1807 Insurrection Act Was Good Enough For T. Jefferson. So, Bring It.

Constitution, Crime, Federalism, Foreign Policy, Founding Fathers, Law, States' Rights

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Face it. The US Constitution is a dead letter. The American Constitutional scheme—federalism—exists only in as much as to allow outlaws within and without government to hurt the law-abiding.

No other than Thomas Jefferson, an august constitutional authority if ever there was one, passed the 1807 Insurrection Act.

“Jefferson, to his credit, says I’m not going to act unless the Constitution says I can act,” says Fea. “The Federalists take a much broader view of the Constitution. If the Constitution doesn’t outright condemn it, then it’s OK.”

Jefferson stuck to his principles and in December of 1806 asked Congress to pass a bill “authorising the emploiment of the land or Naval forces of the US. in cases of insurrection.” This legislation, known as the Insurrection Act, would take another three months to become law.

Do it, Mr. President. Better late than never. Quell these bloody riots. Some skulls need cracking.

It was early in June that POTUS promised to protect American life, liberty and property forsaken, by invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act. Oh yes, “There’s this long tradition of” deploying the military to protect only countries the US invades, so this would be a departure from the imperial tradition.

Now, amid the razzmatazz of the Republican National Conference (RNC), being floated again is the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act to perform the negative duties of saving American lives and livelihoods. “Idea”? It’s more like a constitutional obligation hitherto ignored.

The police, whose first duty is to uphold the negative rights of the citizens, appear to believe they serve not the citizens but local mob bosses like Seattle’s mayor, Jenny Durkan, and her crooked police chief, Carmen Best. The latter, who seems to worry more about the weave on her head and eyelashes than about the working people of the city, commanded her compliant and cowardly police officers to desert their posts and the people they swore to protect.

READ: “Bring In The Feds! Protection Of Natural Rights Trumps Federalism”

Parrot Genius And Congenital Kindness

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Intelligence, Parrots

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Parrot genius: Oscar-Wood has a luxurious aviary in a pretty garden with birdbaths and wild blooms (Columbine, being my favorite flower, because wild). BUT he hates it because he’s afraid of cats and raccoons (predators both). As soon as he hears anyone say “outside” or “summer camp,” my code, he rushes back inside his cage and slams the door. (Oscar-Wood looks like a mini dinosaur. Total tyrant.)

Parrot smart? Are you kidding me?

Parrots, the medium/larger ones, have primate-level intelligence. They’re not mere mimics; but use language in context. Adorable too. No training is involved in their fashioning of tools to obtain treats. Corvids are wicked smart but they are not naturally kind like parrots.

There is a lot people, so unkind, can learn from parrots, so congenitally kind.

Forbes: “Some parrots are more intelligent than humans, on average, the kea” is an example. The Kea “outperform monkeys — and perhaps even human infants — on certain probability tasks.”

 

 

UPDATED (8/24): Kamala Says ‘There Is No Vaccine For Racism’; Yes, And ‘You Cant Fix Stupid’

Comedy & Humor, Intelligence, Politics, Propaganda, Race, Racism, The Zeitgeist

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In that nagging, nasal intonation of hers, Kamala Harris lectures the country that, “There is no vaccine for racism.”

And Ron White, great satirist from the great State of Texas, taught us, “You can’t fix stupid. There is not a pill you can take, not a class you can go to. Stupid is forever.”

What a shame it is when “stupid” (if cunning) coincides with power.

UPDATED (8/24): Other stuff that comes out of Kamala’s mouth:

Kamala’s acceptance speech: Blacks. Browns. People Of Color. Minorities. My Mother. Me. Women. Racism. Me. Racial Justice. Systemic Racism X 100

Not a word for WHITES: not for poor or working-class or addicted pale people. Not even for the candidate’s Lilly white hubby.

Looks like Kamala Harris botched Emma Lazarus, whose construction of the sentence is probably grammatical. Not Kamala’s: “None us are free until all of us are free.” As I see it, it’s: “None of us is free until all of us are free.” None=Not One of us …

UPDATED (8/22/): NEW COLUMN: Was The Cop’s Knee On George Floyd’s Neck ‘Racism’? No!

Conservatism, Free Speech, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Paleoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Race, Racism, Reason

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NEW COLUMN IS “Was The Cop’s Knee On George Floyd’s Neck ‘Racism’? No!” It featured on Townhall.com, WND.COM, the Unz Review, and Newsroom For American and European-Based Citizens.

It is currently a feature on American Greatness:

“Was The Cop’s Knee On George Floyd’s Neck ‘Racism’? No!” It is the second in a series deconstructing the racism construct. For the first, there is also a quick YouTube primer.

Excerpt:

Racism consists of a mindset or a worldview that boils down to impolite and impolitic thoughts and words written, spoken, preached, or tweeted.

If that’s all racism is, you ask, then what was the knee on George Floyd’s neck? Was that not racism?

No, it was not.

Judging from the known facts, the knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck was a knee on a man’s neck. That’s all that can be inferred from the chilling video recording in which Floyd expired slowly as he pleaded for air.

Floyd begged to breathe. But the knee on his neck—“subdual restraint and neck compression,” in medical terms—was sustained for fully eight minutes and 46 seconds, causing “cardiopulmonary arrest.”

There are laws against what transpired between former Officer Derek Chauvin and Mr. Floyd.

And the law’s ambit is not to decide whether the offending officer is a correct-thinking individual, but whether Mr. Chauvin had committed a crime.

About Officer Chauvin’s mindset, the most the law is supposed to divine is mens rea—criminal intention: Was the officer whose knee pressed on Floyd’s neck acting with a guilty mind or not?

For fact-finding is the essence of the law. The law is not an abstract ideal of imagined social justice, that exists to salve sensitive souls.

If “racism” looks like a felony crime, then it ought to be prosecuted as nothing but a crime and debated as such. In the case of Mr. Chauvin, a mindset of depraved indifference seems to jibe with the video.

This is not to refute the reality of racially motivated crimes. These most certainly occur. It is only to refute the legal and ethical validity of a racist mindset in the prosecution of a crime.

Surely, a life taken because of racial or antisemitic animus is not worth more than life lost to spousal battery or to a home invasion.

The law, then, must mete justice, in accordance with the rules of evidence, proportionality and due process. Other than intent, references to the attendant thoughts that accompanied the commission of a crime should be irrelevant—be they racist, sexist, ageist or anti-Semitic.

Ultimately, those thoughts are known only to the perp.

To make matters worse, legions of libertarians and conservatives have joined the progressive establishment in the habit of sniffing out and purging racists, as though they were criminals.

Sniffing out thought or speech criminals is a no-no for any and all self-respecting classical conservative and libertarian. We should never persecute or prosecute thought “criminals” for utterances not to our liking (unless these threaten or portend violence). …

… READ THE REST. LATEST COLUMN IS currently a feature on American Greatness:

UPDATE (8/22/20):

Loup-Bouc:

Fine article, Ms. Mercer. Unlike all other Unz Review authors who have addressed the Floyd case, you apprehend accurately/correctly much of the pertinent law. ..I observe that you have written a fine article. Brava.

Mark Humphrey says:
August 22, 2020 at 1:51 am GMT   ?

This essay is the clearest and most effective explanation as to why racism and other bad ideas are not criminal. Of the numerous Mercer essays I have read, this is the best. Thank you.