This is how it should be. In a ruling this morning, the Iowa Supreme Court determined that marriage should not be limited to one man and one woman. Certainly, there will now be an effort in the state legislature to create a constitutional amendment “protecting” marriage. And, that’s OK, too. These are exactly the types of decisions that should be made within a state’s borders. Will the exceptions to the full faith and credit clause as well as the Defense of Marriage Act prevent the gay marriages that take place in Iowa from being honored in other states? Yes. I’m good with that, too. You can then either work to change the laws in the state you wish to live or remain in a state that is legally accepting of the union.

I still want government out of marriage altogether. I don’t want it sanctioning my marriage to Nathan or restricting a marriage between two men or two women. It’s none of the government’s business. Come on, conservatives. Let’s be consistent. If we say we don’t want the government dictating our lives, let’s mean it. If two consenting adults want to make a pledge of commitment, why should Washington, D.C. or Des Moines or Nashville care? If a woman wants to have her partner of twenty years beside her in the hospital, why should lawmakers be offended? Limited government is a beautiful thing. Let’s give it a try.

When government gets its hands out of marriage completely, I truly will celebrate.

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Every now and again, the tired argument against the electoral college comes up. People forget we are a republic, and proceed to make suggestions consistent with another form of government. The Tennessean advances afoot with the title Make Electoral College Reflect Overall Popular Vote. Of course, if that is their actual position, the paper needs to close the logical loophole and simply advocate the complete abolition of the system.

The first amateurish argument is that

Technically, it would be possible for a candidate to win as few as 11 elector-rich states and be elected president. This fact in particular has helped fuel the national popular vote movement. Because a small number of states have become decisive, candidates have no incentive to campaign in two-thirds of the states; in effect, disenfranchising much of the electorate. According to nationalpopularvote.com, in the 2004 campaign, candidates concentrated more than 66 percent of money and visits in just five states.

Well, yes – the five states likely to swing, due to the electoral votes they possessed. If there wasn’t a focus on swing states, there would be a focus on swing cities. In any event, if the electoral college was abolished, the number of population centers focused upon would go down, not up. The smaller states get more votes per elector. This sort of ridiculous analysis by The Tennessean’s editorial board ought to have been crumpled up hours before the deadline.

The second installment of The Tennessean’s amateur hour comes in its description of the rationale for the electoral college

There was once a good reason for the Electoral College. The Founding Fathers feared that in direct popular elections, uninformed voters would choose only candidates from their own region, leading to chaotic election challenges.

But time has passed by this tenet of the usually timeless Constitution. The U.S. now has a strong party system and modern communication is such that presidential nominees are known nationwide.

The textbooks nowadays must be awful. From Federalist 68

It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations. It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief.

In short, the electoral college is the one, last safeguard to preserve the republic. The reasons for its existence extend beyond regional prejudice, as The Tennessean erroneously implies. And if they think small states get short shrift now, just imagine how the smaller states will be treated by national campaigns when their populations are compared to that of the largest cities.

The electoral college is one of the geniuses of the Founders. Let’s not screw that up, too.

The rate of pregnancies ended by abortion has been dropping drastically, now reaching the lowest point since 1975, In short, there haven’t been fewer abortions per capita since shortly after abortion was legalized by Roe v. Wade

in 1973. This should surprise no one.

It is data like this that brings to the fore the inherent problem for those who advocate abortion rights. Abortion rights supporters and Shakers are brethren in the path to their own extinction. In simple terms, the Roe Effect explains that those likely to support abortion rights in the future are those aborted today. As the sociological data reliably shows that children tend to mirror the political tendencies of their parents, it is only natural that the cessation of reproduction by a particular political strata would have longterm electoral effects. Because of Roe v. Wade, there are approximately 40 million likely Democrat-inclined voters who never had the opportunity to exist. As the vast majority of women who seek abortions are Democrats, the eventual effect, from congressional redistricting and representation to actual voting practices, will result in a slow population trend away from the more ardent liberal views mired in an unrestrained advocacy of abortion-on-demand of the Democrat Party to the more reasonable and moderate views of the mainstream Republican Party.

