This isn’t about anything but contraception, which isn’t about anything but a misogynistic need to control women’s sexuality.
This one's a real head-scratcher. I can only assume that it's being made exclusively by women, because, as any man who's ever used a condom knows, oral contraceptives are awesome, because the primary alternative is condoms, which are decidedly not awesome. Much more so for men than for women, I gather. The idea that oral contraceptives are something whose benefits accrue overwhelmingly to women just seems bizarre to me.
Muse- Its a bit much to just say a woman can simply choose to work someplace else.
Or she could just, you know, buy her own contraception. I heard about this new benefit that a lot of firms are offering their employees nowaday. It's called a "salary," and workers can exchange it for a wide variety of goods and services.
Really, this whole argument is utterly bizarre. Birth control pills are a regular, predictable, and cheap expense, They has none of the characteristics needed to make them a good candidate for insurance coverage. Forcing employers to provide them makes about as much sense as forcing them to provide food, shelter, and clothing.
But there is no individual positive right to a jury. You can't go down to the courthouse and demand to be given a trial by jury because the Constitution says you have the right to one. Well, I guess you could do so while brandishing a weapon, in which case you'll be charged with an appropriate crime and given the trial you asked for, but you know what I mean.
The government does not, strictly speaking, ever have to provide you with a trial by jury, or a public defender, or anything of those other nice things, unless it wants to lock you up. You have a negative right not to be sent to prison without a trial by jury and an attorney, but you don't have a positive right to those things under any other circumstances.
The procedural rights are actually negative rights as well. It's not that you have a positive right to a trial by jury. It's that the government isn't allowed to imprison you without a trial by jury.
Or instead of fabricating an elaborate justification for this, you could just come out and say that it's about suppressing opposition to your preferred policies.
The filibuster effectively requires a 60% supermajority to pass legislation. Given the quality of the average new piece of legislation, this is a good thing. Only thing I'd change is up the cloture requirement to 2/3.
It's that the "general welfare" clause is a description of the powers specifically enumerated in the folliwng lines. If you have to point to the "general welfare" clause to justify your claim that Congress has the authority to do something, then Congress doesn't actually have the authority to do that.
Remember, of course, that slavery was permissible at the time.
Sure. And now it's not, due to an amendment. There was never an amendment that gave Congress the authority to ban marijuana or run a health care program.
You don't understand. I'm not citing Madison because he was an expert on the topic. I'm citing him because that was the promise he made to get states to ratify the Constitution.
At the time, one of the arguments the antifederalists were making against ratification of the Constitution was that the phrase "general welfare" in the taxing and spending clause could be broadly interpreted as giving Congress the authority to spend money on anything it asserted would promote the general welfare.
Madison said that this was so implausible an interpretation that the antifederalists must just be making it up to scare people. And yeah, obviously he failed to see just how casual future Courts and Congresses would be about their oaths to uphold the Constitution. But the point is the Constitution's ratification was partly due to Madison's assurances that it was not intended to mean anything of the sort.
It's also worth noting that the two sides in the debate at the time were "The Constitution gives Congress too much power, so we shouldn't ratify it" and "The Constitution doesn't actually give Congress that much power, so we should ratify it." There really wasn't a "The Constitution gives Congress as much power as the antifederalists say, and we're totally cool with that" faction.
Also, you can get Keynesian fiscal policy without borrowing. The way to do it is to save money during good times first, and then spend down the savings during recessions. Granted that this is functionally equivalent to Keynesian monetary policy, but if the government were constitutionally limited to funding deficits solely with savings from past surpluses, it would have the advantage of preventing out-of-control inflation or borrowing.
The reason we don't have more partisan social engineering amendments is that Roosevelt bullied the Court into rubber-stamping unconstitutional partisan social engineering laws, as long as they aren't specifically prohibited by existing amendments other than the second, ninth, and tenth.
We don't have a minimum-wage amendment, or a Social Security amendment, or a War on Drugs Amendment because the court rubber-stamps those laws using bullshit (does that have an official LoOG bowdlerization?) interpretations of the interstate commerce and general welfare clauses that were unambiguously repudiated by Madison in the Federalist papers.
In theory, it's good for the government to have the flexibility to run deficits in bad times and make up for it by running a surplus in good times. But only if your theory doesn't account for the way that democratic governments actually behave.
FYI, Komen spends about 20-25% of their money on research. The biggest single category of spending they have is "education," at about 35-40%. I haven't been able to find out exactly what that means.
Now, education and screenings are important--fancy new treatments don't do any good if no one is getting them in time--but research is not where most of their money goes.
Really, it's more about having little faith in the power of government to make things better. That doesn't mean that we think the alternative is perfect--Utopia is not an option--just better.
He didn't say "care." He said "concerned with," meaning actively worrying about. I don't see how the remainder of the sentence doesn't make that really obvious.
To be clear, though, less than a quarter of prisoners are in prison for drug offenses.. See Table 16B and 17B on pages 28-29 of this PDF. Among all state prisoners, about 19% are in for drug offenses. About half of federal prisoners are, but the vast majority of prisoners are state prisoners. If you add in federal prisoners, it brings the total for drug offenses up to 22%.
