If I could do whatever I want. . .

which I cannot, I'd be sort of a nomadic hunter gatherer.

I suspect a lot of men actually feel that way. Which is probably why its a good thing that we can't really do that.  Not much else would really get done, and in a nation which is now as densely populated as ours, we can't really do that.  Or, rather, we can to some extent, but only to some extent.  And only some people, for that matter.  Most people are doomed to exist in the cubicle jungle until they retire to watch the game show network.

Be that as it may, that's what I'd do.  I'd start off in the Spring planting a big garden, which I used to in fact do.  My father did that before me.  I'd have it mostly all planted before Easter.

 Vegetable garden, Palmer Alaska.

When we did that, we usually had enough of some things to make it clear through to the nearly the next Spring, after we harvested in the Fall.  Potatoes and onions, for example, can keep fairly well. When my father did the garden, he did have some things that made it all year long, as he froze some things, like peas, but frankly I never liked the taste of home frozen peas much, and I never learned how to can anything at home and probably would not take it up.  When I was a kid, the few people who did something like that usually had products that made me a bit leery.

Starting about that time of year, you can start to fish around here too.  Indeed, you can start to fish earlier, so I suppose that should have been first, as you can ice fish.  When I was a little kid my father took me ice fishing occasionally, but only occasionally. Even though he was a big fisherman, he didn't ice fish much and at that time it seemed only the really fanatic ice fishermen had the equipment for it.  We simply chopped a hole in the ice with a shovel and axe.

Starting a couple of years ago, however, my daughter and I took it up, and we really like it. This past year we were skunked as the winter turned warm and the big lakes iced off really quickly, which is frankly disturbing.  But in a normal year, you can ice fish, so I guess I'd start here with that.

 

Yep, that's me.  Ice fishing a couple of years ago, photo by my daughter.  And yes, I know that hat is huge. And yes, it's Russian, a gift from a coworker who'd gone to Russia.

Anyhow, by Spring you can fish the streams and rivers, which I'd do.

Spring also sees Spring Bear Season, and I usually get a license, although I never get a bear.  I don't have the patience for baiting a bear, and instead usually sort of stumble around the woods, if I go bear hunting, or otherwise just have a license in case I stumble upon a bear.

Now, and I suppose somewhat relevant given the entire flap over "Cecil", the Zimbabwean lion, if I got a bear, I'd have it packed to eat.  I'm told it tastes like pork but having never eaten bear, I can't say if that's correct.  But that's what I'd do, should I ever get one.

I have a better chance of getting a turkey, and I usually get a Spring Turkey license as well, although the past few years I haven't seen a turkey feather during turkey season.  I see them all the time otherwise, but not during the season.  An Easter turkey sounds good to me.

Otherwise I'd fish and tend my garden. And when warm enough, I'd take up camp trailer up to the high country a couple of days at a time, and fish there.

About July 15, I'd tow that camper up to Alaska for the salmon run, and I'd fish that.  I'd go for halibut too, if I could make it affordable. I'd even think of getting a skiff if I could think of a way to keep it or tow it economically.  Nomads have to make things work economically.  An Alaskan sport fisherman can take two halibut per year, and more salmon.  I'd pack them in my trailer and I imagine that I could rig up a small freezer to make sure nothing was wasted. About August 1, I'd start my slow way home, fishing in the Yukon and British Columbia, until I made it back.

Somebody would have to watch my garden in that interim, obviously.

The bird seasons here start on September 1, and the antelope season only shortly after that. Then there's deer and elk.  In other worlds a years worth of red meat to take between September 1 and late October. And I'd harvest the garden.

 

Hunting elk.

Waterfowl and rabbits finish out the hunting seasons, and rabbit now runs until March 1, which is definitely a winter month here.  But probably starting in January I'd spend some time repairing stuff, working in my shop, reading, and writing.

Not a very socially redeemable existence?  Perhaps not.

And not one that my wife would want to do either, I'm pretty sure.  Not only would she not want to be a nomad for part of the year in our camp trailer, she probably wouldn't want to be the substitute farmer in the summer, in part because she's been a real farmer, which I have not been.  There's no romance in farming, in her view.

And a small dream at that.  No achievement of great political victories.  No reformation of the world.  No generalship of warring armies. No taking the all time home run record in the major league.

And not even that stuff that I hear of people doing, or occasionally actually see them doing.  No setting up a volunteer legal clinic to help veterans, or the indigent.  No working at the law office until you simply can't.  No volunteering at the soup kitchen.  

And not even any career oriented ones.  No "winning the big case".  No being appointed to be the district court judge.  I've won the big case more than once, and I'll try more and hopefully win  more. But I've been there and done that, to where that's part of the whoop and wharf of my existence, not something a person dreams of doing as part of their daily existence.  And I've applied now three times for the district court slot, having been encouraged to do it twice by outsiders, and didn't receive it, so I've put that past my career expectations and that's okay really, as I'm awfully darned opinionated and not inclined to keep my opinions to myself.  Not that this means I'm going to head out of the office and get on the road.  Rather, however, like most lawyers who have practiced a decade or more, the thrill of litigation and of being a court combatant has been replaced by being something more akin to a human factors engineer, which is closer to what we really do.