It is this self-imposed dearth of future voters that has already cost Democrats in a variety of ways. James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal has been one of the foremost advocates explaining the results

of the Roe Effect

Compounding the GOP advantage is what I call the Roe effect. It is a statement of fact, not a moral judgment, to observe that every pregnancy aborted today results in one fewer eligible voter 18 years from now. More than 40 million legal abortions have occurred in the United States since 1973, and these are not randomly distributed across the population. Black women, for example, have a higher abortion ratio (percentage of pregnancies aborted) than Hispanic women, whose abortion ratio in turn is higher than that of non-Hispanic whites. Since blacks vote Democratic in far greater proportions than Hispanics, and whites are more Republican than Hispanics or blacks, ethnic disparities in abortion ratios would be sufficient to give the GOP a significant boost–surely enough to account for George W. Bush’s razor-thin Florida victory in 2000.

There certainly is an identifiable effect of a particular political group’s proclivity to have more abortions. The degree of the effect, admittedly, is up for debate. No absolute answer can be determined because it’s relatively hard to poll the political tendencies of those who never existed. However, to say the Roe Effect may have swung a few hundred votes in Florida to George W. Bush in 2000 is well within the realm of believability. Congress? Who knows. The actual influence on policy by lost Roe Effect votes is likely dwarfed by the loss of new congressional seats in Democrat friendly regions.

So, in a perverse sort of way, Republican efforts to minimize abortions actually help Democrats win future elections. With enemies like us, you don’t need friends.

They are as follows

From the Supreme Court, the guests are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.

I was going to make an abortion crack, but Kennedy slipped through.

President Bush on the Democrats’ attempt to circumvent the free market (both of economy and ideology)

Supporters of this regulation say we need to mandate that any discussion of so-called controversial issues on the public airwaves includes equal time for all sides. This means that many programs wanting to stay on the air would have to meet Washington’s definition of balance. Of course, for some in Washington, the only opinions that require balancing are the ones they don’t like.”

“We know who these advocates of so-called balance really have in their sights: shows hosted by people like Rush Limbaugh or James Dobson, or many of you here today. By insisting on so-called balance, they want to silence those they don’t agree with. The truth of the matter is, they know they cannot prevail in the public debate of ideas. They don’t acknowledge that you are the balance … The country should not be afraid of the diversity of opinions. After all, we’re strengthened by diversity of opinions.”

Read the rest of his remarks. This is the George W. Bush that I voted for.

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The How Appealing blog reports on this decision from the Seventh Circuit (the Seventh Circuit includes Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin – a map of all the circuits can be found here cheaper by the dozen download free grease online )

Two Hammond, Indiana police officers stopped Earkle Tyler to ask him “why he was being so nonchalant about walking on the street with a beer bottle”: Unbeknownst to the police officers, it is not illegal to have an open alcoholic beverage on the streets of Hammond, justifying a high degree of nonchalance.

The cops then asked Tyler for his ID and had radio dispatch run a check for warrants, which came back clear. Only then, after informing Tyler that he was free to leave, did the police notice the bulge in Tyler’s pants that turned out to be a purple Crown Royal sack containing about 30.3 grams of crack and 24 grams of powder cocaine.

During the suppression hearing at the district court, in an attempt to salvage a flubbed encounter, the officers testified that they stopped Tyler because they suspected he may have been in violation of the Indiana public intoxication statute, but only because he possessed an open beer, not because he otherwise appeared drunk. Based on this explanation, the district court allowed the drugs into evidence, and Tyler entered a conditional plea pending appeal to serve the federal minimum of ten (10) years for the possession offense.

Fortunately, the Seventh Circuit was willing to correct this mistake. And rightly so, as there was so much wrong with it. There was the outright seizure for no reason when the officers took Tyler’s ID. There was no reasonable suspicion to stop Tyler, other than the open beer, which was not against the law. And even if there was enough to justify a Terry frisking (which means a search for weapons), it wouldn’t have resulted in the finding of the drugs. Soft bulges, as a rule, are not usually indicative of weapons. This is a good decision.

The opinion of the court can be found here.

