The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

An opinion piece in US News and World Report by Michael Barone suggests that the Supreme Court decided that the Second Amendment means what it says and that the District of Columbia gun ban is not constitutional.

The same site has another piece, this one by John Mashek, suggesting that the ruling will spark both lawsuits and violence.

You know, they’re both right, I fear.

The Founding Fathers were pretty good fellows, all right, but they were not perfect. Some of their personal flaws have been noted for years, from the Beards to today’s desire to make sure that the story of Sally Hemmings is told.

This is what they wrote for us and which was quickly adopted.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Some people use the introductory reference to a militia to mean that the amendment should only apply to people in the National Guard and some may refer to other conditioning phrases, but reading the amendment as written and adopted, it should be obvious that nothing in the text indicates that one actually has to serve in any militia or other body to have the right to keep and bear arms. In fact, no conditions can be inferred.

I support gun regulation. But I find myself knowing that I am in opposition to the Constitution as it presently reads.

This is not such an unusual position in which to be. People opposed slavery when it was specifically tolerated in the Constitution. People have advocated recent wars even though the power to declare war was specifically limited to Congress which has not declared a war since December 8, 1941.

But it isn’t pleasant. And we are not always consistent.

Remember: When this was argued earlier this year, the chief of the D.C. police had to surrender her gun to gain admission to the Court.

[See http://ccmusings.blogspot.com/2008/03/can-we-have-your-gun-chief.html]

We got a scoop -- sort of

This is not the place to look if you are seeking breaking news [or much other news for that matter]. I really don’t spend time looking for scoops. However, it seems that Capitol City Musings did beat MSM last night in mentioning the parade/protest from Smith [Mears] Park on September 2^nd. [Actually, I am not sure since the alleged online posting time of the StarJournal entry is so close to the actual posting time of my post. ]

This parade, organized by a group called the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign will travel what seems like a strange route from the park in Lowertown to a place near the convention site, going up East Seventh to Lafayette to University by the Capitol and, after a short leg on Robert Street on Martin Luther King Boulevard. The route then uses Cedar Street to get to Seventh. If a taxi driver took you that route, he/she would be endangering his/her license.

When one remembers what Dr. King was doing when he was murdered, there does seem something strangely appropriate about the parade using the street named after him.

And it seems that this parade is only for fairly able-bodied poor people since it does require quite a lot of walking.

Poor planning strikes agian, this time on Cedar Street

I commented recently on the long-term planning effects of various things involved in planning. Over the years, some of our mistakes have become pretty obvious. Platting 60-foot right-of-ways on section line streets is one I had not mentioned, but Maryland Avenue is an example of that decision’s shortsightedness. Even if nobody had ever pictured the invention of the internal combustion motor vehicle, this street’s inevitable ability to draw traffic should have been more visible.

Now we have another example. Central Presbyterian and St. Louis Catholic churches are being threatened by the proposed Central Corridor light rail boondoggle. [So is Minnesota Public [sic] Radio which recently was helped to move closer to the site with government assistance.]

So who ever allowed the churches to locate there in the first place? What colossal blunderers they must seem now!

It is hard to weep for the MPR folks, especially since their people seem to be folks more sympathetic to rail transit than the general public and their decision on location is so recent. [And I suspect that somehow Bill Kling will find a way to get more money from taxpayers for the suffering he has partly brought upon himself.]

And it is hard to find very many tears for Commissioner Ortega who apparently just found out that his mother attends mass at St. Louis. He has been one of the boondoggle’s biggest advocates.

I do find myself feeling a bit sorry for the communicants/parishioners of the two churches, but I know that I need to fight that feeling.

After all, what made them decide to build there in the first place? Didn’t they have any idea that 21^st century pols would want to run their choo-choo past them?

GOP Convention update June 24th

I was at a meeting this evening at which Ms. Erin Dady of Mayor Coleman the Second’s staff and Tom Walsh of SPPD presented information of local planning for the RNC. I think that most of what was presented is information which has been generally circulated. We were assured that city services like police, fire, and paramedic will not be lessened during the event. [Of course, we probably all knew that this is what we would be told. What else could they say?]

However I did learn some new things, including
> there is a second, less ballyhooed protest scheduled for September 2^nd which will originate in Smith/Mears Park.
> there shouldn’t be a problem if the convention should require a fifth day.
> Ms. Dady says that the mayor wants us all to stay in town during the convention. However, he also wants us to go to the Civic Fest in Mpls. He can’t have both ways. Or has he forgotten where he is mayor? [Recent pictures of him and Rybak together in both cities make one wonder whether either of them knows.]