And while I'm a writer, I don't have that "write the definitive work on the Punitive Expedition", or "write that great historical novel on the Punitive Expedition" (while such a novel is something I'm working on), listed here.  I'd keep writing, to be sure, but even at that, it'd be just part of what I'd do.

I suppose it all speaks ill of me really.

But then, while some of those things have kicked around in my head from time to time, as they do with everyone, I'm not going to get any of those done, but I do hunt and fish, etc., and perhaps at this point the small unachievable dreams mean more than the big ones.  Perhaps they always did.

Blog Mirror: ‘Half dead’: a town in rural Ireland

‘Half dead’: a town in rural Ireland

Blog Mirror, George F. Will criticizes Pope Francis' positions on economics and science.

As probably everyone knows, Pope Francis will be in the US this week that is bringing into national focus something that people were amazingly able to ignore earlier, that being his social positions on economics and science.

Frankly, while I tend towards thinking people have missed the point on his economic analysis, which trends towards classic Distributism in my view, and have also missed much of what he said on environmental issues, and therefore I think the Pope should be listed to on this matters, a column by George F. Will raises some interesting points that are worth listening to.  Will tends to be precise and analytical, rather than politically dogmatic on these matters, which is what makes him such an interesting read on topics of this type.

Taking another look at "The Antelope", and what that might mean for us today

 American slave with heavily scarred back.  In 1825 the United States Supreme Court decided that slavery was against the natural law.

A United States Supreme Court case, theoretically good precedent under in general, but on a topic that's obviously been addressed by Constitutional Amendment and hence the basic problem presented is now contrary to statutory law, is provided by The Antelope.  Slavery, thankfully, and far too late, was made illegal by amendment to the United States Constitution, so whatever The Antelope says about the legality of that abomination is no longer the law. But the case's other points, about the existence of natural law, and potentially the state's relation to it, remain potentially valid.  Should they?

It raises some interesting questions for us today, is this era of much poorer jurisprudence (see last week's item where Judge Posner is quoted on the poor quality of legal education and of the refugee status of law professors in some instances).

First, consider The Antelope.
.

The Antelope
23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 66 (1825)

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT
COURT OF GEORGIA

 Syllabus

The African slave trade is contrary to the law of nature, but is not prohibited by the positive law of nations.

Although the slave trade is now prohibited by the laws of most civilized nations, it may stall be lawfully carried on by the subjects of those nations who have not prohibited it by municipal acts or treaties. 

The slave trade is not piracy unless made so by the treaties or statutes of the nation to whom the party belongs. 

The right of visitation and search does not exist in time of peace. A vessel engaged in the slave trade, even if prohibited by the laws of the country to which it belongs, cannot, for that cause alone, be seized on the high seas and brought in for adjudication in time of peace in the courts of another country. But if the laws of that other country be violated or the proceeding be authorized by treaty, the act of capture is not in that case unlawful.
It seems that in case of such a seizure, possession of Africans is not a sufficient evidence of property, and that the onus probandi is thrown upon the claimant to show that the possession was lawfully acquired Africans who are first captured by a belligerent privateer, fitted out in violation of our neutrality, or by a pirate, and then recaptured and brought into the ports of the United States under a reasonable suspicion that a violation of the slave trade acts was intended are not to be restored without full proof of the proprietary interest, for in such a case the capture is lawful. 

And whether in such a case restitution ought to be decreed at all was a question on which the Court was equally divided. 

Where the Court is equally divided, the decree of the court below is, of course, affirmed so far as the point of division goes. 

Although a consul may claim for subjects unknown of his nation, yet restitution cannot be decreed without specific proof of the individual proprietary interest. 

These cases were allegations filed by the Vice-Consuls of Spain and Portugal, claiming certain Africans as the property of subjects of their nation. The material facts were as follows: 

A privateer, called the Colombia, sailing under a Venezuelan commission, entered the port of Baltimore in the year 1819, clandestinely shipped a crew of thirty or forty men, proceeded to sea, and hoisted the Artegan flag, assuming the name of the Arraganta, and prosecuted a voyage along the coast of Africa, her officers and the greater part of her crew being citizens of the United States. Off the coast of Africa she captured an American vessel, from Bristol, in Rhode Island, from which she took twenty-five Africans; she captured several Portuguese vessels, from which she also took Africans, and she captured a Spanish vessel, called the Antelope, in which she also took a considerable number of Africans. The two vessels then sailed in company to the coast of Brazil, where the Arraganta was wrecked and her master, Metcalf and a great part of his crew made prisoners; the rest of the crew, with the armament of the Arraganta, were transferred to the Antelope, which, thus armed, assumed the name of the General Ramirez, under the command of John Smith, a citizen of the United States, and on board this vessel were all the Africans who had been captured by the privateer in the course of her voyage. This vessel, thus freighted, was found hovering near the coast of the United States by the revenue cutter Dallas, under the command of Captain Jackson, and finally brought into the port of Savannah for adjudication. The Africans, at the time of her capture, amounted to upwards of two hundred and eighty. On their arrival, the vessel and the Africans, were libeled and claimed by the Portuguese and Spanish Vice-Consuls reciprocally. They were also claimed by John Smith as captured jure belli. They were claimed by the United States as having been transported from foreign parts by American citizens in contravention to the laws of the United States and as entitled to their freedom by those laws and by the law of nations. Captain Jackson, the master of the revenue cutter, filed an alternative claim for the bounty given by law if the Africans should be adjudged to the United States, or to salvage if the whole subject should be adjudged to the Portuguese and Spanish Consuls.

