Character Trumps Tribe, Part I

The attack on freedom of religion by Houston Mayor Annise Parker brought to mind a point about identity politics. Or, to frame it from a better position, character trumps tribe.


Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his speech on the steps of the Lincoln Monument.
His dream was that we would judge each other by the content of our character,
rather than the color of our skin.

I mentioned last week that, when Annise Parker was running for mayor, she downplayed her connection to the LGBT community. She ran as a sensible businessperson with skills the city needed. And she just happened to be a lesbian, but that didn’t affect her skills. That, however, was a lie to get elected. She did not have adequate skills to overcome her tribal connection.

She has reigned as the first openly homosexual mayor of a major American city. Ah, the glory! And she has used the power of her position, time and again, to press the agenda of her tribe, rather than the overall needs of all the citizens. She may even believe that putting forward her tribal agenda is best for all. But it isn’t. She’s blinded by that overriding agenda.

She can’t see that pressing her agenda at the risk of giving sexual predators legal, unquestioned access to women’s bathrooms is not good for the community as a whole. She can’t even hear the huge outcry from the community who see that obvious danger. And she’s so sure she’s right that she arbitrarily throws out the 55,000 signatures of the people who want to put the question on the ballot. When she’s called on that illegality and must defend her actions in a lawsuit, she uses that opportunity to intimidate churches for speaking on this moral issue.

So, now that we have had a first openly homosexual mayor of a major US city, what do we know? The agenda of the tribe trumps the character of the candidate. Will that always be true? Perhaps not, but she has given us reason to beware. If her actual goal was to move members of her tribe into acceptance among the broader community, she set back that work a generation or more.

We have a similar situation with our first black president. [Style note: I do not know which changing term is best to use for the race previously referred to as black. Referring to it as African-American is inaccurate, since not all Africans are of the black race, nor are all blacks from Africa, nor are all people of that race Americans. So, for simplicity, I use the term black, meaning no disrespect or offense.]

He ran as post-racial. Many people succumbed to that. It’s a positive thing to show what so many of us already felt—race doesn’t matter; character and capability matter. Unfortunately, he was voted in because of his race, regardless of lack of character and capability. And, six years in I think it’s safe to say that his is the most racist administration we have had since Woodrow Wilson (who separated blacks serving in the military and encouraged eugenics that have led to a higher percentage of blacks being aborted than any other race—possibly more being aborted than being born).

Almost immediately after his election, he appointed a racist Attorney General, Eric Holder, who refused to prosecute Black Panthers for voter intimidation, because they were black. And it was his policy that anything racist that blacks do is fair, and only non-blacks will be prosecuted for racist (or perceived racist) offenses. See J. Christian Adams’s book Injustice.

The president has tried to construe disagreement with him and his policies as racism—just as Mayor Parker has tried to construe disagreement with her as being homophobic. He uses his tribalism as a power tool against numerous other segments of the people: Constitution respecters, religious people, people who assert their second amendment rights, people who respect the military….

Now that we have had a first black president, what do we know? The agenda of the tribe trumps the character of the candidate. With blacks, this may set things back even further than you might think. We have the additional data that more than 9 out of 10 blacks voted for this man—because of his race. In other words, we have clear evidence that an overwhelming majority of the black “tribe” identify with the tribal connection more than with the American connection. This is where stereotypes come from—a probable truth. Most of the blacks we meet failed to vote in favor of American freedom and constitution, because they had a chance to vote for someone of their color. Most blacks, we can conclude safely from the overwhelming data, are racist. Tribal.

This means racism is a bigger issue than before the Obama elections. I’m expanding this discussion to “tribalism,” because race isn’t the only group with an agenda. Tribalism isn’t a good thing.

Think back to high school. Your school had a cross-town rival. Were all the people in your school better than all the people in the rival school? No. Was your school better than theirs because you had a better football team? Or even because you had more graduates go on to college? There might be some useful measures, but chances are you rooted for your school team out of loyalty. You went there; you belonged. And that’s all that matters.

