We Win, They Lose
The Wit and Wisdom of Three Guys Named Brent, Mark and Mike
Friday, December 31, 2004
 
Why the Democrats Keep Losing
is the title of this piece at Commentary. Go read it.

 
Justice Thomas Most Popular Among Gift-Givers
Check out this disgraceful hit piece on Justice Thomas. (Big surprise, it's in the LA Times) Man, these judgeships are going to be THE issue this year. The nomination battle is going to make the 2004 election look like a game of patty-cake.

UPDATE: Ken Masugi at The Claremont Institute comments on the piece here.

Wednesday, December 29, 2004
 
Citing Foreign Courts
Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner has an excellent post up at Leiter Reports by that name. He states (correctly, I think) that:

[T]he citation of foreign decisions is a form of figleafing, reflecting the efforts of opinion writers (often law clerks still suffering from the misconceptions of law students) to escape responsibility for stating the true grounds of decision. A judge or justice who votes in favor of homosexual rights is reluctant to admit that he is doing so not because the Constitution commands that he do so but because he is sympathetic to homosexuals or minorities in general, or dislikes the motivations or beliefs of the people who object to homosexual rights, or never misses an opportunity to invalidate unequal treatment, or thinks homosexual rights the new liberal frontier. If instead he can point to an emerging international consensus (as the Supreme Court did in invalidating capital punishment of 15 year olds), he can minimize the appearance of subjective decisionmaking by pointing to something outside his personal values, politics, emotions, and ideology. It would not be figleafing if American judges really were willing to take their cues from foreigners, but I don't believe it. Almost the whole world prohibits hate speech, but in the U.S. it is considered constitutionally privileged and the fact that we are out of step with the rest of the world seems not to bother any of the judges who cite foreign decisions.

Smart guy.

Thursday, December 23, 2004
 
Bob Casey's Revenge
You simply have got to read this essay at First Things. William McGurn hits a homerun with this dissection of the Democrat party, and it's never-met-an-abortion-we-can't-support attitude. He quotes the deceased former pro-life governor of Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, who in his autobiography wrote:

Many people discount the power of the so-called “cultural issues” — and especially of the abortion issue. I see it just the other way around. These issues are central to the national resurgence of the Republicans, central to the national implosion of the Democrats, central to the question of whether there will be a third party. The national Democrats may, and probably will, get a temporary bump in the polls—even, perhaps, one more national election victory — from their reactive strategy as the defenders of the elderly and poor who rely on Medicare and Medicaid. But the Democrats’ national decline—or better, their national disintegration—will continue relentlessly and inexorably until they come to grips with these values issues, primarily abortion.

Governor Casey wrote those prophetic words in 1996. He was correct -- the Democrats did win one more national election, and we now see the beginning of the party's "national disintegration."

McGurn continues:

In the aftermath of Senator Kerry’s defeat the Democrats are wondering how it is that the first Catholic nominee for President since 1960, a man who spoke glowingly of rosary beads and his days as an altar boy, lost the Catholic vote, lost the Mass-going Catholic vote by an even larger margin, and lost it by larger margins still in key swing states such as Florida and Ohio.

They have much to ponder, as do all Americans who truly care about life, for it should be clear that a Democratic Party in its current shape is not healthy for America. We need pro-life Democrats to be able to breathe again. This means that we need a Democratic leadership that doesn’t demand that Democrats vote against, among other things, judicial nominees whose only crime is their “deeply held” personal beliefs or a suspected skepticism toward the one dogma in the Democratic Party: that while all other Supreme Court decisions are malleable and must bend to the social and political agenda of the day, Roe v. Wade is holy writ.


(Cross posted at Southern Appeal)

Wednesday, December 22, 2004
 
Illini beat Tigers
In what is always the toughest game of the year, it's good to see my Illini managed to hang on against the Missouri Tigers in St. Louis. I'm sure Big Ten Wonk will be all over it in the morning.

 
I had forgotten about this...
Just this week, we heard the news of the woman in Missouri who killed the 23-year old lady and cut her baby from her womb. Does anyone remember the nearly identical story from last Christmas season, from Oklahoma? Weird.

 
Jail Break?
Ken Lammers of CrimLaw posts this funny little story about how he (the criminal defense attorney) ended up being the sole person in control of the front door of the jail. It's pretty funny.

 
Drumroll, please....
It appears a very old, and very good friend of mine has decided to join this blog. Everyone, please give a warm welcome to Mike, who will provide another voice to our little project. Glad to have you, buddy.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004
 
Deadbeat Dads of the World, Unite!
A few years ago, I wrote an essay by that name in which I argued that men should seek their own "right to choose." I wrote:

A “deadbeat dad” is merely a biological father who has chosen not to financially support his offspring. What is so horrible about that? So the kid’s father didn’t buy him some food, diapers or the GI Joe with the kung-fu grip—so what? Compared to what the pro-choice feminists are getting away with, the average deadbeat dad’s behavior is commendable, even laudable. For instance, when a pro-choice feminist kills her unwanted baby, she is seen as merely exercising her “right to choose.” However, when a man decides he no longer wants to blow his paycheck supporting his baby, he is labeled a deadbeat dad. It’s just not fair. At least he didn’t kill the child. Which is worse – murder, or withdrawal of financial support? Why aren’t mothers who abort labeled “murderous moms” or some other such moniker?