The court dismissed the libel and claim of John Smith. It dismissed the claim of the United States except as to that portion of the Africans which had been taken from the American vessel. The residue was divided between the Spanish and Portuguese claimants. 

No evidence was offered to show which of the Africans were taken from the American vessel and which from the Spanish and Portuguese, and the court below decreed that, as about one-third of them died, the loss should be averaged among these three different classes, and that sixteen should be designated by lot from the whole number and delivered over to the Marshal according to the law of the United States as being the fair proportion of the twenty-five proved to have been taken from an American vessel.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the Court, and after stating the case proceeded as follows: 

In prosecuting this appeal, the United States asserts no property in itself. It appears in the character of guardian or next friend of these Africans, who are brought, without any act of their own, into the bosom of our country, insist on their right to freedom, and submit their claim to the laws of the land and to the tribunals of the nation. 

The Consuls of Spain and Portugal, respectively, demand these Africans as slaves, who have, in the regular course of legitimate commerce, been acquired as property by the subjects of their respective sovereigns and claim their restitution under the laws of the United States. 

In examining claims of this momentous importance -- claims in which the sacred rights of liberty and of property come in conflict with each other, which have drawn from the bar a degree of talent and of eloquence worthy of the questions that have been discussed -- this Court must not yield to feelings which might seduce it from the path of duty, and must obey the mandate of the law. 

That the course of opinion on the slave trade should be unsettled ought to excite no surprise. The Christian and civilized nations of the world with whom we have most intercourse have all been engaged in it. However abhorrent this traffic may be to a mind whose original feelings are not blunted by familiarity with the practice, it has been sanctioned in modern times by the laws of all nations who possess distant colonies, each of whom has engaged in it as a common commercial business which no other could rightfully interrupt. It has claimed all the sanction which could be derived from long usage and general acquiescence. That trade could not be considered as contrary to the law of nations which was authorized and protected by the laws of all commercial nations, the right to carry on which was claimed by each and allowed by each. 

The course of unexamined opinion which was founded on this inveterate usage received its first check in America, and as soon as these states acquired the right of self-government, the traffic was forbidden by most of them. In the beginning of this century, several humane and enlightened individuals of Great Britain devoted themselves to the cause of the Africans, and by frequent appeals to the nation, in which the enormity of this commerce was unveiled and exposed to the public eye, the general sentiment was at length roused against it and the feelings of justice and humanity, regaining their long lost ascendancy, prevailed so far in the British Parliament as to obtain an act for its abolition. The utmost efforts of the British government, as well as of that of the United States, have since been assiduously employed in its suppression. It has been denounced by both in terms of great severity and those concerned in it are subjected to the heaviest penalties which law can inflict. In addition to these measures operating on their own people, they have used all their influence to bring other nations into the same system, and to interdict this trade by the consent of all. 

Public sentiment has in both countries kept pace with the measures of government, and the opinion is extensively if not universally entertained that this unnatural traffic ought to be suppressed. While its illegality is asserted by some governments but not admitted by all, while the detestation in which it is held is growing daily, and even those nations who tolerate it in fact almost disavow their own conduct and rather connive at, than legalize, the acts of their subjects, it is not wonderful that public feeling should march somewhat in advance of strict law, and that opposite opinions should be entertained on the precise cases in which our own laws may control and limit the practice of others. Indeed, we ought not to be surprised if, on this novel series of cases, even courts of justice should in some instances have carried the principle of suppression further than a more deliberate consideration of the subject would justify.  

The Amedie, 1 Acton 240, which was an American vessel employed in the African trade, was captured by a British cruiser and condemned in the Vice Admiralty Court of Tortola.An appeal was prayed, and Sir William Grant, in delivering the opinion of the court, said that, the trade being then declared unjust and unlawful by Great Britain, The Fortuna, "a claimant could have no right, upon principles of universal law, to claim restitution in a prize court of human beings carried as his slaves. He must show some right that has been violated by the capture, some property of which he has been dispossessed and to which he ought to be restored. In this case, the laws of the claimant's country allow of no right of property such as he claims. There can therefore be no right of restitution. The consequence is that the judgment must be affirmed." 1 Dodson 81, was condemned on the authority of The Amedie, and the same principle was again affirmed.

The Diana, 1 Dodson 95, was a Swedish vessel captured with a cargo of slaves by a British cruiser and condemned in the Court of Vice Admiralty at Sierra Leone. This sentence was reversed on appeal, and Sir William Scott, in pronouncing the sentence of reversal, said "The condemnation also took place on a principle which this Court cannot in any manner recognize, inasmuch as the sentence affirms 'that the slave trade, from motives of humanity, hath been abolished by most civilized nations and is not at the present time legally authorized by any.' This appears to me to be an assertion by no means sustainable." 

