Re: Supreme Court Updates: Justices Further Weaken Voting Rights Act, Igniting Political Scramble by The New York Times

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ANOTHER DEFEAT FOR RACISM!!! 

Don’t believe the NYT wording. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 “prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups.” This ruling doesn’t “weaken” or “gut” the Voting Rights Act.

It is consistent with it, and a resounding affirmation of the 14th Amendment. Note that the 3 Liberal justices dissented, saying that the ruling would “systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power.” In fact, all of the hysteria by Leftists focuses on some similar collectivist tribal argument, as if certain “minority” GROUPS have a privileged entitlement to elect a representative with a particular skin color or ethnicity. It’s a viewpoint straight out of the Dred Scott decision that informed the Confederacy’s defense of its slave system.

But this racist viewpoint is anti-Enlightenment and anti-American. America guarantees an INDIVIDUAL right to vote, not some primitive tribal “right” or “voting power.” The 14th Amendment guarantees EACH CITIZEN equal protection. This ruling affirms the “one-person-one-vote” principle, and nobody’s right to vote is compromised or restricted—in fact, only strengthened. So-called “voting power” rests with individuals, not groups.

The violent Leftist reaction to the ruling also affirms the fundamental racial/collectivist orientation of the Left and the Democratic Party (I deliberately chose the NYT article to demonstrate this). That political block sees every issue through a lens of race. But, MEMO to the Left: dark skinned people are INDIVIDUALS, each with a mind of their own, capable of deciding FOR THEMSELVES how to vote, just like every other person. They are not some homogenous colored herd with some collective brain that they must be told they must follow.

Don’t believe the way most of the press is characterizing this ruling. This decision is a great outcome.

Harris's Unchanged anti-American Values

Kamala Harris held an August 2024 interview on CNN in which she sought to clarify her “flip-flops” on key issues. But what really stood out for me are two key deeper points: her values haven’t changed, which will define the policies she will actually advance regardless of her “tack to the middle” flip-flops on controversial issues. And her most reactionary—and dangerous—core value, which she hasn’t “flipped,” is her belief that voting is our most important right.

America was Founded on natural rights theory, which holds that man’s individual rights derive from his nature as a sovereign, self-owning, self-governing being. Starting with the most fundamental right, the individual’s right to life, all of the fundamental rights of man, including liberty and property, precede government, and cannot be taken or granted by any governing authority. In the words of America’s Founding legal document, the Declaration of Independence,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . . [my emphasis]

Note the hierarchy. Governments don’t create rights. They secure our rights, which are thus unalienable. Note that the right to vote comes into view, implicitly, only after the institution of government, as implied in “the consent of the governed.” James Madison explained the Founders’ revolutionary new orientation between the government and the people’s liberties, reaffirming the principles laid out in the Declaration:

In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example . . .  of charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in the practice of the world, may, with an honest praise, be pronounced the most triumphant epoch of its history . . .

[My emphasis]

The Democratic Party holds the opposite principle—that rights come from the government—charters of liberty granted by power—thus canceling America.

When England began violating the colonists’ rights with a coercive series of liberty-infringing Acts, the colonists realized that their “rights of Englishmen,” which were charters of liberty granted by the power of the government, were not as secure as they thought and that the British government could as easily rescind them as protect them. Thus, the colonists—who around this time began identifying as Americans, rather than Englishmen—turned to natural rights theory, especially as espoused by John Locke. In classic reactionary fashion, the Democratic Party rejects Locke and natural rights theory. It reverts back to the pre-Revolutionary totalitarian concept of rights as grants of governmental privilege, being only as secure as the next rights-violating legislation. Out go unalienable individual rights, and thus the fundamental principle of America.

This is not hyperbolic. The Democrats, as always, are very explicit about this. In the interview, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said, explaining her concept of “freedom”:

“The freedom to live safe from gun violence in our schools, communities and places of worship,” Harris said Thursday. “The freedom to love who you love openly and with pride. The freedom to breathe clean air, and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis. And the freedom that unlocks all the others: the freedom to vote.” 

Thus, Harris reaffirmed her allegiance to the Democratic Party’s fundamentally anti-American orientation.

The emphasized principle conforms perfectly with Biden’s assertion that “The fundamental right to vote is the right from which all other rights flow.” Biden didn’t misspeak. The U.S. Justice Department based it’s lawsuit against Georgia’s election law on the same premise. Attorney General Merrick Garland declared that "The right of all eligible citizens to vote is the central pillar of our democracy, the right from which all other rights ultimately flow.” 

