The End of Pax Americana

In the Ancient World, there was a period that has come to be called the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace.  After two centuries of almost continuous warfare, Augustus brought about an era of peace in the wake of his victory over Antony and Cleopatra.  This extended period of no warfare was unknown to Romans but not unwelcome.  It lasted for two hundred years but came to an end with Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator).

 

Based on this Roman example, historians have picked out other similar time and titled them for the dominant power that secured the peace.  After Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo, Britain became the dominant power around the globe.  Its mighty navy protected the seas and thereby promoted trade and comity on the waves.  This Pax Britannica lasted until World War I.  It was not until after World War II that the United States took the reins from Britain and established the Pax Americana.  Of course, there have been wars during this period but they have not touched the American mainland - terrorist attacks excepted.

 

Barack Obama has refused to maintain the Pax Americana.  From the very start, he apologized for America's past arrogance and declared that we had no business telling other countries what they should and shouldn't do.  He abandoned allies like Poland to curry favor with opponents like Russia.  He abandoned Iraq and is somehow bemused that ISIS arose in the fertile power vacuum he left.  He was a cheerleader for the Arab Spring which has toppled our former allies - though admittedly dictators - and provided more fertile soil for jihadists; that was not a good tradeoff.  The Middle East is in ruins and expelling refugees at an alarming rate.  Iran is on the rise and aligning itself with Russia.  Russia has become a firm supporter of Assad in Syria, a dictator that Obama long ago demanded step down.  Russia, whom Romney identified as our number one geopolitical adversary in the 2012 campaign, is securing a foothold in the Middle East while we retreat from it.

 

As happened with the Pax Britannica, America is finding it more difficult to pay for the peace.  With an economy that has stagnated for the better part of a decade and a rapidly growing welfare state to support, it is easier to cut the military than transfer payments to voters.

 

At the UN today, Vladimir Putin laid the blame for Middle Eastern turmoil on the West.  And he was right!  Obama has left a power vacuum and Putin is only too happy to accept this gift.  During the Cold War, we funded the Mujahidin in Afghanistan, a country with relatively little in the way of natural resources.  Now we are handing over the whole of the Middle East, a magnificent oil producer, without resistance.

 

I rather doubt we will have a Pax Russia to follow America's abdication. 

Trump's Tax Proposal

These are the Trump rates, simplifying our current system of 7 brackets down to 4 brackets and doing away with many of the deductions, sort of a Reagan redux but less ambitious; Reagan's tax reform left us with 2 brackets.  Also, he plans to close loopholes and stick it to the hedge fund managers.  I like simplicity in the tax code.

 

As someone who would love nothing more than to abolish the IRS and repeal the 16th Amendment to the Constitution (the one that provides for an income tax), it will come as a surprise that I don't like the 0% bracket.  Everyone should pay some tax.  Of course, that is a political loser since so many people are already in the 0% bracket in the current tax system.  Yes, that is a bad thing.  If someone pays no income tax, he has no incentive to keep taxes from rising.  In fact, there is an incentive to have taxes on others rise in order that those not paying taxes can receive more generous government benefits.

 

Though my econ classes taught that an old tax is a good tax (because the market has already adapted to it), I disagree.  Income tax requires that the government know everyone's income.  What business is it of government how much a person makes?  What happened to that right to privacy?  It requires a massive and, as recent events have shown, corruptible bureaucracy.  This is why a national sales tax is preferable.  It taxes consumption, which will have the benefit of encouraging saving.  Much as state sales taxes exempt food items, a national sales tax could do the same.  The rich will pay much more because they will consume much more.  Better still, the government need not know how much anyone earns and no one need ever file a tax return.  Furthermore, Congress wouldn't be able to pit the rich against the poor against the middle class.  The very best of all would be the visibility of it on every transaction by every taxpayer; no more withholding that hides the cost of government; if it goes up a penny, everyone will know and want an explanation.  Yes, the tax accountants would hate it and I am sure they are even now lobbying against such a wicked idea.  Such a system would take too much power away from politicians so they will never willingly allow it to pass.

 

Trump's plan is better than what we have but not as good as Rand Paul's.  He would have a single tax rate of 14.5% with certain deductions.  This would be for everything.  Now that is simplicity.  The economy would love it though Congress would, as aforementioned, be apoplectic about the loss of power.  As stated in another blog, the tax code is a protection racket where the Congress provides special tax breaks to certain donors and lobbyists.  This is why the codes keeps getting convoluted and colossal.  So long as the 16th Amendment exists, that will forever be the case.

