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Obama Visit Brings Hope to Europe

Posted by Mike on Sunday, June 07, 2009 2:12:21 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com
President Obama's stopovers in Germany and France will do much to heal the acrimony of war and religious persecution, calling to mind President Kennedy's Berlin speech in 1963. Germany is key to the revitalization of Europe. Obama's visits to Buchenwald and Dresden are helpful to Germany in overcoming the guilt associated with past mistakes. Obama is himself partly German, being descended on his mother's side from a 17th century mayor of a town in Baden-Württemberg. This may also explain his authoritarian style of government as an inherited trait.

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Race, Ethnicity, Gender Should Never Be a Factor

Posted by Mike on Friday, June 05, 2009 11:11:10 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
A republic is founded upon the idea of equality among individual citizens. Each citizen should have an equal chance to get ahead in the world. This precludes preferences based upon other criteria such as race, ethnicity and gender.

The President has every right to appoint whomsoever he wants within his administration based upon whatever criteria. We must be vigilant to make sure that his appointees do not become themselves little despots and impose improper standards which take away our liberty and freedom. It is our duty as citizens to oppose foolhardy judicial appointments.

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Further Reflections on the Ricci Case

Posted by Mike on Friday, May 29, 2009 6:45:44 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
The effect of the actions taken by the City of New Haven to bring about racial diversity was to pull the rug out from under the firefighters who honestly believed that preparing for and taking the civil service exam in good faith would thereby lead to a chance of gaining a promotion to Lieutenant within the Fire Department.

As a question of law, does the City owe a duty to its citizens to act in good faith when administering civil service exams? This is over and above the question of whether it was simply stupid of City officials to administer the exam and then throw out the results because they didn't like the outcome. Subsidiarity bars the federal courts from interfering simply on the basis of the City's prudential judgments, no matter how bad those judgments were for the people.

Were the White and Hispanic firefighters who passed the bogus test discriminated against? The answer is no. They were simply made to look like fools because the City did not in fact promote anyone from within the Department based upon its own predetermined criteria.

Do these firefighters then have a cause of action?

Clearly there is a duty to act in good faith. If the City essentially held out a carrot and said "Here, take this", and then reneged on its promises to promote the top scorers, then this is a case of government lying to the people. Since the City officials did not act in good faith, they breached their duty of truthfulness and fairness and should be held accountable for the harm they have caused to the firefighters who took the exam in good faith and would have been promoted were it not for the City's duplicity.

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The Empathy Factor

Posted by Mike on Thursday, May 28, 2009 10:40:40 AM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
A degree of empathy is something we would expect in all of our judges. Afterall, who would want someone like Herr Goebbels or Hannibal Lecter sitting on the bench? The idea of a preferential option for the poor has also been a part of the Western legal tradition since at least the Middle Ages.

American jurisprudence, if we can call it that, is overly concerned with Enlightenment ideas of equality and individualism. It also relies too heavily on legal precedent, almost to the point of obsessiveness. This causes judges to be unable to see the forest for the trees in many cases, and thus reach the wrong conclusions and ultimately bad decisions for America.

Sonia Sotomayor could bring her gift of empathy to the high court and this could help to heal the nation. But with everything else in life, it depends on making the right choice. If she does not break from the liberal mindset, there is little chance that we will see much improvement on the Supreme Court.

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Is this Some Kind of Joke?

Posted by Mike on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 10:40:55 AM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court raises the question of whether President Obama is picking a clownish caricature of a judge, or whether this is the direction in which America is heading based upon our past history.

We can only hope that her sense of empathy and fairness will lead her to eventually side with the new majority in outlawing abortion which has destroyed so many families in America.
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Pick Novak as Vatican Ambassador

Posted by Mike on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 10:24:18 AM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
The buzz is that Obama is about to name a new ambassador to the Vatican.