But in grown-up world, loyalty by happenstance isn’t a good enough reason for supporting a person or policy.

There’s more to cover here, to fully understand our divisions, and possibly to find some way out. So we’ll continue this in part II.

On the Court

During last week’s look at the Best of the Spherical Model (Part I, Part II, and Part III), I left out one piece that is actually among the most re-read: Supreme Court Voting Patterns. My son Political Sphere had collected data to look at the Supreme Court’s voting record up to the point just before the Obamacare vote. It was topical, which is why I didn’t include it last week. But enough has come up about the Court this week that I’m thinking it would be good to update the voting record chart in the near future.

In the meantime, a couple of recent rulings are worth looking at.

Monday, June 16, the Court ruled on an Arizona Voter ID case, about whether a state can require verification of citizenship for voter registration when federal law does not require such verification. The short answer you’re hearing in the news is that the Court favored the federal government’s view, and limiting states. But the more complicated, actual ruling is that on one of five issues (the least relevant), the Court sided with the federal government, but on the other four issues, the Court verified states’ rights—which is a good thing. J.Christian Adams, former DOJ attorney and author of Injustice, has been working with voter integrity issues for a long time. His assessment is an excellent summary.  The Heritage Foundation also covers the ruling.

Back on June 3^rd, the Court ruled on the collection of DNA evidence. Justice Scalia dissented from the majority—along with three of the liberals on the Court. Nevertheless, I think as usual Scalia is right.

Here’s the scenario from the case: a man was taken into custody for assault in Maryland in 2009.  DNA taken during his arrest for the assault became evidence in new charges against him from a 2003 rape, because his DNA matched a rape kit kept from that earlier case. An evildoer is caught; that should be a good thing.

Here’s the problem: the Court ruled that DNA could be taken at the time of arrest, because it is essentially an identifier, like fingerprints. What they could foresee was that, if a prisoner needed to be moved, the DNA would prove that the correct person was being transported. But that isn’t actually how ID-ing a prisoner would work. His fingerprints would indeed be a quick and accurate identifier. Taking a fresh fingerprint and using a fingerprint database would take no more than half an hour. But taking a DNA sample for that purpose would never be done. The sample would need to go to a lab, where it could take, at best, hours (and more likely weeks) to compare to the existing record of that prisoner’s DNA. In the case in question, the DNA wasn’t looked at until four months after arraignment.

And even then it wouldn’t be infallible. DNA results show whether there’s a high likelihood that two DNA samples match. It’s a matter of probabilities, not certainty. We can’t say no two humans have the same DNA. Identical twins occur in about 11 births per thousand, and they share identical genetics. But even identical twins have different fingerprints.

So, for greater expense, longer time, and less accuracy, why use DNA instead of fingerprinting?

The Court seemed to agree that collecting the DNA for the purpose of using it as a fishing expedition to tie the suspect to other crimes was not right. The DNA, when collected for use in the case where the person is a suspect is a reasonable gathering of evidence. But what if the suspect is exonerated of that crime? Should his DNA be kept, and used to compare to other crimes? Is he required to provide evidence against himself for unknown, unsuspected crimes, on the off chance that something might be found someday? The Court halfway said that couldn’t be the reason. But, if you think of the DNA not as evidence, but as just an ID, like a fingerprint, then it was OK. (And then, if it happened to be used in some other way, that wasn’t the Court’s concern.)

If one were to assume a corrupt government (just hypothetically speaking), it would be difficult and improbable for some official to place a political enemy’s fingerprints at a crime scene in order to frame the person. But placing DNA at the scene could be in the form of a hair, a fingernail, a bit of saliva left on a drinking glass. The person kind of has to be there to leave his fingerprints, but he doesn’t necessarily have to be there to have his DNA placed there.

Even without a corrupt government, we do have a fourth amendment protection that is at issue. As Scalia summed it up: "Solving unsolved crimes is a noble objective, but it occupies a lower place in the American pantheon of noble objectives than the protection of our people from suspicionless law-enforcement searches. The Fourth Amendment must prevail." Yes, those amendments—they keep coming up.

