The SCOTUS has upheld a law that limits aid, even non-violent to “terrorist” organisations. It was challenged on “free speech” grounds in that it limits donations to political organizations (they may be “terrorist”, but they are by definition also political). Thus like the recent Citizens United case, it hinges on the equation of “money = speech”.

Personally of the cuff I can’t say I’m not overly concerned – the organizations involved here are not likely the kind I’d want to donate to regardless. However I will say it does concern me that the designation of “terrorist organization” is defined not by Congress, but by the State Department. Thus in a “Executive gone bad” situation, one method to clamp down on opposition would be to simply name any group of question “terrorist”.

Moving on, the AP headline reads:

High court upholds anti-terror law prized by Obama

Which for a so-called “liberal” administration seems kind of ironic – one of their “prized laws” can best be considered, even if it may be the right thing to do, a “civil liberties limiting” law. Yet another example to put truth to the lie that this administration is anything remotely approaching “liberal”.

Finally I will note Justice Roberts had this little gem of a quote:

“Such support frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends”

Which I hope he’ll remember if “Faith-Based Initiatives” ever make it to the Supreme Court – this has been the issue that many of us has against “Faith-Based Initiatives” based on “separation of church and state” arguments. The point is – funding these initiatives “frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to” other church activities. Thus government support of “Faith-Based Initiatives” is actually “back door” to funding of religion.

Finally, as another example of “liberal” Obama (or rather, the fallacy of), you will note, Obama has not rescinded the use of such initiatives.

UPDATE:

While I noted I’m not “overly concerned”, don’t take that as endorsement of the law or its SCOTUS interpretation. All I’m saying is that it has so little immediate application to anything I care about that compared to the slew of other concerns today, it doesn’t sufficiently raise my hackles to feel clearly one way or another. That doesn’t mean I agree (nor disagree – though I am always dubious of anything that comes out of this court).

UPDATE 2:

Wretched Gnu in the comment section of Glenn Greenwald’s blog points out this little gem from the dissent:

“The dissent argues that there is ‘no natural stopping place’ for the proposition that aiding a foreign terrorist organization’s lawful activity promotes the terrorist organization as a whole.”

That is scary. One implication, as Wretched Gnu points out, is criticizing Israel might be seen as “aiding” Hamas. It will be interesting (in the sort of Chinese proverb way unfortunately) to see how this progresses.

Here’s a typical blog comment on the subject of guns:

“The constitution can’t be much clearer – you have a right to bear arms”

Honestly I don’t argue that position – our forefathers were concerned about the fact that the British were confiscating their arms and they wanted to encode the right to overthrow a corrupt government.

However “gun rights” advocates also pretend this is an unambiguous and purely principled position, which it is not.

For instance, unlike in the days of our forefathers asymmetric warfare didn’t exist to the level it does today. It wasn’t possible to easily take out a building with a truckfull of fertilizer and some diesel. Moreover many of the weapons today couldn’t have even been contemplated.

Seriously, does the NRA or anyone of their ilk honestly believe you should be able to personally own?:

• Stinger missiles
• M1 Abrams tanks
• Grenades
• Apache attack helicopters
• Daisy Cutters
• Fully loaded F-18 attack fighters
• Nuclear bombs

Clearly there are at least a few of those “arms” that even NRA members would agree that the “public interest” outweighs your right to “bear”. If not, I’m sorry but they are insane and undoubtedly there are some citizen jihadists who’d love to help forward the NRA’s agenda.

The point is, we do assign some “public interest” limitations to all rights granted by the Constitution. So if we agree that prohibiting owning a “Daisy Cutter” is a reasonable limitation to the “2nd Amendment”, then are we not saying. “It’s not strictly about principled literalism – there is room for interpretation/limitation.” Once we’ve agreed that there is some interpretation/limitation, then the “principled” argument is compromised and we’re just negotiating where the lines fall.

So, if we can sanely deny the right to an “M1 Abrams” as an unreasonable arm (which I certainly would hope we can), then why shouldn’t we be allowed to consider limiting hand guns, which in many people’s mind represent a similar risk to a peaceable society? If one returns then to the argument that the “2nd Ammendment” says such and such, then I would argue, “Ok – let the crazies buy the nukes too.” That’s idealism and principle for you.

Finally, clearly we can abridge the 1st Amendment, “Freedom of Speech”, and not allow vulgar language and/or porn on TV/radio. Certainly swear words and porn cause much less harm then a bullet to the head and yet we have little issue abridging our “1st Amendment” rights to them. Personally, when the NRA members decry that fact as much as their inability to own assault rifles, then I’ll take their “principled” stance more seriously.

UPDATE:

One thing that annoys me about pro-gun types is that they don’t have the balls to be at least honest about it. They want to have their guns not only because they like them, but also because they want the option to overthrow the government. That latter point they seem to curiously omit in general argument, I suspect because it might not go over so well with the soccer moms who are often the victims of the fear campaigns used to sell their inalienable rights to bear arms.

UPDATE 2:

Guns are fun. I don’t argue it. I enjoy shooting and at some level wouldn’t mind owning a handgun myself (my wife, who comes from a more sane country where guns aren’t like so much candy, would use it on me if I ever did though). I also have friends who have guns and I don’t think they’re evil people, not in the slightest. I just am trying to make the point there is a middle ground here, that the Constitutional “guarantee” to “bear arms”, like all Constitutional guarantees, is subject to reasonable limitations. Where those limitations are, is what we need to figure out. Moreover that solution, whatever it is, will not rest on strict literalist principle, but rather on negotiated compromise. It won’t be because “it says”, but because “we agree”.

UPDATE 3:

I will also note, and this was part of the “right to bear arms” shtick, our forefathers did not want a “standing army” either!

A very close friend of mine who is rather more conservative than I am (and that perhaps is just a tad of an understatement) put me onto this movement:

http://www.apportionment.us

Basically they want to increase the number of representatives making up the federal House of Representatives (aka Congress).

I can’t say I’ve fully analyzed the pluses and minuses of this tack, but reading their material I have to agree to some extent that it does appear to be more in line with the original intent of our forefathers. Moreover one would think that it would go a long way to making government, or at least one branch of it, more representative as a whole.

Anyway, it’s worth a quick spin to their site to check out their rationale. It does seem like it could help improve a number of issues with representation and the electoral process.

By the way, it certainly taught me something – I didn’t realize that the House originally grew in response to the Census, but that process was short circuited in 1929.

Of course while this movement may help Congress, it doesn’t solve the unholy mess we call the Senate…

Take this chart from WikiPedia commons:

U.S. GDP 1910 through 1960

What’s interesting about it is it would seem to put truth to the lie that it wasn’t the New Deal that ended the depression, but World War II.

However if you look at the chart, you’ll see that essentially before WWII started, GDP was back on track – the log curve recovers before our 1942 entrance in the war. That would imply the New Deal did the trick (or, I suppose if you’re really cynical, it recovered by itself).

As I’ve argued elsewhere, even if the war was the source of recovery, it isn’t an argument against stimulus in an economic downturn – in fact quite the opposite. It may be a horrible way to do stimulus, but it (war) still is stimulus (ie: government spending to create demand).

Anyway, it’s an interesting chart but it would probably require other metrics to truly judge whether the recovery from The Depression really was complete before WWII (there are more metrics than just GDP).