Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “Winners, Winners, Who's Got the Winners?”

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May 28, 2007

Winners, Winners, Who's Got the Winners?

Hatched by Dafydd

We have the winners; unfortunately, the winners haven't we!

Council crackers

Israel Faces Its Choices In Gaza, by Joshuapundit;

This was my first choice, and I think it's a super post. It's succinct, simple, and straightforward... all the qualities I like in a blogpost -- all the qualities I lack in my own Miskatonic experiments in chaotic conjugations and eldrich editing.

Joshuapundit lays out the current situation in Israel, then maps out a strategy they can follow to victory. No weeping or gnashing of teeth, no Dr. Smith-esque "we're doomed, doomed!" Problem; analysis; solution -- or at least a good strategy. Great stuff.

My second choice was Hello, Hillarycare!, by Cheat Seeking Missiles; again, a straight-ahead confrontation with socialized medicine and its victims.

Beyond the pale

On Dehumanizing the Enemy In War and the Nature of Victory, by TigerHawk

TigerHawk notes that in all wars prior to Vietnam, we "dehumanized" our enemies... and thereby overcame our natural empathy and were able to fight with joyous abandon. But 35 years ago, we lost the ability to dismiss the humanity of our enemies; we treat them as fellow people, and that means we can no longer kill with impunity. Like the aptly named "Zed" at the end of Zardoz, we can no longer kill because we see the enemy as one of us.

I got skunked among the non-council nominees: My second choice came in third, and my first choice (and nominee)... well, judging from the scores, I reckon I was the only one to vote for it!

I voted this way:

Strange New Respect, Judicial Branch, by John Hinderaker at Power Line.

In the Shadow of the Wolfowitz Wars -- the Melkert & Malloch Brown Dollars-for-Despots Program, by Claudia Rosett.

In the first, John discusses the abrupt, new respect liberals have for "stare decisis," the Court's reluctance to re-evaluate issues that are already decided... now that Roe v. Wade teeters on the brink of oblivion:

Given her own history, Sandra O'Connor's pontificating on the virtue of stare decisis is an act of judicial chutzpah. She herself has shown no respect for the doctrine when it served her purposes. The best example is Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 decision in which the Supreme Court held Texas's law prohibiting homosexual sodomy unconstitutional, on a 5-4 vote. What's remarkable about Lawrence is that only 17 years earlier, in 1986, the Court had held in Bowers v. Hardwick that a ban on homosexual sodomy did not violate the Constitution. Showing no respect for stare decisis, the court in Lawrence simply overruled Bowers.

Here is what is even more remarkable: the difference in the outcomes of the two cases resulted from the fact that Justice O'Connor changed her mind! She voted with the 5-4 majority in Bowers that a ban on homosexual sodomy was constitutional. By 2003, she had reversed position, and her vote flipped the majority the other way. Homosexual sodomy became a constitutional right, for the first time in American history.

When liberals talk about stare decisis, they mean that Roe v. Wade is sacrosanct. But not Bowers, and not Stanford v. Kentucky, a 1989 decision in which the Court held that juveniles could constitutionally be subjected to the death penalry -- a decision that the Court reversed in 2005 in Roper v. Simmons.

In the second blogpost, Ms. Rosett discloses that the two chief antagonists of Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank may have something rather, er, monetary in nature to hide, if you know what I mean (and I think that you do).

As always, ad infinitum, and by the 'tarnal, the full list of vote getters (or goat vetters) is here.

Oh, one last point, ladies and gentiles: Due to Eternity Road terminating -- or at least terminating its association with the omnipotent, omniscient Council -- a slot has actually opened up on the supreme Council of Watchers of Weevils. This is a rare occasion; the last slot was more than several weeks ago.

This is your opportunity to shine. Or to be laughed out of the office. Just read everything at this webpage, and then contact the Watcher Himself to submit your website for his perusal.

You'll either be glad you did, or you'll make a complete ass of yourself. And who could ask for better odds than those?

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 28, 2007, at the time of 4:37 AM

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Tracked on June 3, 2007 10:22 PM

Comments

The following hissed in response by: Paul

In re: John Hinderaker's post

First of all, the Lawrence Court divided 6-3, not 5-4 [539 U.S. 558 (2003)]. So pace Hinderaker, Justice O'Connor's vote did not determine the outcome.

Second, and more importantly, Justice O'Connor did not favor the overruling of Bowers, as Hinderaker asserts:

The Court today overrules Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U. S. 186 (1986). I joined Bowers, and do not join the Court in overruling it. [O'Connor, concurring in judgment; emphasis added.]

Unlike the statute at issue in Bowers, the statute at issue in Lawrence applied to homosexual sodomy only. This, in Justice O'Connor's view, was violative of the Equal Protection Clause. Had Texas attached to heterosexual sodomy the same criminal penalty it attached to homosexual sodomy, she would have affirmed John Lawrence's conviction.

You may disagree with Justice O'Connor's analysis. I myself was never a fan of her jurisprudence generally. But John Hinderaker misstates the record.

The above hissed in response by: Paul at May 28, 2007 7:18 PM