Thursday, August 08, 2019

RUMPOLE SAVES THE WORLD

Let's see what is going on that needs our attention.
Item: July was the hottest month on record from the time humans have been recording temperatures.
Item: India has taken a bold, aggressive move to remove any protective status from the disputed Kashmir region of the border with Pakistan. All communications have been cut off.  Soldiers have been mobilized and a conflict with its nuclear armed neighbor Pakistan seems likely.
Item: Protestors continue to increase their activity in Hong Kong, challenging direct rule from China and setting up the most serious threat to the Communist Party since Tienamen Square.
Item: There were two White Nationalist shootings within the US within twenty-four hours. In the last years places of worship in Pittsburgh, San Diego, and South Carolina were attached by gun-wielding, white young men who are terrorists. 1,300 people were killed in the US since January 1 of this year in mass shootings. 

In the absence of any real leadership in Washington, we boldly step into the void. Rolling up our proverbial sleeves, we get down to work:


Domestic Terrorism: 
We have some experience with hate speech on our own blog. It is shocking what a truly anonymous platform for speech will bring out in otherwise decent people. On a daily basis we receive and do not publish multiple comments spewing vicious hate against other lawyers/judges/REGJB figures. "So and so is fat and ugly and dumb"; "this one cheats on his wife"; "that one steals from her clients".   The anonymity of the platform touches a dark spot in the human psyche. It frees the id to release the anger which rises from the jealousy and frustration from the less successful among us. 

We therefore are not surprised that uneducated, unsuccessful and mariginalzed white males who are failures turn to the internet to release their anger and frustration against a world they cannot compete in. They hate immigrants not because of the poor wretched souls fleeing gang violence in Central America that flood the Texas borders. They hate the prior generation of immigrants who worked their way up from menial jobs to become shop and business owners. They resent having to buy items from stores run by immigrants, and they become furious when they are hired and work at menial jobs supervised by more talented people of color. Somehwere in their upbringing they lost the message this country guarantees only the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of success; not success. The right wing message of "American Exceptionalism" peverted their ideas and ideals. 
We are exceptional not because a generation of men and women saved Europe twice in the last century. We are exceptional because we tried. These disaffected and failing white males refuse to try; they think they owed because of what their fathers did. They are wrong. 
Now for the first time in history we have an instantaneous method of communication that allows smarter hate filled  terrorists in the US to manipulate white male loners into doing their deeds. Just like jihadists who use social media to get disaffected young men to strap on bombs and below themselves up in crowded markets. 

This is nothing less than a challenege to the first amendment. Do we monitor and suppress hate filled speech that can trigger a disaffected young white man from taking an automatic rifle to a shopping mall to kill immigrant shoppers or to a  temple to kill  Jews or Muslims worshiping?  Or do we stand fast and not let the thin edge of a large wedge of government approval of speech take hold? 

We now know words kill. When some misguided misanthrope calls developing countries "shitholes" and decries their people as "swarms" and "hordes", the less intelligent and disaffected respond. They did so in Germany in 1930-1940, and they are doing so now as the president is one who used those terms.

Are our strengths in tolerance? As Dr. King said :"Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can drive out darkness." 
Or do we allow talk of "money grubbing jews"; "shifty, lazy negroes"; "sick homosexuals"; and "hordes of dirty breeding immigrants"?

We've regulated obscenity in the past. But do we really want politicians who support our president regulating our speech now? They could shut down the Washington Post or NY Times, or even this blog on the basis of condemning these widely read outlets as "fake news". 

India: Send George W Bush to Pakistan. Barak Obama to India, and William Clinton to mediate between the two sides. 

Global Warming. Plant a million trees a day across the world for two years. Follow the Paris accords. Shut down coal plants and build a new generation of nuclear power plants. Wind turbines...wind turbines..wind turbines. 

China: Let the process play out and report on the protestors and the  government's effort to silence them. 

We can solve the easy problems. But an unregulated internet spewing hateful ideas that spur on disaffected, barely literate white males to get guns and start shooting may well be the problem of our generation. How do we regulate hate speech with the First Amendment. Who decides? 

And the Dolphins defy logic. They just keep getting worse. Not even we can fix them. 







26 comments:

  1. Dayton was not a white nationalist shooting, as anyone who has a brain would know.

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  2. Rumpo at your suggestion I listened to the Apollo 11 landing audio. What does angs and pings mean that they keep referring to?

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  3. Dayton was a shooting by a left-wing, socialist, Elizabeth Warren supporter.

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  4. It must be so satisfying to be an always-correct Progressive philosopher king. The world is so simple. Conservatives are all bad guys and only right wingers engage in violence. As to immigrants, I want to keep them out, all of them, because every one of them who crosses the border takes a better paying job away from an American citizen, and they are my first concern.
    Why don't you spend your time dealing with legal issues and courthouse concerns. If we want to read this type of vapid tripe, we can just tap into a seventh grade essay competition at a "progressive" school, although their stuff might not drip with the same amount of righteous fervor.

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  5. Please please tell me what sitting incumbent Circuit Court Judge was BEAT by Judge Mindy Glazer back in 2000? Wasn’t he another Judge Martin ______?

