Uncommon Commentary #340: Texas, Taxes, &c.

Most of the cultural and political trends in this country I find offensive or merely vapid, but, as an historian, I do feel interest and even some excitement in what's happening in places like South Carolina.  The Palmetto State's House of Representatives has passed a bill that declares ObamaCareless (see the list of domanisms) to be "null and void" within South Carolina's borders.  Over 180 years ago, South Carolina made the same pronouncement about the federal tariff laws of 1828 and 1832, and threatened to leave the Union if the laws should be enforced; President Jackson, however, made a proclamation in which he warned that enforcement would indeed take place, and, after the US Congress enacted a Force Bill in support of this, the Carolinians backed down. (Further, a compromise in 1833 substantially reduced tariff duties.)  It was thought that the crisis had ended, but it had only abated, for South Carolina did secede from the USA in 1860, and for the same underlying reason why it had considered doing so 28 years earlier. (That's right: The "US Civil War", or, more accurately, War of Southern Independence, was not fought over slavery, contrary to our secular mythology.  What became the Confederacy seceded because of a desire for autonomy; Southerners thought that whether slavery—opponents of which included Robert E. Lee, but not Ulysses S. Grant, an Ohioan who'd had slaves of his own—and tariffs were legal in their States was none of the rest of the country's business.  It might be noted also that autonomist sentiment was not unique to the South; in New England where I live, there was a strong secession movement in rightful opposition to the pointless and unprovoked War of 1812.)  Military action achieved its objective of preserving the Union—that, not the abolition of slavery, was the reason why the North (and part of the West) went to war—and so the issue of "States' rights" again submerged, but the oppression and ineptitude of Emperor Nerobama's administration are driving it back to the surface.  (And this trend will only be exacerbated if the federal government raises taxes to pay down the approaching-17-trillion-dollar debt.  Why should residents of solvent States help to defray a debt, the largest part of which is owed to the public anyway, which Washington ran up all by itself?)  It wouldn't surprise me if one or more "States" (v.i.) such as South Carolina or Texas (where the secessionist volcano that erupted in 1861 is waking from dormancy) should withdraw from the USA during the next generation, and it wouldn't disturb me either.  I've no wish for civil war, of course, but presumably D.C. won't use force or the threat thereof to compel States to remain in the Union, as it did in the Nineteenth Century.  Besides, why ought the ironically termed "States" (which name was given to the thirteen original former colonies because they were all theoretically independent political units, viz., "states", which gave up only so much of their sovereignty as was deemed necessary for the sake of forming a confederation) not be permitted to withdraw from the United States of America if they choose to do so?  Is this country a prison?  Texas was a fully independent republic for nine years prior to its annexation by the USA, which took place a mere 16 years before the Lone Star State joined the Confederacy; Texans who favored the incorporation into Columbia likely didn't regard this as action as irrevocable.  There's also, of course, the matter of hypocrisy.  If the 13 original States became such by rejecting the authority of the royal government, don't they and the 37 that came later have the right to reject the authority of the government that replaced it?

Uncommon Commentary #339: UC #338 Follow-Up

We need to refine the way that we prosecute not only the terrorists but also the war against terrorists.  When a state is at war versus a fellow state, it achieves victory by eliminating or reducing the opposing state's ability to wage war; in a campaign versus a stateless terrorism organization, which has a seemingly endless supply of fanatics whose concept of "martyrdom" is something to be desired rather than avoided, one must adopt less conventional tactics.

