Andrew McCarthy Embarrasses National Review

BHO's mother Stannie Dunham was born in Kansas and later moved to Hawaii with her parents. She started college there at age 17 and became sexually active with the first & only biracial (part-Arab/part-black)student who was a Kenyan-Brit named Obama. After first semester she was quite pregnant & the two were married even though another wife was waiting in Africa. That summer the newlyweds took a trip to Kenya when Stannie was over 7mos. along. Although Grandma Obama claimed to have been present at BHO's birth in Kenya the accepted account is that Stannie was somehow able to return to Honolulu in a DC3 propjob by August 4, 1961 & gave birth to Junior(reportedly at one of 2 hospitals). Senior returned to college there & Stannie, who still wasn't a legal adult, went off to the state of Washington w/o Junior for the Fall semester. An image of a Hawaiian COLB for BHO is available online which claims there at least once was an original Birth Certificate on file there and that BC was almost certainly from Hawaii(a state notorious for handing out BCs to those born elsewhere). Wasn't too long before the Obamas split-up. In a further attempt to make her parents proud young Stannie went off to Indonesia w/Junior, renounced her US citizenship & married another moslem named Lolo Soetoro. Alledgedly Soetoro adopted young Barry so he could attend school as an Indonesian-Moslem and learn to write his new name in Arabic. About five years later ten-year-old Barry was sent to visit the Dunhams but they raised him to adulthood while Stannie had little sis Maya and proceeded to divorce Soetoro. This explains how Obama, as Indonesian Barry Soetoro, was able to get a passport to Pakistan in 1981 and apply to Occidental College as a 'foreign student'. Many cases have been brought against BHO challenging his eligibilty to even run for president. The Supreme Court has refused to hear them for various reasons. Why hasn't Obama/Soetoro counter-sued for libel? Probably because then he would have to produce the documents and records in question with whatever info it is he doesn't want made public.

@RedGraham:

Everything in your post -- AND I DO MEAN EVERYTHING -- is false. You are either stupid or purposely mendacious.

Two key points are especially egregious: Obama's mother NEVER traveled to Kenya (easily verifiable); and travel to Pakistan was NOT restricted by either the U.S. or Pakistani governments in 1981. There was a "travel advisory," warning of unrest in Pakistan, which are common statements from the State Department for travelers. But there was NO ban on travel to Pakistan (this is also easily verifiable).

The reason the Supreme Court has refused to hear any of these silly lawsuits is because THEY HAVE NO MERIT. How many times do you birthers need to be told that before it will sink in?

Obama is not going to sue the birthers for libel because a) famous figures are frequently attacked and rarely sue, because a lawsuit only propagates the slander and b) HE HAS OTHER THINGS TO DO AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES THAN ANSWER TO PARANOID RUMORS.

the full state records would probably show Obama was adopted by the Indonesian Muslim Lolo Soetoro and became formally known as “Barry Soetoro.”

"...probably show...?"

Your full records would "probably show" that you've been in and out of mental health care your entire life. See how that works? You can attach "probably show" to any damn statement, but it doesn't make it either true, accurate, or apropos.

Again, EVERYTHING in your original post is false, and there is nothing in these birther lawsuits that merits any kind of serious consideration in the courts.

Would someone tell me what a true conservative is? I mean, what do they stand for? What do they advocate? What do they contribute to the overall good of society in a holistic sense? Do they all live in the South and have impaired reasoning when it comes to the complex social issues of our day? Or do they actually have a reasonable platform from which they assuage the concerns of all who will listen to them? Who are the "American People" as they define them? It seems that they are more concerned with their own narrow interests than the collective interests of this society that also includes them. Isn't that what the Articles of the Constitution clearly delineate? I thought tyranny was the reason why the United States was born in the first place. It seems that some of us in high places has redefined the definition of society to leave everyone not in line with the "conservative" view out.

I tend to view the "true conservative" as a neophobe, someone whose chief motivation is fear of the new.

Not a helluva lot else. They fear - and therefore hate - whatever enters their fields of perception as novel, unsought, alien, unanticipated, potentially hostile, potentially threatening.

To the American conservative, "the American People" are English-speaking, work for a living (even if they have independent means - if they're "rich" or just "well-off" - they still work at something useful; no screwing around), heterosexual (or "closeted" enough to keep it completely out of other conservatives' fields of perception), neatly (but not obsessively) groomed, Christian though not necessarily "churched" (Jews are now tolerated - barely - especially since the Israelis proved that one can be Jewish and still crack track, pound ground, and kick Sand Nazi ass), European in familial derivation (some minimal credit for Amerindian descent, but not much), with good credit ratings (they pay their bills on time), not particularly "intellectual," fiercely patriotic, aware of their own prejudices and not really afraid of expressing them ("PC" be damned), trusting (and therefore easily and reliably form "random associations in good times and bad to work in concert with their fellow "American People"), resilient, self-actuated, and hate being bossed around.

Thus "the American People" (according to conservatives as well as to anyone who is not a "Liberal"/ socialist/ "transnational progressive"/ tofu-eater/ "grasshopper" (as opposed to "ant")/ bureaucrat/ PETA member/ tax consumer) are the productive population in American society.

This includes children who look to grow up and become productive, decent, trustworthy adults and old folks who had spent their productive years as decent, trustworthy persons and continue decent and trustworthy into the years of their infirmity.

To the conservative, nobody else really counts. Except as enemies.

If you credit Myers-Briggs temperament typing, they make up about 37.5% of any given population. Their politics mirror their prejudices and predispositions.

What are they good for?

Well, without 'em, society breaks down. America is basically a conservative country, just like most other nation-states. The difference between America and most other nations in the world (with notable exceptions like Canada and the cluster of countries in the British Isles, the Swiss Confederacy and Iceland) is that "random associations" bit. The culture of trust is exceptional.

It's not "democracy" (which is only mob rule writ into statute law) or even the representative republic scheme of civil government, but the unstructured, unforced, almost spontaneous - but very purposeful - tendency of Americans to associate with each other to purposeful effect.

Ever watch real Americans - not "Liberals" or other tofu-eaters, but the rest of us - respond to an accident or even a real disaster? Contrast the people responding to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans (a city of "grasshoppers" with a "grasshopper" government at both city and state levels) and along the Mississippi Gulf coast (which actually got hit harder by that storm, with storm surges cresting higher than those of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in some places).

The folks on the Mississippi coast responded like Americans. "Ants." The ones in New Orleans?

New Orleans: "Why ain't the gub'bmint he'pin' us?"

Whole counties in Mississippi: "We got dead bodies to get down off the roof of the Wal-Mart. Get out of the way."

