Meghan McCain, 26, whose father chose Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, slammed Christine O’Donnell’s qualifications as a Senate candidate during an interview on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday, Oct. 15.
She proclaimed, “She has no real history, no real success in any kind of business. What that sends to my generation is, one day, you can just wake up and run for Senate, no matter how (much of a lack of experience) you have.”
I would certainly not vote for O’Donnell, but she still has the constitutional right to run for office. One day, Meghan will be able to wake up one day and run for the Senate - when she turns 30. She can now run for the House of Representatives (25 is the minimum age) and at 35 she can run for president.
She can even compete with her father for the Republican nomination…in 2020. Or she can run against dad in the general election as a Democrat or of another party.
When the delegates convened for the Constitutional Convention in 1787, they demanded very little of candidates for the presidency, the House and the Senate. They only need to meet certain age requirements and to live in their state on election day. Candidates for Congress must live in this country for so many years and, as we all know, a candidate for president must be born in this country.
This last requirement alienated Frank Costanza, George’s father on Seinfeld, who emigrated from Italy to Queens. Played by Jerry Stiller, Frank one day declares: “That’s why I could never become president. That’s also why, from an early age, I never had any interest in politics. They don’t want me, I don’t want them.”
Practically speaking, both qualified and unqualified candidates get nominated and elected to office. It is the right and responsibility of the people to decide who is suited for public office, and very often the public makes both exceptional and dreadful choices.
Most people would gamble their life savings on Democrat Chris Coons wiping out O’Donnell, a Republican, in the Delaware Senate election on Tuesday.
If Meghan wants to do this right, she might start a drive to amend the Constitution to add requirements for qualifications. Her father would be easily disqualified if the qualifications cover even temperament, courtesy to colleagues and…drum roll, please…judgment in their choice of vice presidential running mates.
We will never forget when her dad, Sen. John McCain, picked Palin to run for vice president in the presidential election. We also will never forget what McCain gave us.
The question of qualifications is intriguing. Some people would automatically demand an IQ test. More conservative citizens may well set a quota on graduates of Eastern Seaboard universities like Yale, Harvard and Princeton.
It is worth considering a set of qualifications not only for presidential candidates but also congressional hopefuls. It would be awfully hard to determine qualifications on which most Americans can concur.
However, three related issues come to mind which deserve consideration.
Recall when Hillary Clinton ran for senator of New York? Critics piled on that she was moving from Arkansas to New York as sort of a carpetbagger in reverse. She was criticized for running for the Senate almost immediately after moving into the state.
It is legitimate for anyone to wonder if she was taking advantage of New Yorkers to establish a political career. After all, Clinton must have understood that New Yorkers would be more accepting of her political views than Arkansans.
In West Virginia this year, Republican Senate candidate John Raese divides his time between West Virginia and Palm Beach. His children attend school in Palm Beach and his wife is registered to vote in Florida, not West Virginia.
Maybe he plans to divide his time between Palm Beach and Washington, D.C., if he is elected senator.
Residency requirements for congressional candidates should be expanded. Candidates must demonstrate a basic commitment to the state they want to represent or govern. That can only be guaranteed by enactment of strong law or amendment of the Constitution.
They should live in their adopted state for a specific number of years, probably between three to five years. Anyone living in his residence must be registered to vote in the state that s/he seeks to represent.
We should also consider whether a House member should live in the congressional district that s/he represents.
My representative, Democrat Bob Brady, lives in Philadelphia, but a different section. Brady has served his constituents well and he certainly understands the needs of the congressional district, which are primarily the same in the district where he lives.
In addition, there is always the potential that a member of Congress can be redistricted out of their district. S/he could be representing, and living in, a congressional district for decades and then the state legislature changes the district’s boundaries separate from the town or street where the congressperson lives.
It just seems peculiar that a member of Congress lives outside his/her district no matter how effective, qualified and experienced s/he might be.
The provision requiring presidential candidates can be safely overturned. Two governors who are barred from running for president can probably be trusted for loyalty to America just as much as any other politician here.
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm moved from Vancouver, Canada, to California when she was 4 years old and later moved to Michigan. Her husband is a Michigan native.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger moved from Austria to Los Angeles more than 40 years ago and has been an American citizen for more than 25 years. As a movie superstar, he has been a taxation bonanza and he contributes to charitable causes.