50% of non-Hispanic white state prisoners and 54% of non-Hispanic black state prisoners are in prison for violent offenses. 25% of whites and 15% of blacks for property crimes. And 15% of whites and 22% of blacks for drug offenses. So there is a pretty big racial disparity there, considering that whites outnumber blacks about 7-to-1 in the general population but have roughly equal numbers in prison.
Some of it is likely due to racist application of drug laws, though I think there are probably other factors at play as well, such as black drug users tending to live in high-crime areas where there's more police activity.
That said, even if we released all state drug offenders from prison, the ratio of black to white prisoners would shift from 1.1 to 1.0. Blacks would still be overrepresented in prison by a factor of six instead of seven, or something like that.
I really get the impression, from the excerpt that you quoted, anyway, that Gopnik would like readers to conclude that the gap is entirely due to racism rather than being largely due to blacks committing crimes at higher rates.
"Blacks are now incarcerated seven times as often as whites."
It's dishonest for Gopnick to point this out without also mentioning that blacks commit crimes at much higher rates than whites. Therer are actually more murders committed by blacks than by whites, despite the fact that there are about seven times as many whites. The rates for other violent crimes aren't quite as lopsided, but blacks are still heavily overrepresented in the statistics.
I'm all for ending the war on drugs, but people who commit real crimes do need to go to prison to keep them off the streets. Even if no one were ever sent to prison for victimless crimes, blacks would still go to prison at much higher rates, so this statistic is not in and of itself proof of Gopnick's thesis.
It's also worth noting that the vast majority of crime is intraracial. When black criminals go free, it's not primarily white people who pay the price.
It's interesting how nuanced the left's views about what is and what is not anti-semitic are, relative to their views about what is and what is not racist.
I have a friend from Shanghai who swore to me that there really are restaurants in China that serve human fetuses. I'm pretty sure it's a myth, but it's not a myth confined to the American Christian Right.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Changing a Trumwill’s Mind: HHS Edition”
This isn’t about anything but contraception, which isn’t about anything but a misogynistic need to control women’s sexuality.
This one's a real head-scratcher. I can only assume that it's being made exclusively by women, because, as any man who's ever used a condom knows, oral contraceptives are awesome, because the primary alternative is condoms, which are decidedly not awesome. Much more so for men than for women, I gather. The idea that oral contraceptives are something whose benefits accrue overwhelmingly to women just seems bizarre to me.
On “Contraception, Catholics, Compulsion, and Compelling Interests”
Muse- Its a bit much to just say a woman can simply choose to work someplace else.
Or she could just, you know, buy her own contraception. I heard about this new benefit that a lot of firms are offering their employees nowaday. It's called a "salary," and workers can exchange it for a wide variety of goods and services.
Really, this whole argument is utterly bizarre. Birth control pills are a regular, predictable, and cheap expense, They has none of the characteristics needed to make them a good candidate for insurance coverage. Forcing employers to provide them makes about as much sense as forcing them to provide food, shelter, and clothing.
On “Pondering Positive Rights”
But there is no individual positive right to a jury. You can't go down to the courthouse and demand to be given a trial by jury because the Constitution says you have the right to one. Well, I guess you could do so while brandishing a weapon, in which case you'll be charged with an appropriate crime and given the trial you asked for, but you know what I mean.
The government does not, strictly speaking, ever have to provide you with a trial by jury, or a public defender, or anything of those other nice things, unless it wants to lock you up. You have a negative right not to be sent to prison without a trial by jury and an attorney, but you don't have a positive right to those things under any other circumstances.
"
The procedural rights are actually negative rights as well. It's not that you have a positive right to a trial by jury. It's that the government isn't allowed to imprison you without a trial by jury.
On “Hear Ye, Hear Ye! The Constitutional Convention of the LoOG is Now In Session!”
Or instead of fabricating an elaborate justification for this, you could just come out and say that it's about suppressing opposition to your preferred policies.
"
The filibuster effectively requires a 60% supermajority to pass legislation. Given the quality of the average new piece of legislation, this is a good thing. Only thing I'd change is up the cloture requirement to 2/3.
"
Maybe we could do this on an individual level, too.
On “Why People Aren’t Clamoring for Constitutional Amendments”
It's that the "general welfare" clause is a description of the powers specifically enumerated in the folliwng lines. If you have to point to the "general welfare" clause to justify your claim that Congress has the authority to do something, then Congress doesn't actually have the authority to do that.
Remember, of course, that slavery was permissible at the time.
Sure. And now it's not, due to an amendment. There was never an amendment that gave Congress the authority to ban marijuana or run a health care program.
"
You don't understand. I'm not citing Madison because he was an expert on the topic. I'm citing him because that was the promise he made to get states to ratify the Constitution.
At the time, one of the arguments the antifederalists were making against ratification of the Constitution was that the phrase "general welfare" in the taxing and spending clause could be broadly interpreted as giving Congress the authority to spend money on anything it asserted would promote the general welfare.
