Friday, June 27, 2008 1700 Editors, Chicago Sun-Times
Gentle people:
According to Friday, June 27 Sun-Times articles, many intelligent people are upset with the US Supreme Court's Second Amendment decision. The lead news article is headlined "Court blows away gun ban", and starts out with "Chicago is in the cross hairs of the gun owners rights movement". A second article quotes Mayor Daley saying the decision is "frightening" and harkens "back to the Old West". An editorial says it is a tax on Chicago citizens "to be paid in blood and money."
Why don't these influential Chicago citizens fight this outrageous decision by using the Constitution itself?
The job is half done: just take the 21st amendment "The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed", replace "eighteenth" with "second" then follow procedures described in Article Five:
Get it passed by 2/3 majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, then get it accepted by the legislatures of 3/4 of the states. Note all three of these bodies are elected by the people, not appointed by the President. Also note, the President is not needed to repeal an amendment, nor are any unelected judges.
Good luck.
Arnold H Nelson 5056 North Marine Drive Chicago IL 60640 773-677-3010
Chicago IL Saturday, June 28, 2008 6PM Editors, New York Times
Gentlepeople:
Three letters in the Saturday, June 28 New York Times show confusion about the "archaically written" Second amendment to the US Constitution, what is meant by "a well regulated militia", and "service in the militia." A fourth letter says "This decision is for liberals what Roe was for conservatives."
Justice Scalia goes a little further than the first 13 words of the Second Amendment to address the confusion, starting his majority opinion with "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” followed by 1000 words of explanation, concluding with "We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans."
Unlike Justice Blackmun in 1973, Justice Scalia needed only the words of the 2nd Amendment for his argument, not the penumbra.
But if people don't like this decision, why not fight it using the Constitution itself?
The job is half done: just take the 21st amendment "The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed", replace "eighteenth" with "second" then follow procedures described in Article Five:
Get it passed by 2/3 majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, then get it accepted by the legislatures of 3/4 of the states. Note all three of these bodies are elected by the people, neither nominated nor appointed by the President. Also note, the President is not needed to repeal an amendment, nor are any unelected judges.
Good luck.Arnold H. Nelson 5056 North Marine Drive Chicago IL 60640
Chicago Tuesday, July 1, 2008 Voice of the People Chicago Tribune
Gentle people:
A 1100 word article "Roberts' record on high court defies '05 pledges of centrism" about the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court contains the word 'Constitution' only once ("execution by injection does not violate the Constitution".)
This seems strange since 'Constitution' is 14th word of the Oath Chief Roberts took as Chief Justice, as in "I ... do solemnly swear, that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States."
But the author spends most of his article blathering on about things like scaling back "the reach of civil rights laws," upholding "the federal ban on ... 'partial-birth' abortion," and limiting "the ability of women to file equal-pay claims."
Has the author ever given any thot to the position of the Supreme Court relative to the other two branches of the federal government, as stated in the Constitution? The most important federal government responsibility, laying, collecting, and spending taxes is given exclusively to the legislature, the branch closest to the people, in Article I; The next most important responsibility, leading the armed forces, is given to the President in Article II, because you can't lead an army by committee.
Not until Article III do you see the Supreme Court. Besides being the last of the first three Articles, it is also the shortest, and compared to the broad responsibilities defined for the legislature and the executive, those of the Supreme Court are quite clearly defined and limited to three kinds of cases and two kinds of controversies.
No mention of interpreting the Constitution, nor deciding if laws passed by the legislature and agreed to by the President are Constitutional. These did not come up until soon after our founding, when Chief Justice John Marshall came up with 'Judicial Review'.
As useful as that constitutionally undocumented power is, it should not have been used in the Dred Scott Decision effectively saying slavery was legal everywhere and forever, nor in Plessey v. Ferguson, that said it was OK to racially segregate public transportation, and certainly not used to roundup and detain 110,000 US citizens of Japanese descent, as FDR did in 1942. And it sure shouldn’t be used to move the final word in the conduct of war from the executive to an unelected committee.
But even the specifically limited responsibilities of the Supreme Court stated in Article III of the US Constitution, the supreme law of the land, are concluded: "...with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make."
So much for co-equal branches.
Arnold H Nelson 5056 North Marine Drive Chicago IL 60640 773-677-3010
Chicago IL Tuesday PM, July 01, 2008 WSJ editors
Gentlepeople:
A Tuesday, July 1 letter 'Stopping Hitler Was a Good Thing' remarking on Dorothy Rabinowitz's review "Forget the Good War" of Friday , June 27 shows considerable concern with "those who would rewrite history, particularly the history of the Second World War."
History rewrites don't impress me much either, but second-guessing is something else again. In this some strategic thinking by FDR could have resulted in the most important strategy in centuries: once the Nazi-Soviet Pact of Friday August 25, 1939, was broken with Hitler's invasion of Russia starting on Sunday June 22, 1941, had we stayed out of it completely, siding with neither power, the future would have been drastically improved.
There was no way Germany could defeat Russia, since to do so would require total occupation, and Russia was just to big for Germany to occupy decisively. Similarly, Russia could never defeat the superior war-making capabilities of Hitler - they would have exhausted each other completely, leaving the rest of the world in relative peace.
This would also have been the end of Communism, preventing the Cold War and Communist China.
This would have left FDR able to attend to Japan full time, specifically the prevention/preempting on any surprise attacks.
The one thing this strategy might not have done is get us out of a depression, which FDR was unable to do in 8 years of peace. He realized this, and so did 90% of US voters. Was that worth 419,000 lost US lives? Beyond fodder for hundreds of novels, absolutely irrelevant now, and no amount of rewriting history will change that.