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  6. First of all conservatives are the same as liberals. They are both altruistic collectivists. They just differ on what gores their ox.
    As to immigration and jobs stop drinking the cool aid. It’s too much to ask you to read any number of economic reports so take it from me - they all agree immigrants aren’t taking away good paying jobs from American citizens. Go to Homestead. I don’t see Americans lining up to pick farm produce. And I’ve yet to meet a cardiac surgeon who lost her job to a dr from Mexico.
    As to what I spend my time doing let me give you some real conservative objectivist reasons. My blog. My property. Not subject to your collectivist desires to control how I think and write. I write and put ideas into the market place. Conservatively speaking you have two choices. Read or don’t read. Just don’t pretend to be a conservative when you have no epistemological idea what that means and hide your racism behind what Fox News tells you is conservatism. Shut the tv and pick up Altas Shrugged.

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  7. @6:44

    One day when you have some time, look into population growth rates and birth rates. You might find that the US birth rate is too low to keep up with our economy. You might also find that even with immigration (including illegal immigration) our population growth is barely enough to keep up with our economy. And last, you might find that the former second biggest economy in the world (Japan) took an economic nose dive, in no small part, because its population growth rate wasn't keeping up with the economy. In short, immigration is good for the US economy and for US workers who ultimately want to collect social security.

    There is no data confirming the misconception that immigrants are taking US jobs. Unemployment is at historic lows.

    Also, treating humans decently is not a "progressive" value - ask Reagan's ghost. I believe he amnestied 3 million undocumented immigrants.

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  8. I dont recall Warren saying it was OK to shoot an immigrant or send them back. Deranged Donny is a clear and present threat to our democracy. He is a puppet for Putin, as well as a malignant a narcissist. A little insecure boy-man with a big mouth, orange fat face and who knows what on his fat orange head. a fascist who will try to cling to the office and will have to be removed by force. His fat orange face will match his jumpsuit once he is out of office.

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  9. From Ayn Rand, your hero:

    “Americans didn’t conquer … You are a racist if you object to that … [And since] the Indians did not have any property rights — they didn’t have the concept of property … they didn’t have any rights to the land.”

    “Let’s suppose they were all beautifully innocent savages, which they certainly were not. … What was it that they were fighting for, if they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their right to keep part of the earth untouched, unused, and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal?”

    "Any white person who brings the elements of civilization had the right to take over this continent," Rand said, "and it is great that some people did, and discovered here what they couldn't do anywhere else in the world and what the Indians, if there are any racist Indians today, do not believe to this day: respect for individual rights."


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  10. I loved Judge Martin Kahn. Is he ok?

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  11. The Washington Post reports that the Trump Organization currently employs a “roving crew of Latin American employees” to perform masonry and maintenance work at his winery and various golf clubs around the country. For almost two decades, the group has been comprised of workers who came into the US illegally—the penalty for which the president seemingly believes should be death—according to two former crew members. Another one, who still works for Trump, told reporters Joshua Partlow and David A. Fahrenthold that remains the case today. President Trump “doesn’t want undocumented people in the country,” said Jorge Castro, an Ecuadorian immigrant without legal status who left the company last spring after nine years. “But at his properties, he still has them.” He added: “If you’re a good worker, papers don’t matter.”

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    1. Rump,

      You appear to be ignorant on basic employment law so let me educate you. It is illegal to discriminate against others on the basis of national origin, including in hiring and employment. Therefore it is industry practice to hire based on merit without discrimination even if you suspect someone might be illegal. If they are qualified, you simply ask them to fill out an I-9 and then you make copies of the type of identity documents the form requires, i.e. a social security card or a lawful permanent residency card. If they check the box saying they are legal, and they provide the supporting docs, that's it. It is true that everyone knows you can buy a fake LPR card and social security card combo on the street for $150, and illegals lie on the I-9 all the time by saying they are a US citizen or a lawful permanent resident. But the employer is not allowed to act like they are ICE and say things like "hey these docs look fake and you have brown skin so why don't you provide me MORE PROOF you are legal." If they did that, you can bet your ass they would be investigated for national origin discrimination by DOJs Immigrant and Employee Rights Section. And by the way, if DOJ finds you are giving extra scrutiny to brown people, IT IS NOT A DEFENSE THAT THE PERSON YOU SCRUTINIZED WAS, IN FACT, ILLEGAL!!!

      Your welcome.

      I love these news reports. Do the reporters even ask these illegals if they lied in the I-9 and if they provided fake docs? Me thinks no.

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  12. 1:34 pm Apollo question. Sorry it took so long. Excellent question. Listen to all the landing tapes for all the missions and you will hear repeated discussions about “angs” and “pings” marching.
    Pings= pngcs = primary guidance control system. Developed at MIT at the request of NASA it was the main navigation system for the lunar lander. It used an internal gyroscope to keep track of the LEM allowing it to know where it was at all times so that if earth based radar failed or the LEM was behind the moon it still knew where it was.