Republican Turmoil

What is going on in the Republican Party?  For many years, the party has been split in two general groups: The Establishment and the Conservatives.  The Establishment - which includes retiring Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell - are fairly content with the current size of government so long as they get to drive the car.  Right now, the car is a Ferrari La Ferrari (the most expensive sports car on the market at $1.4 million) and the establishment members love it.  They don't admit they love it.  They talk about wanting to pare down the government but that Ferrari is just so much fun to drive.  The conservative wing of the party thinks the Ferrari is too expensive.  Those of a more Libertarian bent would opt for a Toyota Camry, which is plenty robust if the government kept within its Constitutional limits.  The majority of the conservatives - Tea Party Caucus - would be content to just have a Lamborghini.  Sure, it's still a ridiculously expensive car ($540K), but much more economical than the current Ferrari.

 

The problem for the Establishment wing of the party is that the primary voters are predominantly conservatives and taxpayers.  These voters are paying for the government to have a Ferrari while they are stuck driving a Ford Fiesta.  They have repeatedly listened to the establishment and chosen 'electable' candidates like Dole, McCain, and Romney only to discover they weren't electable after all.  No one wants to sacrifice their values to back a loser.  Even when they won with George W Bush, they lost.  The government got bigger, a new entitlement (Drug Benefit) and a cabinet department (Homeland Security) were created.  The spinelessness of the Republicans to oppose Obama's agenda despite having both houses of Congress has been the last straw.  This is why the top three candidates in the race have no elective experience.

 

Of course, the Democrats aren't happy with the Ferrari either.  They want another one.

Truth according to Hollywood

In 2004, Dan Rather broke a story on 60 Minutes that claimed George W. Bush had gone AWOL from his National Guard Unit.  The story fell apart almost immediately when bloggers were able to reproduce identical copies of the documents in Microsoft Word.  It was obvious that the documents had not been created on a 1960s typewriter but on a 2004 computer.  As the story came crashing down, it came out that the 60 Minutes producer of the story, Mary Mapes, had contacted the Kerry campaign and offered her source to it; this was not the action of a disinterested reported but rather a partisan hack.  Mapes was fired in the wake of the story and Dan Rather's career ended shortly thereafter.  Even so, both Rather and Mapes asserted that the story was true even if the documents were forgeries.

Next month, Robert Redford will portray Dan Rather and Cate Blanchet will be Mary Mapes in the movie adaptation of Mapes memoir on the subject.  Rather has seen the film and was quite pleased.  Between the fact that it is based on Mapes' memoir and Rather's glowing review, how accurately might it reflect my thumbnail sketch?  I bet the collusion between Mapes and the Kerry Campaign won't appear in the film.  It will probably re-litigate the AWOL Bush story, again claiming the story is true despite the falsity of the documents that 'prove' it.  Mapes and Rather will be shown as heroes and the bloggers who exposed their specious story the villains.

 

What this means is that it is okay for the media to lie and fabricate as long as it is for a good cause, such as opposing the election of a Republican.  To apologize for having to fire her - for cause, no less - the liberal establishment will now lionize her.  How many who were too young or politically unaware in 2004 will swallow Mapes' retelling whole?  Hollywood has a habit of making these revisionist or selective history movies that invariably reflect well on Democrats and badly on Republicans.

Boehner Resigns at Last!

John Boehner, Republican Speaker of the House, has announced that he is resigning.  He will remain in position for 1 month, long enough to cave in to Obama's budget demands on Planned Parenthood.  Yes, with nothing to lose, Boehner is almost certainly going to leave office in much the same way he served, spinelessly.

 

When Boehner first became Speaker in 2010, I was optimistic that the Republicans might push back against the leftism of the president.  Time and again, he demonstrated an unwillingness to fight for Republican principles, or any principles.  Now and again, he would talk a good game but he never enacted it.  No, for four years, all I heard from him was that he could not stop the president's agenda unless Republicans won the Senate.  Then came the 2014 election in which the Republicans crushed the Democrats, acquiring the Senate.  Finally, the Republicans will stand against the leftism of the president.  No, instead they passed a budget that would constrain the Power of the Purse for the incoming majority.  They didn't want to risk a shutdown so soon after such landslide election.  Um, why do you think the voters chose you, the opposition party, if not to oppose?