Grasshoppers and ants.

Now, I'm not a conservative. I'm what you might call a neophile, a futurist, the merry embracer of new thoughts and technologies and techniques. I'm not particularly interested in doing a Buckley, yelling "Stop!" just because what's coming tomorrow isn't going to be precisely what we had yesterday.

But because I also understand human nature - the "killer ape" part as well as the trusting, "random association" forming, "American People" population who are about the best our species has ever produced, bar none - I hate the living hell out of government-sucking statists, and that includes thieving, enslaving, mass-murdering socialists.

Anent "the Articles of the Constitution," son, if you look a little more closely, they don't "clearly delineate" any goddam thing except a charter of federal government. They don't say one damned thing about "the American People." They prescribe certain duties and proscribe certain actions (including, in the Bill of Rights, certain specific egregious violations of the individual rights of "the American People").

Those "Articles of the Constitution" are marked "Attention: Officer of Civil Government," and do not bind in any way the lives, liberties, or property of "the American People."

The Constitution is not a suicide pact. It's a death sentence - for any politician or bureaucrat who steps out of line.

See the Second Amendment.

And if you want to redefine "society" to mean something neither the conservatives nor us libertarians will stand for, consider - hey, ain't that funny? - most of the millions and millions of firearms in this country (and the know-how to use them) are in the hands of conservatives and their likely co-belligerents.

That includes just about all of the military, if you're thinking on trying to leverage government's "goons with guns" to your grasshopper purposes.

You like the Constitution? Think "checks and balances."

You might have the government - for now. Your prey will always have the firepower.

And they'll get the government back, whether you like it or not.

When they do, the precedents your political tools are establishing right now will be used against you.

Just a warning. Remember, I'm not a conservative.

I just know 'em a helluva lot better than you do.

Well, it's getting out in the drive-by media now.

From David Hahn, "Publisher StatePaper.com " August 5, 2009.

Publisher: Obama Should Produce Original Birth Certificate

At StatePaper.com, we know by making this statement we will be instantly tagged as "racist," "birther," or other pejorative terms by those who defend the President of the United States. We often defend the President and the job he is doing and are regularly lambasted for being "too liberal" or an "Obama lover" by some of our most prolific critics.

But, here is the issue:

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of our country. Article II of the Constitution requires the President to be a natural born citizen. Without reciting them here, there appears to be some serious questions raised about whether President Obama was born in the United States or Kenya. We have not checked sources, but there are reports that some witnessed his birth in Kenya.

The President's campaign staff and then his administration have released and placed on the internet a "Certificate of Live Birth." We do not dispute the validity or correctness of that document as others have tried to do, suggesting the use of computers to alter seals and names. By releasing this document the President agrees that the claims about his status as a natural born citizen is an open, important, public issue.

But, this "Certificate of Live Birth" is simply not the best evidence that the President and his administration could offer to lay to rest any doubt about his status as a natural born citizen.

Barack Obama is a lawyer and a graduate of Harvard Law School. All law students study the body of law we call "Evidence." One of the core tenets of American law is the "best evidence rule" which requires the production of original, or certified copies, of original document to prove a fact. Abstracts and summaries are not original documents.

The President has offered an abstract (Certificate) of his birth, but not an original birth certificate which would be the best evidence of his birth. We need the best evidence so that it can do what the best evidence is meant to do; dispel the doubts about a fact. We need to see the Birth Certificate. That's the one that is often handwritten and signed by the doctor.

Lawyers and legal thinkers will, obviously, argue the finer points of the "Best Evidence Rule" and its applicability to this matter. But, that misses the point. The notion of "Best Evidence" is solidly-grounded in law. This is an important public matter and it seems now that the President has started down the path of offering some evidence (Certificate of Live Birth), he should offer the "best evidence" (Original Birth Certificate) which is the source document for his birth. The document behind the document which has been released. This is what is needed now in the court of public knowledge.

The fact in question here is the constitutional qualification of the President of the United States to hold office. With a simple nod, the President could offer the American people the best evidence, the source document(s), as he learned about at Harvard, and dispel those who question his birth as a natural born citizen. His failure to provide this best evidence, when it could be so easily done, raises only more questions, which fuels an ugly public debate.

Looks as if McCarthy is not only not alone in the public demand for Barry's bona fides but gaining company among his colleagues.

You can post this nonsense on as many threads as you like.

It won't make the Best Evidence Rule applicable to evidence that is legally unavailable, as original birth certificates in Hawai'i are.

Sigh. What do you expect when you wave around a college newspaper blogger's notion of a legal concept?

"Lawyers and legal thinkers will, obviously, argue the finer points of the "Best Evidence Rule" and its applicability to this matter."

Finer points? Try fundamental points.

Birthers. They disregard official sources when the sources don't agree with their paranoia. But they unblinkingly accept ANY crackpot whose writing accords with their lunacy.

I’m grateful to Tuci78 for continuing to prove my point (see below in this thread) that he’s wearing ideological blinders, and for distilling his argument to its essence. When I point out that he suffers from either-or thinking, he gladly affirms this, thereby proving his faulty logic. Since I am not going to convince Tuci of anything, I’m going to write for anyone who may be undecided on this discussion.

To recap, Tuci overuses the word “socialism.” This is a common problem in American discourse. It’s rhetorical trickery to call something socialism when it isn’t—a bait-and-switch that’s supposed to invoke fear. When someone calls something “socialist,” you’re supposed to think of the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union or other communist states of the last century, and you’re supposed to think of tyranny. But an honest debater will use clearly defined terms and not equivocate. Equivocating is “the misleading use of a term with more than one meaning or sense.” In this case, “socialism” is used in the broadest sense possible, but its use is meant to evoke fears of the tyranny that arose as a result of Marxist revolutionaries taking control of the means of production and distribution in the last century. The traditional meaning of the word is indeed limited to government or collective ownership of the means of production and distribution, as per any number of dictionaries.

Tuci, however, wants to expand the use of the word to mean anything less than a completely free market. In his words, any limitation of economic activity, outside of regulations designed to deter the “violation of market participants' rights through force or fraud” amounts to directing “the government's "goons with guns" to compel actions” which a someone else deems favorable, and this person is by definition a socialist. Tuci here is saying that any limitation of economic activity which goes outside the limits specified is socialism, and that it is tyrannical.

When I pressed Tuci on the extreme, either/or, black-or-white illogic to this view, he agreed with me:

Me, characterizing Tuci: "And there is absolutely no room for the existence of the sincerely progressive politician or for the right of a sovereign people to have any say in how its economics are run."

