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originally uploaded by Aprevit.
Aprevit is a Toledo’an who is 10 times the photographer I am. Check out his whole flickr library!
I wanted to alert you all to this article in Tech Central Station. I’m not sure whether it is the most brilliant attempt at destroying the concept of universal health care… or just a rogue economist trying to shock his audience. (The guy is from the Cato institute… so I’m inclined to go with my first guess). Anyway, here’s just a taste of the article:
The cost of employer-provided prostitution insurance continued to rise. It began to eat up a larger and larger portion of potential salary increases… Many people began to agitate for universal, government-provided prostitution insurance, arguing that such systems were working in Canada and in many European countries…it would allow people to continue to be insulated from having to pay for sex.
A few economists argued that Americans ought to try to get over their discomfort with paying for sex. The economists proposed that Americans pay for prostitution with their own money, in which case they would be less likely to obtain unnecessary services. Most people, particularly prostitutes, were outraged by the economist’s suggestions. The idea of paying for sex was too offensive to contemplate. So the existing prostitution insurance system kept stumbling along.
I just finished listening to a really great podast compliments of the official Stanford podcast (side note: I highly recommend adding this to your itunes podcast selection for the content quality and variety alone).
The speaker was Larry D. Kramer and he was speaking about his new book, “Popular Constitutionalism“. The basic thrust of his book is that the constitution’s interpretation should be left to the legislative and executive branches–or, at the very least, not so dependent on the unquestionable “final say” of the judicial branch.
In fact, he makes some great points:
1) The Revolutionary War (and, more broadly, the reason for America’s division from Great Britian was actually a dispute about the failure of the British government to uphold the BRITISH constitution–one that guarenteed rights of representation which the colonists were not able to exercise.
2) After having a war fought for the right of self-determination, would the founding fathers suddenly be willing to give up that right to a handful of unaccountable, unelected judges?
3) The Supreme Court was never intended to be the final arbitrar of CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS… it was not until Marbury v. Madison that the Supreme court took on this role. On a broader level, the courts were only to be one voice in a loud chorus of voices that debated the constitutionality of laws.
After listening to his speech, I must admit I felt challenged in my “originalist” tendencies. It seems that originalism isn’t necessary a very “originalist” method of constitutional interpretation. Nevertheless, we can’t pretend that ‘populist’ interpretation can co-exist with an entrenched judiciary that still commands absolute fealty when determining constitutionality.
I don’t have hours to touch-up this post and fully develop many of these thoughts… but hey, that’s what the comments section is for!
Victor Davis Hanson may very well be the most articulate spokesman for American exceptionalism. His new piece (see above link) is brilliant… and not for the usual reasons one might expect. I think it is fair to say that Hanson’s genius is due to nothing more than his imagination.
In this dream, I heard our ex-presidents add to this chorus of war-time solidarity. Jimmy Carter reminded Americans that radical Islam had started in earnest on his watch, out of an endemic hatred of all things Western. I imagined him explaining that America began being called the ‘Great Satan’ during the presidential tenure of a liberal pacifist, not a Texan conservative.
George Bush Sr. would in turn lecture the media that it was once as furious at him for not removing Saddam as it is now furious at his son for doing so; that it was once as critical of him for sending too many troops to the Middle East as it is now critical of his son for sending too few; that it was once as hostile to the dictates of his excessively large coalition as it is now disparaging of his son’s intolerably small alliance; that it was once as dismissive of his old concern about Iranian influence in Iraq as it is now aghast at his son’s naivete about Tehran’s interest in absorbing southern Iraq; and that it was once as repulsed by his own cynical realism as it is now repulsed by his son’s blinkered idealism.
wow… this guy knows how to write!
I don’t often follow the publishing industry with any interest, but the one development I have been looking forward to is the release of Christopher Hitchens’ new book, “God Is Not Great.” While I will no doubt disagree with many of Hitchen’s conclusions, I think that if read constructively, it can serve a good purpose in the Christian Community. It is rare that such an excellent communicator provides such a frank discussion of his personal beliefs about religion and I think that such an opportunity should not easily be dismissed.
One thing that surprised me about the book was hitchen’s research on the Mormon Church. It turns out that The Book of Mormon was quite clearly a sham. Joseph Smith supposedly had the book transcribed while he read from golden plates, except it turns out he was illiterate.?Ǭ† After a clever woman hid the first copy of the transcript, he was unable to duplicate the transcript in anywhere near its original form (in fact he refused to even try). I could provide a synopsis, but I might as well just let you read Hitchens own words…
….in the case of Smith it is likewise a simple if tedious task to discover that twenty-five thousand words of the Book of Mormon are taken directly from the Old Testament…. A further two thousand words of the Book of Mormon are taken from the New Testament. Of the three hundred and fifty “names” in the book, more than one hundred come straight from the Bible and a hundred more are as near stolen as makes no difference.
This is only a portion of the article… I suggest you read it in its entirety if you want to know more. In my next blog entry, which I will hopefully get around to next week, I hope to challenge Hitchen’s views on Christianity. Stay Tuned!