwise, this should be a state level program, financed with state tax revenues.

The Federal Government is not a magic money tree, where programs are free.  All those Federal programs come out of someone's pocket and sooner or later it is either the pockets of those in other lands to whom we sold goods and services or it is our own individual taxpayer pockets, either through taxes we pay or goods and services we purchase which are also taxed.

Legislating on Beacon Hill should be about apportioning pain and those legislators should not be sloughing their work off on the Federal Congress.

There is no free lunch.

In the case of this issue, the Commonwealth should pay for what it thinks is just and necessary.  Either we cut somewhere else or we raise taxes or we stiff the children and our own future.  Asking Alaska to pay for it should not be an option under consideration.

Regards  —  Cliff