The ship and cargo were restored on the principle that the trade was allowed by the laws of Sweden.

The principle common to these cases is that the legality of the capture of a vessel engaged in the slave trade depends on the law of the country to which the vessel belongs. If that law gives its sanction to the trade, restitution will be decreed; if that law prohibits it, the vessel and cargo will be condemned as good prize. 

This whole subject came on afterwards to be considered in The Louis, 2 Dodson 238. The opinion of Sir William Scott in that case demonstrates the attention he had bestowed upon it and gives full assurance that it may be considered as settling the law in the British courts of admiralty as far as it goes. 

The Louis was a French vessel, captured on a slaving voyage before she had purchased any slaves, brought into Sierra Leone, and condemned by the Vice Admiralty court at that place. On an appeal to the Court of Admiralty in England, the sentence was reversed. 

In the very full and elaborate opinion given on this case, Sir William Scott in explicit terms lays down the broad principle that the right of search is confined to a state of war. It is a right, strictly belligerent in its character, which can never be exercised by a nation at peace except against professed pirates, who are the enemies of the human race. The act of trading in slaves, however detestable, was not, he said, "the act of freebooters, enemies of the human race, renouncing every country and ravaging every country in its coasts and vessels indiscriminately." It was not piracy.

He also said that this trade could not be pronounced contrary to the law of nations. "A court, in the administration of law, cannot attribute criminality to an act where the law imputes none. It must look to the legal standard of morality, and upon a question of this nature that standard must be found in the law of nations as fixed and evidenced by general and ancient and admitted practice by treaties and by the general tenor of the laws and ordinances and the formal transactions of civilized states, and, looking to those authorities, he found a difficulty in maintaining that the transaction was legally criminal." 

The right of visitation and search being strictly a belligerent right, and the slave trade being neither piratical nor contrary to the law of nations, the principle is asserted and maintained with great strength of reasoning that it cannot be exercised on the vessels of a foreign power unless permitted by treaty. France had refused to assent to the insertion of such an article in her treaty with Great Britain, and consequently the right could not be exercised on the high seas by a British cruiser on a French vessel.
"It is pressed as a difficulty," says the judge,
"what is to be done if a French ship laden with slaves is brought in. I answer without hesitation, restore the possession which has been unlawfully devested; rescind the illegal act done by your own subject, and leave the foreigner to the justice of his own country."
This reasoning goes far in support of the proposition that in the British courts of admiralty, the vessel even of a nation which had forbidden the slave trade, but had not conceded the right of search, must, if wrongfully brought in, be restored to the original owner. But the judge goes further and shows that no evidence existed to prove that France had by law forbidden that trade. Consequently, for this reason as well as for that previously assigned, the sentence of condemnation was reversed and restitution awarded.
In the United States, different opinions have been entertained in the different circuits and districts, and the subject is now, for the first time, before this Court. 

The question whether the slave trade is prohibited by the law of nations has been seriously propounded, and both the affirmative and negative of the proposition have been maintained with equal earnestness. 

That it is contrary to the law of nature will scarcely be denied. That every man has a natural right to the fruits of his own labor is generally admitted, and that no other person can rightfully deprive him of those fruits and appropriate them against his will seems to be the necessary result of this admission. But from the earliest times, war has existed, and war confers rights in which all have acquiesced. Among the most enlightened nations of antiquity, one of these was that the victor might enslave the vanquished. This, which was the usage of all, could not be pronounced repugnant to the law of nations, which is certainly to be tried by the test of general usage. That which has received the assent of all must be the law of all. 

Slavery, then, has its origin in force; but as the world has agreed that it is a legitimate result of force, the state of things which is thus produced by general consent cannot be pronounced unlawful. 

Throughout Christendom, this harsh rule has been exploded, and war is no longer considered as giving a right to enslave captives. But this triumph of humanity has not been universal. The parties to the modern law of nations do not propagate their principles by force, and Africa has not yet adopted them. Throughout the whole extent of that immense continent, so far as we know its history, it is still the law of nations that prisoners are slaves. Can those who have themselves renounced this law be permitted to participate in its effects by purchasing the beings who are its victims? 

Whatever might be the answer of a moralist to this question, a jurist must search for its legal solution in those principles of action which are sanctioned by the usages, the national acts, and the general assent of that portion of the world of which he considers himself as a part and to whose law the appeal is made. If we resort to this standard as the test of international law, the question, as has already been observed, is decided in favor of the legality of the trade. Both Europe and America embarked in it, and for nearly two centuries it was carried on without opposition and without censure. A jurist could not say that a practice thus supported was illegal and that those engaged in it might be punished either personally or by deprivation of property. 

In this commerce, thus sanctioned by universal assent, every nation had an equal right to engage. How is this right to be lost? Each may renounce it for its own people, but can this renunciation affect others? 

No principle of general law is more universally acknowledged than the perfect equality of nations. Russia and Geneva have equal rights. It results from this equality that no one can rightfully impose a rule on another. Each legislates for itself, but its legislation can operate on itself alone. A right, then, which is vested in all by the consent of all can be devested only by consent, and this trade, in which all have participated, must remain lawful to those who cannot be induced to relinquish it. As no nation can prescribe a rule for others, none can make a law of nations, and this traffic remains lawful to those whose governments have not forbidden it. 