Tuci: “Precisely. NO RIGHT, and therefore ‘no room.’”

Me, characterizing Tuci: "ALL progressive politicians are corrupt liars, only seeking to fool the electorate and gain more power for themselves, and ALL actions by the citizens of a nation limiting economic activity beyond your strict limits are socialistic tyranny."

Tuci: “Thank you.”

So Tuci agrees that he sees the issue of free markets vs. socialist tyranny as being one or the other.

This is fallacious thinking, per Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dillema): “The informal fallacy of false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, the either-or fallacy) involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there are other options. Closely related are failing to consider a range of options and the tendency to think in extremes, called black-and-white thinking. Strictly speaking, the prefix "di" in "dilemma" means "two". When a list of more than two choices is offered, but there are other choices not mentioned, then the fallacy is called the fallacy of false choice, or the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses.”

So, Tuci's thinking is wrong.

This all began when I accused Tuci of being trapped in an ideological understanding of the world. More precisely, his model of how the world works is flawed, because his reasoning is flawed, as outlined above. Since this worldview allows for no gray areas or possibilities outside what it predicts, it can’t be correct. If Tuci said, “This is my model of how the world works, and it’s basically true. There are, of course, exceptions,” then that would be one thing. But Tuci has so much faith in his model as to make it a religion or a scientific theory, practically speaking. Put another way, if Tuci’s model were a scientific theory (and Tuci apparently thinks it’s really that strong), it would have to predict correctly all events it purports to predict. If it didn’t, it would be wrong and have to be modified or discarded.

Depending on your politics and life experience, you may or may not agree with Tuci’s model. In my opinion, it’s pretty easy to find exceptions to his model—sincere progressive politicians, government employees who work hard and benefit the public, reasonable regulations that help everyone while not “tyrannizing” anyone, and progressive taxation are just a few examples.

Tuci’s model also has significant parallels with socialism itself, or more precisely, Marxism. Consider that his model and Marxism have the following in common:
-both are intellectual constructs, relying on Enlightenment-era faith in the capacity of man’s reason to understand the world
-both are utopian—Marx believing in a socialist paradise, Tuci apparently believing that only if government got out of the way, things would be a laissez-faire paradise
-both programs, if carried to their logical conclusion, don’t work out as intended
-both are based on a flawed understanding of human nature. Tuci’s understanding of human nature is strictly individualistic, and this is the basis of his entire understanding:

“the ‘basic unit of society’ is not the family - as socialist-inspired government indoctrination systems textbook have sold for generations - but the individual.

Therefore the rights of the individual - not the rights of the family, the rights of society, the rights of the community, the rights of the nation, none of which can properly be said to have "rights" at all, except as each individual participating therein has rights of his own - the rights of the individual is the moral foundation upon which all social order is predicated, and which the agents of government (if government can be said to have any legitimate purpose whatsoever) must work exclusively and diligently to defend.

No individual rights, no society. No protection of individual rights, no legitimacy for any government.

I certainly and strongly agree with the last sentence, as do almost all Americans, regardless of what Tuci thinks. I also believe that all governments which don’t rely on this insight have been failures. In my younger years, I signed up to fight and perhaps die for these values. However, it’s one thing to say that the basic unit of society is the individual, and another thing to then reduce the importance of groups or communities to next to nothing.

The reason that this is a flawed understanding of human nature is that humans are not isolated individuals. They exist in context, whether that context is family or community or nation, or all of the above. This is the experience of ages of human experience, of human religion, and even today of neuroscience, and only came to be questioned during the Enlightenment.

Consider the logical outcome if Tuci’s free market zealotry were put into practice. No longer is it possible to regulate economic activity in any way. Government shrinks to the strictly limited roles Tuci thinks it should be limited to. Do things stay that way? Or do parties with access—the rich and the powerful—start influencing the government to expand those powers in ways that benefit them? And then, now that government power is limited, except for being able to favor powerful, monied interests, who gets screwed?

Consider also the practical effect that Tuci’s politics, deriving from political economists like Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises, have on today’s American politics. I don’t know how Tuci votes, but in general, people of his political persuasion tend to vote Republican. They want “freedom” and “liberty,” but they tend to think of these narrowly, in mostly economic terms, so they go to the party which tends to favor less restrictions on business activity. However, in so doing, they are also supporting the party which likes to limit personal freedoms—the party which wants to be in your bedroom, your e-mail and phone conversations, above all your conscience, which wants to spend your money on illegitimate wars and torture people in your name, the party of social conformity which looks askance at people who don’t look like they do. I’m speaking broadly, but in general this is a good characterization of the Republican party.

But that’s what this libertarian nonsense brings us. I really do appreciate, and listen to, the libertarians when they remind me of the dangers of collectivist economics. But when they scream “socialist tyranny” all the time about things that aren’t socialism, and scare people into running the Republican party of limited personal freedoms, it’s a big net loss. I mean, who really thinks the rights of big corporations are more important than those of individual human beings? Isn’t that backwards? The Republican party’s motto should be: “Regulate people, not the economy.”

This will be my last post in this thread (you’re welcome!) because I have a family who needs me to start spending time with them again. Expect Tuci78’s response to do one or more of the following:
-Try to hurt my feelings by using naughty words
-Show how smart and well-read he is
-Walk a fine line between cheeky “tweaking of my nose” and suppressed anger

Enjoy!

That to which little Jimmy seems to object is that I have an "ideology" of which I am consciously aware, that I have examined the - let's call it "metaphysical" and "epistemological" and "political" - roots upon which that ideology is predicated and from which it is elaborated, that I have tested the validity of that ideology against the best possible appreciation of history I can manage, and that it stands up not only on the basis of internal consistency but also in comparison against other political ideologies (emphatically including whatever muddle Jimmy calls his own) robustly and effectively.

Pretty much the same way one chooses among various diagnostic and therapeutic modalities in establishing "best practices" in standards of medical care.

Okay. So on to this asshole's accusations of a "bait-and-switch" on my part with regard to socialism, which is (as Jimmy obviously appreciates) a kind of "dirty word" in current American political and economic discourse. Just like "Liberal" and "progressive" and "fascist" and "Tranzi," all of which have drifted into pejorative meaning because they've been used as weasel-words to "bait-and-switch" Americans into accepting socialism, and socialism is ab ovo and without doubt an utterly hateful and literally inhuman (like I said, fine for hive-dwelling insects, not so good for us Killer Apes) system of political economics.