On a related note, why in the world did the federal government take this out of the state’s hands? Was Tyler crossing a state line with the cocaine? It seems apparent the United States Attorney in the Northern District of Indiana needs more to do.

UPDATE After further reflection, I thought I would add a bit to this post. I’ve mentioned it before, but I want to make it clear that it is my conservatism that pleases me when cases like this one are decided correctly. Being tough on crime is perfectly compatible with doing things the right way. Every conservative should shudder when the accused’s constitutional rights are violated in the name of justice.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments debating the constitutionality of Indiana’s voter identification law tomorrow

The two sides likewise are at odds over the extent to which voter-ID laws stamp out fraud. Opponents of the Indiana law say supporters can’t point to a single, proven instance in which someone has tried to impersonate a registered voter at the polls.

“The type of fraud that voter ID would prevent — and impersonation fraud is the only type of fraud that voter ID would prevent — simply does not happen,” said Deborah Goldberg, a lawyer with the New York-based Brennan Center for Justice, which opposes the Indiana law.

Republicans say that because voter impersonation is a difficult crime to prove, the absence of prosecutions means little. They also contend they should be allowed to take preventive measures.

“You don’t have to wait until you’re a victim,” Rokita said.

The Democratic arguments against the law remain flimsy. Impersonation fraud does exist, actually. It has existed in Tennessee. In fact, sometimes it’s not even intentional – I believe Sarah had a few experiences as poll worker where daughters attempting to vote for their elderly mothers who couldn’t make it to the polls anymore tried to vote by proxy because “she knew how her mother wanted to vote.” Someone apparently had let her do it before.

I’m also still fuzzy on how picture identification is going to suppress legitimate voter turnout. Democrats can still give away tasty food and refreshing beverages at the polls, and no one is stopping them from running the voter wagons around target neighborhoods to keep turnout up. It’s not as if Republicans are advocating a statewide fuel surcharge on election days. In fact, all the Democrats’ arguments are easily defused, as the voter identification law in Indiana contains an indigency provision. The sole remaining argument is that it’s simply too much work to get a photo ID, a ridiculous position to hold, the legal equivalent of which is painting your face white, putting on a honking nose, and juggling fire.

The irony is rich for Democrats opposing voter identification who still believe that Ohio and Florida were “fixed”. One would think any measure to ensure vote validity would be appreciated.

Many of you have likely been following the battle in federal court over a prayer group’s use of Lakeview Elementary and its facilities. The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Church and State have assisted the plaintiff parents in suing the school district over the use of the school as a site for prayer, and apparently, the effects of invoking the Almighty.

From what I’ve read about the case, the ACLU and AUCS are on shaky constitutional ground. In fact, the only reason I’m commenting on the situation at all is The Tennessean’s bastardization of the Constitution in its opinion piece on the case found in today’s paper. The headline of “their view” is entitled

There’s room for discussion on freedom of, from religion

Well, actually, there isn’t. There’s no room for discussion on “freedom from” religion in any honest debate on the First Amendment, the problem being that particular phrase cannot be found anywhere in the founding document.

Of course, the lack of textual authority doesn’t stop some, like abortion proponents, from claiming the bulwark of constitutional protection, but the First Amendment is one part of the Constitution that has yet to be defaced by the living document hordes’ use of “penumbras” and whole-cloth counter-textualism. Let’s keep it that way.

If you’re going to facilitate an honest debate, let’s start by being honest. Now, having read their editorial, The Tennessean’s position seems rather sensible; however, the headline, which is the reader’s first impression of your thoughts, and of extreme importance, falls within the category of being absolutely atrocious.

Richard Grasso, former head of the New York Stock Exchange, emerged victorious yesterday and can keep the $139.5 million paid to him by the Exchange, despite attempts by New York State to negate the compensation.

Well, chalk up a victory for freedom of contract. Sort of.

The real reason the Grasso case likely came out as it did was because of the Exchange’s merger in 2006 that made it a public, for-profit company, which negated New York’s standing in the suit. The appellate decision ultimately was not on the merits of the case. A lower court had already decided against Grasso.