Uncommon Commentary #338: Dzhokhar's No Joker

You may recall that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (of the explosive underwear) spoke volubly about his plot until he was "Mirandized", i.e., advised of the right that a US citizen (which this Nigerian has never been anyway) has to remain silent upon being arrested &c., and that afterward he provided no information.  And you probably know that history is repeating itself, for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev acknowledged his part in the bombing of the Boston Marathon's finish line (and supplied valuable intelligence), before a judge and lawyers prematurely terminated the FBI's questioning of him and delivered the same Miranda warning, whereupon he began his boffo mime performance.  Republicans had wanted the Obama administration to treat him as an enemy combatant, so that he could be interrogated for at least 30 days before he would be given a preliminary judicial hearing; instead, his hearing commenced after just 16 hours.  Certainly giving him such a status would have been preferable to the approach that has been taken, but why regard terrorists either as enemy combatants (and thus entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions) or as domestic criminals (and thus entitled to the protections of the US Constitution)?  Have we forgotten that, earlier during this War on Terror, the more perspicacious legal experts were recommending that we view terrorists in the same way as we do pirates, who have traditionally been considered hostes humani generis, that is, enemies of all mankind?  To call someone an "enemy combatant" is to confer some dignity upon him by implying that he fights for his country against other soldiers; a terrorist attacks civilians on behalf of a stateless organization like Hezbollah or Al-Qaeda.  To prosecute a foreign and international criminal as if he were a domestic one is, of course, worse yet. (Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a US citizen, and thus has a Constitutional right to a trial—I, however, see no point in spending taxpayer money to try someone whose guilt is indisputable, as that of Tsarnaev now is—but I'm writing of terrorists in general; I was planning this uncommon commentary in advance of the tragedy in Boston.)

Uncommon Commentary #337: Terror and Error (or: Post # 400!)

President Obombast evidently drew a lesson from the controversy over his administration's humorless farce of a response to the assault on our diplomatic post in Benghazi, for, in his first address regarding the bombings at the Boston Marathon, he pronounced the tragedy to be the result of "terror".  The lesson appears not to have been the right one, however, for at the time when he spoke, very shortly after the incident, there was no way to know whether it was terrorism.  Adam Lanza, who committed many times the number of murders as did the guilty party in Boston, wasn't a terrorist but merely a person suffering from mental illness; that he used a gun instead of homemade explosives is irrelevant.  It seems that our president (whose underlings still classify Nidal Hasan's rampage at Ft. Hood as "workplace violence", even though Maj. Hasan began his personal jihad by shouting "Allah Akbar!", the same cry that the hijackers uttered as they flew airplanes into the World Trade Center building) remains concerned not with factual accuracy but rather with giving the public a favorable view of himself, so that he can continue to try to push the items on his political agenda.  I have no objection to giving the Devil his due, but in this case no credit is due.

Uncommon Commentary #336: Boxer Rebellion

North Dakota has now banned the inducing of abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, on the basis that the foetus is by then able to feel pain. (Murder is, of course, wrong irrespective of whether the victim feels pain.  How would you react toward someone, who had intentionally killed with asphyxiation or with suffocation, justifying his crime on the basis that the person whom he killed did not suffer?)  The enacting of this legislation is a positive step, unless merely restricting and regulating the practice of foeticide fully satisfies anti-abortion sentiment.  After all, if human life is human throughout all nine months of its prenatal development, which science and reason both tell us that it is, then isn't it logical to defend it throughout those nine months?  Anyway, the North Dakota law isn't really so severe as its opponents would have people believe; human gestation lasts an average of 274 days, or 39 weeks and one day, and so foeticide even in the Peace Garden State will still be legal during the majority of a pregnancy.
I'll end this uncommon commentary by noting that when (only about a decade back) the US Senate was debating what would become the Born Alive Act (which compels hospitals to care for children who exit the womb safely despite attempts to abort them), Barbara Boxer spoke in favor of the bill; she noted correctly that it would confer no protection whatsoever on a child not yet born, and thus would not interfere with abortion "rights".  By contrast, a week or two before now, this same senatrix (female senator) actually said that a baby does not become a person until brought home from the hospital!  This reversal shows that, even if the public at large is indeed turning against induced abortion, the truculence of those who are still pro-"choice" may be growing worse.

Uncommon Commentary #335: You Probably Feel that This Posting Is Entitled to a Title

The real reason why the Left gave us "universal" health "care" may be the mere fact that it's a new entitlement, which renders people beholden to government to a greater extent than ever before.  Once you convince people that they have an innate "right" to something, it's very hard to disabuse them of that conceit.

Uncommon Commentary #334: Putting Immigration on ICE

There have been many valid arguments against the seemingly permanent recurrence of amnesties for illegal aliens, e.g., the fact that effectively rewarding someone for having spent years evading ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents is an insult to those of the foreign-born who have undergone the licit immigration process; one argument that I don't recall ever being made, but which ought to be, is that a period of persistently high unemployment is the worst time for "immigration reform".  With dozens of millions of US citizens either not employed at all or forced to settle for part-time work, how can anyone in his right mind want to increase competition for scarce jobs by offering citizenship to 11 million persons who don't even belong in this country?