Madison said that this was so implausible an interpretation that the antifederalists must just be making it up to scare people. And yeah, obviously he failed to see just how casual future Courts and Congresses would be about their oaths to uphold the Constitution. But the point is the Constitution's ratification was partly due to Madison's assurances that it was not intended to mean anything of the sort.
It's also worth noting that the two sides in the debate at the time were "The Constitution gives Congress too much power, so we shouldn't ratify it" and "The Constitution doesn't actually give Congress that much power, so we should ratify it." There really wasn't a "The Constitution gives Congress as much power as the antifederalists say, and we're totally cool with that" faction.
"
"Cockamamie" doesn't have quite the same punch. "Orwellian" works, I guess. War is peace, and local is interstate.
"
Also, you can get Keynesian fiscal policy without borrowing. The way to do it is to save money during good times first, and then spend down the savings during recessions. Granted that this is functionally equivalent to Keynesian monetary policy, but if the government were constitutionally limited to funding deficits solely with savings from past surpluses, it would have the advantage of preventing out-of-control inflation or borrowing.
"
The reason we don't have more partisan social engineering amendments is that Roosevelt bullied the Court into rubber-stamping unconstitutional partisan social engineering laws, as long as they aren't specifically prohibited by existing amendments other than the second, ninth, and tenth.
We don't have a minimum-wage amendment, or a Social Security amendment, or a War on Drugs Amendment because the court rubber-stamps those laws using bullshit (does that have an official LoOG bowdlerization?) interpretations of the interstate commerce and general welfare clauses that were unambiguously repudiated by Madison in the Federalist papers.
"
In theory, it's good for the government to have the flexibility to run deficits in bad times and make up for it by running a surplus in good times. But only if your theory doesn't account for the way that democratic governments actually behave.
On “The Real Moment Komen Tripped Up”
FYI, Komen spends about 20-25% of their money on research. The biggest single category of spending they have is "education," at about 35-40%. I haven't been able to find out exactly what that means.
Now, education and screenings are important--fancy new treatments don't do any good if no one is getting them in time--but research is not where most of their money goes.
On “Talking About Class”
Really, it's more about having little faith in the power of government to make things better. That doesn't mean that we think the alternative is perfect--Utopia is not an option--just better.
"
He didn't say "care." He said "concerned with," meaning actively worrying about. I don't see how the remainder of the sentence doesn't make that really obvious.
"
On Windows, you can also use charmap to get alt codes and/or copy characters to the clipboard.
"
Look up "Greek Alphabet" on Wikipedia.
You can also use HTML entities: Δ = Δ
Also, ö = ö
On “A Grim Alternative”
You must be new here. Just ignore him.
"
To be clear, though, less than a quarter of prisoners are in prison for drug offenses.. See Table 16B and 17B on pages 28-29 of this PDF. Among all state prisoners, about 19% are in for drug offenses. About half of federal prisoners are, but the vast majority of prisoners are state prisoners. If you add in federal prisoners, it brings the total for drug offenses up to 22%.
50% of non-Hispanic white state prisoners and 54% of non-Hispanic black state prisoners are in prison for violent offenses. 25% of whites and 15% of blacks for property crimes. And 15% of whites and 22% of blacks for drug offenses. So there is a pretty big racial disparity there, considering that whites outnumber blacks about 7-to-1 in the general population but have roughly equal numbers in prison.
Some of it is likely due to racist application of drug laws, though I think there are probably other factors at play as well, such as black drug users tending to live in high-crime areas where there's more police activity.
That said, even if we released all state drug offenders from prison, the ratio of black to white prisoners would shift from 1.1 to 1.0. Blacks would still be overrepresented in prison by a factor of six instead of seven, or something like that.
I really get the impression, from the excerpt that you quoted, anyway, that Gopnik would like readers to conclude that the gap is entirely due to racism rather than being largely due to blacks committing crimes at higher rates.
"
"Blacks are now incarcerated seven times as often as whites."
It's dishonest for Gopnick to point this out without also mentioning that blacks commit crimes at much higher rates than whites. Therer are actually more murders committed by blacks than by whites, despite the fact that there are about seven times as many whites. The rates for other violent crimes aren't quite as lopsided, but blacks are still heavily overrepresented in the statistics.
I'm all for ending the war on drugs, but people who commit real crimes do need to go to prison to keep them off the streets. Even if no one were ever sent to prison for victimless crimes, blacks would still go to prison at much higher rates, so this statistic is not in and of itself proof of Gopnick's thesis.
It's also worth noting that the vast majority of crime is intraracial. When black criminals go free, it's not primarily white people who pay the price.
On “Is “Israel First” The Worst?”
It's interesting how nuanced the left's views about what is and what is not anti-semitic are, relative to their views about what is and what is not racist.
On “Insert Your Own McRib Joke Here”
Did he insist that people call him "Harrison," or whatever the unabbreviated form was?
"
It's actually pronounced "Viner." Or should be, anyway. But yeah, I'll grant that it looks pretty bad, especially since most people don't know that.
"
I have a friend from Shanghai who swore to me that there really are restaurants in China that serve human fetuses. I'm pretty sure it's a myth, but it's not a myth confined to the American Christian Right.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.