When one finds metastatic (i.e., cancerous) changes on microscopic examination of tissue biopsy materials, one does not say "this isn't malignant in character" if all that one finds are changes which are merely "premalignant" or simply strongly suspicious of cancer developing in that sampled tissue. Either the tissue on the slide is normal in character or it is "off." Screwed up. Abnormal. Suspicious - or even M.D. Anderson dead-goddam-certain "this has got to come out or the patient kacks!" cancer.

As with cancer, so with socialism. Total socialism - the socialists' wet dream of total government ownership of all means of production, distribution, and (what the hell) consumption - is the hospice case version of civil government. The patient helpless, prostrate, glassy-eyed, begging for pain medication, dying in agony.

The mixed economy - what the Fabian Society socialists of the late 19th Century proposed, and the tool of people like John Maynard Keynes - is more like that same patient a year or two before, with a big, ulcerating melanoma square between his shoulder blades, bothered by it only because it was sticking to his undershirt sometimes, and making him reluctant to go swimming with the kids anymore because he didn't like the funny looks people kept giving him.

Dying even then, though he didn't want to know anything about it.

Socialism. Cancer. The one an affliction of the body politic, the other an affliction of the body physical.

As for "the basis of [my] entire understanding" of human nature as "strictly individualistic," without reference to "Robinson Crusoe economics" (in which we posit a man raised in the comforts of society stranded upon a desert island, who does not immediately roll over on his back, put his arms and legs to the sky, cockroach fashion, and die) let us look instead at how people think.

Right now, dear reader, most of you (I'm not talking about the schizophrenics like little stevie; let's assume a basic level of mental functionality) are "listening" to the phonemes expressed by these word symbols in the privacy of your own minds. Nobody is thinking for you. You're doing it all yourself, independent of other folks' supervision or guidance or control. You've got your own internal mental "software" - no matter how you'd obtained it, even if it had been forced upon you by sexually frustrated nuns with long yardsticks and a heavy hand in your earliest and most vulnerable days of schooling. You control the sound in your temporal lobes and the pictures in your occipital cortex. You can choose to pull up a game of Free Cell and ignore what's on your browser right now. You can tell Jimmy here to go shove his line of socialist apologetics up his dogwhistle asshole.

Got all that? You are not part of some sort of "hive mind" out of the SF stories. You're an individual human being, and the essence of your life is what goes on between your own parietal knobs, in that grey goo you use for thinking. And you survive and thrive (if you do at all) not on the basis of instincts but your ability to consciously use whatever reasoning capacity you've developed for yourself.

"Reason, the only oracle of Man," to quote one of the Founders.

Reasoning being something that humans really only do as individuals (remember that bullshit artist LBJ quoting the Bible's "Let us reason together" line back in the '60s? well, he was selling you a line of crap with that, too), and we really only function as individuals even when we're cooperating with each other at peak efficiency, what Jimmy's trying to evade is the fact that it's only as individuals that we can have codes of moral conduct and therefore systems of societal organization and government services that work for us.

This getting wearisome? Don't blame you. It's a lot to absorb.

Let me leave off for the moment, then.

But I will tell you how I vote.

I vote to do the least violence to my neighbors possible. Always.

Jimmy doesn't do that, obviously.

So who do you want for a neighbor? Jimmy, who will do his altruistic best to ram "utopia" down your throat even if his "utopia" is your "hell on earth"?

Or me, the guy who wants to see you living in peace and freedom?

Jesus, is that a real question? If you moved into California our property values would tumble a further 20%.

Jim would be an ideal neighbor. A bit too patient with you for my liking, but still a good man.

Well, stevie, your "property values" are artificially and unsupportably inflated to begin with, aren't they? The market value for any property - real or otherwise - and any service is what purchasers in that market are willing to part with in exchange.

Lower "property values" on your real estate in California would be of immense benefit to people looking for places to live and conduct business rather than as "tulip bulb mania" so-called "investment" items.

I'm absolutely sure you're an "ex-English major," stevie. Utterly bereft of any grounding in economics, right?

Your "property values" represent a malinvestment, little lawyer. Malinvestments must be liquidated.

So you and your ilk are "under water" on your residential housing mortgages?

So let Say's Law (look it up, stevie) operate. You really can't stop it anyway.

Ok, I lied. One more post because I forgot something.

There are advantages to Tuci's libertarian politics:

1) You get to feel superior to everyone else because you're smarter than them, more principled, and "in the know."
2) You get to be unhappy all the time because what you want will never come to pass.

This is almost exactly the same thing as your other post, but in 2,000 fewer words.

Both were well worth the time spent reading them.

You nailed him with the second advantage, in my opinion. The first doesn't perfectly apply, because I don't think Tuci himself believes he is "more principled."

In the course of defending the birther positions, he has repeatedly cited us to westernjournalism.com while in the same post denouncing factcheck.org as "j-school jerkwads" from Annenberg.

Presumably, westernjournalism.com does not employ journalists, most of whom go to journalism, or j, school.

Having visited the site, it's safe to say westernjournalism doesn't employ anyone.

Aw, stevie, you little shitwad. How cute. Still jerking off over the use of the WesternJournalism.com Web site simply because that's one of the places on the Web that reproduced (in toto and without comment) an investigator's report to which I'd referred.

And you're the shit-headed excuse for a lawyer who relies on everything he finds on FactCheck as absolutely reliable information, ain'tcha?

So, you're admitting that you're an unprincipled miserable wretch? Noted.

Nah. Wonderfully principled am I, little liar-for-a-living.

Gawsh, stevie, you're really coming completely - and I mean completely - unhinged, ain'tcha? Get some kind of nasty message in your morning email from Messiah Central?

Tuci78: "'I'm just having fun."

I don't believe that for 1 second. You are a pretty angry person and it's very clearly reflected in your posts.

Jeez, I'm not allowed to have fun while being angry?



--
"To be happy one must be (a) well fed, unhounded by sordid cares, at ease in Zion, (b) full of a comfortable feeling of superiority to the masses of one's fellow men, and (c) delicately and unceasingly amused according to one's taste. It is my contention that, if this definition be accepted, there is no country in the world wherein a man constituted as I am — a man of my peculiar weakness, vanities, appetites, and aversions — can be so happy as he can be in the United States."

-- H.L. Mencken

I would have to side with the test-taker here. He clearly enjoys this stuff.

So should you, though, neil. It's not often that you can get people to say such indefensible, comically ignorant things. Birthers do it all the time.

Tuci is a birther but a unique kind of birther. Sort of like Dennis the Menace's neighbor, Mr. Wilson, but with a larger vocabulary and a malevolent cheekiness that helps pass the time when the stupider birthers are off poking berries up their noses.

Thanks, stevie. I think.

