Category: General

OK, so social media companies can argue that it’s unconstitutional to prevent minors from opening social media accounts (free speech and all), but it’s NOT unconstitutional for these same social media companies to then censor what these  minors (and everyone else) can post and/or view?

Arkansas law requiring parental consent for minors to create social media accounts temporarily blocked

END SECTION 230! Social media companies should not be able to have their cake (protection from liability for what is posted on their platforms) and eat it, too (censorship of what is posted or viewed on their platforms).

While I’ve been too busy to blog, I haven’t been too busy to make note of interesting stories upon which to comment. Here is a sampling of those I’ve been meaning to mention:

Lunacy in La La Land: And how many new hotels will be built in LA if this excuse for a law passes?

L.A. voters to decide whether hotels must rent vacant rooms to homeless people

Worker: “Do you want fries with that?”
Customer: “Do you offer financing?”

Governor Newsom Signs Legislation to Improve Working Conditions and Wages for Fast-Food Workers

Some feel that “…the meaning of a constitutional provision is fixed when it is adopted.”  As opposed to what? That it can and should be interpreted by politicians in whatever way best suits their needs? You can change the Constitution to introduce new ideas, but you can’t simply re-interpret it to introduce those ideas when you don’t have the votes.

Chemerinsky: Originalism has taken over the Supreme Court

Nanny-state central. What’s next – speed-limiting governors on all cars? Yep – no kidding:

NTSB Calls for Alcohol Detection Systems in All New Vehicles

Anti-racism = just more racism?

Portland art festival event is free to ‘Black folks’ but ‘$80 for all others’

San Francisco election director to be replaced after 20 years for racial diversity: reports

Five black police officers are alleged to have fatally beaten a black man. Whose at fault? Just one guess:

Jemele Hill claims Black people can ‘carry water’ for White supremacy: ‘You’re stuck on faces’

Sorry for the extended hiatus. Had other things to do.

But I’m back now….

Question 3 on the Nevada ballot, a change to the constitution ostensibly allowing for open primaries, is really a thinly-veiled attempt to bring rank choice voting to Nevada. However, while I am perturbed by the focus of Question 3 being portrayed as open primaries rather than (the much greater impact) ranked choice voting, both are detrimental to our democratic system – and more so when implemented together.

Open primaries allow the opposition to meddle in the selection of candidates by political parties. We’ve seen the result first-hand in this election: Parties have spent large sums of money in opposition primaries to bolster fringe candidates that they think they can beat in the general election [1]. The disturbing choice for Americans: Dumb and Dumberer. When a political party cannot select their own candidates due to interference from the opposition then these are the choices with which we are left. This will only get worse under an open primary system. If we want the best choices, then we must let each political parties choose who will represent them without interference from the opposition.

But the open primary impact pales by comparison when combined with the effect of ranked choice voting. In ranked choice voting voters rank their candidates  by preferential order. If no one candidate garners 50% of the vote, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and the votes for that candidate are reassigned to the voter’s 2nd choice. This process continues until one candidate attains more than 50% of the vote, thereby winning the election.

Coupled with the open primaries rule, which will allow only the top 5 candidates to proceed to the full election, ranked choice voting becomes a recipe for manipulation. It allows the parties to run multiple candidates, each appealing to a different segment of the population, with the intent that only the party’s preferred candidate will win. The object is to get the “spoiler” candidates into the final election so that – when they are eliminated – their votes will be re-tabulated for their 2nd choice candidate (the same party’s preferred candidate). Worse, we might actually have races where only one party gets through the primary (again, with the intent for a particular candidate to win), leaving candidates with no reason to debate the issues or answer to all the voters.

Open primaries are a recipe for trouble; let’s not California our Nevada. As for rank choice voting, all it does is turn spoiler candidates into a vote-gathering system for the intended candidate. Let’s keep the system fair and simple – oppose both by saying “NO” to Question 3.

[1] Crane, Emily. “Dems Spend $53M to Boost Far-Right GOP Candidates despite Rhetoric: Report.” New York Post. September 12, 2022, Online edition. https://nypost.com/2022/09/12/democrats-spend-53m-to-boost-far-right-gop-candidates/.

We need a new battle cry, one that reminds us of the promise that is America and our need to recapture its founding spirit. I think this is it.

A very interesting read (or listen) from Bari Weiss.