This all occurring as if the New York attorney general’s office had a remotely public policy reason for pursuing Grasso in the first place. The man ran the New York Stock Exchange, which even when it operated as a “non-profit”, is not your average not-for-profit operation. Not many non-profits monitor 1.4 billion daily securities trades – the dollar volume, though without an official tabulation, is multiples of that. All of the sudden, Grasso’s compensation is sorely insignificant in percentage terms, which are the only real terms that matter.

Grasso started as a clerk on the Exchange, truly the making of a great American success story. He is credited with the reinvigoration of the Big Board after 9/11, a remarkable feat that cannot be undervalued. The lesson learned from the disgraced Eliot Spitzer, who initiated the suit when he was the state’s attorney general, is that success ought to be capped, that the American dream is, in fact, partially dead.

The numbers simply do not matter. The numbers should never matter. There is no such thing as “getting paid too much” for anything. If left to its own devices, the market will always decide what the market will bear. As long as the contract is a voluntary one, no third party (especially the government) ought to have a say.

UPDATE And so does he.

Bob Herbert of The New York Times props up the walking-dead canard of District of Columbia representation and sends out this jolt

Enough is enough. Last week the Republicans showed once again just how anti-black their party really is.

The G.O.P. has spent the last 40 years insulting, disenfranchising and otherwise stomping on the interests of black Americans. Last week, the residents of Washington, D.C., with its majority black population, came remarkably close to realizing a goal they have sought for decades — a voting member of Congress to represent them.

A Senatorial vote to enable voting representatives from the District of Columbia in Congress is a blatant end-run around the Constitution. To legally change the nature of the District, an amendment must be proposed and passed by the states. The District of Columbia was designed by the Founders to expressly not be a state (for more reference, read what Publius had to say in Federalist 43). Sorry to break it to you racialist sensationalists, but opposition to de facto District of Columbia statehood has absolutely nothing to do with how many black people reside there – unless, of course, you are a Democrat, then it has everything to do with how many black people reside there.

The District of Columbia is 57% black. It voted 89% for John Kerry in 2004, and 85% for Al Gore in 2000. The vote over District representation is not a racist opposition by Republicans but is very much a cheap power play for another congressional seat by Democrats. Both parties have political motives. The difference here is that the Republicans have the Constitution on their side and the Democrats do not. Can proponents of District of Columbia statehood and congressional representation not at all see the historical reason for ensuring the District is not itself a state? Or is power just that important? That’s certainly something a fifth grader could answer.

Quite frankly, I tire of a rationally held opposition to an issue being tossed aside as racist because of the holder’s political affiliation. And further, it’s more tiresome that one cannot be a pure African-American unless you subscribe to the monolithic world that demands government dependence and a Democratic voter registration. Now that is insulting.

Herbert then goes on some mindless ramble about how Clarence Thomas isn’t a real black man (if you think Clarence Thomas is a bad, just try to make sense of Thurgood Marshall’s truly incomprehensible jurisprudence – just have the Costco sized bottle of aspirin ready), bemoaning that the major Republican candidates won’t hold vigil with Tavis Smiley, and how black voters were intimidated in Florida in 2004 (I guess he meant Ohio – Herbert may have forgotten that Florida was the Democrats’ race-baiting award winner of 2000, but was only a nominee in 2004).

So, if you’re a Republican, why bother? You can’t win. If you are black and Republican you are a fake black. If you believe the Constitution forbids a certain action, you are a racist. And if you don’t go to a debate where you are certain to be scorned and ridiculed, you are also a racist. It’s the perfect trap to keep the monolith intact, and to keep the power among the liberal elite and black “leaders”.

I guess I have to accept that as a Republican I’m going to eventually be called a racist, damned be my daily actions that speak kilodecibels louder than Bob Herbert’s words.

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My treadmill entertainment this afternoon was Hardball with the always-insightful Chris Matthews.  His headline story was the supposed loss of free speech that we are experiencing in this country.  Are Barbra Streisand, Rosie O’Donnell, Bill Maher, Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Jack Murtha and countless others in jail right now for speaking out against the government?  My goodness, that is big news!!