What these men need to do is manipulate the language to work in their favor. They should not stand idly by and allow themselves to be labeled “deadbeat dads.” What they should do is create the impression that they are simply exercising their God-given, or even—dare I say—constitutional “right to choose.” It need not be more defined than that. (In fact, it is best left vague.) For who can argue with “a man’s right to choose?” If these men play their cards right, they can be seen as heroes rather than villains.

They should argue that since women have nine months in which to make up their minds whether or not to let their babies live, it is only fair that men should have nine months following the child’s birth to determine whether or not he feels up to supporting it. And women should not be heard to complain. At least the male version of the “right to choose,” unlike the female version, doesn’t involve ending a human life. Moreover, because men have no input in a woman’s decision whether to have an abortion, women should have no input into whether a father supports his child. Right now, if a father doesn’t want a mother to kill his unborn child, that’s too bad. He can’t stop her – it is her “right to choose.” In the same way, then, the woman should not be allowed to sue for child support once the father decides that he doesn’t want to support the child – this is his “right to choose.” Who can argue against Equal Opportunity Choice?


Of course, I was only kidding. However, at least one attorney took me seriously, and in N.E. v. Hedges, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals faced the following argument:

The plaintiff argues that the Kentucky paternity and child support laws are inconsistent with sexual and procreative "privacy" rights recognized by the Supreme Court[.] The right to procreative privacy, he argues, "includes the right to decide not to become a parent even after conception," and "must extend to both biological parents," so that "Kentucky's statutory scheme" must be invalidated because it "imposes parenthood on biological fathers while denying them any right or opportunity to decide not to become a parent after conception."

His argument is best summed up by this line from his reply brief: "It was unconstitutional for Kentucky to force parenthood on N.E." How do you like that sentence -- how much further can society fall?

The Court noted that the argument appeared to be based on a law review article (and what crazy argument isn't?): The Male Abortion: The Putative Father's Right to Terminate His Interests in and Obligations to the Unborn Child, 7 J.L. & Pol'y 1 (1998).

However, the Court easily dismissed his argument, stating that "The sexual privacy cases referred to by plaintiff do not give either biological parent the right to escape responsibility after the child is born."

Thus, the $64,000.00 question now becomes: what if a father brings his argument (i.e., that he does not have to support the child, that he is exercising his "right to choose") before the child is born? If a mother has the right to "escape responsibility" prior to birth, I think it is a fair question to ask why the father should not be given the same opportunity.

I wonder where Planned Parenthood and NARAL come down on this one? I'll bet they want nothing to do with it -- it definitely strips away some of the lustre of the whole "right to choose" charade they've carefully cultivated.

And before any of you pro-choice women chime in that men should not have these rights, perhaps you should remember that this is a MAN'S decision, to be made by him and his accountant, and you women should have nothing to say about it. Isn't that what you've been telling us about abortion, lo these many years?

(Cross-posted at Southern Appeal)

Friday, December 17, 2004
 
Big News...
WWTL may soon become a trio, rather than a duo. Stay tuned....

 
Democrats for Life?
W. James Antle III has an interesting post with a couple good links in it over at Musings. Check it out here.

One of the best articles on this topic (democrats and abortion) was written by Mary Meehan. Part I can be found here, and Part II can be found here. Meehan details and traces the decline of the Democrat party as it openly embraced abortion on demand.

Wednesday, December 15, 2004
 
The N-word
Thomas Krannawitter of the Claremont Institute nails Senator Reid for his recent attack on Justice Thomas. He notes (rightly, I think), that liberals like Reid are deathly afraid "because Thomas' natural-law jurisprudence represents the greatest threat to the liberal desire to replace limited, constitutional government with a regulatory-welfare state of unlimited powers."

Krannawitter writes:

Before Anita Hill took the spotlight, the most controversial part of Thomas' confirmation hearings in 1991 stemmed from allegations that he had invoked the n-word—the natural law. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee hardly knew how to respond, so alien was the founders' vocabulary. Perhaps this is why Reid finds Thomas' opinions "poorly written."

A generation of law students and politicians has been trained in "legal realism," which is nothing but liberal contempt for the Constitution dressed in academic garb. For liberals who believe rights come from and can be revoked by government and judges, a high court justice talking about natural rights is an embarrassment.

The size, scope and purposes of our government are no longer anchored in and limited by our Constitution. For conservatives who want to restore limited government, their first order of business is to restore the authority of the Constitution's original intent. The American people need to be reminded of the source of their rights and persuaded that limited government is good; that the principles of the Constitution—which are the natural-law principles of the Declaration of Independence—are timeless, not time-bound; that without those principles, the noble ends set forth in the Constitution's preamble can never be achieved.


Monday, December 06, 2004
 
Illini #1
The University of Illinois Fighting Illini -- the new #1 team in the country. Yeah, baby!!!


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