Besides, the United States is at peace with both Austria and Canada for the moment.
For those who want to assure that Schwarzenegger cannot be elected president, we can submit this provision: no mangled Austrian accents in the Oval Office.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Constitutional path to end institutional homophobia
Keeping track of political news developments as the Nov. 2 elections approach has been alternately amusing and depressing.
At home, the lunatic vote threatens to prevail because the looniest collection of candidates for congressional and governor races are actually being taken seriously by voters.
Foreign tyrants who are not tied down by trivial things such as a system of checks and balances persist in murdering, torturing and jailing their own citizens.
Two episodes, foreign and domestic, left me with a smile. First, a brave, earnest Chinese scholar named Liu Xiaobo was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, Oct. 8. Chinese rulers were, to say the least, upset.
In California, a federal judge ordered our government to immediately end its witch hunts that would finish with the expulsion of military servicepersons because they are homosexuals.
The oppression that is routine fare in Iran, China and elsewhere should offer stark contrast to the liberty we enjoy here, but oppression has always existed in the United States. It is a matter of degree.
America’s system of government debuted as a bad bargain when the first post-Constitution Congress convened on March 4, 1789, at New York’s then-City Hall across a narrow street from what is now the New York Stock Exchange. George Washington, who owned slaves on his plantation outside Alexandria, Va., was inaugurated as our first president on April 30.
The continuation of slavery was the worst element of the bad bargain, but it was not the only flawed feature. The electoral college which selected the president made sense for its time, but now it is anachronistic and plainly a form of tyranny. The amendment process renders the system nearly impervious to substantial progress.
The second worst was the system of representation. While the House of Representatives is based on proportional representation, the Senate allows equal representation for every state at two senators each. This political arrangement has obstructed progress and maintained a massive system of institutional racism.
Cities like New York City and Los Angeles, populated by masses of vulnerable people, were shortchanged because they are part of large states which have limited clout in the Senate, since they have no more voting power than states with far smaller populations.
Institutional racism is really a flawed term, as “racism” could generically encompass the full range of prejudices. That would include homophobia.
Judge Virginia A. Phillips left me with reason to smile after the Federal District judge on Oct. 12 ordered the Pentagon to cease and desist from administering the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law that bars openly gay citizens from serving in the military.
The 17-year-old law prohibits the military from asking members of the service if they are gay, but these service members will risk expulsion if they disclose their sexual orientation. That improves on the longterm policy of banning military service for gays altogether.
Yet even “don’t ask, don’t tell” violates the civil rights of fellow Americans who are willing to risk their lives for the rest of us.
Phillips, whose court is located in Riverside, Calif., wrote almost exactly that. She said the policy “infringes the fundamental rights of United States service members and prospective service members” and violates their rights of due process and freedom of speech, The New York Times reported.
She was telling it straight, no pun intended. They are citizens who have all the rights of heterosexuals.
This law also infringes on all our lives since millions of our tax dollars are spent to train service members. Veteran nurses have been expelled as have students at a language school in Monterey, Calif. The Times reports that 12,500 homosexuals have been discharged under the law since 1993.
President Obama’s reaction has been bizarre. He opposes this law and wants Congress to repeal it. Sen. John McCain said the Republicans will filibuster any repeal at this time. The GOP is in the minority and yet they are authorized to block legislation supported by the Senate majority.
Obama’s people persist in appealing the judge’s ruling to a higher court. They claim they are duty bound to defend laws enacted by Congress.
What will happen if the White House drops the case? Will Congress impeach him? Of course, the Democrats would never impeach Obama and the Republicans would find any excuse to impeach him if they retake control of Congress.
In another strange twist, the Pentagon announced that it will accept applications from openly gay recruits.
How does this work? The courts have begun the process of moving back and forth between suspending and enforcing the law. If a recruit joins the service now, making it known that s/he is gay, then the next day they can be discharged if the law is in effect.
The president predicts that the law will be repealed “on my watch.” How? Ultimately, the Supreme Court could rule in favor of keeping the law, so we cannot count on them.
