Law

American Independence Day and The Supreme Court Decision

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, History, Law , ,

There has been enough time now, the dust has settled around the Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of ObamaCare, the US-wide health care reform passed by Congress and signed into law more than two years ago.

Note: Today, I am going to be very explicit because I flatter myself that I have readers around the world who may not be completely familiar with American politics or with American political processes.

As usual, Rush Limbaugh, the much insulted, much decried and always underestimated conservative talk-show host has instantly demonstrated more lucidity that did pundits with better intellectual credentials: There is no silver lining, my friends.

Don’t confuse my meaning with others’. I think American society will survive well the disorder and the increase in cost of living the Obama health care reform will impose. I think health care will cost more and be of poorer quality for almost all Americans. The alleged uninsured were never really uncared for so, ObamaCare was a solution to a non-problem in this respect. The most heart rendering parts of the descriptions justifying the reform in the first place turn out to be also urban myths. The main one concerns people with a pre-existing condition who couldn’t get coverage and therefore care. Never happened except in tiny numbers that could have been dealt with a with a simple high-risk insurance pool as those that states maintained for horrible drivers.

Yet, as I said, this is a prosperous society even in a period of crisis such as this one. The economy will not collapse. We will just all be a little less prosperous than we should have been. Our children will not experience the subtle optimism that comes from living in times of growth. But, I am still waiting for someone with a bucket and some rags to walk up to my door and to propose to clean all my windows for a set fee. And farmers in my area complain that they don’t have enough people to harvest their crops. Reports say that good pickers earn $12 -13/hour, far above the minimum wage, by the way. We are not poor by any standard. The worst application of ObamaCare set of bad ideas is not going to make us poor, by any standard. Continue reading →

Archaeology is Cool

Brandon Christensen History, Law , , , ,

I spend my summers homeless and sneaking from one spot on campus to another to avoid security. This will be my last year as undergraduate but, if my luck holds on just a little longer, I will be able to graduate with no debt. What I have done this summer to pass the time that is not spent working or doing homework is begin a little pet research project that has been a long time coming.

Do you all remember that movie The Gods Must be Crazy? Me neither, but I hear it was a big hit. It was about a “Bushman” from the Kalahari region who encounters a Coke bottle falling from sky and gets caught up in the nasty war between SWAPO and South Africa. Anyway, the portrayal of the “Bushman” caught a lot of flack from anthropologists in some quarters. There is good reason for this flack, and I can assure you that it is not just another attempt to force Political Correctness onto everybody. Land policies and other government programs have removed many “Bushmen” from their homes, and the justifications for such policies is often that the “Bushmen” have no concept of private property rights, or that they have no conception of history. They are the Indians of the New World. Anyway, a lot of new archaeological evidence has lent credence to the anthropologists who have claimed that the image of the “Bushman” as a primitive hunter-gatherer is a myth created by anthropologists themselves. Robert Gordon writes the following: Continue reading →

Somaliland in the News

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Law , , , , , , , ,

Reports the BBC:

Leaders from Somalia and Somaliland have held their first formal discussions on the future of the self-proclaimed Somaliland republic.

It broke away in 1991 and wants to be a separate country – but it has not been internationally recognised.

Mogadishu wants the northern territory to be part of a single Somali state.

Since declaring independence, Somaliland has enjoyed relative peace in contrast to the rest of Somalia, which has been plagued by conflict […]

It was the first time in 21 years that there had been formal, direct contact between the authorities in Mogadishu, and the Somaliland administration, which used to be a British colony, whereas southern Somalia was governed by Italy.

The two sides agreed the talks should continue and, in a declaration, they called on their respective presidents to meet as soon as possible – this could be as early as next week in Dubai.

They also called on the international community to help provide experts on legal, economic and security matters, which our correspondent says are all issues that will need to be addressed in clarifying the future relationship between Somalia and Somaliland.

This is great news! Continue reading →

Around the Web: ObamaCare Edition (Part 2)

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Law, Links , , , , , , , , , , ,

There is a lot of great stuff out there on the recent ruling. Here are a few I found interesting:

I think I’m done blogging about this whole mess…phlegh!

Race, Racism, and the Law in America

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Law, Politics , , , , ,

Rush Limbaugh called the President’s appointee for Supreme Court Justice a “reverse racist.” He is wrong; she is simply a racist. If you discriminate against anyone because he belongs to a racial group (whatever that means, see below), you are a racist. There is no definitional exception depending on the race of the discriminator. Got it?

Judge Sotomayor is an overt racist. Read the papers and think about the decisions she made on affirmative action and the reasons she gave. She is also on record as stating that she would “hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experience, would more often than not reach a better decision than….” (quoted from a WSJ editorial). Hemming and hawing aside, that is a straightforward declaration of the judicial superiority of having been born a member of a particular group. The qualifier “wise” does not count. Of course, she is not stupid and she would not say that an unwise Latina has superior judgment.

That declaration was published in something called “La Raza Law Journal.” Yes, you guessed right, “raza” means “race” in Spanish. It’s a law school publication for Latinos, “our race.” Academic ideologues will try to tell you with a straight face that “raza” does not really mean “race.” Just ask them how to say “race,” in Spanish then and watch they stutter and possibly cry. Continue reading →