I hope he gives Michael Novak some consideration. Novak has a solid seminary education and is a devout, faithful lay Catholic. As a reporter, he covered the Second Vatican Council for various publications and has also studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He has written many books and articles on a wide range of topics, and has taught at the university level. He is therefore well qualified to be our next ambassador to the Vatican.
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Torture Pro-Choice Politicians?

Posted by Mike on Thursday, May 21, 2009 4:30:49 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
The rationale for using enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorism suspect detainees is to obtain valuable information that may save lives. But if it's OK to torture to prevent killing by terrorists insurgents abroad, why do we not also allow the torture of politicians who promote killing children unjustly by abortion? Would not a little water-boarding be enough to save many millions of American lives by deterring future acts of homicide?

The objection is that immoral means can never be used to accomplish ends. However, our society is already accustomed to capital punishment. If we execute certain types of criminals, is it always wrong to torture?
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The Great Demise

Posted by Mike on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 12:36:19 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
Capitalism is poised to topple under its own weight within this century. What should be done to prepare for the coming financial storm?

The key element is uncertainty. Capitalism has created a compartmentalized society of competing interests. After the great worldwide collapse, society will no longer be held together by economic self-interest.

Today it is necessary to build bridges of solidarity with our neighbors. We can act now to prevent our nation from becoming socialistic. The choice is ours.
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Fast Food Government

Posted by Mike on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 12:46:33 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
In a capitalistic, individualistic society, government oversimplifies everything to a question of dollars and cents. This is because people become isolated and alienated from each other. This type of a bean counter mentality results in gross injustices such as when judges who are charged with protecting human life become instead the agents of destroying life.

World capitalism will destroy itself and collapse in our lifetime. The only question is whether we will organize society rationally and civilly preserving the benefits of a free market economy, or will we fall into tyrannical dictatorship of socialism?

The sensible way to prepare for the coming disaster is not to try and protect your assets, because money itself will become almost worthless, as happened with the collapse of communism in Russia, Eastern and Central Europe. We should follow the example of their recovery by expanding the marketplace to include more people.

The choice will be between the centralization of socialism in which direction we are already headed, or a decentralized distributive system which represents the Third Way option. Most likely, we will end up with something in between.

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California Ballot Measures

Posted by Mike on Saturday, May 16, 2009 1:03:35 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
Election Day is Tuesday, May 19.

Measures 1A & 1B VOTE NO.

TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY.

Measure 1C VOTE NO.

VOTERS ALREADY APPROVED LOTTERY AND HOW PROCEEDS ARE TO BE SPENT FOR EDUCATION.

Measure 1D VOTE YES.

BETTER ALLOCATION OF YOUR TAX DOLLARS FOR KIDS.

Measure 1E VOTE NO.

VOTERS ALREADY APPROVED FUNDING FOR MENTAL HEALTH THROUGH SURCHARGE ON WEALTHY.  IT AIN'T BROKE SO DON'T FIX IT.

Measure 1F VOTE YES.

KEEP BUREAUCRATIC SALARIES IN CHECK.

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Government's Role in Fixing the Economy

Posted by Mike on Saturday, May 16, 2009 12:20:59 AM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
To fix the economy, step number one is to change the tax structure. This will mean revising the tax code to tax individual wealth rather than individual or corporate income, and abolishing the death tax. Taxes on individual wealth, or net worth, are justified because the wealthy benefit more from basic government services such as police and fire protection and health care.

My proposal is to tax individual wealth above the 90 percentile range at a rate of 95%, and above the 95 percentile range at a rate of 99%. There would be no tax on income which destroys the incentive to earn. Additional tax revenues would be generated through sales, excise and tariff taxes as needed pursuant to the Fair-Tax Plan championed by Alan Keyes.

Capitalism is, along with socialism, an outgrowth of the 18th Century French Revolution, and is inherently unjust because it reduces the human person to a mere instrument of production and consumption. Government's legitimate role is to promote justice by promoting entrepreneurship and giving tax credits to new businesses just starting up. Small businesses employ most of the American workforce outside of government including the military branches.