Headline too good to ignore

The MinnPost headline [House committee holds meeting to find state government too full of committees, meetings] is too good to ignore. The article is interesting too

It kind of reminds me of the paperwork reduction forms that the federal government used to have.

Whose party is it anyway? ['Or is it even a party?]

The Independence Party has endorsed a candidate for United States Senator. There’s really no news there. That’s what parties do. The candidate was Stephen Williams of Austin not His Former Excellency, James Janos aka Jesse Ventura.

Meanwhile Janos/Ventura is running around the continent and popping up on the talk shows ostensibly promoting his new book, dropping hints that he might run against Coleman and Franken as the IP candidate.

I am guessing that James/Jesse is just posturing to sell books and to put his name in public again.

But what is interesting is what this whole thing tells us about our former governor and his approach to party building.

Those who remember the 2000 congressional election remember that all three major parties had endorsed women in the race to succeed the dying Bruce Vento. But the governor got former Ramsey [and Washington] County Attorney Tom Foley to run for the seat and supported him against his own party’s candidate. Foley went on to defeat and justified obscurity and Betty McCollum went to Congress.

Now James/Jesse might actually run against his own party’s candidate for Senate. And it seems that many in the party might jump for joy at the chance to support him.

The traditional parties have had problems building parties when they have encouraged people to participate, joining up, caucusing, organizing, and [lastly] endorsing and then been unable [and in some cases unwilling] to nominate and elect those candidates.

Apparently, the IP thinks it is above all those problems. Or maybe they are just cowed by the presence of the one person they have actually managed to get elected.

They also decided to support Elwyn Tinklenberg [who did serve in James/Jesse’s cabinet as Commissioner in charge of Light Rail] in his attempt to unseat Michele Bachmann, even though the DFL has already chosen him.

So [if I had friends] I might ask my IR friends:

• How do you build a party this way?
  
• Or maybe we should ask whether you really want to build one?

American Dream

Quote for the day:

"It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."
George Carlin

My bonnie lies out by the ocean. My bonnie lies out by the sea.

There is a post in MnBlue suggesting that Laurie Coleman really was in California when filmed/taped for a new Norm spot, that she was sloppily dubbed in. Apparently, we are to infer that things are not good in the Coleman relationship or maybe that Norm is available for some ambitious woman.

I don’t know about the relationship between our senior Senator and his wife. I am not sure that I need to know. There may be some hypocrisy or inconsistency there, but these things are not limited to Republicans. Remember the picture of Bill and Hillary smooching on a beach in swimsuits a few days before the public learned the name of Monica Lewinsky? Or that they have continued to carry their marriage masquerade into this year?

People might want to think that the relationship between Norm and Laurie is their business, but I cannot really figure out how. Now, if people feared that others might actually fall for Norm’s claim to be a pro-family guy, it might have some relevance. But nobody actually falls for that, do they?

It is well known that Norman B. Coleman, jr. is not my favorite public official. But I cannot think but that this whole thing seems too close to swift boating or recent questioning on whether the state of Hawaii is competent to issue birth certificates.

Maybe Willie Horton can weigh in on this.

When public people make personal decisions

Leith Anderson is the pastor of a large Baptist church in Eden Prairie, Wooddale Church. As such he can be considered the pastor of one of Minnesota’s most prominent politicians, Governor Pawlenty. He is also President of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Commenting on the Obama family’s recent decision to leave Trinity UCC, he has observed,

How does [Barack Obama] find a new church home for himself and his family? Few other Americans have to search out and select a home Church with 300 million fellow citizens looking over their shoulders.

Even if we don't overlook his past church relationship let's at least call for some privacy in choosing the next Obama congregation.

I am sure that I will be interested in what the Senator and his family choose to do. I cannot imagine that it will happen before November 4^th, but I do think that Dr. Anderson’s plea is certainly in order.

An Observation on City Planning [from a long, really long-term perspective]

Sometimes I wonder which crazies have been making the planning decisions for our city.

We have chased people out to allow more space for suburban scum [a redundancy, I know] to commute.

We have built handicap apartments and then closed the street which serves their building.

We have allowed railroads to wreak their own will pretty much anywhere they want to and have allowed polluters free use of so much property that we have later had to find a way to clean up that it is pathetic.