Matthews used three recent events in an attempt to convince us that we are no longer free to disagree with the policies of the current administration.

Quick Side Note:  My favorite comment EVER during the many anti-war rallies and marches I’ve watched on C-Span was,  “We don’t even have the right to protest anymore!”.  This was spoken by a man holding a “Bush is a Nazi” sign and marching with thousands of other angry people through the streets of D.C.  Amusing.  Back to my post … 

I would like to address each of the instances that Matthews featured in his slanted and unconvincing piece:

1.The college dude who got tasered at the University of Florida.  OK, the police probably did not need to send excessive amounts of voltage through this guy.  He wasn’t about to kill anyone.  I would have opted for pepper spray.  But, my sympathy for this punk is limited.  He ranted on and on about the 2004 elections even after being told his time had expired.  He threw a childish fit when finally escorted away.  And, he physically challenged the cops who were removing him.  He came across to me as a brat with a huge sense of entitlement.  Did he deserve to be tasered?  No.  But the force was not used as a means of stifling his speech.
2. Sally Field’s acceptance speech at the Emmys.  Upon winning an Emmy for her role in Brothers and Sisters, Ms. Field proclaimed that if mothers ruled the world, there would be “no g**d***ed wars”.  (Drudge made the excellent point that Senator Hillary Clinton … a mother … voted to authorize the war in Iraq.)  The network cut her off when she reached the word that I filled with asterisks.  When has this word ever been allowed on network TV?  This is not a decision by the Bush administration to censor anti-war advocates.  It’s a continuation of the boundaries that have existed for quite some time.

3. The removal of the Code Pink ladies from the Petraus hearings.  Come on.  Are members of Congress supposed to sit patiently while disheveled women (or well-composed women, for that matter) scream nonsensically about betrayal?  These hearings are serious events and a certain level of decorum is required.  Should college students be allowed to grab a bullhorn and invite their peers to a keg party during a professor’s lecture?  Should observers be permitted to sing and dance in circles while oral arguments are being made in front of the Supreme Court?  The women were perfectly free to stand on the steps of the Capitol and air their grievances.
We certainly should be vigilant and real instances in which free speech is threatened should be challenged.  But, these events shared on Hardball hardly have me worried that I can no longer speak my mind in this country.

Let me try something …

Bush sucks!  Cheney is a Nazi pig!  This war is a disaster designed by incompetent asses who are only looking to line their own pockets.

If Chris Matthews is right, I’ll have Nathan post my prison address so that you all can write to me.

There was a discussion going on blogs several weeks ago concerning the right of men to have a say in the abortion decision.  I’ve been meaning to write on the subject since first reading the arguments, but am just getting around to it now.

I start with the premise that Roe v. Wade is the accepted law of the land.  Whether or not that ruling is appropriate is a whole other argument.  That being said …

I believe a husband/boyfriend/random sexual partner should have an equal opinion in determining whether or not a pregnancy is aborted.  The baby shares an equal component of both parents’ DNA … it is their baby, not just her baby.  The laws of anatomy dictate that the female is the one to carry the baby for nine months.  The male should not be punished simply because he does not have a uterus.  The woman made the choice to have sex with the person whose sperm has now combined with her egg to form a life.  I firmly believe that you should not have sex with a person unless you are prepared for the possibility that you may be responsible for raising a child together (condoms break and a couple of my friends are “pill babies”).

In situations where the woman did not have a choice in sexual activity (such as rape and incest), then the criminal who forced sex certainly should have absolutely no voice in what womb-related actions occur.  Instead, he should be castrated and locked away for the rest of his life.

I cannot imagine making such a life-changing (in many ways!) decision such as having an abortion without the support of the other person who is also responsible for that growing life.  That is why I fail to understand the concept of “casual” sex.  When a man and woman come together and have sex, both need to have a mutual understanding of the consequences.  The question needs to be asked before the clothes come off … if a pregnancy results in this act, what do you think should happen?  If the answers aren’t the same, keep it zipped.

