Vox Popoli

From Slashdot: Today the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that anybody can be compelled at any time to identify themselves, if a police officer asks. People who refuse to identify themselves, even if they are not suspected of a crime, will be arrested. Sound Orwellian? The Supreme Court also said people who are suspected of another crime might not be subject to arrest for not revealing their name. On this latter point, someone will have to bring a separate case. And the SCOTUS is at liberty not to hear any case it doesn’t like. The case is Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada.

What did Europe say after 9/11? We are all Americans? I think they had it backwards. Now, thanks to these black-robed defenders of our Constitutional rights, we are all to be good Chermans. It is now a crime to remain silent – so much for that right.

How long will it be before it becomes a crime to give a false name as well? Then, you will obviously be required to provide identification proving you are who you say you are. Thank goodness we can elect a Republican Congress and President to stop these egregious abuses of liberty! Wait a minute….

Jennifer Saba writes in Editor and Publisher: It’s been an embarrassing week for newspapers, especially for those in circulation departments at Newsday in Melville, N.Y. and at the Chicago Sun-Times. Both papers admitted, after markets closed for the day, to puffing circulation figures….

The ABC audit revealed the problems at Newsday and Hoy back in February, John Payne, senior vice president of communications for Audit Bureau of Circulations, told E&P. ABC plans to release its findings in July, though the Tribune Co., which owns Newsday and Hoy, essentially pre-empted ABC by announcing the overstated figures yesterday. “It’s very unusual to talk about an audit that has not been released,” Payne commented. Newsday had inflated its circulation figures for the period ending September 2003 by approximately 40,000 daily copies and 60,000 Sunday copies, while Hoy jacked up its numbers by 15,000 and 4,000 respectively….

Troubled by last week’s circulation scandals at Hollinger International’s Chicago Sun-Times and the Tribune Co.’s Newsday and Hoy, Merrill Lynch’s Lauren Rich Fine released a report today calling into question the reliability of circulation figures for the entire industry. “Our biggest fear,” the report said, “is that these two announcements may not be isolated incidents.”

As ever, I fail to be surprised by the reality that you cannot believe in the accuracy of anything printed in a newspaper. I spoke to an executive in the gold producing business a few days ago; he lamented that every single time he speaks to a reporter, they get something wrong in the subsequent story. I reminded him that the same is no doubt true of every other story in the paper – whatever you’re reading almost surely contains something false, the challenge is to determine precisely which part.

SI’s Excuse of the Week: “I had blisters on my heels at the end of the game. The thread that these socks were made with is too rough.” –Christian Panucci, Italian National Soccer Team defender, explaining his poor performance in their Euro 2004 opening game tie against Denmark.

You have to love the Azzurri. What other team would dare to put gold lame numbers on their jerseys? If they win Euro 2004, I’m hoping they show up for the World Cup with Armani-designed gold uniforms.

Many of Air America’s investors and executives say they thought the network had raised more than $30 million, based on assurances from its owners, Guam-based entrepreneurs Evan M. Cohen and Rex Sorensen. In fact, Air America had raised only $6 million, Mr. Cohen concedes. Within six weeks of the launch, those funds had been spent and the company owed creditors more than $2 million.

When the problems came to light, “we realized that we had all been duped,” says David Goodfriend, the company’s acting chief operating officer. Messrs. Cohen and Sorensen say they didn’t mislead anyone about the company’s finances. They say they planned to invest more over time but didn’t because of cultural differences with other managers. Both resigned in early May.

Five months before a presidential election, Air America should be on a roll. Instead, it’s grappling with a financial crisis. Creditors are lined up at the door, and it is off the air in two big markets, Los Angeles and Chicago.

How unfortunate….

From Monday Morning Quarterback (of all places): On a recent trip to the Chart House, a fine restaurant where the minimum dress code is business casual on the west bank of Hudson River in Weehawken, N.J., I became distressed. As I walked to my table with my lovely bride, I spied a twentysomething man sitting with a woman at a table, dressed in jeans, sneakers and a light blue T-shirt with these words in bold, large black letters: “YOU SUCK.”

