Shannon Love

Sending the New York Times back to School

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Anyone else notice that the New York Times can’t even get basic Constitutional law correct?

Like any constitutional amendment, it faces enormous hurdles: it must be approved by both chambers of Congress — requiring them to agree, in this case, to check their own power — and then by three-quarters of, or 38, state legislatures.

Nope, an amendment requires approval by both chambers of Congress OR three-quarters of the states. The framers would have never allowed Congress to be the sole gatekeeper for amending the Constitution.

Nope, proposing an amendment requires approval by both chambers of Congress OR three-quarters of the states. Ratification requires approval by 3/4 of the states alone. The framers would have never allowed Congress to be the sole gatekeeper for amending the Constitution.

Oh, and check out the other professor of Constitutional law:

Sanford V. Levinson, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Texas, called the proposal “a really terrible idea” because it would give the same weight to small states as it would to large ones, allowing those with a relatively small proportion of the national population to have outsize influence.

You mean like the way we elect Senators and the President? Oh, the horror!

Of course, the article has all the bias and slanted innuendo one expects from the New York Times, but you’d think they could get the basic facts correct when they’re mocking others for their supposed Constitutional illiteracy.

Contemporary Leftism Nailed

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AndrewX, commenting on this Ed Driscoll post [h/t Instapundit] about the runaway emotional rage of the left, characterizes the contemporary left as:

Hawkeye Pierce became Frank Burns, and the stick up his hindquarters seems even bigger then it was back in the day.

That just nails it. Today’s left are have all of Frank Burns’s attributes: they are arrogant moral scolds and hypocrites of the highest order.

Just remember, lefties: political and cultural suicide is painless.

Hoisted By Their Own Petard

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A petard was an early gunpowder weapon, usually an iron cooking pot filled with black power, that was manually placed against a wall or gate in order to blow a hole in the obstacle. Today, we would call it a breaching charge.

Given the inconstancies of pre-industrial gunpowder and fuses, placing and lighting a petard was a risky business for the combat engineers of the era. Many times, they found themselves “hoisted” into the air and eternity by a prematurely detonating petard. That is why the phrase, “Hoisted by one’s own petard,” entered the language to mean being undone by one’s own weapon or actions.

This is why I find it incredibly funny that the current leftwing hero du jour has been arrested for violating a ridiculously broad definition of rape that rabidly misandrogynistic leftists foisted upon Sweden.

I mean it is seriously funny. I don’t even think there is an Internet acronym to express how karmically hilarious I find this situation.

Why can’t leftists understand that the violence-based power of the state is a blunt and dangerous instrument? Leftists always seek to invest power in the state in order to dominate and control their self-perceived cultural, social and political competitors. Why do they never learn that eventually that power will be turned against leftists themselves?

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Tagging for Freedom

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This little Israeli prank in Iran reminded me of a conversation I had with my son about North Korea.

After the recent artillery attack against South Korea, my son asked why we just didn’t hammer them in response. I explained that (1) the North Koreans had most of Seoul under heavy artillery threat and (2) they were absolutely insane. A serious military attack might cause a wildly disproportionate retaliation that could cause the deaths of thousands of South Koreans.

I told him that I was always myself in favor of psyops. These types of regimes persist because they create a mythology of omniscience and omnipotence within their own population. Undermining that mythology can cause the state to collapse.

The North Koreans have this giant statue of the glorious leader in downtown Pyongyang. I’ve always thought that shooting a cruise missile right into the crotch of the statue would undermining the mythology and send a pointed message. However, even that might provoke a violent response. Moreover, the North Koreans quite clearly use external threats to justify their oppressive state to their own population. Attacking them violently might reinforce, instead of undermine, the mythology.

My son thought a moment and came up with a better idea: tagging, i.e., graffiti.

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A Gadsden Flag for Our Times

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Gadsden Flag, Don't Touch My Junk Version
Gadsden Flag, Don't Touch My Junk Version

Copyright © 2010 by Shannon Love and hereby placed in the public domain.

Inspired by this Charles Krauthammer essay [h/t Instapundit]:

Not quite the 18th-century elegance of “Don’t Tread on Me,” but the age of Twitter has a different cadence from the age of the musket. What the modern battle cry lacks in archaic charm, it makes up for in full-body syllabic punch.
 
Don’t touch my junk is the anthem of the modern man, the Tea Party patriot, the late-life libertarian, the midterm election voter.

Political correctness has never been about helping the downtrodden. It has been about turning people’s compassion and courtesy into a weapon against them. Political correctness has always been the bully’s cudgel. At long last, it has been pushed to its breaking point of absurdity.

As an aside, it is interesting what comes up when you google “Don’t Tread On Me”. I thought about using that one but “don’t touch my junk” wouldn’t have felt very sincere in that case.