Meanwhile, in a slightly related issue, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) has just come out with a book, Why JohnRoberts Was Wrong on Obamacare.  He lays out the case that the Chief Justice changed his opinion midstream concerning Obamacare, coming up with the tortured ruling that it was OK if it was a tax, which it was declared not to be by federal government lawyers on days it was convenient to say that, but declared as a tax—by the same lawyers on other days when that was convenient.

available here

I haven’t read the book yet. From what I’ve seen covered, I think it implies there may have been pressure on Roberts to change his opinion. Most of us who were looking on at the time thought that was the case. There was quite a lot of evidence, just in the way the dissent was written, as if it had been the majority opinion, that he had changed his mind. So the question we all had was why. I think we’d all still like to know: was Justice Roberts coerced? Were there threats to his reputation or his person or his family? Was he more subject than we thought to political pressure or the desire to be liked in Washington? We’d like to know, because his vulnerability to pressure, for whatever reason, coupled with the power to determine binding law, has consequences for all of us.

Even when our justices are wrong, we want their opinions to come from their best understanding of the Constitution, not some tortured effort to reach a pre-desired outcome.

Texas or California

Yes. Yes I do think Governor Walker’s victory Tuesday in Wisconsin is indicative of what will happen nationally in November. It was a statement about what works better: doing what’s right to get people working and keeping more of their own money, instead of mounting debt to pay for union and special interest demands.

This special election doesn’t necessarily show who will win the Wisconsin electoral votes in November, but it might. One thing that it wasn’t was close. That is going to be important, because rigging elections only work when they’re within a couple of percentage points. In Wisconsin, I understand, Madison had an incredible turnout: 119% of registered voters. We shouldn’t worry with Eric Holder’s DOJ sending in an army of poll watchers, though. Oh yeah, except it’s his DOJ that has refused to prosecute voter fraud but claims that voter ID laws are intended to cause voter fraud. (Read Injustice, by J. Christian Adams. I wrote about it October 12th, October 18th, and March 14th. )

Anyway, my reasoning for believing the Walker victory is a predictor is that I believe the ideas of truth win out over the lies that are necessary to convince people to submit to tyranny.

A couple of days ago I read a piece by political analyst Michael Barone, wherein he talks about the migration from high-tax states to low-tax states—which happen to be more economically vibrant places to make a living. With the current downturn in the economy nationally, mobility has nearly subsided. But what happens when (if?) the economy improves? Here’s his summary:

Continued domestic out-migration from high-tax states? Certainly from California, where Gov. Jerry Brown wants to raise taxes even higher. With foreign immigration down, California is likely to grow more slowly than the nation, for the first time in history, and could even start losing population.

Fortunately, governors of some other high-tax states are itching to cut taxes. The shale oil and natural gas boom has job-seekers streaming to hitherto unlikely spots like North Dakota and northeast Ohio. Great Plains cities like Omaha and Des Moines are looking pretty healthy, too.

It's not clear whether Atlanta and its smaller kin--Charlotte, Raleigh, Nashville, Jacksonville—will resume their robust growth. They've suffered high unemployment lately.

But Texas has been doing very well. If you draw a triangle whose points are Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, enclosing Austin, you've just drawn a map of the economic and jobs engine of North America.

Texas prospers not just because of oil and gas, but thanks to a diversified and sophisticated economy. It has attracted large numbers of both immigrants and domestic migrants for a quarter century. One in 12 Americans lives there.

America is getting to look a lot more like Texas, and that's one trend that I hope continues. [Emphasis mine.]

I think we could reasonably use California and Texas as the metaphorical picture for what doesn’t work and what does. The snapshot hasn’t always looked like this. California was at one time vibrant and rather conservative. When that changed, outgrowth began (somewhat balanced up until recently by international immigration); since 1990, Californians have been pouring into other states. We left in 1989, only to find ourselves followed to the northwest by Californians who drove up housing prices and tended to institute some of their cultural oddities in their new home. (This was affectionately called “Californication.”)