If Democrats retain control of both houses of Congress, they will be positioned to change the Senate rules to ensure that the filibuster does not threaten the majority vote. Of course, the Republicans may wish to end the filibuster because it threatens their policies.
The twists never end, do they?
At home, the lunatic vote threatens to prevail because the looniest collection of candidates for congressional and governor races are actually being taken seriously by voters.
Foreign tyrants who are not tied down by trivial things such as a system of checks and balances persist in murdering, torturing and jailing their own citizens.
Two episodes, foreign and domestic, left me with a smile. First, a brave, earnest Chinese scholar named Liu Xiaobo was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, Oct. 8. Chinese rulers were, to say the least, upset.
In California, a federal judge ordered our government to immediately end its witch hunts that would finish with the expulsion of military servicepersons because they are homosexuals.
The oppression that is routine fare in Iran, China and elsewhere should offer stark contrast to the liberty we enjoy here, but oppression has always existed in the United States. It is a matter of degree.
America’s system of government debuted as a bad bargain when the first post-Constitution Congress convened on March 4, 1789, at New York’s then-City Hall across a narrow street from what is now the New York Stock Exchange. George Washington, who owned slaves on his plantation outside Alexandria, Va., was inaugurated as our first president on April 30.
The continuation of slavery was the worst element of the bad bargain, but it was not the only flawed feature. The electoral college which selected the president made sense for its time, but now it is anachronistic and plainly a form of tyranny. The amendment process renders the system nearly impervious to substantial progress.
The second worst was the system of representation. While the House of Representatives is based on proportional representation, the Senate allows equal representation for every state at two senators each. This political arrangement has obstructed progress and maintained a massive system of institutional racism.
Cities like New York City and Los Angeles, populated by masses of vulnerable people, were shortchanged because they are part of large states which have limited clout in the Senate, since they have no more voting power than states with far smaller populations.
Institutional racism is really a flawed term, as “racism” could generically encompass the full range of prejudices. That would include homophobia.
Judge Virginia A. Phillips left me with reason to smile after the Federal District judge on Oct. 12 ordered the Pentagon to cease and desist from administering the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law that bars openly gay citizens from serving in the military.
The 17-year-old law prohibits the military from asking members of the service if they are gay, but these service members will risk expulsion if they disclose their sexual orientation. That improves on the longterm policy of banning military service for gays altogether.
Yet even “don’t ask, don’t tell” violates the civil rights of fellow Americans who are willing to risk their lives for the rest of us.
Phillips, whose court is located in Riverside, Calif., wrote almost exactly that. She said the policy “infringes the fundamental rights of United States service members and prospective service members” and violates their rights of due process and freedom of speech, The New York Times reported.
She was telling it straight, no pun intended. They are citizens who have all the rights of heterosexuals.
This law also infringes on all our lives since millions of our tax dollars are spent to train service members. Veteran nurses have been expelled as have students at a language school in Monterey, Calif. The Times reports that 12,500 homosexuals have been discharged under the law since 1993.
President Obama’s reaction has been bizarre. He opposes this law and wants Congress to repeal it. Sen. John McCain said the Republicans will filibuster any repeal at this time. The GOP is in the minority and yet they are authorized to block legislation supported by the Senate majority.
Obama’s people persist in appealing the judge’s ruling to a higher court. They claim they are duty bound to defend laws enacted by Congress.
What will happen if the White House drops the case? Will Congress impeach him? Of course, the Democrats would never impeach Obama and the Republicans would find any excuse to impeach him if they retake control of Congress.
In another strange twist, the Pentagon announced that it will accept applications from openly gay recruits.
How does this work? The courts have begun the process of moving back and forth between suspending and enforcing the law. If a recruit joins the service now, making it known that s/he is gay, then the next day they can be discharged if the law is in effect.
The president predicts that the law will be repealed “on my watch.” How? Ultimately, the Supreme Court could rule in favor of keeping the law, so we cannot count on them.
If Democrats retain control of both houses of Congress, they will be positioned to change the Senate rules to ensure that the filibuster does not threaten the majority vote. Of course, the Republicans may wish to end the filibuster because it threatens their policies.
The twists never end, do they?