The “fairness doctrine” has been revived by a cadre of congressional, well – weenies. Wimps, maybe. Legendary local journalist and publisher John Siegenthaler takes on the lunatic belief that the fairness doctrine holds up to even the most basic constitutional muster. Plus, if traipsing upon the Constitution doesn’t ruffle one’s feathers, it’s also easy to see that the idea just makes for bad public policy.

In summary, the fairness doctrine would demand that any station that played three hours of Rush Limbaugh, such as WLAC talk radio in Nashville, would have to offer a counterpoint equivalent to that three hours in some form.  Among those advocating that the First Amendment be gutted are Democrat Senators John Kerry, Dick Durbin, and Dianne Feinstein.  Not to be outdone, Democrat Congressman Maurice Hinchey of New York and Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio dutifully walk about the House side with the First Amendment stuck firmly to their heels.

If anything approaches Newspeak, the term “fairness doctrine” is it. To support it, you must believe there is some First Amendment penumbra / exception that the Warren court never got to, or that the free market, and the free market of ideas, is an expendable luxury. Republicans get unfairly blasted daily for shredding the Constitution in fighting the War on Terror. In reality, it is proposals such as this that really put the Bill of Rights in the outhouse.

Les Jones brings this gem to our attention

“The rifle is a weapon. Let there be no mistake about that. It is a tool of power, and thus dependent completely upon the moral stature of its user. It is equally useful in securing meat for the table, destroying group enemies on the battlefield, and resisting tyranny. In fact, it is the only means of resisting tyranny, since a citizenry armed with rifles simply cannot be tyrannized.

“The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.”

Of course, to many on the left, a rifle is nothing more than an object of propaganda. I’m more prone to invest in the sageness of Colonel Jeff Cooper myself, who passed away just yesterday.

If you think the United States is too restrictive and just awful in its puritanical politics, there’s a new place you can go exercise your right to choose, where the abortion trend is just now emerging in your favor

Colombia

Yes, but – abortion is still not allowed on-demand, so birth control is still going to be a hassle. Colombian women will still be oppressed. Perhaps a NOW / NARAL expeditionary task force ought to get on top of that ASAP.

For those who might not know, Dwight Lewis is a regular columnist for The Tennessean. For all that I own and hold dear, I cannot figure out why he merits the position he holds. His writing is weak, his columns mostly consist of cutting and pasting from other people’s writing or emails, and his views are rarely substantiated.

Besides the chum printed a few days a week in the paper, we have actually had a personal experience. In 2003, Sarah was running for Metro Council. She went in to interview with the editorial board, of which Lewis is a member. She was asked what her vision for Nashville was , and it consisted of two immediate goals. One was to increase the incentives for downtown development and living, the other was to work to reduce the size of council to make it more effective as a representative body. Lewis laughed at both, telling her that it was too expensive to live downtown and no one wanted to do it, and that a smaller council could simply never represent the people effectively.

Well, then. Wrong on both counts. One only needs to look at the Viridian (almost done), the Signature Tower (nearly 50 floors, all-residential, to be built), and every old warehouse and feed shack downtown being turned into loft apartments, and you can see how “in touch” Dwight Lewis is. As for the size of council, Lewis’ favored mayor is even technically in support of it. He simply doesn’t get it (it being the all-encompassing “it” symbolized by ).

Which brings me to his column today, which offers a conclusion without a means. Sort of like wishing for world piece and telling the good guys to disarm. It’s about guns. A friend heard a shooting in his blue collar neighborhood, and today’s column was inspired

I thought about my colleague and the shooting in his neighborhood after reading a story out of New York Tuesday saying the mayors of 10 major U.S. cities had gathered at a summit on gun violence that day, with organizers saying the federal government is not doing enough to stop the spread of illegal weapons.

“If the leadership won’t come from Congress or from the White House, it will have to come from us,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was quoted as saying in the Associated Press story. The story said Bloomberg was heading the summit along with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.

“Gun crime is a national problem that needs a national response,” Menino was quoted as saying, adding that many guns used in the 73 homicides in Boston last year came from other states.

The mayors hope to create a loose coalition that will trade crime fighting information, work together on city and state legislation and form a louder voice in Washington.