 

When the Republicans won their sweeping victory in the 2014 election, I was sadly correct in my prediction of the difference it would make: none.  The Republicans have failed their voters to such a degree that the voters will follow anyone who seems to have a spine.  Donald Trump has a spine.  Four years of Boehner's feckless leadership has brought the Republican party to this sad state.  Boehner has secured for himself a failed Speakership, an example of what not to do for future Speakers.

 

The current expectation is for the Majority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, to be the next speaker.  If he is, the Republicans will demonstrate that they haven't learned their lesson.  Why have one milquetoast resign to be replaced by another.  That may be unfair to McCarthy but I had no idea who he was until today.  That he has been the majority leader for this disaster of a Congress is not a good sign.

Now if only Mitch McConnell would resign from the Senate...

Democrat Debate

There has been much grief from lesser candidates in the Democrat field that there are only going to be 6 debates.  There are 19 declared candidates though I doubt most Democrat voters could name more than 3.  Of course, only the top five are of note:

Hillary Clinton: Former Secretary of State, New York Senator, First Lady.  She is the current front runner.  Her email scandal is damaging her standing.  On account of this, the top three words associated with her in a Quinnipiac poll were "liar," "dishonest," and "untrustworthy."  She has more than a year to counter that but the continued bleeding and lack of resolution with the email server will be an anchor on her campaign.  She is a member of the New Nobility.

 

Bernie Sanders: Vermont Senator, former Congressman, former Mayor of Burlington.   He is a self-described socialist and Clinton's most successful rival at this point.  Bernie is an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate.  Unlike Democrats who only offer lip service to opposing Wall Street (while taking the lion's share of political donations from them), Bernie is a true believer.  As such, the party elites do not want him.

Martin O'Malley: Former Maryland Governor and Baltimore Mayor.  He barely registers in the polls at this point, thus his strong interest in lots of debates.  He is likely hamstrung by the failure of his hand-picked successor to win the governorship.  Also, the recent trouble in Baltimore reflects on him, fairly or not.  However, he is a solid Democrat with executive experience who doesn't have the baggage of Hillary or the outspoken socialism of Bernie.

Jim Webb: Former Virginia Senator and Secretary of the Navy.  He served in the Reagan administration and is too pro-military and bipartisan to win the Democratic nomination.  The most conservative of this leftist field, he is going no where.

Lincoln Chafee: Former Rhode Island Governor, Senator, Mayor of Warwick.  Former Republican, former Independent.  Lincoln was a liberal Republican back when that was openly allowed.  He has since transitioned to a Democrat.  He wants the US to switch to the Metric System.  He is a member of the New Nobility.

The choice of the party elites is clearly Hillary, thus the desire for as few debates as possible.  Hillary lacks her husband's charm and political instincts, thus debates are likely to harm her candidacy while simultaneously offering alternative candidates.  The last time the voters were given an alternative to Hillary, they took him.

Of late, there has been a growing 'Draft Biden' movement that would like to see Vice President Joe Biden jump into the race.  For the political novice, this might sound like a great idea but Biden has plenty of baggage himself, from plagiarism to inaccurately reporting his voting record on issues like Iraq.  This is a man who lost the nomination to Dukakis in 1988.

There is also some hope that, if Hillary falters, Elizabeth Warren might jump into the race.  Warren is quite popular with the base, probably more so than Hillary.  This popularity with the base is unlikely to translate to the general election voter.  I see her as the counterpart of Ann Coulter; Coulter is hugely popular with the base but couldn't possibly hope to get elected because of her divisive nature.  Warren has had electoral success in the bluest of blue states.  Let's see, how did Dukakis do on the national scene?

Obviously, I am opposed to all of these candidates but with no incumbent, it does strike me as fair to have lots of debates to give the voters an opportunity to get to know the candidates.  The Republicans have already had two debates, the second of which has so far been great for Carly Fiorina.  O'Malley, Webb, and Chafee certainly wish they had such an opportunity to connect with the voters.  They should get it and the base agrees.