If it is consistent with the law of nations, it cannot in itself be piracy. It can be made so only by statute, and the obligation of the statute cannot transcend the legislative power of the state which may enact it. 

If it be neither repugnant to the law of nations nor piracy, it is almost superfluous to say in this Court that the right of bringing in for adjudication in time of peace, even where the vessel belongs to a nation which has prohibited the trade,cannot exist. The courts of no country execute the penal laws of another, and the course of the American government on the subject of visitation and search would decide any case in which that right had been exercised by an American cruiser on the vessel of a foreign nation, not violating our municipal laws, against the captors. 

It follows that a foreign vessel engaged in the African slave trade, captured on the high seas in time of peace by an American cruiser and brought in for adjudication, would be restored. 

The general question being disposed of, it remains to examine the circumstances of the particular case. 

The Antelope, a vessel unquestionably belonging to Spanish subjects, was captured while receiving a cargo of Africans on the coast of Africa by the Arraganta, a privateer which was manned in Baltimore and is said to have been then under the flag of the Oriental republic. Some other vessels, said to be Portuguese, engaged in the same traffic, were previously plundered and the slaves taken from them as well as from another vessel then in the same port were put on board the Antelope, of which vessel the Arraganta took possession, landed her crew, and put on board a prize master and prize crew. Both vessels proceeded to the coast of Brazil, where the Arraganta was wrecked and her captain and crew either lost or made prisoners. 

The Antelope, whose name was changed to the General Ramirez after an ineffectual attempt to sell the Africans on board at Surinam, arrived off the coast of Florida and was hovering on that coast near that of the United States for several days. Supposing her to be a pirate or a vessel wishing to smuggle slaves into the United States, Captain Jackson, of the revenue cutter Dallas, went in quest of her, and finding her laden with slaves, commanded by officers who were citizens of the United States, with a crew who spoke English, brought her in for adjudication. 

She was libeled by the Vice Consuls of Spain and Portugal, each of whom claim that portion of the slaves which were conjectured to belong to the subjects of their respective sovereigns, which claims are opposed by the United States on behalf of the Africans.
In the argument, the question on whom the onus probandi is imposed has been considered as of great importance, and the testimony adduced by the parties has been critically examined. It is contended that the Antelope, having been wrongfully dispossessed of her slaves by American citizens and being now, together with her cargo, in the power of the United States, ought to be restored without further inquiry to those out of whose possession she was thus wrongfully taken. No proof of property, it is said, ought to be required. Possession is in such a case evidence of property. 

Conceding this as a general proposition, the counsel for the United States deny its application to this case. A distinction is taken between men, who are generally free, and goods, which are always property. Although with respect to the last possession may constitute the only proof of property which is demandable, something more is necessary where men are claimed. Some proof should be exhibited that the possession was legally acquired. A distinction has been also drawn between Africans unlawfully taken from the subjects of a foreign power by persons acting under the authority of the United States and Africans first captured by a belligerent privateer or by a pirate and then brought rightfully into the United States, under a reasonable apprehension that a violation of their laws was intended. Being rightfully in the possession of an American court, that court, it is contended, must be governed by the laws of its own country, and the condition of these Africans must depend on the laws of the United States, not on the laws of Spain and Portugal. 

Had the Arraganta been a regularly commissioned cruiser, which had committed no infraction of the neutrality of the United States, her capture of the Antelope must have been considered as lawful, and no question could have arisen respecting the rights of the original claimants. The question of prize or no prize belongs solely to the courts of the captor. But having violated the neutrality of the United States and having entered our ports not voluntarily, but under coercion, some difficulty exists respecting the extent of the obligation to restore, on the more proof of former possession, which is imposed on this government

If, as is charged in the libels of both the consuls as well as of the United States, she was a pirate hovering on the coast with intent to introduce slaves in violation of the laws of the United States, our treaty requires that property rescued from pirates shall be restored to the Spanish owner on his making proof of his property. 

Whether the General Ramirez, originally the Antelope, is to be considered as the prize of a commissioned belligerent ship of war unlawfully equipped in the United States, or as a pirate, it seems proper to make some inquiry into the title of the claimants.
In support of the Spanish claim, testimony is produced showing the documents under which the AntelopeArraganta. sailed from the Havana on the voyage on which she was captured; that she was owned by a Spanish house of trade in that place; that she was employed in the business of purchasing slaves, and had purchased and taken on board a considerable number when she was seized as prize by the  

Whether, on this proof, Africans brought into the United States under the various circumstances belonging to this case ought to be restored or not is a question on which much difficulty has been felt. It is unnecessary to state the reasons in support of the affirmative or negative answer to it, because the Court is divided on it, and consequently no principle is settled. So much of the decree of the circuit court as directs restitution to the Spanish claimant of the Africans found on board the Antelope when she was captured by the Arraganta is affirmed. 