That sounds like a terrific idea, even here in Nashville where there have been 27 homicides this year. That’s almost the same number as this time last year, so it’s apparent more is needed to reduce the high incidence of violence we’re seeing.

Gun control summits aren’t ever a good idea, actually. The focus is always on more laws, the class of which are broken with impunity as it is. True, gun violence is bad. It’s the deadliest kind. There are a variety of solutions that may work, such as more police in high violence areas (instead of writing traffic tickets in Donelson and Hermitage, why don’t we put more patrols in Antioch?). Ceteris paribus, It is proven that the frequency of apprehension is more of a deterrent than the magnitude of the punishment. In short, more laws will only affect those who follow them. Lewis continues. Here’s where the fantasy world descends from the heavens

And while all of the homicides have not included guns, most have. That’s why the anti-gun summit taking place in New York was a good idea, and it’s also why we need stricter gun laws here in Tennessee.

Having done enough criminal defense, I see the assistant DAs in Nashville already pressing on the gun issue. The laws are there, and guns typically come with other crimes, such as Aggravated Robbery, Aggravated Assault, Attempted Homicide, etc. If you use a gun, you’re going to do some time. The punishment is already there. The difference in doing 6 years or 8 years in the Tennessee Department of Corrections is negligible to your average criminal defendant. They’ll still get paroled. More restrictive laws like Lewis advocate won’t accomplish a thing.

But as Bloomberg and the other mayors were having their anti-gun summit in New York, another group was criticizing their actions.

The group, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, called the anti-gun summit a session “to devise more schemes to restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens, which will only lead to more crime because people will be unable to protect themselves.”

“Rather than devising and suggesting more restrictions on the rights of law-abiding gun owners, these mayors need to recognize that urban violence is a symptom of deeper problems that their bankrupt social policies perpetuate,” CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron said in one of the many e-mails his group sends out across the nation.

Every time I see such an e-mail I wonder if Waldron’s group will ever see the light. Will they ever realize that guns are taking the lives of too many people in America, or do they really care? •

Well, Waldron is right. Urban violence doesn’t occur because of guns. Urban violence stems from societal decay. Chanting “gun control” is an easy, feel good endeavor. Focusing on fixing real problems, like the illegitimacy rate among black urban families, is not.

It’s hard to argue with Lewis, as one can’t assign much logic to Lewis’ position, anyway. It’s an emotional and intellectually inconsistent one. Picking and choosing parts of the Constitution is a favorite past time of those seeking immediate public policy gratification without regard for the long term effects. Gun control doesn’t work, anywhere. The laws are there, and are enforced as much as practicable in many jurisdictions. The Second Amendment is as legitimate as any other part of the Bill of Rights. I do wish liberals would start treating it that way.

SJR 127 easily passed in the State Senate today, which speaks well of the morality of those elected to public office in Tennessee. The usual suspects were not nearly as pleased

The wingnuts droned on forever with their favorite nutty theory about fetuses being the equivalent of 19th century slaves. I say it’s past time for some technology that will free the ‘fetus slaves’ by putting them into the bodies of rabid old white rightwing men. What a damper that would put on their drinking and womanizing days.

So, yes, here in Tennessee we are one step closer to enshrining a woman’s second-class citizenship in our constitution. Only nine senators voted against the amendment.

The pro-abortion forces seem to have the maturity of a slightly-advanced adolescent. Too bad, I guess. Name someone you know who was never a fetus, and I’ll agree that fetuses aren’t really people. As to other accounts of the pro-abortion forces

The press conference was a little like a good Irish wake. Folks were crying and hugging, but also catching up with each other and there was some laughter and some smiles. Still, everyone in the room knew that the amendment was going to pass; I think for most of them, it was just seeing it happen, and hearing the vitriol during the debate that made it hard.

As for me, I have deeply mixed feelings. I already thought there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that they wouldn’t pass the amendment, and so to hear these folks get up in front of the microphones, some of them still sobbing, talking about how this will be the first time the state’s constitution is amended to deny rights to a group of people, was really sad. One woman asked how she was supposed to tell rape victims that they can’t have abortions and then she started to cry. I did too.