Think about what this means. The Democratic Party was founded on this principle in 1828, led by the pro-slavery platform position that if the majority votes to enslave a minority, the minority gets enslaved. This means the right to life is dependent on election outcomes, and can be taken away, along with all other rights, if the voters, or the voters’ elected representatives, say so. Hence, the Democratic Party.

To this day, the Democrats have not changed their ideological stripes. They have always had, and still have, totalitarian designs on America. Only the details have changed. The Party that once stood for plantation slavery now stands for socialist slavery—which, as Confederate intellectual George Fitzhugh explains in his seminal defense of slavery, Sociology for the South: Or the Failure of Free Society, are fundamentally the same. 

Harris is dead wrong. Freedom is not the right to vote. Freedom is the right to live one’s life by one’s own choices and values, regardless of anyone else’s vote or of the outcome of any election. Any government, including an elected government, that has the power to grant and rescind rights at will is a totalitarian state. The Founders sought to protect individual rights from tyrannical government, whether autocratic, aristocratic, or democratic—or as James Madison put it, from "the one, the few, or the many." Harris seeks to obliterate that ironclad protection. The Founders' miraculous achievement—"the most triumphant epoch in [the world's] history"—gets thrown under the bus. And it’s a premise that dates back to the founding of her party. So much for Harris’s vaunted value of “freedom.” Her values indeed have not changed. She was never, and is not now, a champion of freedom, properly understood. Without inalienable individual rights, no freedom—and no United States of America—would have been possible. Remember that in the United States of America, we’re not free because we vote. We vote because we are free.

It's as if Harris and the Democratic Party don't understand that their policies and values would destroy America as we know it, and what the Founders intended—or as if they do, and intend just that. I have long believed the latter. So, once again, my commitment to never vote Democrat is reinforced. 

Related Reading:

Joe Biden—the Real Protégé of Jefferson Davis

Voting Rights are Not the ‘Most Fundamental Right’—or Even a Fundamental Right. 

The Dangerous Totalitarian Premise Underpinning the Justice Department’s Suit Against Georgia’s New Election Law

Biden Cancels America

QUORA: Why does the Pledge of Allegiance say the USA is Republican not Democratic?

The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty—Timothy Sandefur

Why I Will Never Vote for a Democrat

America's Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It by C. Bradley Thompson

My Lonely Place on the American Political Spectrum

 More Than Half of Americans Think the First Amendment Provides Too Many Rights, screamed a recent headline in a Reason article. Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) conducted the survey. Emma Camp Reports:

"Evidently, one out of every two Americans wishes they had fewer civil liberties," Sean Stevens, FIRE's chief research adviser, said on Thursday. "Many of them reject the right to assemble, to have a free press, and to petition the government. This is a dictator's fantasy."

This is scary. But the survey also indicates that many people don’t fully understand the First Amendment.

This latest survey indicates that many Americans are concerned about the security of free speech rights, yet also eager to censor speech they personally find distasteful.

I expressed my sentiments about my place on the American political spectrum in My FB Post

"This is a dictator's fantasy." -- Sean Stevens, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

I have always thought of myself as an American—not in the shallow sense of having won the "birth lottery," but in the deep, universal philosophical sense—a Founding American, a man of The Enlightenment; of the Declaration of Independence; of the U.S. Constitution. I have also suspected that I am in the minority in this country. This poll confirms how right I am. Today, I am in the political wilderness, not Democrat or Republican, Liberal or Conservative, Left or Right. Looking at the political landscape today, I see what's missing from the American political spectrum, however it is measured—a place for AMERICANISM. (If you think I’m exaggerating, consider how the question is worded. The Constitution doesn’t “provide” our rights. It recognizes and protects them.)

Yet, that's my place. I am in a shrinking minority. My only question is, Am I among the last of a dying breed, or one of the first of their return? Let's hope for the latter. If not—well, I'm an atheist, but I'll say it anyway—May God Help Us!

Related Reading:

Contra Mark Levin, Americanism Rests on Reason, Not Faith

A New Textbook of Americanism — edited by Jonathan Hoenig

On This Constitution Day, Remember the Declaration of Independence

America's Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It by C. Bradley Thompson.