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Shouting Koran-burn in a crowded Ground Zero
The mosque flap morphed from ugly to silly two days before the ninth anniversary of the travesty which left 3,000 Americans dead.
By late Thursday afternoon, Sept. 9, The Rev. Terry Jones announced that he canceled his Koran-burning bonfire near Gainesville, Fla., after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates phoned him - on condition that the planned mosque and Islamic cultural center will be moved further away from Ground Zero.
Whew! We were saved from a spectacle that will surely incite more Muslims in the Middle East who will kill American soldiers and other infidels.
In the next nanosecond or two, a Mosque backer retorted that no such condition was established.
The mosque plan is still a go. In fact, Team Mosque stressed that relocating the center would look as if they were backing down, which would also infuriate the Muslim world.
So, we are talking about two situations in which the sponsors have the right to do whatever they want because they own the properties and, with one relatively minor exception, they are both abiding by the law.
This mosque business raises questions about our freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment and our inherent right to do whatever we want so long as we harm nobody else.
Most of the questions afford such easy responses that they expose how absurd this controversy has become.
For the record, I wish the mosque is moved, but I also recognize their right to build it on their property. The same for Jones, though I find the idea of Koran-burning dumb and disgusting.
The single intriguing question: You plan to take action that is your full right, yet you have strong reason to believe that it will provoke other individuals to harm innocent people. How do we address this situation?
Certainly, we will insist upon self-control. Mr. Jones, your action is reckless and depraved. You are placing our sons and daughters in uniform at risk of their lives. Be sensible, man.
Failing this, what about a law to bar such actions? True, this is free speech, or rather freedom of expression. However, this minister clearly planned to commit an act that he knew would endanger lives. Couldn’t a case be made that this would be a form of reckless endangerment? After all, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated in an opinion he wrote that “falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater and causing a panic” could not be considered free speech.
The crowded-theater scenario is not just a free-speech issue. Upon hearing the alert of a fire, the theater patrons will believe they are in immediate danger and might very well trample each other to escape death. The offender should know this.
The Koran-burning hardly sets off immediate danger. Jones was made fully aware that Muslims around the world would be so offended that they will kill people associated with the West.
I don’t buy it as a form of reckless endangerment. The Islamists have free will. It is they who are creating the dangers, not Jones.
At best, you could argue this as a form of indirect reckless endangerment. Jones burns the Koran and many Muslims attack innocent people. No, too much of a stretch. Way too much of a stretch.
My only caveat is that setting fire to any kind of printed material could potentially endanger lives and property. Even a controlled fire might somehow get out of control.
However, any form of desecration of the Koran is a person’s right so long as it is his Koran.
An interesting tidbit: Holmes applied the theater-fire rule when he wrote a unanimous opinion upholding the conviction of an American socialist for urging draft-age men to defy orders to join the army during World War I.
Holmes contended that this call to resist would jeopardize the war effort. I have heard far worse during the Vietnam war and subsequent wars. Holmes backed away from this attitude in at least two subsequent opinions.
The Gainesville controversy led directly to a comparable flap when Derek Fenton, a New Jersey Transit employee, was fired two days after he tore up pages from the Koran outside the mosque site and burned them with a lighter. NJT released a statement claiming that Fenton, who worked at NJT for 11 years, “violated New Jersey Transit’s code of ethics” and “violated his trust as a state employee,” according to the Associated Press.
Not only was Fenton, 39, acting as a private citizen but he also took this action in another state. Maybe he Not only was Fenton, 39, acting as a private citizen but he also took this action in another state. Maybe he could be seen from across the Hudson River in Jersey City.
The civil liberties take on this, as quoted in The New York Daily News, was expressed by Democratic New Jersey state Sen. Raymond Lesniak: “So long as his actions, however misguided, took place on his own time, and he was not acting in his capacity as a representative of NJ Transit but as an American exercising his constitutional rights, then the agency is clearly in the wrong.”
Finally, The Boston Globe carried this letter by Annette Thomas of Clarkston, Mich.:
“I was at a bookstore, and the manager told me a man had just attempted to purchase the Koran to burn tomorrow on the anniversary of Sept. 11. The customer’s credit card, thank goodness, was declined.”