Texas, on the other hand, was run endlessly by Democrats up until the early ‘90s. In-migration increased in Texas once air conditioning was invented, but oil and computer technologies have been major draws. Since the state became statewide conservative (except for a few odd pockets like Austin and inner cities), it became a great place for business. We came here in 1998, a few years after the conversion.

What we have before us is evidence that high taxes and strangling regulations give you economic calamities of European proportions. But low taxes (Texas has zero income tax; California is about to raise theirs to 13%), and business-friendly laws lead to relative prosperity. From where I sit, inside this triangle of economic engine, unemployment is too high and opportunities that were here before the recession that started in 2008 have not yet returned. But compared to the nation, our distress is much less—and we are likely to recover as soon as the federal government gets out of the way, because we’ve already gotten out of our own way.

Wisconsin has made significant progress since Governor Walker was elected on a promise to do exactly what he did that so upset the unions that they tried to recall him. This week the people strongly voted to keep moving toward being more like Texas. Good direction.

Follow-ups

Texas Voter ID

Wednesday’s post was concerned with the Texas Voter ID law going up against the DOJ, with the suggestion that the approach should include the unconstitutionality of section 5 of the 1964 Voting Rights Act.

J. Christian Adams followed up later Wednesday with the news that Attorney General Greg Abbott had indeed used this approach, by amending the complaint to aim it directly at the unconstitutionality of the law. Good news.

list provided by Townhall.com

Delegate Count

On March 7^th I commented on the actual result of Super Tuesday compared to the negative media about Mitt Romney—even though he increased his lead. I was amused to see that Rick Santorum has been complaining about Fox News being a shill for Romney, and that the media is all in the Romney camp. You can hear the clip here.

Santorum seems to believe that mentioning the delegate count (fact) while also spending a disproportionately large amount of coverage on Santorum’s wins is “shilling” for Romney. It’s not true, and the interviewer called him on it.

One thing this extended campaign has done: show us more of who the candidates really are. Here is my new assessment: Rick Santorum complains about unfair treatment even when he has been treated disproportionately positively. What is he likely to do against the Chicago machine? Plus, he’s aware that there is no way (barring Romney dropping out, which isn’t going to happen) for him to earn enough delegates to get the nomination—but he is staying in the race based on the fantasy that all those Romney voters were wrong, and their delegates will gladly flee to him during a brokered convention just 2 ½ months before the final election.

Then there is Gingrich. We have learned (if we didn’t know it), that he is vindictive and delusional. He has no path to the nomination; his only reason for remaining in the contest is to do whatever it takes to deny Romney the nomination. (Think about the dirty tricks of Huckabee last time around, but expanded to the entire national convention, instead of just a state caucus or two.) Gingrich continues to put out ads that are clearly false and damagingly negative against Romney—because in Iowa Romney PACs put out accurate but negative ads against Gingrich. Does this man have the best interests of the nation in mind? Or is he using followers and their money for his own misplaced passions?

In case you missed it (because, even though it has been covered, the most reported story has been Santorum’s “big wins,” here are the delegate increases since Super Tuesday (during which Romney won 276, Santorum won 90, Gingrich won 81, and Paul won 21):

·         Romney 80[*]

·         Santorum 70

·         Gingrich 24

·         Paul 4

Gingrich and Santorum both claim that Romney isn’t a strong front runner, because he hasn’t sealed the deal. Yet it was a similar situation four years ago. The difference then was that Romney looked at the odds, and at what was best for the country, and stepped out of the race. Then he worked to get the GOP nominee elected—and as many conservative candidates around the country as he could help. It would be better for our country if Santorum and Gingrich were more interested in making sure Obama is defeated than following their personal dreams. 