 

http://therightscoop.com/democrat-mutiny-dnc-chair-debbie-schultz-heckled-by-huge-crowd/

Importing Voters

With about 8.8 million legal residents in the country who are eligible to become citizens, White House officials said they were trying to make it easier to complete the final steps to citizenship.

The officials said they had started the campaign this week because Thursday is Citizenship Day. But the White House is also aware of federal figures showing that about 60 percent of immigrants eligible to naturalize are Latino and about 20 percent are Asian, both groups that voted overwhelmingly for President Obama. Nearly a third of legal permanent residents eligible to naturalize are Mexican.

New York Times

 

Why try to convince the citizens that your prescriptions for the nation are best when you could just import more voters who are inclined to your viewpoint?  This is why the Democrats are not at all troubled by illegal immigration.  Look what happened to California.  Here was a state that was regularly electing Republican governors and was often in the Republican column in presidential elections.  Now the state doesn't have a single Republican in statewide office and it is in the Democrat column of every presidential election.

 

From 1820 to 1960, 80% of all immigrants came from Europe.  The majority of them were from Germany, Ireland, Italy, and the UK.  Only 14% came from the Americas, the vast majority of those from Canada.  Only 3% of all migrants from 1820 to 1960 were from Mexico.  Also during that 140 year period, only 3% of migrants were from Asia.

 

From 1960 to 1990, the pattern was turned on its head.  Europe only accounted for 17% of all migrants in that period.  Asia rocketed to 32% of all migrants while the Americas now accounted for 48% of immigrants.  No longer were Canadians the biggest portion of that group; Mexico took the top spot, providing 4 times as many immigrants as Canada.  In fact, Mexico alone accounted for more immigrants (2.7 million) than all of Europe (2.6 million).

 

This shift in American immigration was not by chance.  As noted by the New York Times, Latinos are more likely to vote Democrat.  The more Latinos that can be imported and made voters, the better the election returns are for the Democrats.  Again, witness California.  From 1952 to 1988, California voted Republican for President in all but 1 election.  From 1992 to present, it has gone Democrat.  It is no coincidence that this shift occurred after Reagan had signed an Amnesty in 1986 with promises of border security and immigration enforcement that have worked out SO well.

 

In much the same way that Europe is transforming into Eurostan thanks to a huge influx of Muslim immigrants who are far more fertile than the native populations, the United States is on a similar path of transformation by a different set of migrants who are more fertile.  If a nation doesn't control its borders, it ceases to be a nation.  The elites who live in gated communities are sadly indifferent to cultural shifts brought about by such uncontrolled immigration.

 

The voters understand this.  It is why they crushed George W. Bush's Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (i.e. Amnesty) in 2007.  It is why Trump, who founded his campaign on opposition to illegal immigration, is so dominant.  The legal immigration is bad enough, why exacerbate it with illegal immigration?

A Right to be Believed?

I want to send a message to every survivor of sexual assault.  Don’t let anyone silence your voice. You have a right to be heard. You have a right to be believed. We’re with you.

Hillary Clinton

Taking her at her word, I have a couple of instances I would like to address during her next press conference?

1. Juanita Broaddrick alleged that Attorney General Bill Clinton raped her in 1978, leaving her with a swollen lip and torn pantyhose.  Should her voice have been silenced?  Did you believe her?
2. Paula Jones revealed that, in 1991, then Governor Bill Clinton had arranged for her to meet him at a Little Rock hotel where he exposed himself and suggested she 'kiss it.'  Did she have a right to be believed?
3. Kathleen Willey said that President Bill Clinton sexually assaulted her in 1993; did she have a right to be believed?

During your husband's political career, you referred to such incidents at 'bimbo eruptions' and set about denying them.  It was all part of a 'vast rightwing conspiracy,' you said.  Republicans must have sneaked Monica Lewinsky into the Oval Office and thus entrapped President Clinton.  He sat beside you during a 60 Minutes interview and denied any relationship with Gennifer Flowers only to be exposed as a liar soon thereafter when Flowers offered an incriminating audio cassette.  Monica Lewinsky likewise was able to provide irrefutable evidence of an adulterous relationship with President Clinton; should you have believed her?

 

With her history, this is a subject that Hillary shouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole.  She spent much too long trying to silence and discredit women who offered tales of sexual assault to now switch sides.