The New Founders America Needs

Bari Weiss reminds me of the classic liberals of lore – proponents of free speech, liberty, and individual rights (and responsibilities) – rather than the illiberals of today who masquerade as champions of “woke” causes as a means to gain political power. If I didn’t know better I’d call Bari a Libertarian. I wonder how she’d feel about that?

Biden’s going to buy 45 million votes before the mid-term. Why? Because without them the Democrats are doomed:

White House to extend moratorium on student loans through August, reports say

This is wrong on so many levels; see my previous prediction for details.

…and the government is intrusive.  Welcome to the new world – where no one is responsible for their own actions, instead choosing to rely on the government to protect them from their own stupidity:

Tesla to restrict in-car gaming following federal probe

And you don’t think that kids playing games on their 12.9″ iPad instead isn’t going to be just as distracting? Or are you going to make Apple disable that functionality, too, when in a Tesla?

By refusing to hold people accountable for their actions we are developing a citizenry that’s stupid, lazy, and irresponsible. But, hey – stupid people vote.  And that’s all politicians care about…

Finton O’Toole is a tool. A left wing propagandist.

Beware Prophecies of Civil War

First: America is NOT a “democracy”; it is instead a constitutional republic. People like O’Toole – who whine about how the U.S. is not acting as a pure democracy, as if that were a bad thing – are wearing thin.

Pure democracies are flawed. In a purely democratic society, without a Constitution that remains beyond the whim of a simple majority, we’d all be subject to limitations on our rights based upon the demands of whomever was in power. Our “rights” would not really exist; any so-called “rights” would be granted by the government on an as-useful basis, subject to the current wave of rhetoric sweeping the voters. Is this what O’Toole would prefer? I imagine so…  so long as his cronies were in power to protect *his* rights.

Our government is also unique in that it represents not only the rights of the people, but also the rights of the states: representation of the people via the House, and the states via the Senate. O’Toole’s implication that the Senate is undemocratic is true – when viewed from the perspective of the people – but irrelevant. The Senate represents the STATES, not the people, and when viewed from that perspective it is democratic (equal representation of the states).

In any event, O’Toole’s argument for “reforming” the Senate (so that it represents the population rather than the states, effectively turning it into just another House) is ludicrous. Why not just go full-on “democratic” and eliminate the Senate all together? Then a small majority could subvert the rights of the minority at will via the House. How would that be any different than delegating Senate seats as O’Toole describes (one per state minimum, the balance by population – just as is done in the House).

Unfortunately, the Senate will likely one day go the way of the dodo bird, moving us closer to the chaos of a “pure” democracy (or democratic republic, as would be the case). It all started with the 17th Amendment, which changed senate seats from being assigned by a vote of state legislators to being directly elected by voters; it may well end with the elimination of the Senate. It’s inevitable – all societies eventually fall, and ours will be no different. I just hope it happens long after I am gone.

BTW: This guy is an Irish drama critic – what does he know (or care) about the U.S. Constitution and its function(s)? Maybe he should be spending his time lambasting his own government instead…

I saw an interesting video on YouTube today concerning what is known as “Bonhoeffer’s Theory of Stupidity” (Yes – as much as I despise Google, YouTube is still the preferred distribution venue for too many videos for it to be completely shunned). It makes a rather common-sense deduction: stupid people are more dangerous than evil people. Evil can be resisted and argued against, but stupid – in the words of comedian Ron White: “You can’t fix stupid.”

Unfortunately, stupid people are easily controlled and used by those seeking to do evil. For a modern-day example you need only look at the so-called anti-racist protestors. Is their entire movement not boiled down to slogans wielded as pseudo-facts with which one may not argue, as suggested by Bonhoeffer? But I think we are ignoring the most important question: Who is pulling their strings? Who is actually benefiting – via an accumulation of power or wealth – by the actions of the stupid people they control?

In reality Bonhoeffer goes further in hi analysis by identifying a solution (“…the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom…”), but the video makes no mention of Bonhoeffer’s religious bent. It’s not relevant to his basic theory so I’ll ignore it here, too.

It’s an interesting video if you have a moment. But I’m not interested in promulgating his solution; instead, I’m interested in developing a solution that doesn’t require religion. There must be a way to break the mob mentality and restore independence to the mind without requiring a new dependence on religion.

Any thoughts/suggestions would be welcome. But watch the video first so that we’re all on the same page.