[Correction] Ladies, this is the sort of thing I would strongly recommend that you avoid. If a man you are dating, or are considering dating, or with whom you even happen to make eye contact is wearing a shirt with this sort of message on it, run, do not walk, for the nearest exit.

I think the female equivalent would be something on the order of “MEN SUCK”.

I’m thinking that I should back up my assertion that Christianity is provably the most humane and civilizing force in human history. To do so, I need to compare it to other significant religions and ideologies, and I’m sure I’ll forget something. Here’s a short list of ten off the top of my head; if anyone can think of anything else that deserves an analytical comparison, please do so in the comments:

Liberal democracy

Islam

Buddhism

Judaism

Atheism

The Roman Empire

Technological advance

Capitalism

Socialism

Communism

My worst day of predictions was yesterday, when Spain embarrassed itself by flaming out of the tournament altogether and Greece, suddenly realizing that they might go through, had a panic attack and gave up a goal only 68 seconds into the match. Portugal played all right – except for Gomez and Ronaldo they were pretty average – but Spain was downright horrid. They played defensively throughout, and in my opinion, deserved to lose. Every major tournament, they “flatter to deceive” as the English soccer press likes to say. Why Morientes wasn’t playing, I’ll never understand. You’d think the Spaniards would have learned from Real Madrid’s experience earlier this year, as Torres and Raul did nothing.

So, Portugal and Greece stumble through the Group of Self-Asphyxiation, primarily because someone had to. I don’t expect much from either team in the quarterfinals, although Portugal could make it to the semis depending on who they draw.

Tonight, in the Group of Sudden and Unexpected Death At The Last Minute, France will have no trouble with the overmatched Swiss, and England should put away Croatia, though not without difficulty. It will be interesting to see if Michael Owen can get himself untracked or if Sven will bring Vasell on early. I don’t expect we’ll see Heskey again this tournament, barring injuries to the other strikers.

“I am seeing more and more bumper stickers saying, ‘God, save us from your people,'” said Walsch, author of “Tomorrow’s God,” which proposes a broader concept of God than traditional religions. “Most of the killing in our world has not been done by those who do not believe in God but by those who do.”

This is a silly statement in several senses, since it is manifestly not true that most of the killing in human history has been done by those who believe in the Judeo-Christian God. Even if Walsch is speaking crudely and incorrectly lumping in the worshippers of every historical pagan god and goddess with those who worship(ped) Allah, Pharoah, Caesar, Kali Durga or Jesus Christ as functionally identical believers in a deity of one sort or another, his assertion is meaningless since this encompasses the overwhelming majority of individuals past and present. The only relevant point is whether these diverse religionists are disproportionately responsible for bloodshed; the unprecedented murders of the godless Soviets, Chinese and Kampucheans indicates that atheists have a far greater taste for blood sacrifice than anyone since the Aztecs.

“Atheists are pretty much demonized,” Castle [co-founder of Atheists for Human Rights] said. “People see atheists as anti-religious, anti-something good and with no moral compass. We want to show that we do have a moral compass and it is based on making this world the best that there is because, in our view, it is the only one there is.”

Perhaps they see atheists this way because atheists are openly and overtly anti-religious. Christianity, provably the most humane and civilizing force in human history, is certainly something atheists oppose, even hate, and I’ve yet to encounter a single atheist who can make a case that his moral compass is anything but something instilled by the Judeo-Christian culture in which he has been raised. Sans what they unwittingly absorb from the world around them, they have no moral compass – which is why we can expect general societal immorality to increase in America as the ability of Christianity to influence non-believing individuals continues to wane.

Nonbelievers — they go by various names, including atheists, humanists, freethinkers and brights — say their goal is to become a part of the everyday fabric of society and be as accepted as anybody else.

Atheists remind me of the obnoxious fat kid who can’t figure out why everybody hates him. If you insist on giving yourself titles that imply everyone else is anti-human, a slave thinker and dull, don’t be surprised when no one wants anything to do with you. They’re pretty bright, those godless. Interesting, too, that not a one of these supposedly first-rate thinkers was able to successfully make a case for either atheist rationality or morality in this forum a few months ago.