 

On the other hand, even a person with a problematic history on a subject could come to the truth.  Witness Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus.  But that is not the case here.  We have had too many false accusations of late (Duke Lacrosse Team, Rolling Stone UVA gang rape story, Mattress Girl at Columbia, Lena Dunham's Oberlin College rape story, etc.) to offer a blanket right to be believed.  Rape and sexual assault are crimes.  The accused needs to be tried in a court of law, not a court of public opinion.  Even as heinous as the crime is, the accused is still presumed innocent.  Representative Jared Polis (D-CO) should be censured by his colleagues for his suggestion that the innocent should be expelled along with the guilty, just to make sure.

The Confused Bernie Sanders

I hope that every person in this room today understands that it is unacceptable to judge people, discriminate against people based on the color of their skin. And I will also say, that as a nation — the truth is a nation that in many ways was created, and I’m sorry to have to say this from way back, on racist principles, that’s a fact. We have come a long way as a nation. Now I know, my guess is that probably not everybody here is an admirer or a voter for Barack Obama, but the point is that in 2008, this country took a huge step forward in voting for a candidate based on his ideas and not the color of his skin.

Bernie Sanders

Gee, what are these racist founding principles?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

Declaration of Independence

That stands up just fine today and, I hope, Senator Sanders would agree.  Did the United States live up to these principles?  No, clearly not.  In fact, it fell far short of the bar it set.  But the founding principles are as sound today as they were in 1776.  Some might quibble about the use of 'men' rather than a neuter term, but it is otherwise unassailable.  Though the country initially failed to live up to the principles that it championed, it eventually fought a Civil War that remains the bloodiest conflict in American history to rectify that.  Even then, there was still much to do and, a hundred years after the Civil War ended, the Civil Rights movement swept away the state-sponsored discrimination that remained.  That was fifty years ago.  Since then, we have seen two black justices on the Supreme Court, two black Secretaries of State, a black Attorney General, and President Barack Obama.  Sounds like the country finally arrived at the goal it stated almost 250 years ago.  In short, the principles were just fine, it was the implementation of them that was a problem.

 

Also, Barack Obama was elected not for his ideas - which were massively rejected in the 2010 'shellacking' election, but because he was black.  A white candidate with the same ideas would have been trounced (e.g. George McGovern, Michael Dukakis, et al).  Many hoped that electing a black man as president would finally put an end to Racist America.  Really, how can the country be racist if it elects a black man?  Instead, thanks to Obama himself, it got worse but that's a blog for another day.

Path to Defeat

Fourteen years after Pearl Harbor, World War II had been over for a decade.  The Germans (the western half of them) and the Japanese were no longer a threat.  Both were on a path to becoming powerful economies and much freer countries.

Fourteen years after 9/11, the War on Terror is still going though it is mostly a loss.  The costly victory of Iraq has been flushed away and now an Islamic State has arisen.  The United States has approved a treaty that isn't a treaty with Iran that will remove sanctions and free billions of dollars in assets to a leading state-sponsor of terrorism.  Does no one remember how well a far less generous nuclear deal with North Korea turned out?  Europe is being flooded with waves of Muslim refugees who, strangely enough, are 70% adult males.  Isn't it usually the women and children who flee while the men stay and fight?  Millions of 'refugees' will soon be scattered throughout Europe and a percentage of those will prove to be ISIS agents out to cause mayhem.  Heck, ISIS announced exactly that intention back in February.  Our Middle Eastern allies, such as they were, in Iraq, Yemen, and Egypt have toppled or are in crisis.  Libya, thanks to our intervention, went from a nominally stable dictatorship that was no longer a threat to a failed state crawling with Islamic fighters allied with al Qaeda.  In short, the situation is much worse than when the war began.  But Osama bin Laden is dead!  Our current strategy is an obvious loser.  It was weak under Bush and positively catastrophic under Obama.

 

During the Civil War, it took Lincoln years to find the right general.  On paper, Grant didn't look as good as many of the generals who had preceded him but he proved to be the right man for the time.  In the Cold War, it wasn't until Reagan that the right strategy was found against the Soviets.  Once implemented, the Evil Empire collapsed surprisingly quickly.  Obama may think the War on Terror has come to an end but the other side has not surrendered.  They are ascendant.  Will the next president be the right one to turn this war around?  Not if she's Hillary.  Hillary is one of the architects of the Libyan disaster.  I've not heard any nominee correctly identify our enemy.  Bush refused to do so and Obama had the Apology Tour during his first year in office.