As with gun control, maybe we should require background checks for any book patron who seeks to purchase a copy of the Koran.
By late Thursday afternoon, Sept. 9, The Rev. Terry Jones announced that he canceled his Koran-burning bonfire near Gainesville, Fla., after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates phoned him - on condition that the planned mosque and Islamic cultural center will be moved further away from Ground Zero.
Whew! We were saved from a spectacle that will surely incite more Muslims in the Middle East who will kill American soldiers and other infidels.
In the next nanosecond or two, a Mosque backer retorted that no such condition was established.
The mosque plan is still a go. In fact, Team Mosque stressed that relocating the center would look as if they were backing down, which would also infuriate the Muslim world.
So, we are talking about two situations in which the sponsors have the right to do whatever they want because they own the properties and, with one relatively minor exception, they are both abiding by the law.
This mosque business raises questions about our freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment and our inherent right to do whatever we want so long as we harm nobody else.
Most of the questions afford such easy responses that they expose how absurd this controversy has become.
For the record, I wish the mosque is moved, but I also recognize their right to build it on their property. The same for Jones, though I find the idea of Koran-burning dumb and disgusting.
The single intriguing question: You plan to take action that is your full right, yet you have strong reason to believe that it will provoke other individuals to harm innocent people. How do we address this situation?
Certainly, we will insist upon self-control. Mr. Jones, your action is reckless and depraved. You are placing our sons and daughters in uniform at risk of their lives. Be sensible, man.
Failing this, what about a law to bar such actions? True, this is free speech, or rather freedom of expression. However, this minister clearly planned to commit an act that he knew would endanger lives. Couldn’t a case be made that this would be a form of reckless endangerment? After all, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated in an opinion he wrote that “falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater and causing a panic” could not be considered free speech.
The crowded-theater scenario is not just a free-speech issue. Upon hearing the alert of a fire, the theater patrons will believe they are in immediate danger and might very well trample each other to escape death. The offender should know this.
The Koran-burning hardly sets off immediate danger. Jones was made fully aware that Muslims around the world would be so offended that they will kill people associated with the West.
I don’t buy it as a form of reckless endangerment. The Islamists have free will. It is they who are creating the dangers, not Jones.
At best, you could argue this as a form of indirect reckless endangerment. Jones burns the Koran and many Muslims attack innocent people. No, too much of a stretch. Way too much of a stretch.
My only caveat is that setting fire to any kind of printed material could potentially endanger lives and property. Even a controlled fire might somehow get out of control.
However, any form of desecration of the Koran is a person’s right so long as it is his Koran.
An interesting tidbit: Holmes applied the theater-fire rule when he wrote a unanimous opinion upholding the conviction of an American socialist for urging draft-age men to defy orders to join the army during World War I.
Holmes contended that this call to resist would jeopardize the war effort. I have heard far worse during the Vietnam war and subsequent wars. Holmes backed away from this attitude in at least two subsequent opinions.
The Gainesville controversy led directly to a comparable flap when Derek Fenton, a New Jersey Transit employee, was fired two days after he tore up pages from the Koran outside the mosque site and burned them with a lighter. NJT released a statement claiming that Fenton, who worked at NJT for 11 years, “violated New Jersey Transit’s code of ethics” and “violated his trust as a state employee,” according to the Associated Press.
Not only was Fenton, 39, acting as a private citizen but he also took this action in another state. Maybe he Not only was Fenton, 39, acting as a private citizen but he also took this action in another state. Maybe he could be seen from across the Hudson River in Jersey City.
The civil liberties take on this, as quoted in The New York Daily News, was expressed by Democratic New Jersey state Sen. Raymond Lesniak: “So long as his actions, however misguided, took place on his own time, and he was not acting in his capacity as a representative of NJ Transit but as an American exercising his constitutional rights, then the agency is clearly in the wrong.”
Finally, The Boston Globe carried this letter by Annette Thomas of Clarkston, Mich.:
“I was at a bookstore, and the manager told me a man had just attempted to purchase the Koran to burn tomorrow on the anniversary of Sept. 11. The customer’s credit card, thank goodness, was declined.”
As with gun control, maybe we should require background checks for any book patron who seeks to purchase a copy of the Koran.
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