Meanwhile, even if you can find the diphenhydramine in your medicine cabinet, get Selma to someplace where supportive care can be rendered.

And you can get your blood pressure checked, you racist peanut-pushing irresponsible bastard.

Why'd you throw "irresponsible" in there? I didn't quibble with racist or peanut-pushing.

I thought it rather admirable of me to have consulted a doctor for an antidote. Irresponsible would have been pretending not to have any birth control on hand when she showed up with the peanut-butter sandwich.

I wrote "irresponsible" and I meant it, damn you. That you should've demanded of that lovely, compliant, courteous young woman the fulfillment of your unnatural lust for peanut-based products without first inquiring as to her sensitivities tells the whole world everything needed to condemn you as a thoroughgoing dietary bigot and arrantly insensitive legumist, dead to the finer sensibilities and utterly beyond the pale.

Now get her to the care she needs, stevie.

And get your goddam blood pressure checked while you're at it. You may be utterly reprehensible and morally unfit for human company, but I took an oath, and while the care of lawyers should be properly allocated to icthyologists familiar with the Selachimorpha, you have yet some human characteristics that not even the most discriminating student of zoology can deny.

Also, so what if something called the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" exists? Just because someone talked about doing something 43 years ago doesn't make it a grand strategy that's finally coming to fruition today. That's ridiculous.

It's like saying that the fall of communism is part of a great big conspiracy just because Kruschev or whoever said that they would make unprecedented overtures of peace and warm relations just to take advantage of our complacency.

Sorry, that was supposed to be posted down a ways. Some moderator needs to delete this one.

The "birther" controversy caught my attention as a lawyer simply as an area of somewhat arcane law, but the more I looked into the legal caselaw, foreign law, factual research and history, the more I became intrigued. Bottom line came down to this:

IF Obama's parents were actually married and it were to be deemed a "legal marriage" under Hawaiian law, then he would likely be ineligible by reason of his self-admitted dual citizenship. Everything points to that being the outcome if an "originalist" approach is taken to the Framers' intentions when drafting the Constitution in 1787. In that era, a woman's citizenship tracked that of her husband; an "original" citizenship of a woman was extinguished if she married a foreign national; dual citizenship was considered a "blight" and generally went unrecognized in the law by all nations, and the nationality and domicile of wife and children automatically tracked the husband/father. Indeed, it was not until 6 years after Obama's birth in 1961, and with the Afroyim case at the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967, that dual citizenship became permissible for American citizens as a result of judge-made law. It was four and a half decades earlier, in 1922, when American women were lawfully permitted to retain their birthright citizenship upon marrying a foreign national. In line with there being more attention focused on suffrage issues in that era.

IF Obama's parents were never married -- whether by operation of "fact" inasmuch as no marriage certificate has been unearthed in the town on another island where the ceremony allegedly took place in February 1961 or by operation of "law" arising from bigamy/nullification of the Hawaiian marriage inasmuch as British colonial Kenya had a dual system of legally recognized "customary marriages" (tribal and no paper trail and an "allowance" for multiple wives) and "statutory marriages" (conventional Western-style propositions with marriage licenses and a requirement of monogamy) -- then he's a natural born citizen.

Although much is made of the writings of deVattel in his 1700's treatises (various translations over the years from 1758 onward) by some of the legal scholarship pursuing the "natural born" issue, claiming that the Framers "adopted" his definition, and to make the point that both parents need to be U.S. citizens at the time of birth to render their offspring "natural born" even when there is birth ("native" born) on American soil, there is far more weight lent to the notion that the term was "sui generis" among the Framers themselves. That becomes obvious if one delves into the archives of George Washington's correspondence from the time of the Revolutionary War and onward, with particular attention to the other Framers with whom his letters were exchanged. The letters point to his dissatisfaction with enlistees in his Army who either came from abroad or who had tenuous connection to American soil (sans parentage, or wife and children and other family, or property ownership in an American colony giving them a "stake" to be defended). Washington's correspondence tracks an evolutionary process by which enlistees were better screened to avoid problems with spies and intentionally waylaid military communications that had seen battle plans fall into the wrong hands. Early battles were lost due to the enemy knowing of American revolutionaries' plans in advance. Decisions on enlistees and promotions in military rank increasingly looked to "the ties that bind" and create a presumption of undivided loyalty. The cumulative effect is such as to clearly point to "divided national allegiance" being deemed an unnatural and abhorrent condition, and just as it came to impair one's standing in matters military when the war was being waged, it logically came to be viewed as impairing eligibility for the highest office.

The generally applicable legal rule of that era would have been "partus sequitur patrem" but with a notable exception. If a woman was not wed at the time of a child's birth, then the legal rule would confer the mother's citizenship upon a child. "Ejus, qui justum patrem non habet, prima 'origo a matre."

Good reading material for the serious scholar interested in delving back to originalist material would be Ramsey's histories of early colonies through Revolutionary War, Confederation, and Constitional republic and both of Joseph Story's works consisting of Joseph Story's Commentaries and Story's Conflict of Laws.

Since colonial Kenya and the U.K. would quite likely have recognized Obama Sr.'s tribal marriage, even if there was a marriage license eventually located to back up the uncontested claims in Stanley Ann Obama's petition for divorce in 1964, it is likely the Hawaiian "marriage" would be a nullity because the U.S. and Hawaii would have recognized a foreign marriage which a foreign government itself "recognized" to be valid.

In weighing which part of his personal history would be more offensive, Obama had to choose whether he was a "bastard who made good" (with unwed parenthood seen as a scourge in the black community) or whether he was a "legitimated child with dual citizenship" (with only Constitutional lawyers such as himself aware of the legal pitfalls and nuanced historical statutes, cases, correspondence). He opted to spin himself as having had married parents (in "Dreams from my Father") but as this issue was heating up in summer of 2008, it was his wife Michelle who made the telling remarks about Dunham being "very young" and "very single" when he was born.

He's likely natural born. His policy decrees and administration-pushed legislative initiatives should occupy far more time and energy of those who care about what made the U.S.A. great in the first place.

All those paragraphs and not one mention of the single precedent that's most pertinent to the issue. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898).

There's no way in hell you're a "lawyer". Nice try though.

Learn to separate "dicta" from an actual "ruling" and you'll figure out why Wong Kim Ark doesn't have any precedential value on the definition of Natural Born Citizen. It was also flat-out bad law because it overlooked the proper weighing of the "subject to the jurisidiction of" clause of the 14th Amendment, even as to its ruling which was a ruling purely on citizenship. Not the natural born variety of citizenship but just plain-vanilla citizenship.