There is some difficulty in ascertaining their number. The libel claims one hundred and fifty as belonging to Spanish subjects, and charges that one hundred or more of these were on board the Antelope. Grondona and Ximenes, Spanish officers of the Antelope before her capture, both depose positively to the number of one hundred and sixty-six. Some deduction, however, is to be made from the weight of Grondona's testimony, because, he says in one of his depositions that he did not count the slaves on the last day when some were brought on board, and adds that he had lost his papers and spoke from memory and from the information he had received from others of the crew after his arrival in the Havana. Such of the crew as were examined concur with Grondona and Ximenes as to numbers. 

The depositions of the Spanish witnesses on this point are opposed by those of John Smith, the Captain of the General Ramirez, and William Brunton, one of the crew of the Arraganta,Antelope. who was transferred to the  

John Smith deposes that ninety-three Africans were found on board the Antelope when captured who he believes to have been Spanish property. He also says, that one hundred and eighty-three were taken out of Portuguese vessels. 

William Brunton deposes that more slaves were taken out of the Portuguese ship than were in any other, and that ninety-odd were represented by the crew to have been on board the Antelope when she was captured. 

If to the positive testimony of these witnesses we add the inference to be drawn from the statement of the libel and the improbability that so large a number of Africans as are claimed could have been procured under the circumstances in which the Antelope was placed between the 13th, when she was liberated by the first pirate who seized her, and the 23d, when she was finally captured, we are rather disposed to think the weight of testimony is in favor of the smaller number. But supposing perfect equality in this respect, the decision ought, we think, to be against the claimant. 

Whatever doubts may attend the question whether the Spanish claimants are entitled to restitution of all the Africans taken out of their possession with the Antelope, we cannot doubt the propriety of demanding ample proof of the extent of that possession. Every legal principle which requires the plaintiff to prove his claim in any case applies with full force to this point, and no countervailing consideration exists. The onus probandi as to the number of Africans which were on board when the vessel was captured unquestionably lies on the Spanish libellants. Their proof is not satisfactory beyond ninety-three. The individuals who compose this number must be designated to the satisfaction of the circuit court.

We proceed next to consider the libel of the Vice-Consul of Portugal. It claims one hundred and thirty slaves or more, "all of whom, as the libellant is informed and believes," are the property of a subject or subjects of his Most Faithful Majesty, and although "the rightful owners of such slaves be not at this time individually and certainly known to the libellant, he hopes and expects soon to discover them." 

John Smith and William Brunton, whose depositions have already been noticed, both state that several Africans were taken out of Portuguese vessels, but neither of them states the means by which he ascertained the national character of the vessels they had plundered. It does not appear that their opinions were founded on any other fact than the flag under which the vessels sailed. Grondona also states the plunder of a Portuguese vessel lying in the same port and engaged in the same traffic with the Antelope when she was captured, but his testimony is entirely destitute of all those circumstances which would enable us to say that he had any knowledge of the real character of the vessel other than was derived from her flag. The cause furnishes no testimony of any description, other than these general declarations, that the proprietors of the Africans now claimed by the Vice-Consul of Portugal were the subjects of his King; nor is there any allusion to the individuals to whom they belong. These vessels were plundered in March, 1820, and the libel was filed in August of the same year. From that time to this, a period of more than five years, no subject of the Crown of Portugal has appeared to assert his title to this property,; no individual has been designated as its probable owner. This inattention to a subject of so much real interest, this total disregard of a valuable property, is so contrary to the common course of human action as to justify serious suspicion that the real owner dares not avow himself. 

That Americans and others who cannot use the flag of their own nation carry on this criminal and inhuman traffic under the flags of other countries is a fact of such general notoriety that courts of admiralty may act upon it. It cannot be necessary to take particular depositions to prove a fact which is matter of general and public history. This long and otherwise unaccountable absence of any Portuguese claimant furnishes irresistible testimony that no such claimant exists and that the real owner belongs to some other nation and feels the necessity of concealment. 

An attempt has been made to supply this defect of testimony by adducing a letter from the secretary to whose department the foreign relations of Portugal are supposed to be entrusted suggesting the means of transporting to Portugal those slaves which may be in the possession of the vice-consul as the property of his fellow subjects. Allow to this document all the effect which can be claimed for it and it can do no more than supply the want of an express power from the owners of the slaves to receive them. It cannot be considered as ascertaining the owners or as proving their property. 

The difficulty, then, is not diminished by this paper. These Africans still remain unclaimed by the owner or by any person professing to know the owner. They are rightfully taken from American citizens and placed in possession of the law. No property whatever in them is shown. It is said that possession, in a case of this description, is equivalent to property. Could this be conceded, who had the possession? From whom were they taken by the Arraganta? It is not alleged that they are the property of the Crown, but of some individual. Who is that individual? No such person is shown to exist, and his existence after such a lapse of time cannot be presumed. 

The libel, which claims them for persons entirely unknown, alleges a state of things which is prima facie evidence of an intent to violate the laws of the United States by the commission of an act which according to those laws entitles these men to freedom. Nothing whatever can interpose to arrest the course of the law but the title of the real proprietor. No such title appears, and every presumption is against its existence.
We think, then, that all the Africans now in possession of the Marshal for the District of Georgia and under the control of the circuit court of the United States for that district which were brought in with the Antelope, otherwise called the General Ramirez, except those which may be designated as the property of the Spanish claimants ought to be delivered up to the United States to be disposed of according to law. So much of the sentence of the circuit court as is contrary to this opinion is to be 

Reversed, and the residue affirmed.