Distributivism is a Third Way of economic organization. The goal should be to promote independent, eco-friendly ways of producing things with the workers themselves having some ownership interest through tax incentives, and a more equitable corporate ownership to include the workers themselves. Just as in home equity, people act more responsibly when there is a more widely held ownership interest in businesses.

Subsidiarity must be respected, so that higher levels of government do not usurp the roles of lower levels, or infringe upon the responsibilities of business, community or family organizations.

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Thomas Jefferson Most Likely of Iberian Descent

Posted by Mike on Friday, May 15, 2009 8:41:27 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
Jefferson's K2 DNA probably was from Mesopotamia and was transmitted during the great migrations from the other side of the Euphrates River during the second millennium BC. The Hebrews derive their name from habiru which means "from across the river". Jefferson's DNA is most similar to that found in modern day Egypt. It is also common in Spain and France. It probably arrived from nomads in Northwest Africa to southeast Iberia, from there spreading out through Spain and France to the British Isles.
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More on Jefferson's DNA

Posted by Mike on Friday, May 15, 2009 12:51:55 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
Friday, May 15, 2009
More on Jefferson's DNA
More evidence that Thomas Jefferson's ancestors may have been Phoenician or Canaanite.

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Prosecution of Crimes against Humanity

Posted by Mike on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 12:30:27 AM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
In the landmark legal decision in Marbury vs. Madison in 1803, Chief Justice Marshall recognized the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction to interpret the Constitution. The Court also exercised original jurisdiction to resolve the 2008 presidential election dispute.

The question now arises as to whether the Court has an affirmative duty to invoke original jurisdiction to bring to account government officials including lower court judges, and other U.S. citizens, for crimes against humanity under color of state and federal law.

Any society cannot long endure if it kills its own young. Regardless of the fact that certain states had legalized abortion, and the Court itself decided to strike down laws against abortion beginning in 1973, the power to protect life is inherent in any system of ordered liberty and government. Laws which go against protection of human life are invalid as contradicting core principles of justice, as was decided at Nuremberg in 1946.

Was Nuremberg extra-constitutional, or did the foundations of the American Republic presuppose the power of judges to rule on punishment for crimes against humanity even in the absence of specific US precedent? Obviously, the judiciary has by its very nature an inherent right and duty to punish anyone who acts contrary to human dignity by killing or torturing innocent human beings. If this is not what judges are supposed to do, by what right do they rule upon anything?

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Supreme Court of the United States appoint special prosecutors and issue subpoenas against those in our government, including legislators, department heads, and judges of inferior courts, pursuant to the Nuremberg decisions and consistent with the Court's authority vested through original jurisdiction, so that the wrongdoers in our government, hiding behind the mantle of choice, will be tried, convicted and punished for their crimes that have already been committed against the unborn in America.

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Why Punish Murder of Unborn?

Posted by Mike on Saturday, May 09, 2009 1:18:05 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
In the cosmic order of things, the tragedy is not so much that unborn children are killed, daresay anyone is killed, but that society allows the killing to happen. It is something less than human not to respect the dignity of the human person. Killing without just cause is the supreme form of denying another person's dignity. There is nothing anyone can do, except God Himself, to resurrect the dead. But what does killing of innocent human beings do to the killer? What does it do to the society?

The State of Illinois has taken into custody Drew Peterson on suspicion of causing one or more deaths. Does this bring any of the dead wives back to life? No. Killing any innocent human being is a hateful thing to do. If society does not punish murder, we are all the worse off, and society becomes itself hateful and hate filled.

On the human plane, there is nothing short of human reason to make a society of love better than a society of hate. The haters simply deny truth, and deny reason which always seeks truth. Whether one admits it or not, this is a human act.

God does have the final word in all of this. That is why men punish those who violate the dignity of the human person.
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