Monthly Archives: September 2011

Quote of the Day: Americans Cheer the Assassination of the Fifth Amendment Edition

Glenn Greenwald writes in response to the overall positive reaction of the drone assassination of American born Anwar al-Awlaki:

What’s most amazing is that its citizens will not merely refrain from objecting, but will stand and cheer the U.S. Government’s new power to assassinate their fellow citizens, far from any battlefield, literally without a shred of due process from the U.S. Government. Many will celebrate the strong, decisive, Tough President’s ability to eradicate the life of Anwar al-Awlaki — including many who just so righteously condemned those Republican audience members as so terribly barbaric and crass for cheering Governor Perry’s execution of scores of serial murderers and rapists — criminals who were at least given a trial and appeals and the other trappings of due process before being killed.

From an authoritarian perspective, that’s the genius of America’s political culture. It not only finds way to obliterate the most basic individual liberties designed to safeguard citizens from consummate abuses of power (such as extinguishing the lives of citizens without due process). It actually gets its citizens to stand up and clap and even celebrate the destruction of those safeguards.

Sadly, among those that cheered this assassination of an American citizen are none other than pro war on terror libertarians Neal Boortz and Larry Elder. When Boortz heard that Ron Paul and Gary Johnson condemned the assassination, he called that notion “a bunch of horse squeeze.” After playing Ron Paul’s very well reasoned response explaining his objections, Larry Elder said that Paul “doesn’t get it” and “we are at war.”

I’m sorry gentlemen, I wasn’t aware that there was a “war on terror” exception to due process. But hey you guys are both attorneys who claim to hold the Constitution in high regard so what the hell do I know?

If there is anything our government does well its convicting people, putting them in prison, and/or executing them. If the government really had the goods on this guy, there’s virtually no chance he would have been found not guilty.

President Obama not only ordered the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki but the Fifth Amendment as well.

Related: Obama: Judge, Jury, and Executioner in Chief

ATF Decides the Second Amendment Doesn’t Apply to Medical Marijuana Users

The AP via CNBC reports that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) says that it is illegal for medical marijuana users to purchase firearms or ammunition.

Federal law already makes it illegal for someone to possess a gun if he or she is “an unlawful user of, or addicted to” marijuana or other controlled substances. A Sept. 21 letter from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, issued in response to numerous inquiries from gun dealers, clarifies that medical marijuana patients are included in that definition.

“There are no exceptions in federal law for marijuana purportedly used for medicinal purposes, even if such use is sanctioned by state law,” said the letter by Arthur Herbert, the ATF’s assistant director for enforcement programs and services.

Federal firearm licensees, or FFLs, can’t sell a gun to someone who answers “yes” when a required form asks whether the buyer is a controlled substance user. Last week’s letter also says that licensed dealers can’t sell a gun or ammunition if they have “reasonable cause to believe” the buyer is using a controlled substance.

That includes if the buyer presents a medical marijuana card as identification, or if the buyer talks about drug use, having a medical marijuana card or a recent drug conviction, ATF spokesman Drew Wade said Wednesday.

[…]

Pro-marijuana and gun groups said the policy clarification amounts to rescinding the gun rights for the thousands of people licensed to use medical marijuana laws. And it appears to contradict a 2009 Department of Justice memo that said the Obama administration would not pursue prosecution of individual medical marijuana users who obey state laws.

[…]

Wade said both the 2009 memo and last week’s letter were approved by the Justice Department and he does not believe there is a contradiction in the two messages. He also that the dealers are in a good position to help prevent firearms from getting into the wrong hands.

Funny that the ATF’s spokesman would say he was worried about firearms “getting into the wrong hands.” Does the operation that is currently under investigation code named “Fast and Furious” ring a bell? The very operation where the ATF purposely allowed some 450 or so guns to “walk” across the Mexican border eventually arming the drug cartels? If this isn’t a scandal that calls out for a special prosecutor to investigate the Obama administration, I don’t know what does!

But for the very same ATF to then issue a letter saying that medical marijuana users have to choose between their Second Amendment rights and their medical treatment is beyond the pale.

Solyndra: Delusions Of Grandeur, Or Just Colossal Balls?

Wow. It’s one thing to carry the necessary delusion that comes with most people in a startup… That self-delusion, the belief that you can’t fail (despite the high proportions of startups that fail), is what is required to overcome the often monumental odds most startups face. But is it merely delusion to submit THIS* to the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee on June 23, 2011? No, I can’t think so. This is balls. Pure, shiny brass ones:

Solyndra does not publicly release quarterly results but is on track for this year. The ability to command a slight pricing premium as a result of substantial differentiation and product benefits continues and our cash production cost per watt is dropping rapidly at pace with the industry. In a highly competitive global marketplace Solyndra continues to win large projects on commercial rooftops around the world and we are confident we are competitive on the merits of our differentiated, lightweight, simple to install cylindrical rooftop and greenhouse products.

Evidence of Strong Momentum

  • 1166 employees and growing, 49 open jobs on website
  • Exporting more >50% of product
  • Over 1000 installations >20 countries
  • Over 100MW shipped
  • 2010 revenue ~$140M
  • 2011 shipments expected to double over 2010
  • Fab ramp to 300MW on target
  • 14th largest shipper from the Port of Oakland, more than 1000 containers this year
  • Doubled U.S. sales and marketing team in past 6 months

I can imagine Solyndra issuing mindless press releases like this — maybe in 2010 or 2009. I can even imagine them issuing such optimistic letters to the US Congress at that time — they still had enough free gov’t money in the coffers to at least try to justify themselves as an ongoing concern. But to do so in the middle of 2011, when you know you’re headed for the skids? That’s just asking for trouble! You have to think they’re going to wonder where all this optimism came from when the excrement hits the air circulation device.