 

Islam has been at war with the West for more than a thousand years.  During that period, it has had its high points and low points but it never lost sight of the goal: subjugation of the world under an Islamic Caliphate.  Thanks to the fecklessness of the West and a new strategy of stateless soldiers, Islam is making inroads.  Everything we have done since 9/11 has had no impact on the enemy's resolve.

 

I fear it will require a radioactive smoking crater in place of a US city for us to finally take the enemy at their word and fight to victory.

The Uninformed Electorate

"Wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government."

Thomas Jefferson

I stumbled upon the following story today.  It is not the first of its kind nor, sadly, will it be the last.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-science-quiz-americans-pew-20150909-story.html

Here is yet more evidence that the American Electorate is not well informed.  It is no wonder that so many accept Global Warming/Climate Change.  Lacking any foundation upon which to judge claims, it quickly becomes impossible to make informed decisions.  Last year, I posted a link to a YouTube video in which college students were quizzed about American government and politics; the results were disastrous.

When Davy Crockett returned to his district in Tennessee after a term in Congress, he had a farmer demanding for him to explain some of his votes and where the Constitution gave him the right to provide charity from the treasury.  Here was an informed voter.  Elected officials do not like informed voters because informed voters can hold them to account.  On the other hand, uninformed voters will numbly nod to whatever a politician says:

"There’s one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other, and that is the urgent and growing threat of a changing climate."

Barack Obama, Sept 23, 2014

Plenty of skepticism has been published here regarding the Climate Change Hoax.  It is a government power grab to get more taxpayer dollars and further limit freedom through 'common sense regulations.'

It is not by accident that our public education system is producing an uninformed electorate.  That is its purpose.  To whatever degree students are informed, it is indoctrination in favor of larger and more intrusive government.  An armed (2nd Amendment) and informed (1st Amendment Freedom of the Press) electorate was meant to prevent the growth of over-reaching government.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

Thomas Jefferson

In the long game, it looks like the government is winning, just as Jefferson predicted.

Gay Marriage Ratified in 1868!

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

14th Amendment of US Constitution

The men who wrote and ratified this amendment in 1868 would surely be surprised that they had codified abortion, anchor babies, and gay marriage.  Their intent was to raise the freed slaves to full citizenship - which had been denied by Dred Scott - and force Southern States to treat them as equal to other citizens.  Reading more into it than that is just judges stretching the law to allow them to rule whatever they want to rule.  They aren't making new rights, they are merely adjudicating rights that have existed since 1868.  Really?

 

There are two options: The amendment was intentionally written to achieve the modern ends or it was unwittingly written in a manner that allowed modern ends to be achieved.  What is more likely?  The answer is obvious.  The amendment has too much wiggle room for 'interpretation' and the judiciary has exploited it.  The judges on the Supreme Court all know the purpose of the amendment - they are lawyers who presumably made some study of the Constitution - but it provides endless power grab opportunities.

 

This is why original intent is so important.  If you cut the Constitution free of the context in which it was written, much of the language suddenly becomes malleable to a variety of interpretations.  Those who ratified the amendment in 1868 obviously didn't intend gay marriage to be validated.  It isn't even arguable.  But, having freed the amendment from its context, it is just a case of equal protection that allows a massive cultural shift that most states had voted against.

Contempt for Thee but Not for Me

Kim Davis, the County Clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, was sent to jail for contempt.  She refused to issue marriage licenses to anyone in the wake of the Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage.  She refused for religious reasons, though that is beside the point.  It is also of note that she is a Democrat.

 

Meanwhile, throughout the rest of the country, various city officials have refused to report illegal immigrants to the Federal Government and openly declared themselves to be 'Sanctuary Cities' for these lawbreakers.  Why have none of these officials been jailed for failing to follow the law?  It is again of note that these officials are almost universally Democrats.

 

Of the two cases, Davis has better standing, at least from my perspective.  Those who have established sanctuary cities are ignoring laws that were passed by congress and signed by the president.  Ms. Davis is refusing to enforce a 'law' that congress did not pass.  The lawmaking power is solely granted to the legislature, not the judiciary.  Even if the congress had passed such a law and the president signed it, it would exceed the authority granted to the Federal Government by the Constitution.  The only Constitutionally legal way to accomplish gay marriage would be to convince each state legislature to pass a law to that effect; such did not happen in Kentucky.