    Angs= abort guidance control system. It was a system designed to activate if the LEM pilot aborted the landIng. It jettisoned the descent stage. Activated the ascent stage and guided the LEM to the spacecraft for docking.
    However since it worked on a different guidance system it also worked as a back up for the landing. The astronauts would get readings from angs and pings and report how closely they matched. The closer they matched the more confidence they had they were where they thought they were.
    Excellent question. Well done.

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  13. How does a high profile defendant on suicide watch successfully commit suicide?

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  14. Rumpole: Your Dr Strangelovian reaction to the 6:44 post was very telling. Apparently someone who disagrees with your juvenile simplistic analysis is a racist. I guarantee you that I am not a racist, and you hae no idea whether or not I was. As far as immigrant impact on employment, your
    every study" comments is like Tucker Carlson's "no evidence at all" analyses. The fact is that employers can force lower wages by hiring illegals and I doubt that you have a credible study to the contrary.
    As to choosing not to read what you write, that is a very good point, and since your blog is basically becoming a football, crazy left opinion forum, it probably makes sense to look elsewhere for thoughtful comment and analysis on the courts. I have a grandson who is eight now, I will refer him to your blog.

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  15. I cite a preeminent philosopher as well as literally hundreds of non-political economic analyses. I think for myself and write and produce something in my spare time from being a well sought after lawyer. You watch Fox News and give me a nattering nabob of negative comments- Tucker Carlson. The sad thing is that your anti intellectual life means that you have no idea whose famous
    Alliteration I used. Even worse. You don’t know what an alliteration is. They don’t identify those on Fox.
    Finally, I find your reference to Dr Strangelove strangely inappropriate. As if you heard the term on Fox being wrongly used to attack others as if it refers to nuclear war. Grow up and do some independent thinking for yourself. Turn off Fox and visit a library.

    Oh yes. You reminded me. I need to schedule the fantasy football draft. Thanks.

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  16. I do not believe that I used alliteration or commented on it. The reference to Tucker Carlson was critical, and you are clearly incapable of understanding or appreciating any point of view different than your own. By the way, the view expressed on most media outlets, including those of "pure" thought that you favor, is that the Mississippi chicken produce plants were using those folks because they could pay them and were paying them lower than minimum wage. Now they are having job fairs to fill those slots at minimum wage, but don't let facts fog your mind. And, finally, you are to be commended on your superior intellect and choices of philosophy. How could anyone fail to be impressed.

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  17. No. Once again you cannot read and understand. I used an alliteration and I correctly guessed it would go over your head. Nattering nabob of negativity is a famous phrase used by one Vice President Spiro T Agnew to refer to certain elements of the press. It was, to use fox terms you would understand - no student of history you - the fake news attack of the time. As I correctly predicted. I used the phrase and it went right over your head. No intellectual you. Keep on believing immigrants take jobs like nuclear scientist , university professor, cardiac surgeon. And while you’re at it the Arctic is melting because windmills cause brain cancer. Not because of global warming.

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  18. My argument is that the illegal immigrants take jobs from the poor working class as is quite apparent from my comments. And, by the way, you obviously are so very smart and literate. Actually, you missed the critical comment about Carlson. I suppose you simply enjoy Don Lemon. Anderson Cooper, and Rachel Maddow (who I do watch) You should also make an effort not to be so obvious an embarrassment to members of your family in public service.

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  19. @3:05 - have some balls and share your name. You pretend to know Rumpole's name and even his wife's name and position in public service. And yet you throw barbs at him from the safety of anonymity. Why don't you level the playing field? What's your name?

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  20. The Dayton shooter was clearly a 2nd amendment mass murderer of minorities. Warren advocates strict gun control. He may have supported Warren but he clearly endorses the NRA policies. Also, now might be the time to discuss the good guy with a gun bullshit. The Dayton law enforcement heroes engaged the bad guy in 20 seconds and killed him in less than 40. You could not hope for a better response time. The brilliant response did not prevent the murderer from shooting 30 killing 9. The modern “conservative” is fighting to make sure terrorists and lunatics get access to war weapons. If the second amendment is so absolute then why can’t the crazies buy bazookas and tanks?

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  21. 3:05 PM I am not sure what you meant by your comment. If you know anything about me, and my philosophy, collectivist altruism is not something I support.

    More importantly, your "argument" that immigrants take jobs from poor working class Americans, is based on...the comics you read...what the White House says (although they do not hold press conferences any more) and...(wait wait) TUCKER CARLSON.
    Once again, and probably for the last time, I tell you- turn off the TV. Walk to the corner. Take the bus to your local library, get a library card, start with Adam Smith and start reading economic texts. I know they do not have a lot of pictures, but try and struggle through. Meanwhile, for someone who several poorly written comments ago mentioned something about not reading the blog anymore, you seem to be doing most of your reading here. Stop it. Go away. Your neither wanted, nor needed, and clearly not respected. But then, we give respect based on those who earn it through intelligent comments, and well, you just aren't cutting it. But I'm sure there's a dark corner of the MAGA web where your comments like "dem damn colored Mexicans better stop invadin our god fearin country or imma fixin to do sumthin about it" are well received. Just not here.

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