DECREE. This cause came on to be heard, &c., on consideration whereof this Court is of opinion that there is error in so much of the sentence and decree of the said circuit court as directs the restitution to the Spanish claimant of the Africans in the proceedings mentioned in the ratio which one hundred and sixty-six bears to the whole number of those which remained alive at the time of pronouncing the said decree, and also in so much thereof as directs restitution to the Portuguese claimant, and that so much of the said decree ought to be reversed, and it is hereby reversed and annulled. And this Court, proceeding to give such decree as the said circuit court ought to have given, doth DIRECT and ORDER that the restitution to be made to the Spanish claimant, shall be according to the ratio which ninety-three (instead of one hundred and sixty-six) bears to the whole number, comprehending as well those originally on board the Antelope as those which were put on board that vessel by the Captain of the Arraganta. After making the apportionment according to this ratio and deducting from the number the ratable loss which must fall on the slaves to which the Spanish claimants were originally entitled, the
residue of the said ninety-three are to be delivered to the Spanish claimant on the terms in the said decree mentioned, and all the remaining Africans are to be delivered to the United States, to be disposed of according to law, and the said decree of the said circuit court is in all things not contrary to this decree affirmed.

John Marshall, author of the opinion in The Antelope.  He's regarded, justifiably, as one of the greatest of American jurists, but did he get this right?

So, there you have the sad story of the ship, The Antelope, and its sad charges.  Africans carried away from home against their will and condemned to live out the balance of their lives as slaves, far from their homes and their desires.

And a legal case with surprising language, and to some extent, a surprising result. What does the Supreme Court decision tell us?

Well, it tells us the following.

1.  In 1825, a full forty years prior to the end of the Civil War, a war we fought principally over slavery (yes, I know, states rights, etc., well that isn't what the war was about. . . it was about human bondage) the United States Supreme Court acknowledged the slavery was:

A.  Contrary to Natural Law, and;

B.  Immoral but;

C.  Legal under the laws of men.

Note what's significant in that.   At that point in time, when the knowledge of lawyers included not only the law, but the origin and nature of law, the Supreme Court acknowledged a natural law.  Not some mushy evolving standard of law based upon some vague octogenarian's discerning of public intent, but a real basis in nature.

Only slightly less significant, the Justices found that the laws of nations could and in this case did override that natural law.

 German defendants at the Nuremberg trials, each of whom could claim that their actions, no matter how heinous, were authorized by law.  Their claims were rejected.

Let's leap forward to 1945. And the Nuremberg Trials.

Now a person may ask why, but again, there's a good reason. We're now dealing with natural law again, but on a national scale.

During the Nuremberg trials, the victorious Allies tried individuals who had served the Axis powers for various crimes against humanity.  The fact that these crimes were legal under the laws of those nations did not a provide a defense. That is, a person could not claim, in their defense (although they frequently tried to do so, that "I was ordered to do it". That defense was actually a legally sufficient one up until that time, for the most part, and squares well with the holding of The Antelope.  Yes, mass murder and imprisonment of millions based on their race or behavior is immoral, but it wasn't illegal under the laws of the state.  It was illegal, rather, as it failed to comport with the principals of Natural Law.

So, starting in 1945, we reversed the view held by the United States Supreme Court in 1825. That is, we started saying that Natural Law is the highest law, where as the Supreme Court had said that Natural Law is the highest law, but a Court could not base a decision upon it in the face of contrary statutory law.

So what does that have to do with anything today?

How do you feel? 

Was the U.S. Supreme Court wrong in 1825?  It could have held that a Natural Law was supreme against all other law, and a law contrary to nature was no law at all.  Politically, that would have been problematic in 1825 to say the least, as it would have feed the slaves throughout the country, and the Supreme Court likely knew that it couldn't effect that in 1825.  Still, as a moral and legal proposition, it could have said that.

The Allies did say that in 1945.  Where they right?  Is a person bound by the Natural Law above all other law?

It's an interesting and relevant question today.  In Obegefell Justice Kennedy and his fellows ignored any discussion of Natural Law, even though its clearly relevant to the topic they had at hand, and the most frequently discussed aspect of the topic that decision addresses in serious circles of debate.  Indeed, he didn't really  hold to anything much than a mushy standards of "we know where things are headed". But that doesn't make the Natural Law question go away, and now it places it in the forefront.

Has the Nuremberg Defense, "following orders", now been adopted by the American judiciary as a mandate.  I.e., you must follow orders, as we've decreed, even if you have serious Natural Law objections?  And if so, where does that lead us in the future. Will future Syrian butchers be able to avoid trial, as "my state ordered me to do this?". 

Was The Antelope wrongly decided, and for those with moral convictions on the topic did the decision resolve them because it was a legal decision?

"The Lord Is My Shepherd", painting of an American slave.

Interesting questions, directly impacting real people's lives. At the end of the day, the subject of The Antelope was people. And the decision essentially overrode an acknowledged superior body of law in favor of what the Court seemed to acknowledge was an immoral national law. The Court went for statutory law over a great Natural Law.  In 1945, we decided that a greater Natural Law bound all others.  What position do we hold now?