 

The rule of law is almost dead.  President Obama has flouted the law repeatedly, as have many of his appointees (most obviously former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton).  Laws that were passed are not enforced while laws that weren't passed are.  Spineless Republicans have let it slide though they pretend they are doing something by having hearings that will result in no charges being filed.  The Supreme Court has expanded its unconstitutional legislative role with Obergefell v. Hodges and King v. Burwell; who needs Congress if the President and the Supreme Court can write and/or rewrite laws?

The Man from U.N.C.L.E

Our story opens with Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) crossing from West Berlin to East Berlin in 1963.  He seeks to convince Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander) to defect and help him locate her missing father, a Nazi scientist who had been working for the United States until his disappearance two years ago.  Though she agrees, the pair are immediately pursued by Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer), a top KGB agent.  The two prove well-matched but it is Solo who wins by getting Gaby to West Berlin.  The following day, Solo and Kuryakin are shocked to discover that they have been made partners in order to prevent a nuclear weapon from being developed by a criminal organization.  Gaby's missing father is believed to be involved, so Gaby will go with them to help ferret him out.  The original series never explained how it was formed or the first meeting between Napoleon and Illya; this movie fills that gap.

 

I only saw one episode of the original series and it was no where near as funny as this.  Solo and Kuryakin have a very adversarial relationship that provides many opportunities for laughs.  However, as the movie progresses, the two clearly develop respect for each other.  The movie often plays for laughs in other ways too.  Solo is clearly the suave agent with gift for seduction and Gaby has already started to like him.  Thus, it is funny when she is instead paired with Illya, who will play her fiancée.  Illya is much less comfortable around women and such is played to the hilt with Gaby.

 

The movie ends with Alexander Waverley (Hugh Grant) of British Intelligence putting together a special team for a new agency, the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement (UNCLE).  There is clearly room for a sequel.  Though I liked the movie and give it a thumbs up, the box office looks insufficient to deserve a sequel.

Star Trek in Collapse

Here is an article that delves into the changing morality of Star Trek from the Original Series in the 1960s, through the Next Generation, and up to the recent movie, Star Trek Into Darkness.

I was a huge fan of the original series.  I loved Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, et al.  So when The Next Generation arrived, I was excited.  I watched the premiere and was not thrilled.  I watched that first season and, though I could not effectively explain why, I didn't much like it.  I was politically unaware at the time and the underlying philosophies of both the Original Series and The Next Generation didn't occur to me.

 

In my review of the latest Star Trek movie, I complained about the mindlessness of it but this article gets to the heart of the matter.  It is interesting how Sandefur tracks liberal political ideology in a SciFi TV/movie series.

Safe House

I recently saw the 2013 movie and was less than impressed.  The story opens with Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) being pursued by unknown assailants in South Africa.  He manages to escape into the US Embassy.  It is here that we learn he is an infamous traitor who has sold US Intelligence secrets for a decade.  A team is sent to interrogate him but they first transfer him to a safe house that is maintained by Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds).  Weston questions the legality of the interrogation when Frost is water boarded.  The interrogation has hardly begun when the very assailants who chased Frost into the embassy attack the safe house.  The interrogation team is all killed and it is left to Weston to escape with Frost and find another safe house.  Of course, Frost is less than keen on resuming the interrogation at another site and escapes.  Disgraced and his career likely over, Weston ignores orders to stand down and starts tracking Frost.

 

The movie is entertaining as it goes along.  There are exciting action scenes, filled with instances where Weston and Frost become allies in the face of the unknown assailants and then enemies again.   It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that there is a mole in the CIA who leaked the location of the safe house.  The movie offers several potential leakers though it is pretty obvious all along.  And that leads to the moral of this movie: American Intelligence is evil and Tobin Frost was a hero for his treason.  Yes, the traitor is the hero.  And Matt Weston follows in his footsteps to become the new Tobin Frost.

 

Why must we have movies where the United States is the bad guy?  Sure, I understood that Hollywood would have the US be bad guys during the Bush Administration; Hollywood is populated by Democrats.  However, we've had Obama for years and still America is portrayed as bad and corrupt.  The best thing that a patriot could do for the country is to commit treason.  It sometimes appears that Hollywood is the propaganda arm of a hostile foreign power.