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Listening to news stories today, it is dawning on my how much Americans lack in understanding the point of the First Amendment as it relates to the media. In order to really understand the mindset behind it, I recommend a treatise on another topic: Lysander Spooner on Trial by Jury.

Spooner delves into the history of the Magna Carter and argues that the jury in the court system is designed to be a brake on the state. The randomly selected jurors are society’s protection that can wreck the enforcement of not only inaccurate claims of fact about the accused, but even on the justice or injustice of the law itself. The state with its judges, legislators, and governors is all subject to the scrutiny of the jury. One gets a vision of a way that society can peacefully restrain the predations of the state. Continue reading →

I missed this until Chris Graham brought it to my attention: On April 30, 2013, Obama said it:

“I told him I couldn’t be prouder. You know, one of the extraordinary measures of progress that we’ve seen in this country has been the recognition that the LGBT community deserves full equality, not just partial equality, not just tolerance but a recognition that they’re wholly a part of the American family,” the president told reporters at the White House Tuesday.

“Given the importance of sports in our society for an individual who’s excelled at the highest levels in one of the major sports to go ahead and say, ‘This is who I am. I’m proud of it. I’m still a great competitor. I’m still seven-foot tall and can bang with Shaq. And, you know, deliver a hard foul.

“I think a lot of young people out there who are gay or lesbian who are struggling with these issues to see a role model like that, who’s unafraid, I think it’s a great thing. And I think America should be proud that this is just one more step in this ongoing recognition that we treat everybody fairly. And everybody’s part of a family. And we judge people on the basis of their character and their performance, and not their sexual orientation. So I’m very proud of him.”

via “I couldn’t be prouder” of Jason Collins, Obama says – CBS News.

There is no libertarian contract in a pluralistic society in this President’s mind. Reading the president’s words on homosexuality makes me understand now why he is so willing to jail marijuana users and ignore state laws to the contrary. Barack Obama clearly has no capacity to imagine something wrong, harmful. or immoral being legal. If it is legal, it must be good and must be promoted and accepted by everyone. If it is not good and should not be promoted and accepted by everyone, then it deserves SWAT raids and prison time.

There is no tolerance of other people making good or bad choices that are theirs to make and suffer or benefit from. There is only one American “family” and we all have to obey one daddy–so he can say that he is proud of us.

The definition of a very vague legal term is at the center of oral arguments being heard today in a federal appeals court in Cincinnati, Ohio. That term is “particular social group.”

In US law, that is one of five named groups of people eligible for asylum — and the most ill-defined. The other categories are race, religion, nationality, and political opinions. If someone can demonstrate they are being persecuted or that they fear being persecuted on those grounds, they can be granted refugee status in America. People also have the right to asylum if they’re being persecuted because they belong to a “particular social group,” but what that means, who that applies to, is a matter of a legal dispute. In the case in court today, the question is whether or not homeschoolers count as a “particular social group” and should be granted asylum if they come to the US from a country where homeschooling isn’t legal, such as Germany.

The political agitation coming out of this court case bears only the slightest relation to the legal issue, though.

The activists who care about this case, Romeike vs. Holder, don’t appear to be at all interested in the legal issue at the heart of the case. They are, though, very interested in the way public perception of the case allows them to agitate against the Obama administration and for homeschooling.

The Romeike family has become a cause célèbre on the American right.

via Daniel Silliman: Hitler wins: the disjunction of law & politics in Romeike v. Holder.

Continue reading →