Of course, there is no mention of profitability. Startups, when they have at least a hint of a viable road to profitability, would undoubtedly at least claim such. I have to think that whoever wrote this letter was deliberately focusing on revenue & jobs created, and not on profitability [not altogether unusual for a startup, to be sure] to deflect attention from the entity who had just loaned them $535M regarding when it might get paid back.

I note it’s titled “Exceeding Expectations”. I agree: I had no idea someone with barely money to keep the lights on would be capable of spewing out this much bullshit.

Hat Tip: Reason, who has a lot more of the timeline of the Solyndra saga at this link.
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Rick Santorum Revives The Lincoln-Douglas Debates; Unwittingly Takes Douglas’ Side

Wow… Just, wow. I’ve heard of people taking quotes out of context, but Rick Santorum is treading down a slippery slope that I think even he, as a hardcore social conservative, would find himself quickly uneasy with:

His spokesman Hogan Gidley emails me in response to Mark Miners comments: “Senator Santorum is certainly an advocate for states’ rights, but he believes as Abraham Lincoln – that states do not have the right to legalize moral wrongs. The Senator has been clear and consistent – and he believes that marriage is and can only be: between one man and one woman.”

Now, it’s easy to see where Santorum is coming from — the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Lincoln at the time was arguing, as so many libertarians argue, that there are some rights which are not to be voted on. Popular sovereignty can be good for making some decisions, but that in the case of slavery, it is used to uphold a moral wrong. Infringements upon rights granted by natural law cannot be justified by majority vote:

Lincoln’s strategy was to isolate Douglas’s doctrine of popular sovereignty from the national mainstream as a form of moral dereliction for its indifference to the corrupting effect of slavery in republican society. Douglas insisted that in his official capacity as a United States senator he did not care whether the people in a territory voted slavery up or down. Lincoln admonished: “Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong in slavery, but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong in it; because no man can logically say he don’t care whether a wrong is voted up or voted down.” Douglas argued that the people of a political community, like any individual, had a right to have slaves if they wanted them. Lincoln reasoned: “So they have if it is not a wrong. But if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to do wrong.”

Lincoln and Douglas were coming from different first principles. In fact, the argument is not at all unlike modern arguments about abortion, a point I’ve made before. The question is not whether abortion should be allowed, the question is whether a fetus is inherently “person” enough to have natural rights. If it is, abortion is murder. If it is not, abortion is no different morally from removing a cancerous growth from one’s uterus. Yet both sides constantly talk past each other without acknowledging that they are working from wildly different first principles.

Abraham Lincoln, contrary to what Santorum suggests, is not suggesting that all men must be forcibly stopped by government from engaging in moral wrongs. He explicitly acknoledges the libertarian right of natural law — you can do what you wish with what is yours. You may self-govern; the nanny state is not there to stop you from acting within your personal domain. From his 1854 speech in Peoria, IL (same source link as above, italics original, bold added by me, and one sentence from the original speech inserted into the below passage for continuity):

The South claimed a right of equality with the North in opening national territory to the expansion of slavery. Rejecting the claim, Lincoln denounced slavery as a “monstrous injustice” and a direct contradiction of “the very principles of civil liberty” in the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln said that the right of republican self-government “lies at the foundation of the sense of justice,” both in political communities and in individuals. It meant that “each man should do precisely as he pleases with all that is exclusively his own.” Declared Lincoln: “The doctrine of self-government is right—absolutely and eternally right—but it has no just application” as attempted in the Nebraska Act. Spelling out the natural-law premises of his argument, Lincoln continued: “Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has just application depends upon whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, why in that case, he who is a man may, as a matter of self-government, do just as he pleases with him. But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent, a total destruction of self-government, to say that he too shall not govern himself? When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another man, that is more than self-government—that is despotism.” Recurring to the nation’s founding principles, Lincoln summarized: “If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that ‘all men are created equal’; and that there can be no more moral right in connection with one man’s making a slave of another.”

Note my bolded portion on self-government. It seems that Abraham Lincoln and Rick Santorum have some agreement that a state cannot legalize a moral wrong — they merely happen to have WILDLY different definitions of what constitutes a moral wrong.

Abraham Lincoln is following the traditions of natural law and natural rights. Each man is his own, and barring his attempts to coerce others to do his bidding, he should have freedom to operate as he sees fit. Slavery is an attempt to coerce others to do his bidding, and therefore it is an abhorrent moral wrong that has no place in a free society.

Rick Santorum is following a different tradition, one that states that man is NOT his own, and should forcibly be stopped from operating in his own domain if his actions violate no ones natural rights, but violate Santorum’s own sensibilities. If two members of the same sex, wholly consensually and within the bounds of their natural rights, want to engage in a right of contract such that they bound themselves together for all the legal purposes we generally associate with marriage, they must be barred from doing so. This consensual and voluntary action must not be permitted!

Abraham Lincoln says that the government must not condone the violation of one man’s natural rights by another, and that democracy is not an adequate justification for doing so. Rick Santorum says that government must be in the job of actively violating those natural rights, even if the people of a territory choose to vote to recognize those rights! Abraham Lincoln says that slavery is wrong because it takes away the right of self-government; Rick Santorum says that we must all be slaves of the state, because he doesn’t like what we choose to do with our freedom.

Abraham Lincoln decries a situation which denies the equality before the law of human beings; Rick Santorum claims the mantle of Abraham Lincoln while cheering laws that deny that equality! In doing so, Rick Santorum misses the irony: he’s replaying the Lincoln-Douglas debates in modern times, but he doesn’t realize that he’s taking Douglas’ side, not Lincoln’s.

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