Category Archives: Law

BillO Tosses & Gores Governor Gregoire; So Far So Good (But…)

Christianity, Conservatism, Founding Fathers, Freedom of Religion, Law, Media, Natural Law, The State, The West

I’m pleased Bill O’Reilly is targeting the left-liberal governor of Washington State. Seldom do I identify with any of the causes BO champions, other than his offensive against sanctuary cities and criminal aliens. I appreciate his passion over those issues. For the rest, he might as well be speaking Greek.

(I’ve noticed BO’s “theories” about Big Bad Oil have taken a back seat of late since market forces combined with an induced recession to render gas prices at an all-time low.)

I also defended BO effectively when he took the unpopular stance of personal responsibility with respect to Shawn Hornbeck.

But notice that BO always argues from the stance of the positive law. There is no such thing as natural justice in his universe, although his righteous anger about crime, by illegals or others, comes close.

In the case at hand, the odious Governor Gregoire sanctioned an atheist diatribe alongside the traditional holiday display of the Nativity scene in the state capitol building. BO defends Christmas on the grounds that it’s a federal holiday. Logical consistency, then, compels him to defend every foul federal holiday, including Martin Luther King’s dedicated day. (I’m sure there are other more ludicrous that the last.)

Since nobody notices how poorly written his columns are, no one will be the wiser about BO’s poorly constructed arguments. (Except those who read this space.) However, his fans would do well to think through how deficient BO’s argument against Gregoire really is.

Think about it: if Christmas were not a public holiday, would the vile, rude display this uncouth woman sanctioned be justified? How do you justify Christmas with reference to this country’s founding faith if you defer to State law that has banished that tradition from the public square?

You can’t! You always come short when you argue from the positive law.

As I’ve written (it’s under Quotables–and you have to attribute), “sometimes the law of the State coincides with the natural law. More often than not, natural justice has been buried under the rubble of legislation and statute.”

How much legislation? A lot:

We labor under over 56,009 pages of laws in the U.S. Code; 134,488 pages of regulatory laws in the Code of Federal Regulation, and more than 68,107 pages of laws in the Federal Register. There are upwards of 2,756 volumes (and counting) of judicial precedent. Correct me if I’m wrong. (Where is my good friend Jerri Ward when I need her?)

Over and out,
Your consummate natural lawyer

BillO Tosses & Gores Governor Gregoire; So Far So Good (But…)

Christianity, Conservatism, Founding Fathers, Freedom of Religion, Law, Media, Natural Law, The State, The West

I’m pleased Bill O’Reilly is targeting the left-liberal governor of Washington State. Seldom do I identify with any of the causes BO champions, other than his offensive against sanctuary cities and criminal aliens. I appreciate his passion over those issues. For the rest, he might as well be speaking Greek.

(I’ve noticed BO’s “theories” about Big Bad Oil have taken a back seat of late since market forces combined with an induced recession to render gas prices at an all-time low.)

I also defended BO effectively when he took the unpopular stance of personal responsibility with respect to Shawn Hornbeck.

But notice that BO always argues from the stance of the positive law. There is no such thing as natural justice in his universe, although his righteous anger about crime, by illegals or others, comes close.

In the case at hand, the odious Governor Gregoire sanctioned an atheist diatribe alongside the traditional holiday display of the Nativity scene in the state capitol building. BO defends Christmas on the grounds that it’s a federal holiday. Logical consistency, then, compels him to defend every foul federal holiday, including Martin Luther King’s dedicated day. (I’m sure there are other more ludicrous that the last.)

Since nobody notices how poorly written his columns are, no one will be the wiser about BO’s poorly constructed arguments. (Except those who read this space.) However, his fans would do well to think through how deficient BO’s argument against Gregoire really is.

Think about it: if Christmas were not a public holiday, would the vile, rude display this uncouth woman sanctioned be justified? How do you justify Christmas with reference to this country’s founding faith if you defer to State law that has banished that tradition from the public square?

You can’t! You always come short when you argue from the positive law.

As I’ve written (it’s under Quotables–and you have to attribute), “sometimes the law of the State coincides with the natural law. More often than not, natural justice has been buried under the rubble of legislation and statute.”

How much legislation? A lot:

We labor under over 56,009 pages of laws in the U.S. Code; 134,488 pages of regulatory laws in the Code of Federal Regulation, and more than 68,107 pages of laws in the Federal Register. There are upwards of 2,756 volumes (and counting) of judicial precedent. Correct me if I’m wrong. (Where is my good friend Jerri Ward when I need her?)

Over and out,
Your consummate natural lawyer

Updated: Pregnancy Plague

Family, Gender, Law, Morality, Pop-Culture, Psychology & Pop-Psychology

TIME:

“As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies—more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year. … none older than 16.”

Question: Why aren’t the minors being removed from their parents? Were they not impregnated under their watch? What is good for the FLDS goose must surely be good for the Gloucester gander.

Recall, just a few weeks back, “Texas Department of Child Abduction” removed hundreds of children from the sect known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint. The justification for such overreach was molestation: The kids were all being molested, Texas claimed. The alleged evidence was wide-spread pregnancy among the seized children. Nothing panned out. The entire case was based on a hunch and a hoax.

The same standards, surely, would have to apply to Muslim brides being imported, wed, and impregnated before reaching the age of majority.

Update (June 23): Compared to the promiscuity among minors in this Massachusetts school, the FLDS sect’s 15-year-olds are celibate. Or perhaps sterile (it must be all that organic food they eat).

Update 3: State Had No Right To Seize FLDS Children!

Criminal Injustice, Family, Justice, Law, The State

I said so in my April 15 column, “They’re Coming For Your Kids.” At the same time, my good friend and colleague, the heroic attorney and broadcaster Jerri Ward, rushed to defend an FLDS father pro bono. Now the Third Court of Appeals in Austin agrees.

Did the malpracticing, mindless media that never swims upstream ever interview Jerri or myself when we said what ought to have been plain to any clear-thinking, liberty loving individual? Of course not. Nancy Grace, Bill O’Reilly and the rest were busy fulfilling “their providential purpose” in this case, evangelizing for state overreach.

We will be talking today, at 12:42 Pacific Time, about the case vis-à-vis these new developments. I am a regular, fortnightly commentator on Jerri’s marvelous “I Object!” show. Be sure to follow our schedule here.

Update 3 (May 24): We covered the issues on the blog after the publication of “They’re Coming For Your Kids,” which in itself pretty much said it all. Trace the discussion here. Nothing has been added to the debate since the column, other than a couple of legal technicalities, such as that the Abduction Department treated the compound as one family, instead of investigating individual cases. The assigning of collective guilt–tribal justice–bears no resemblance to the law as the Rights of Englishmen would have it.

This is both sickening and retarded. I covered it; re-read the post. We’re not rehashing the same thing over again, especially in light of the general reluctance, because chronically incurious, among posters to read all background material on the Mother site: Barely A Blog is a companion to the main site, IlanaMercer.com. What has changed is that a month hence, the Court has agreed with us. However, even if the Appeals Court had not agreed with us, we’d still be right. Natural justice is immutably true.