One More Thing

Santorum has portrayed himself as the social conservative. While Romney has portrayed himself as the fiscal conservative—and economic turnaround expert—it might turn out to be a pleasant surprise to those Santorum devotees once they come to learn about the real Romney. There was an opinion piece in the Deseret News (the more conservative of the two newspapers in Salt Lake City), identifying Romney as much more conservative on all fronts than his opponents and the media have portrayed him. If you want to read something positive today, read this one.

 

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[*] This list comes from the Romney campaign and coincides with Real Clear Politics. There are discrepancies in counts from one news source to another, because each state has its own formula for allotting delegates. One difference is accounted for because Wyoming was separated into two days (primary and caucus, one before Super Tuesday, and one after—both of which Romney won), plus the assignment of unpledged RNC delegates, which went up another 9 for Romney this week.

Texas Voter ID

In last year’s legislative session, Texas passed a law similar to laws in other states requiring a photo ID for voting, in an attempt to reduce voter fraud. I havewritten about some of the voter fraud that has actually happened, that could have been prevented with a photo ID. I am strongly in favor of free and fair elections and have worked toward that end, volunteering as a poll watcher several times.

Texas is, unfortunately, subject to the 1964 Voting Rights Act. Texas is required to get federal approval for any changes in voting law and redistricting. I was not a Texan then, but the purpose was to prevent certain southern states from being able to prevent legal voting because of racism. That was 48 years ago. It may be that there were incidents of racist voter prevention back then; the state was solidly Democrat at that time. But now, while certain little pockets of racism still exist (among rural, older, less educated citizens), racism is simply not tolerated publicly or privately anywhere I associate. So, in essence, I believe such an act is outdated, unnecessary, and illegally discriminatory against Texas and the other sovereign states listed in the Act.

Today, subjecting all voting law changes and redistricting to federal review means subjecting ourselves to the racist discrimination of Eric Holder’s (and Obama’s) Department of Justice. It’s no surprise that they would be against Voter ID; they were the ones who refused to prosecute the New Black Panthers for several incidents of voter intimidation and violence since 2008. Their logic? Blacks can’t be considered racist, so anything they do is legal. (Read J. Christian Adams’ book Injustice.)

The claim about the Texas Voter ID is that legally registered Hispanic voters are unduly burdened, because they are less likely to have a photo ID, particularly in rural areas.

I’m suspicious of that assessment. In order to live in a rural area, driving just to a grocery store is a significant distance. Legal voters, we are to believe, live in the middle of nowhere, with no access to public or private transportation, and have no need to cash a check, get a library card, use a credit card, or fly on a plane—ever. And we are to believe this creates such a huge burden for such large numbers of Hispanics that even offering free state photo IDs cannot and will not solve the issue.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has already filed a lawsuit to fight the ruling, so that it goes up to a higher level court. I admire Mr. Abbott and generally see him as fighting strongly for Texas interests. I hope he is doing that in this case. However, yesterday, Christian Adams made suggestions for an approach to the fight the DOJ. He says the point of attack should be the constitutionality of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Adams believes that both that section of the law and the way it is applied is unconstitutional. He believes Texas didn’t go far enough in stressing that point when coming up against the redistricting question, and can only show it’s seriousness on the Voter ID law by attacking on the unconstitutionality of the law.

The use of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to block Texas voter ID is, in fact, unconstitutional. The Voting Section used statistical exaggerations and misapplication of the law to justify the objection. Why wouldn’t Texas challenge the constitutionality of the action against Texas?

Adams also points out that other states (Florida and Arizona) have used the unconstitutionality argument in their defense, and the DOJ has essentially folded. So there is no danger of political repercussions based on fear of the DOJ. Adams adds,

Had Texas filed a lawsuit in April 2011 to have voter ID approved, and challenged the constitutionality of Section 5 in the complaint, voter ID would now be in place in Texas. Instead, it is unlikely to be effective even by November 2012—unless Texas challenges the constitutionality of Section 5. Then approval will come faster.

This is one of those times when Texas needs to remember that we are the only state in the US that was once a sovereign nation; we joined the United States on the promise that the Constitution would protect our freedoms. Texas needs to stand firm—now and always.