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Today

Habeas corpus

On May 27, 1863, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of Maryland issued Ex parte Merryman, challenging the authority of President Abraham Lincoln to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in Maryland, the legal procedure that prevents the government from holding an individual indefinitely without showing cause.

Two days earlier, John Merryman, a vocal secessionist, had been arrested in Cockeysville. Although military officials continued to arrest suspected Southern sympathizers, the incident led to a softening of the policy.

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national politics & policies term limits

Unlimited Gall

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Some claims don’t persuade. For example, the claim that starting a conversation is an effort to end conversation. Or that one “bullies” officeholders by telling constituents what officeholders are up to.

But so contends a Columbus Dispatch editorial (“Don’t let pledges close discussions”) chastising U.S. Term Limits, my old stomping ground, for spotlighting pols plotting to pulverize term limits.

U.S. Term Limits advised constituents of Ohio State Representatives Bob Cupp and Nathan Manning that neither will pledge to forbear from weakening Ohio’s state legislative term limits — and that both men serve on a commission scheming to weaken the limits.

The organization’s mailing is “out of line in two ways,” the paper opines.

First, lawmakers mustn’t “surrender their autonomy to bullying interest groups” but must consider issues “with open minds.” Should these open minds be closed to any reminders of the legitimate interests of constituents? The Dispatch editors write as if they’d never head of politics and political debate before; anyway, as if it should desist forthwith.

Second, the pledge itself is “misplaced,” because Ohio voters must approve any referendum Ohio lawmakers send to ballot; lawmakers can’t act unilaterally. True. But why take even one bad step on a bad road?

How can the Dispatch’s theme be that USTL seeks to “close” discussions of term limits? U.S. Term Limits would be delighted if all Ohioans engaged in loud and long discussions of term limits, as well as of what Ohio lawmakers hope to do to their constitutionally limited terms in office.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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open minds

 

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Thought

Jacob Burckhardt

“Nothing in the world is better suited to laziness than orthodoxy. If you gag your mouth, stop up your ears and put a blinder over your eyes, you can sleep peacefully.”

Jacob Burckhardt was a teacher and reserved, cautious mentor to Friedrich Nietzsche.

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folly general freedom national politics & policies

Memorial Day Questions

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What do we owe to those who fight and give, as President Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg, “their last full measure of devotion”?

More, surely, than appreciative applause for the troops on airplanes and at professional sporting events . . . with their high-priced, taxpayer-paid military promotions.

First, vets are entitled to contracted-for medical care, as I addressed in greater detail at Townhall.com yesterday — not a Veterans Administration that systematically denies them needed diagnoses and treatments.

Second, wiser strategic decisions going forward. Vets deserve, and we all need, more (not fewer) questions of presidential candidates, such as the hypothetical inquiry of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Iraq, and the hypothetical Libya question Sen. Rand Paul suggests should be posed to Mrs. Clinton.

Bring on the if-you-knew-then questions!

But wait, what about a non-hypothetical: Are we today at war against the Islamic State?

We really should know . . . I mean, on Memorial Day and all.

President Barack Obama claims he has the constitutional power to engage militarily against the Islamic State under Congress’s 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). A number of legal scholars vehemently disagree. Which may be why, back in February, Obama asked for a new, anti-ISIS AUMF. Congressional Republicans balked, complaining the president’s proposed AUMF isn’t strong enough.

Of course, nothing prevents congressional Republicans from passing a stronger version.

Or better yet, demand that President Obama keep American boys and girls out of harm’s way in the always-messy Middle East.

The murderous leaders of the Islamic State may wish to be at war with us, but we don’t have to humor them. Let Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Iran defend themselves and their territories from this gang of cutthroats.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Veterans and the political class

 

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Thought

John Calvin

“There are people who are known to be very liberal, yet they never give without scolding or pride or even insolence.”

John Calvin, De Vita Hominis Christiani, 1550.

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Today

Burckhardt Born

May 25, 1818, the Swiss historian and academic Jacob Burckhardt was born. Burckhardt’s best known work is The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), but is remembered here as the author of Reflections on History (1905).

Erratum: In our daily email, we erroneously gave May 25 as the date for William of Okham’s fleeing the papal city of Avignon. That event, and John Calvin’s banishment years later, both occurred on May 26 of their respective years. We are sorry for the error.

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links

Townhall: What We Owe Our Troops

Tomorrow is Memorial Day. It’s not just another day off work. Don’t just mouth patriotism. Make the most of it.

Click on over to Townhall.com. Then come back here for more reading:

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video

VIdeo: Regulating Halloween Costumes

Jerry Brown has no need to be in your shower, or all up in your business on your lawn.

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Accountability crime and punishment

Judge by the Results

Drug war results

The law exists to ensure responsibility. When someone does wrong, the police and courts are here to correct for the lapses and crimes.

That’s how law “holds us responsible” for our actions.

The War on Drugs is fought, it has been argued, because recreational drug use makes people irresponsible. So police and courts must punish, etc., etc.

But Theory must be judged not on intent, but on results.

Which are too often atrocious.

When I wrote about Bounkham “Bou-Bou” Phonesavanh before — a toddler horribly maimed and almost killed by an incendiary during a completely fruitless drug raid on a home full of innocents — I identified the War on Drugs as the root problem: “Waging that war permits endless ‘botched raids’ like the one that almost killed Bou Bou,” I wrote last February. “So long as such invasions remain a standard means of trying to catch dealers with their stash — indeed, so long as the War on Drugs is being waged at all — innocent persons will always be needlessly at risk. . . .”

Now that the trial is over and the family has been rewarded not quite a million bucks in recompense, we can see, clearly, what’s wrong here.

Irresponsibility.

The police who did the foul deed? Unrepentant in court, offering bizarre excuses. What the police assailants claimed, the Pro Libertate blog summarized, “is that while he was sleeping, Baby Bou-Bou ambushed them.” An overstatement? Perhaps — but very slight.

Meanwhile, who pays? The taxpayers. Not the guilty cops.

If we continue to allow this “war” we will continue getting unaccountable policing and the tragedies that necessarily result.

In a word: irresponsibility.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Drug war results

 

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Thought

Frédéric Passy

“There are people who think the natives of Dahomey very barbarous, because, on the accession of a king, they believe it well to sail a little vessel in human blood in order to tell the fortunes of the new monarch. Now the blood of a thousand slaves is enough for the purpose, whilst in our so-called civilized countries, the great powers, for prestige, or power, or revenge, will shed the blood, not of a thousand, but of 10,000, of 500,000, of millions of persons, enough to make bloody the mightiest river of Europe or America. And yet we dare to treat as barbarians the people of Dahomey.”

Frédéric Passy, from a speech promoted widely in its day (late 19th century) by The Peace and Arbitration Society.