The Collectivist Left Appropriates an Inhumane Christian Doctrine to Obliterate Americanism

The Inherent Corruption of Public Sector Unionization

In a NJ Spotlight News op-ed, Tammy Murphy’s candidacy exposes nepotism, business as usual in NJ, Marc Gaswirth writes about the nepotism of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s wife running for NJ senator. Though the main focus of the article is Tammy Murphy’s obvious connection to her governor husband, another item caught my attention:

[The New Jersey Governor is] bestowed with constitutionally enormous power and influence, [so Phil Murphy] will continue to drive the state’s education agenda during his remaining time in office, and that means, if the past is a predictor of future behavior, the NJEA’s [New Jersey Education Association, or teachers union} agenda.  

Gov. Murphy has been the most pro-teachers’ union governor in New Jersey history. Since 2018, he and a compliant legislature have approved several major union legislative initiatives by largely bypassing and usurping the local collective bargaining process.

The very idea of a “pro-teachers’ union governor” points to the fundamental corruption of public sector unions. Since the government is their employer, the power of these unions draws directly from the coercive, law-making powers of the state. By being able to form political organizations, these unions can work to elect friendly politicians that will work for them, rather than the broader public that the duty of elected officials demands. This is unlawful, since federal law forbids government employees from using the gun-power of the government to advance their own interests at the expense of the public these political leaders are supposed to represent. Furthermore, public employees represent the public, so there is a huge conflict of interest when they organize to negotiate against the public. The teachers union gets to “negotiate,” not with a representative of the public, but with its own political crony. In effect, the negotiating table features the teachers union and Gov. Phil Murphy on one side, and nobody on the side of the broader public. That is the very definition of corruption.

Contrast Murphy with our last governor. I sorely miss Governor Chris Christie. He was the rare NJ governor who actually represented the broader tax-paying, student-supplying public in dealing with the teachers unions.

I speak as a union member myself, the plumbers union, a private-sector trade union. But my union, being private, is completely different in kind from the public unions. It’s not that the teachers union, and all public sector unions, engage in some corrupt activity that can be weeded out. The truth is, they are inherently, systemically, irredeemably corrupt. At the very least, public sector unions should immediately be legally banned from all political activity, be it fundraising, political donations, campaigning, candidate or issue endorsements and promotions, running PACs, or whatever. Ultimately, public sector unions are unconstitutional and should be outlawed. 

Related Reading:

School Choice is About Freedom, not "Union-Busting"

Is Governor Christie Winning NJ's Public School War?

Abusive Teachers Union Power Results from Government School Monopoly

Not Accountable: Rethinking the Constitutionality of Public Employee Unions by Philip K. Howard

Why Government Unions—Unlike Trade Unions—Corrupt Democracy by Phillip K. Howard for Time

The Liberal Case Against Public Unions by Phillip K. Howard for The Daily Beast

Several specific provisions of the Constitution safeguard against the delegation of sovereign powers. Article II grants “executive power” to the president, and numerous cases have held that Congress lacks authority to remove the president’s ability to hold inferior officers accountable. Article IV provides that “the United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” The purpose of this “Guarantee Clause,” Madison explained, was to require a linkage between voters and the people making governing decisions, thus preventing the ceding of powers to nobles or other “favored class.”

The Democrats’ Anti-Free Speech Bill HR-1—the ‘For the People Act’—is Still a Threat

HR-1, the so-called “For the People Act,” passed the House in 2019 and was debated in the Senate, but failed to pass. Pegged as a “voting rights bill” by its Democratic Party sponsors, it was re-introduced in the Congress in 2021, but still failed to pass.

I’m really distressed that the focus is, from what I can see, almost exclusively on the voter law portion of the bill, while the really dangerous elements of the bill are slipping in almost without notice. I sent this letter to the New Jersey Star-Ledger in 2019, which was never published:

To the Editor,

HR-1 [S-1 in the Senate version] is hyped as a “Voting Rights Act.” But beneath that slogan are provisions that threaten more fundamental rights to freedom of speech, association, conscience, privacy, and petition. Respectively, HR-1 severely restricts independent political spending, the means of free speech, by groups of individuals like corporations, unions, and Super Pacs, violating free speech and association rights; provides for “public” funding of elections, violating freedom of conscience by forcing the taxpayer to fund politicians’ campaigns without their consent and/or even if the politician’s policies violate the taxpayers conscientious beliefs; force disclosure of contributions to political action organizations, which violates the donors’ privacy rights by outlawing the confidentiality of donors; sharply increases requirements on lobbying, making it much harder for private citizens to peaceably assemble to petition the government.