Wong Kim's parents were Chinese nationals. Despite their being in the U.S. legally as resident aliens, their citizenship gave China some 'jurisdiction' over them and their offspring.

Justice Gray who wrote that opinion was an appointee of Chester Arthur -- the only President ever to have burned most of his personal papers, just before he died. His well-kept secret was that his father had not become a naturalized citizen by the time Chester was born, making Chester Arthur assume the same citizenship as the father (Irish) under the "patrem" rules applicable at the time. Chester Arthur wouldn't have even been a dual citizen because dual wasn't given recognition in America back then, or anytime before the Afroyim decision in 1967. Indeed, the American citizenship of Arthur's mother would have been extinguished at the time of the marriage, and then revived when her husband finally got naturalized in 1843. Up until 1922, the laws found a whole host of American-born women who had married foreign nationals wake up to the fact that -- upon being widowed -- they had to "naturalize" to reclaim their American citizenship.

I never said anything in my comment about language in Wong Kim Ark being dicta or not. I simply said it's the most important precedent that exists, and you failed to mention it. You are clearly not a lawyer. It's also equally clear that you are lying when you claim to be some disinterested party who happens to have a law degree and who happened to spend a few seconds as a neutral legal observer on the issue, reporting your independent conclusions to us. That is obviously a fabrication, as it's obvious you have spent hours upon hours reading up on the make-up of the Wong Kim Ark court, on the Chester A. Arthur administration, on the birther allegations involving President Arthur, and other typical birther-related arguments. In other words, you are very obviously a BIRTHER. Why you would lie about that on this forum is actually pretty obvious: you want to falsely pass yourself off as a disinterested neutral lawyer. You are not. You aren't any one of the three, in fact: disinterested, neutral, or a lawyer. I'll leave to other readers to draw their own conclusions as to what that says about your credibility as a person.

I don't see the relevance of Justice Gray being an appointee of Chester Arthur. If you know anything about how our Supreme Court works, that factoid is so inconsequential and irrelevant as to be laughable. Again, if you studied the law, I wouldn't have to explain that to you. Unless of course.... were you a classmate of Orly Taitz?

If he was a classmate of Orly's, how would he know? It was online correspondence law school, after all.

As the test-taker is fond of telling us, "on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

Royalties for use of your phrase will be paid when my Obama blogger check comes in, Tuci.

Not my phrase, stevie. Look up Peter Steiner of The New Yorker.

One of the things about the Internet that Dubbya - and now your Mombasa Messiah - was trying to violate is the degree of privacy which the 'Net affords individuals daring to speak truth to power.

Or just to merrily tweak the noses of officious assholes like Barry Soetoro.

Anonymity has had its uses since the days of the Stuart monarchy at lest. As I'd mentioned, physician John Locke published his most significant works on political philosophy - especially Two Treatises of Government in 1698 - anonymously in order to evade the wrath of the royalists.

Is Steiner the originator? I had heard and read that phrase before coming here. Never knew who made it up.

See, I learned something today. Better quit for the night before I learn anything else.

Homer Simpson: "Every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff outta my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?"

Lactose-intolerance, so no milk. Stick with cognac. See you around the threads, doc.

Didn't you follow the link, stevie? Yeah, Steiner. In 1993. Famous cartoon among the hacker crowd.

And who needs cognac? Liguore Strega, per piacere!

Gives one cause to appreciate the probable reason why an Alinsky ACORN "community organizer" (also known as a "poverty pimp") would chose to specialize in constitutional law.

"Looking for loopholes," wasn't he, counselor?

As for his "policy decrees and administration-pushed legislative initiatives," let us not so hastily conclude that they are in any way beneficial when every sound economic analysis thereof demonstrates that their malignancy is extraordinary, and that their dislocative and destructive impacts will be agonizing, crippling, and impoverishing for all Americans not politically "connected" to the channels of plunder and pillage Mr. Soetoro is "servicing."

Totally agree. He's nationalizing and socializing the USA at an alarming pace. It's unprecedented how Congress is passing 1,200 page laws which come out of Committee at 2AM and sail onto a floor vote that very afternoon -- without even so much as being READ, much less understood.

Wholesale takeover of the auto industry. Firing of CEO's. Appointment of "czars" ... the list goes on and on into utter lunacy.

People need to FIGHT THE LUNACY on its own terms as utterly bad policy. Pinning hopes on ousting him due to grounds of Constitutional ineligibility is, however, a dog that just won't hunt.

Don't mistake for "LUNACY" what is more properly a carefully studied and deliberate effort to shove these United States over a cliff to shatter the nation and its society upon the rocks below. This is not madness, but cold malevolence.

Mr. Weigel's more responsible colleagues at Reason magazine appreciate this far better than the knee-jerk Obamaphile does. For example, Veronique de Rigy's recent "Destroying Jobs in Order to Save Them" speaks lucidly to how Barry Soetoro's otherwise puzzling effort to levy taxes upon a miniscule portion of America's economy - "$700 billion or more of American corporate earnings in overseas accounts" - when gaining those revenues will not only fail to make a dent upon his gargantuan deficits but will also wipe out thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of American jobs overnight.

Further quoting Ms. de Rugy:

"The U.S. corporate tax rate is simply too high. When you add state corporate taxes to the 35 percent federal rate, you arrive at a whopping 40 percent average corporate tax burden, the second highest among the 30 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)."

And the ill-informed wonder why this nation experiences such a one-sided balance of payments. Our business sector goes into every contest in international and domestic markets dragging a government-welded anchor around their ankles.

Mr. Weigel is too busy snarking about "birthers" to pay attention to this, of course.

Wow.

You wrote a thousand words about an issue that is totally irrelevant to citizenship.

You nowhere attempt to disprove that Obama was born in Hawai'i. THAT is the only issue relevant to this discussion. If he was born there, he's legitimate. If he was not, he is not legitimate.

You end by saying he's "likely natural born." Gee, thanks for the help, Mister Barrister.

Welcome to the thread. Now can we have the benefit of some links to evidence that actually bears on the citizenship issue? You know, for the "serious scholar?"

He took American citizenship from the unwed mother. There is no way on God's green earth that his parents had anything but a null/void marriage due to bigamy. Amanda Ripley of Time magazine located the divorce papers about a year before Plains Radio ever did, but when she tried to obtain the marriage license for Dunham-Obama in the town referenced by their divorce paperwork, no dice. It doesn't appear to exist.

Kezia would have been Obama, Sr.'s recognized wife in Kenya under their "customary" marriage laws. The U.S. recognizes foreign marriages which are themselves "recognized" by the foreign country in which they take place. Even if there was a Hawaiian wedding between Obama Sr and Dunham, which is dubious at best, it was void by reason of bigamy.