Arnold H. Nelson5056 North Marine Drive B-8 Chicago IL 60640773-677-3010 ah_nelson@yahoo.com
Friday, June 27, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
New York Times on Global warming and Al Gore
Chicago IL Sunday, June 8, 2008 6PM
Editors, New York Times
Gentlepeople:
An Op-Ed couldn't start out more unequivocally than Charles M. Blow's Saturday, May 31 'Farewell, Fair Weather' with: "We are now firmly ensconced in the Age of Extreme Weather."
Strange, since the rest of the piece is a cornucopia of equivocations: The second sentence: "[T]here have been more than four times as many weather-related disasters in the last 30 years than in the previous 75 years." An accompanying note defines a "weather-related disaster" as fulfilling any one of four criteria: "10 or more people killed, 100 reported affected, declaration of state of emergency, call for international assistance."
Then "The United States has experienced more of those disasters than any other country." Combining that statement with the disaster definition’s 4 points, all involving people, and the fact that the US is the world's third most peopled country... what did you expect?
Mr. Blow continues: "Last year [reports were issued] concluding that 'human influences' (read greenhouse-gas emissions) have 'more likely than not” contributed to this increase. The United States is one of the biggest producers of greenhouse-gas emissions." More likely than not? Equivocation city. Since CO2 is a 'greenhouse gas', and 6 billion people breathe it out every 10 seconds, what will you do with that? The US is 'one of the'...? Equivocation number 3. Maybe you didn't hear the first time: The US is the third most populated country in the world. More equivocations: "Furthermore, a White House report about the effect of global climate change on the United States ... reaffirmed that the situation will probably get worse: In addition to temperature extremes, “precipitation is likely to be less frequent but more intense. It is also likely that future hurricanes will become more intense, with higher peak speeds and more heavy precipitation ... .”Probably, likely, likely, equivocations 4, 5, and 6.
Then an irrelevancy: “In 2005 … the estimated damage from storms in the United States was $121 billion. That is $39 billion more than the 2005 supplemental spending bill to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Does the Times’ style book require Op-Eds make at least one reference to the war?
And: “About $3 billion has been allocated to assist farmers who suffer losses because of droughts, floods and tornadoes among other things.” The 2008 World Almanac says "Total US Government Agricultural Payments" have averaged $16 billion a year for the 4 years 2003-2006 - so what?
A final point: Have the climate change alarmists given any thought to their leader, the guy who won an Oscar, and a Nobel Prize, for his 'work' on climate change? How did he get so influential? Well, he was born into US political royalty, inheriting safe seats in both the House and Senate from his very astute politician father. How about his education? Again, he got into Harvard, but owes a good deal of that good fortune to his lineage. Advanced degrees? Zero! Since he's such a big deal in the ‘science’ of climate change, what's his science education background? Two courses, one something called ‘Man's place in Nature‘ ( he got a ‘D‘ in that.) This mope is a complete fraud, and anyone who follows him should be ashamed of themselves.
Arnold H. Nelson5056 North Marine DriveChicago IL 60640ah_nelson@yahoo.com 773-677-3010
Editors, New York Times
Gentlepeople:
An Op-Ed couldn't start out more unequivocally than Charles M. Blow's Saturday, May 31 'Farewell, Fair Weather' with: "We are now firmly ensconced in the Age of Extreme Weather."
Strange, since the rest of the piece is a cornucopia of equivocations: The second sentence: "[T]here have been more than four times as many weather-related disasters in the last 30 years than in the previous 75 years." An accompanying note defines a "weather-related disaster" as fulfilling any one of four criteria: "10 or more people killed, 100 reported affected, declaration of state of emergency, call for international assistance."
Then "The United States has experienced more of those disasters than any other country." Combining that statement with the disaster definition’s 4 points, all involving people, and the fact that the US is the world's third most peopled country... what did you expect?
Mr. Blow continues: "Last year [reports were issued] concluding that 'human influences' (read greenhouse-gas emissions) have 'more likely than not” contributed to this increase. The United States is one of the biggest producers of greenhouse-gas emissions." More likely than not? Equivocation city. Since CO2 is a 'greenhouse gas', and 6 billion people breathe it out every 10 seconds, what will you do with that? The US is 'one of the'...? Equivocation number 3. Maybe you didn't hear the first time: The US is the third most populated country in the world. More equivocations: "Furthermore, a White House report about the effect of global climate change on the United States ... reaffirmed that the situation will probably get worse: In addition to temperature extremes, “precipitation is likely to be less frequent but more intense. It is also likely that future hurricanes will become more intense, with higher peak speeds and more heavy precipitation ... .”Probably, likely, likely, equivocations 4, 5, and 6.
Then an irrelevancy: “In 2005 … the estimated damage from storms in the United States was $121 billion. That is $39 billion more than the 2005 supplemental spending bill to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Does the Times’ style book require Op-Eds make at least one reference to the war?
And: “About $3 billion has been allocated to assist farmers who suffer losses because of droughts, floods and tornadoes among other things.” The 2008 World Almanac says "Total US Government Agricultural Payments" have averaged $16 billion a year for the 4 years 2003-2006 - so what?
A final point: Have the climate change alarmists given any thought to their leader, the guy who won an Oscar, and a Nobel Prize, for his 'work' on climate change? How did he get so influential? Well, he was born into US political royalty, inheriting safe seats in both the House and Senate from his very astute politician father. How about his education? Again, he got into Harvard, but owes a good deal of that good fortune to his lineage. Advanced degrees? Zero! Since he's such a big deal in the ‘science’ of climate change, what's his science education background? Two courses, one something called ‘Man's place in Nature‘ ( he got a ‘D‘ in that.) This mope is a complete fraud, and anyone who follows him should be ashamed of themselves.
Arnold H. Nelson5056 North Marine DriveChicago IL 60640ah_nelson@yahoo.com 773-677-3010
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