To Hell with Checks and Balances

The Constitution is over-rated, anyway.

In remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday, [Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales says judges generally should defer to the will of the president and Congress when deciding national security cases. He also raps jurists who “apply an activist philosophy that stretches the law to suit policy preferences.”

The text of the speech, scheduled for delivery at the American Enterprise Institute, was obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. It outlines, in part, what qualities the Bush administration looks for when selecting candidates for the federal bench.

“We want to determine whether he understands the inherent limits that make an unelected judiciary inferior to Congress or the president in making policy judgments,” Gonzales says in the prepared speech. “That, for example, a judge will never be in the best position to know what is in the national security interests of our country.”

Let me see if I've got this straight. The Attorney General wants to make sure that the President is looking for the right qualities in federal judges, by which he means, deference to the executive in matters of national security. The trick here, it seems to me, is that it is not the job of federal judges "to know what is in the national security interests of our country;" it is the job of federal judges to know what is and isn't consistent with the Constitution of the US. This is like saying that we won't hire political science faculty at a college who don't "know enough about biology" to know that the bio department should be running the school.

Gonzales, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, has in the past warned about judges who inject their personal beliefs in cases. But his prepared remarks Wednesday mark his sharpest words over concerns about the federal judiciary — the third, and equal, branch of government.

Judges who “apply an activist philosophy that stretches the law to suit policy preferences, they actually reduce the credibility and authority of the judiciary,” Gonzales says. “In so doing, they undermine the rule of law that strengthens our democracy.”

Isn't it ironic? Apparently, public political attacks on federal judges do nothing to undermine the independence of the judiciary ("the third, and equal, branch of government"), and appointing judges based on their willingness to defer to an imperial presidency does not "undermine the rule of law that strengthens our democracy."

And war is peace, too, by the way. Viva Baghdad!

"I am your father!"

Pope Palpatine XVI (thanks, Dave) scares some little children . . . and I'm sure their skin color has nothing to do with anything.

"Join me! Together, we can bring order to the galaxy!"

Never Thought of It that Way. Good Point

Bruce Sterling observes:

Two percent of the planet's richest people now own fifty percent of the world. Hey, rich folks, you bought it, you fix it! If anything remotely practical gets done by the year 2012, it's obviously gonna get done by rich people. They own the works. Any "solution" that they can't buy and install is kinda silly.

Criminals Hide Behind Veils!

or maybe not.

Police seeking a man over the murder of Pc Sharon Beshenivsky are considering the theory he may have fled the UK dressed as a veiled Muslim woman.

It is understood West Yorkshire Police - who have not commented on reports about the veil theory - regard it only as one of a number of possibilities.[ . . . ]

Some newspaper reports have suggested Mr Jamma, a prime suspect in the fatal shooting, stole his sister's passport and wore a full niqab (a veil that totally obscures the face) to evade checks at Heathrow airport between Christmas Day last year and New Year's Day.

So, really, the niqab should be illegal for reasons of public safety and national security. It's got nothing at all, really, to do with religious discrimination or cultural paternalism.

The Empire of Reason and the Denial of Irrationality

I'm only a lowly philosopher, not a scientist, so even as I chastise Dawkins and Harris* for engaging in scientism, or what I was calling radical-reductionist empiricism or hyperempiricism, many may discount my arguments as so much philosophical humbug in the face of the plain, limitless, and self-evident truth of Science (= empiricism). Which is why it's nice to see scientists say exactly what I'm saying, except, well, even better. Scott Atran, in a conference available at Edge, sums it up nicely:

I find it fascinating that brilliant scientists and philosophers have no clue how to deal with the basic irrationality of human life and society other than to insist against all reason and evidence that things ought to be rational and evidence based.

Maybe part of the problem is that we (modern learned culture) have decided that Freud (and Lacan) are so wrong that we don't believe any more in an irrational sub-conscious that cannot be rubbed out or conquered and that fucks with us when we ignore it.

Anyway, more on this conference to come, for sure.



*Harris is worse, actually, because he then insists on the importance of religiosity that he considers "scientific." Or something. And then there's the Islamophobia.

Humane is Halal

If you gotta eat mammals, and you insist on eating only kosher/halal, you can (and should) still insist that your meals be slaughtered as painlessly as technology can manage. Turns out you can stun cows (and sheep) and they bleed just fine, thank you very much.

That's a Bad Joke, Right?

Like Richards', but funnier? An apology is appropriate. But asking for money smacks of opportunism, unless it's a joke playing on all sorts of crass stereotypes.

[The "victims'" lawyer] Allred, speaking by phone from Colorado, said Richards should meet McBride and Doss in front of a retired judge to "acknowledge his behavior and to apologize to them" and allow the judge to decide on monetary compensation.

"It's not enough to say 'I'm sorry' on 'David Letterman,'" she said.

No argument, there, although one wonders: "not enough" what? "Not enough" for what? Sure, if he wants to restore his reputation, he needs to do something more than that, as Sharpton pointed out. I actually liked what I heard from Sharpton about this being an opportunity to open a dialogue about lingering and deep-seated racism in the US. But if we don't know the answer to "not enough what for what?", how do we decide what would be "enough"? What is the measure of "enough"?

She did not mention a specific figure, but pitched the idea as a way for the comic to avoid a lawsuit.

Ah, there we have it. "Not enough" means "not enough money for my clients." If you drop some cash on people, all is forgiven and you're not a racist, any more. Well, if that's not the logic, then what is? Here the "victims" essentially suggest that they will participate with Richards in a lie about how he's really not racist if he just pays them enough money. But if a public apology to Letterman, Jackson, and Sharpton isn't "enough" to make it plain that he understands the problem with what he did, or if those things are not enough to demonstrate that Richards is in some meaningful sense not racist, then neither is a million dollars. That would just make him a rich racist.

"Our clients were vulnerable," Allred said. "He went after them. He singled them out and he taunted them, and he did it in a closed room where they were captive."

"Captive"? They sure didn't seem like captives when they walked out. I hate to break it to you guys, but you went to a comedy club. Comedians often single out audience members and taunt them, especially when you heckle them. Richards' behavior was appalling, and I can imagine being disturbed and distressed by it, but anyone who says he was genuinely scared in that moment, as one of the guys claims he was, is completely detached from reality. What was going to happen? Richards was going to jump off the stage and lead a lynch mob? That's bullshit, and so is the hint of a lawsuit if Richards doesn't cough up some dough. The response to someone like Richards losing control and taking the low road is to take the high road, accept an apology, and suggest the guy get some help controlling himself, not ask for money like a cheap Sharpton knock-off.