Taken together, HR-1 is a broad-based rollback of the First Amendment. It violates the very inalienable rights which gives substance, meaning, and effectiveness to elections, and substantially reduces the ability of voters to hold their elected political leaders accountable. The “Voting Rights Act”—officially labeled, with a straight face, the “For the People Act”—is an insult to actual people who take their actual right to vote seriously.

Sincerely,

Michael A. LaFerrara

Though unpublished, the letter is still relevant because the Democrats are ready to push it through the first chance they get. 

For more on HR-1, see these posts:

HR-1 is An Assault on Free Speech, Property Rights, Freedom of Conscience, and Privacy

Democracy Doesn’t ‘Win’ When Free Speech is Suppressed, Voting Rights or No Voting Rights.

QUORA: “Is the For the People Act of 2021 (HR. 1) constitutional or not?

Statistical Disparities Don’t Prove Discrimination in Voter ID Laws

Related Reading:

Why Free Speech and Spending on Speech are Inextricably Linked

The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech--by Kimberley Strassel

Making Private Donations Anonymously is a Right

Citizens United and the Battle for Free Speech, by Steve Simpson

‘Dark Money’ is Free Speech. Protect It

Campaign Finance—Voluntary Contributions vs. Public Funding: Which is ‘Dirty?’

Voting Rights are Not the ‘Most Fundamental Right’—or Even a Fundamental Right

The Migration Crisis

Ross Douthat has a good column titled The Permanent Migration Crisis. The subject of the New York Times article is on what has been dubbed the “migration crisis.” He observes that mass migration is mainly moving from Africa to Western Europe and Latin America to the United States. His intelligent analysis examines the interesting problems this massive wave of migration is creating for both the political Left and Right. I believe his analysis is largely accurate. In zeroing in on the cause of the crisis, Douthat observes:

Civil wars and climate change will play their part, but the most important shifts are, first, the way the internet and smartphones have made it easier to make your way around the world, and second, the population imbalance between a rich, rapidly-aging West and a poorer, younger Global South, a deeply unstable equilibrium drawing economic migrants north.

All of this is a bigger problem for Europe than the United States — European aging is more advanced, Africa’s population will boom for decades (in 50 years there may be five Africans for every European) while Latin America’s birthrates have declined. 

Granted, there is no easy fix in the short to mid term. But does it have to be permanent? No. Note that the migration moves from “poorer” to “rich” regions. The migration is primarily driven by desperation of people escaping intolerable living conditions in their home countries. But do the poor regions have to be poor? What is the reason why the rich nations are rich? Certainly, people in rich countries are no better, smarter, or harder working than those in poor regions. What’s holding back the poor? What’s facilitating the economic growth of the rich? Douthat identifies the problem, but doesn’t address the causes.

I posted this comment, slightly edited for grammatical correctness:

What seems always to be missing from analysis of the migration crisis is recognition of the fact that people are moving from places dominated by authoritarianism and with minimal fossil fuel use to places with substantial Capitalistic freedom powered by extensive fossil fuels use. That's the elephant in the room. Freedom of migration is a good thing. But the migration CRISIS is purely political. Fundamentally, what the countries from which mass migration originates need is more Capitalism—i.e. individual liberty, including property rights and the freedom to use fossil fuels, rule of law, limited democratic governance, etc.—so they can prosper and better protect themselves from domestic violence, tyranny, and the ever-present climate dangers.

Related Reading:

Pope Francis: Prosperity, Liberty, and Climate Change are the Common Enemy

At Climate Summit, America takes Lead on Energy Realism and Prosperity

Capitalist Industrialization, Not Handouts, is “Poor” Countries' Best Protection Against Natural Disasters

CLIMATE VULNERABILITY AND THE INDISPENSABLE VALUE OF INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM—Kieth H. Lockitch 

Religionists Should Promote Capitalism and More Reliable Energy to End Poverty, Not ‘Protect’ the Poor from Fossil Fuels.

The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein

Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less by Alex Epstein

Mexico Feels Pressure of Relentless Migration From South America by James Fredrick for The New York Times 9/21 23