We have through zoning, funding sources, and enforcement allowed some areas to become disproportionately occupied by economically disadvantaged people and then wonder why we have schools and neighborhoods in stress.

Political, corporate, geographical, and social decisions from every level and numerous perspectives over many decades have brought us the city we have.

I have lived in two cities in my lifetime. The other is Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

We are dry. They aren’t – and won’t be for a long time.

When we have floods, we have to vacate some business properties, but downtown stays open and almost nobody has to leave his/her home. We have been smart or lucky enough to build on the bluffs and not at the river level. A repeat of 1965 or 1997 or 1969 [even a few more] or any of those good years cannot bring us the kind of distress happening there.

So let’s thank our geography and the planning which has happened since the mid-nineteenth century for the blessings we often overlook, even if we question the thinking or motivation of how it happened.

Congratulations to Wm Mitchell immigration clinic

In a Minnpost article published today, Brian Voerding notes the 25th anniversary of William Mitchell’s immigration clinic.

I had not even been aware that there was such a clinic. But it does seem like that it is indeed very necessary considering how our country, in an effort to enforce its existing bigotries, has screwed up immigration and immigration law.

I am sometimes cool on lawyers. Their role in complicating our lives seems self-evident. But, and largely because of that, it takes lawyers and law students sometimes if we want to uncomplicate things.

So, let’s congratulate William Mitchell law school and its immigration clinic for twenty-five years of service.

Conventions to be powered by wind power

Xcel Energy [aka Northern States Power] says it will power both national conventions this year with wind power. [link]

That seems like too good a straight line to pass up. I will leave the punch lines to the readers’ imaginations.

Does the defeat of Hillary mean a defeat for women?

Her campaign is over so now may be the time to ask this. I would agree that this was the defeat for a woman, but I don’t see how it represents a defeat for womankind.

There are many women [not a fair or proportionate number certainly, but still quite a few] in the Democratic Party who hold the kinds of positions [US Senators, governors, major House position] normally qualified with presidential candidates.

Ms. Clinton received the prominence she received not from her own accomplishments as senator from New York, not from any special vision she seems to have for our country nor from any skills which distinguish her from a lot of politicians, male and female, but as wife of a former president.

I don’t know why Barbara Mikulski [whom Mondale should have taken instead of Ferraro -- Well, she is McCain’s age but women have more years allotted to them], Barbara Boxer [her California colleague, Dianne Feinstein, may be a bit too old], Jean Sibelius, Nancy Pelosi, Deborah Stabenow, or any of several other women did not run. With the right campaign it would seem that almost any of them could have pursued a credible candidacy.

It was thought that Hillary’s position as Bill’s wife brought her opportunity and I am sure that it did. However, it also had its negatives. People could wonder whether she could really be free of him. They could wonder what deals the First Husband would be pulling on the sly in the guise of an independent citizen.

And it would have been hard for her to distance herself from whatever is the Clinton legacy. While many people [not I, but a lot of others] seem to be nostalgic for that era, others remember some of the less pleasant things.

To a large degree, the defeat of Hillary seems to be a defeat not of women, but of the Clinton era.

I intend to write about the implications of what a “dream team” could mean later. In the meantime I would encourage women leaders of both parties to start looking for their own people, women who have attained position on their own and have their own vision to share and their own talents with which to lead.

Counties? Do we need them?

We have had some discussion lately about whether we should have an elected or appointed sheriff. The discussion, which could never seem to be discussed on its merit as long as personalities are so strong, is back on hold now.

But as I ponder the discussion, I wonder if we haven’t missed the bigger question: “Do we even need a Ramsey [or any other] County?

What does a county really do? It hosts district courts, administers jails and workhouses, administers welfare, processes real estate titles, issues birth, death, and marriage certificates, assesses and collects taxes, hires medical examiners [coroners], serves papers, owns and manages roads and parks that the state and more local governments don’t own or manage, holds tax forfeited property for the state, and a few other functions.

Counties do elect Boards of Commissioners so they would seem to be close to the people. But so much that county boards do is dictated, not by the will of the electorate, but by the funding strings that come with the funds. And whatever power they have is determined by the state and if the county pols make too many “wrong” choices, their choice can be taken away.

Perhaps this could all be done just as well and less expensively by the state through some sort of administrative districts. Alaska does not have counties and they have a lot more land to cover than we do.

This post is not a call for change. That may come later. This is just the posing of a question. I would like to see what others think.

And there is something else to remember: Counties also provide a way for us to know where weather warnings are in play.