A certificate (or actually, an abstracted certification) claiming to show a birth in Kenya just surfaced over the weekend. It shows a February 1964 issuance date. Whether it will be authenticated is open to doubt although it could create the kind of "cloud" that propels a court to force production of the original BC in some Hawaiian DOH vault. If he was born in Kenya he loses the "natural born" part of his American citizenship. But unless there was a LEGAL MARRIAGE and a LEGITIMATE FATHER, Obama didn't meet the prerequisites for taking on Kenyan citizenship. "Dual" or otherwise. Read the provisions in the British Nationality Act of 1948 about children not legitimated by a valid marriage.

Under Kenyan law as a colony governed by the U.K. there were added legal wrinkles of "customary" and "statutory" marriages. Someone who had a "customary" (tribal and no paperwork) marriage could not enter into a "statutory" marriage unless he divorced the tribal wife first. Mixing the two modes of marriage made one a bigamist.

Wow again. Loads of gibberish in there. No evidence of legal training.

I'm curious, curiouslawyer. In what state are you licensed to practice?

Psst... "Denial" is not a state.

That nonsense about the Kenyan birth certificate creating a "cloud" so as to compel production of some mythical original Hawai'ian birth certificate gave you away. Even if you ignored the obvious forgery involved in the Kenyan certificate, any lawyer would understand that no foreign birth certificate is going to force a court to do more than review the ADMISSIBLE COLB, which is prima facie evidence.

There's no legal rule that says "hey usually we don't let anybody see the original state records, but since you got this Kenyan document, well, we better open the vaults." You are either entitled to see the records or you aren't.

But stick around; I will enjoy reading about what you think being a lawyer is like, and then comparing it to reality. Try not to get tripped up so easily next time.

Maybe you can pretend to be an auto mechanic. No one understands how cars work these days. All you have to do is say "the whole thing runs on computers." You're home free.

This is a lot of legalese mumbo-jumbo that birthers will get very excited about. But it amounts to nothing.

He was born in the United States. That's all the Constitution requires. We don't attack people's qualifications for office based on their ancestral or ethnic backgrounds in this country. Maybe they do wherever you're from, but not in the USA.

The dual citizenship argument is a nonstarter. Not only is it irrelevant to the presidential qualifications clause, but all you can do at best is prove that Obama may have QUALIFIED for citizenship of another country. Qualifying for citizenship of another country is not akin to actually having citizenship status of another country. He had none and there is no documentation to suggest otherwise. This issue is a joke, just like the entire birther movement.

I forgot.

A couple people took offense to randypuppy's "stupid Goyim you don't deserve a country" rant.

They told him so.

Here's his response:

"Well I'm just all broken up about your "retraction". And as far as being an "asshole", you ain't seen nothing yet! I don't need your f@cking approval. I've EARNED my right to say what I think. I was a part of your sick system for years. I want nothing more than to see it all fall and burn now. It's like living in a ghetto. The best thing that could happen is for a bulldozer to just scrape it up and bury it in a landfill, detox the land and start over again with something useful. You all like to say that if we don't like Obama, it is just because he is Black. You never talk about the percentage of Black voters that voted for him being 95%. I'm pretty sure they voted for him in those numbers entirely BECAUSE he is Black and not so much for any other reason. Sounds pretty "racist" to me. The only reason no judge has yet ordered his records produced in one of these lawsuits is that none of them have wanted to be the one who initiates the race war that will surely ensue once that is done. I don't give a $hit! I say LET ER RIP! It will be more fun that fishing with dynamite!" --randypuppy Randwulf, 2 weeks ago

"You all like to say that if we don't like Obama, it is just because he is Black. You never talk about the percentage of Black voters that voted for him being 95%. I'm pretty sure they voted for him in those numbers entirely BECAUSE he is Black and not so much for any other reason. Sounds pretty "racist" to me."

When did Republicans become so sensitive to racism? I've seen quite a transformation over the past few months.

Blacks normally vote for the Democratic candidate by a margin of about 90 to 92 percent. A 95 percent vote this election means a colossal increase of a whopping 3 points. Blacks are either racist or you're unable to understand simple mathematics.

Here's randypuppy, 2 weeks ago. I present it for your educational benefit, so that you can see how a fine upstanding 54 year old Marine military officer comports himself.

Also because randypuppy's own words make him look worse than mine ever could.

Anyway, here's the little monkey-fondling scamp:

"Wow. Well, I may have to re-think my earlier assertion that I am (or was) a "good American". After reading all of this drivel today, I am totally convinced that it's all a lost cause. What a bunch of TV inspired SMARTA$$ES. American is done. At least 52% doomed. The monkey majority is now running the zoo. What made the US a great nation is gone. What has always been it's main weakness now is a dominant force. You're all (or at least 52%) brain-washed main-stream-media zombies. All you can see is your stupid little Demican/Republicrat world. You are all (DEMS and REPUBS) controlled by forces you can't see and don't understand. Just a bunch of stupid Goyim. You really don't deserve a country any more. Go ahead. Self destruct. Whatever. There's no way to fix it. You're fat. You're stupid. You're ugly. You're misbegotten and badly bred. You have no morals. You have no courage. You have no work ethic. Your kids can't read. And if they could, they'd read garbage. They don't know math. They don't know science. They know no real history. They only know how to dress like "gangsta" and talk jive. They are filled with "political correctness" though. Great. Fine. The end.

Rome took a couple of centuries to go from a world super power to a decadent, powerless, mish-mash shithole. We (or you rather) will accomplish the same feat in a couple of decades. I secede. I don't want anything to do with you mongrel, perverts. Just keep printing up that funny money and throwing it around like idiots. More national debt will only hasten the decline. You all deserve the lying, crooked and evil government you have allowed to be created here. And now you can just sink into the $hit with it. If you listen very closely, you can hear the Gods, and the rest of the world laughing. Disgusting monkeys." --Randwulf, 2 weeks ago

Ain't he something? Can you "hear the Gods, and the rest of the world laughing?" Who are these "Gods," randypuppy? Do any of them live in your washing machine?

"I'm not a Republican you stupid douche. We won't put up with the shit that they will. They are fucking pussies. Your a pathetic waste of salt." --randypuppy Randwulf, 1 day ago
________________________________

"Ah, so you're right-wing (they have neato weapons, military training, and resolve to lose an election in high style), but you're not Republican.

Are you a member of Tuci78's band of loyal libertarians? S'all good, bro', S'all good. Even though you don't know what libertarianism is, and even though Tuci78 is well aware of your ignorance, I'm sure he enjoys your wit. Just hope he doesn't call you "chuckles" in a moment of candor, like he did to naturalborn.