Consider the following sequence of events.

1. 12-20-1860. South Carolina secedes from the Union.

2. 02-28-1861. U.S. House passes proposed 13th Amendment, 133-65.

3. 03-02-1861. U.S. Senate passes proposed 13th Amendment, 39-5.

4. 03-04-1861. Abraham Lincoln inaugurated as U.S. President.

5. 07-11-1861. Ten remaining Southern senators expelled from the Senate, 32-10.

Now, keep in mind that there were 34 states at that time, thus 68 senators. The twenty-two senators from the Southern states mostly resigned or never showed up, and as for their seats: “During a brief special session in March 1861, weeks before the start of hostilities, the Senate decided to consider these seats as vacant to avoid officially recognizing that it was possible for a state to leave the Union.”

This is significant as it proves that the Southern senators were not present to vote on the proposed 13th Amendment that passed in February and March. President Lincoln even referred to this Amendment in his inaugural address, saying:

I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.

And what was this amendment? It was as follows:

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.

Three Northern states ratified this amendment, Ohio, Maryland and Illinois. To make matters even more clear, Lincoln stated:

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that— I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.

He also makes it clear that he will recognize no right of secession or brook any possibility of breaking the Union, which he states is perpetual and unbreakable as well as being pre-Constitutional:

I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself…. It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.

So, the facts are that the Northern House and Senate approved a Constitutional amendment permitting slavery and President Lincoln publicly announced his approval of this amendment in his inaugural address. To conclude that they then elected to fight a war with the primary purpose of ending slavery only three months later is not just incorrect, but downright absurd. Slavery was merely the primary flash point, it could have as easily been homogamy, abortion or any other issue on which people seriously disagree. This sequence of events demonstrates very clearly that the Civil War was about nothing but maintaining central state power, or, in Lincoln’s famous words, “preserving the Union”. Indeed, had the Southern states been willing to accept their continued economic abuse by the North, we might well still have slavery in the United States today. So died the American Revolution and with it the revolutionary concept of free and mutual association.

Ironic, is it not, that it should be argued that a people have no right to self-determination on the basis of living under a government that permits the ownership of human beings as private property. It seems to me that this argument involves little more than the simple exchange of private slavery for public slavery.

In speaking for his amendment, Pinckney told messengers there is an abundance of evidence “government schools are becoming more and more anti-Christian,” though he acknowledged “many differences from one public school to another.” He commended Christians teaching and working in public schools.

I wonder how many people would, in like manner, wish to commend those Christians who worked in the death camps of Auschwitz, bringing “light and salt” to the inmates and guards alike? I don’t care at all about intentions, it’s the reality of the actions and predictable results that matter. Pinckney had the right idea with his resolution; why throw the sell-outs a bone?

In response, Calvin Wittman, Resolutions Committee chairman, expressed opposition, telling messengers the convention had passed 11 resolutions on education in the last 19 years, pronouncing its support for public, private and home schooling. In a statement issued later, Wittman said, “Southern Baptists have spoken to this issue sufficiently, and it does not need to be readdressed.”

Wittman sounds like a leftist radical: “We won, therefore the matter has been settled and should never be brought up again. If we lose, however, that only means that the world/nation/organization is not yet ready and we will be back next year with the same proposition.” And, of course, he skips over the fact that the resolution was killed in committee, not addressed by the convention.

After Pinckney’s resolution was defeated, messengers approved the resolution on secularization with few opposing votes. The measure called for Southern Baptists to “cry out in desperation to God” and seek His forgiveness “for our part in the cultural decline that is taking place on our watch.” It also urged them to hold government officials accountable “for their personal conduct and the legislation” they support.

It figures. They’re pleased to “cry out in desperation”, but the thought of actually doing anything themselves to challenge the single greatest engine of societal secularization is unthinkable. Well, the SBC leadership may be weak sisters on this one issue, but I have confidence that this will change over time, as the government schools continue to devolve towards overt paganism. At least the SBC leadership is not in direct opposition to the Bible and Jesus Christ’s teachings as are some of their counterparts in other denominations.