Well, the statement of fact is incorrect, but the conclusion is overwrought as well. This was all about rape victims like the World Series is about football. What irritates me is that those protesting on the Hill today weren’t there for rape victims in the least. They were there for a most ignoble and morally bankrupt cause. To paint it any other way is misleading. It simultaneoulsy amuses and saddens me that the liberated and enlightened women of our time do all they can to de-feminate themselves. The standard of equality they hold is male centered, demanding that they become less and less like women at every step. Women are biologically different – scrap it. Women are mentally different – scrap it. At every step, the modern liberal woman is self-loathing. Why one as woman fights for a “right” to nullify the primary differentiation between male and female boggles my mind. Demand it if you want, but you’re sacrificing your role as the backbone of the family and Western civilization for some perverse brand of “equality”. It’s the ultimate squandering of one’s inheritance.

UPDATE I see the pot has been stirred. Good. It just goes to show that the anti-life argument is one of emotion instead of logic.

I am now going to go mingle with a bunch of Republican pro-life women.

There’s a test regarding one’s knowledge of the “separation of state and church” (which sounds pleasantly like Lenin would have preferred it said) hosted on the web by the Freedom from Religion Foundation. As we know, President Bush has ordered compulsory church attendance at a denomination of his choice since taking office, and snake handling classes are now required offerings in order for a school to pass No Child Left Behind standards. The need for the FFRF cannot be understated – the group is more invaluable than ever to a free and functioning secular democracy.

I went to look at the test, because I’m a trivia geek, and like to see how much I know, or don’t know, about just about anything (except movies and tv – popular culture is my nemesis).

The test wasn’t that hard, but it was certainly loaded. Somehow, according to FFRF “Creator” does not equate to “God” – call me particular, but you really do weaken the point when you start to play word games to dodge an obvious truth. If groups on the Left want to get particular about whether Creator equates to God, there are some other well-worshiped words not found in our founding documents too that could be brought to the fore.

There were some other questions, like Question 21, that are also misleading, and where constitutional interpretation of the 14th Amendment by the Supreme Court has bastardized the amendment so far beyond its original intent that there is little hope of salvaging it (Question 6 dovetails along these lines as well). The entire test is an exercise in mockery – if you’re a conservative Christian you most certainly have to be an idiot according to the FFRF. If you can read into questions and know what their agenda encompasses, you are a constitutional scholar. Go figure.

As a side note, I find it worthwhile to be informed as to the other side’s doings. It’s always worth checking out what the opposition, and the rabid members thereof, are all about. For instance, I was re-reading some Kautsky and Guevera this morning for that very reason (I can thank seeing some ignorant youngster with a Che shirt on for that). The roots of one’s beliefs typically remain constant – even the secular faith of groups like FFRF. It is our responsibility as members of the Reasonable Right to stay sharp and vigilant, to make sure we keep the Loony Left and others like them on the edge of the proverbial ideological cliff.

(Thanks to Brittney for the link on the FFRF test)

I love militant feminists. They make me laugh (which is why I link to them so much, in case you’re wondering). Here’s a protest with some teeth – wear a Red Burka Shirt if you live in a Red State, and then go to the General Assembly to let all know that you’re a serious person

Get your Red Burka T-Shirt here, and tell the world what you think about the relentless, never-ending, Republican-led and State-financed War on Women.

I plan to wear a Red Burka Shirt when I go downtown to watch my elected representatives vote on whether or not women should be returned to the 19th century when the male-dominated state had the unmitigated audacity to rob women of their personhood.

I don’t know…that Red Burka Shirt looks a tad revealing. Maybe we should take it to the land of the burkas for a test-run. I will gladly start a fund drive for the first militant feminist willing to argue that Sharia law is as imposing on women as is the United States (or the Tennessee Code Annotated, for that matter). The prize will be a one-way ticket to BurkaLand, where one can demonstrate to her heart’s content. The only obligation is that the winner is to write a report from her jail cell as to the true differences between America and countries where burkas are required to be worn by law.

The comments are a hoot as well – “The Taliban have come to America.” Really?

Well, in all fairness, it is possible. President Bush did make sure they weren’t ruling Afghanistan anymore.