But I digress from my main point. randypuppy, who's 'we' in the 'we won't put up with the shit that they will?'

'Your a pathetic waste of salt.'

Could the two of you maybe spring for a dictionary instead of blowing your budget on salt and a book about how to bring about a civil war through interpretive dance?"--stephenperry, 9 hours ago
_____________________

Sorry to do this to you, randypuppy, but you didn't answer me. I want to know, who's "we?"

And you never answered me about that stupid salt insult you tried to sling.

So, DO you think mantis is a Roman soldier or Obama blogger who is paid in salt, you doofus, or do you have some other explanation for saying something so asinine?

Come on, randypuppy. Never mind what you said about how MY insults don't affect you. Yours make me laugh. But I want an answer. What the fuck were you thinking? Oh yeah and answer my serious posts too. But really just who's we? and what's with the salt?

Studiously elaborating on his theory that Barack Obama is secretly the cause of every ill to befall mankind throughout the ages, including without limitation using his spare moments to shove extra cholesterol into American food, Tuci78 below posits his Grand Speculation About Educating Black People At Ivy League Schools:

"How the hell d'you think Dubbya got into Yale, or into Harvard Business? Strings got pulled for Barry in pretty much the same way." - Tuci78

George W. Bush's father was and is an old-money patrician. They have a family compound in Kennebunkport for God's sake. He sent his children to Andover and Yale because he had gone there. Yale took Dubya as a "legacy" which means "your grades suck but your dad's a Yalie. Keg's on the back patio." Harvard Business took Dubya in and let him sit on the back bench in each class (where he would crack jokes and befriend people, later boasting of learning nothing except how to pass with C's) because they got a very stern look from the CIA director, who happened to be a Harvard man and happened to be Dubya's father.

This, to Tuci78's practiced medical eye, is the same thing as when:

(1) a black kid

(2) who is raised by his poor white grandparents,

(3) in Hawaii

(4) with an obscure white cultural anthropologist single mother and

(5) a dad whose claim to fame is being a son of goat-herders before becoming the first black guy on the U of Hawaii campus,

(6) goes to Columbia after transferring from Occidental,

(7) and then goes on to edit the Harvard Law Review (an unmatched prestigious position that is awarded by vote of one's peers).

If Tuci78 didn't pal around with randypuppy ("S'all good, bro', S'all good"), there would still be ample reason to doubt the sincerity of his posts. Luckily there's the infinitely-funnier association with randypuppy.

Dumb. Ass. Birther. Nutjobs. Will. Say. ANYTHING.

Nah. Barry:

(1) Is mostly white, some Arab (the same people who sold most American blacks' West African ancestors into slavery) and a bitty-bit Luo tribesman (East African, the difference between Barry's people and American blacks being like the difference between, say, a Greek and a Swede, meaning "not even remotely the same language, religion, culture, or living environment")

(2) was raised by socialist grandparents, after having been sired upon a socialist mommy, making him a third-generation "red diaper baby"

(3) spent his ealy childhood years in Indonesia, attending school as an Indonesian national, learning Arabic and memorizing the Qu'uran

(4) with a socialist mother who slept around a lot and wanted nothing to do with raising him

(5) a putative biological father who ran around on all his wives (Stanley Ann Dunham seemed to have been his second), drank heavily, and finished up as a failed bureaucrat in Kenya, probably bumped off in a political dispute

(6) goes from his "poor white" background to Occidental College, and then to Columbia University, finishes up with a cruddy cume that couldn't get him into Enormous State University Close-Cover-Before-Striking School of Law, works a while as a "poverty pimp" in Chicago, takes long, expensive trips abroad, and then somehow comes up with the money to pay his way through (much less get accepted at) the ultra-prestigious Law School on the Cambridge campus of Patrice Lumumba University (formerly known as "Harvard"), and to this day nobody knows where the hell he got the money for all this, 'cause he sure as hell didn't report it on his financial background disclosures when he slimed into Washington City as a U.S. Senator

(7) and gets token'd into editing the Harvard Law Review without producing any significant body of student writing during his time in Cambridge.

I know I've missed a bunch, but hey, go to http://www.colony14.net/id41.html and enjoy.

There's a lot you can learn about Barry, "sealed" records and history and childhood medical records in Kenya and all.

What are your thoughts about the Univ. of Chicago Law School, Tuci? I didn't notice any slur against them in there. Not sure if the omission is deliberate.

Just curious.

I don't know much more about the University of Chicago Law School than that Epstein has been on the faculty for a number of years. And my personal experience with UCLS graduates is pretty much nil. Believe it or not, I've gotten to know some several guys out of Notre Dame Law, but none who'd made mention of spending time in the Windy City.

The University of Chicago is well known, of course, as a center of monetarist economic theory, and I've worked with some docs who'd come out of the Pritzker School of Medicine (and they were very sharp clinicians).

Isn't the Pritzker Military Library affiliated with the University of Chicago? Or is it entirely a "free-standing" institution? Some excellent talks there.

Sorry, that's all I can come up with. For some reason - odd now that I think back on it - I've only been in Chicago perhaps three or four times in my whole life, and then only for meetings and conferences and suchlike. It surprised me with what I came to see as a very friendly, almost "small town" ambiance. Nice restaurants, decent convention facilities, and that big, big lake right smack dab in the front yard. Not at all like Wichita, stevie!

Careful or your description of Chicago will be used to impeach any future references to Chicago as a den of thievery and crooks.

My best friend from college went on to Notre Dame Law School. I visited her there a few times when our football teams played each other. I don't know anything much about NDLS other than its ranking and reputation.

I was curious about your thoughts about U of Chicago, precisely because of its status as the preeminent place to study the economic philosophy of law if you're a conservative. I couldn't really imagine you having a string of invective about that school, but was curious.

Thanks.

Well, I'm much less a conservative (read F.A. von Hayek's essay at the close of The Constitution of Liberty [1960], "Why I Am Not a Conservative") than a small-"L" libertarian.

The monetarists are not precisely what I'd call wholly praxeologically sound, but Epstein certainly shows great strengths. I don't agree with him on all issues, but I can tell that he's given the intellectual side of all the matters he's addressed an extremely hard-headed regard. Not just theoretically robust, but with a keen eye for the practicable. What a Supreme Court Justice he would make!

As for the University of Chicago and the Cook County political machine...

Dunno. Have they any relationship, apart from the exploitation of every institution in Chicago (up to and including Pizzeria Uno) for the purposes of political patronage?