Blog Mirror: Ten Common Misconceptions about the Constitution.

The ABA writes about ten common misconceptions about the Constitution.

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: US Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of Oklahoma...

Courthouses of the West: US Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of Oklahoma...

 

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Holy Name Roman Catholic Church, Sheridan Wyoming

Churches of the West: Holy Name Roman Catholic Church, Sheridan Wyoming:
 

The Best Posts of the Week of September 13, 2015

Big Town, Small Town.

Confessions of a Writer of Westerns: What If?

Confessions of a Writer of Westerns: What If?: What If? What could a fence post tell us if   fence posts could talk? That's how I most often come up with ideas, what if? W...

Big Town, Small Town.

"I grew up in a small town"

Everyone has heard this comment, probably a million times, and let it pass on without comment.  Indeed, the American background story is, almost invariably, "I was born in a small town" or "I grew up on a farm".  So archetypal is it, that rocker John Cougar penned a song called "Small Town" which is entirely about the virtues of small towns.  Iris Dement, on the other hand, penned the heart breaking "Our Town" about a town that's clearly a small, and dying, small town.  John Prine went one step further and penned "Paradise" about Paradise Kentucky, a real small town, that he somewhat fictionally claims was "hauled away" by the Peabody Coal Company, to their enduring irritation.

The small town of Paradise Kentucky, in the late 19th Century.

Leaving the "I grew up on a farm" comment aside for a moment, it might serve to actually look at the statement. What's it mean?  That is, what is a small town, and do we really recognize one when we see one.

Do we really recognize a small town when we see one?

I grew up in Casper Wyoming.  It's not a small town, it's a medium sized city.  Because it is a western city, however, it's a medium sized city that's an island in the prairie to some extent, although this is now less true than it once was. Suffice it to say, however, the entire time I've lived in Casper, it's been a medium sized city, although my father lived in it when it was a small city and he lived through its growth to be a medium sized city, something he never commented on but which I'm glad in a way hasn't been my experience, as I would have lamented the change.  Having said that, I have lived in a small city, Laramie Wyoming, for a period of several years, and because it too is an island in the prairie, or more accurately the high plains, the geographic feel of the city doesn't vary tremendously from Casper in some ways.

While Casper is a small city, or rather a medium sized city, I've heard time and time again, both in the past and currently, that Casper's a "small town".  Far from it. It's definately not.  It has ample population to be regarded as a medium sized city, and if the greater metropolitan area is included, there's no doubt of that at all.  So why do people think that?

I wonder if it is, in part, because true "towns", at least in this region, have taken such a hit.  A lot of them are mere shadows of their former selves, if they are there at all.  For example, in this county, the small town of Powder River at one time spread across both sides of the highway and the town featured a church, post office, bar/restaurant, another restaurant, a hotel and a store.  It also had a railroad station.  It was never more than a small town, however.

Today, Powder River retains a church and a post office (and maybe the hotel is functioning, I'm not sure), but nothing else I've mentioned above still exists.  A person cannot even buy gasoline there, and the  nearest station is over 20 miles away.  It's not a town that a person could live in and expect to have any local services.

 

House of Our Shepherd Church in Powder River, Wyoming.  This Assemblies of God church is served by a pastor who is a local rancher, which adds another element to this story, as this town was always so small as to have a single church, in so far as I'm aware.  Slightly larger towns, like Shoshoni Wyoming, had considerably more services, including churches of more than one denomination.  The blue building to the left is or was a hotel.

Arminto, just up the railroad, may provide a better example.  It was always quite small, but none the less it was at one time very active.  It was the largest single railroad loading facility for sheep on earth, at one time.  It had a famous bar, a store, and a population that served the railroad.  Now, the bar is gone (burned down), there is no store, and the railroad doesn't stop there any more.

Arminto Wyoming, looking towards a grove of trees that stand where the bar and a hotel once did.  This town has the Disappearing Railroad Blues.*

And I could go on.  But, suffice it to say, in order for a small town to really survive now, it has to have a reason independant of isolation and the railroads, and even then things might be rough for it.  Shoshoni Wyoming, for example, hangs on, but it's at a junction for two state highways near a very busy recreational reservoir.  And even it is a mere shawdow of its former self.

For that reason, I think small cities, like Riverton Wyoming, get confused for "small towns" fairly frequently.  A true town, like Lander Wyoming or Thermopolis Wyoming, is probably a larger town by historical standards. Small towns that really hang on, for example something like Hudson Wyoming, or perhaps Dubois Wyoming, are exceptions, and exceptions for a definite reason.  We hardly recognize a real small town when we see one.

___________________________________________________________________________________

*From the lyrics of The City of New Orleans, about a train named that, on its last run.

Blog Mirror: Unplugging My Way to Recovery

Esther J. Cepeda writes on Unplugging as a way to recovery, and somewhat ironically she means unplugging electronic media.

There's a lot to be said for this, and not just from a health perspective, but also from a mental health and philosophic prospective.

Sounds Of The Past

Jenny, of the 1870 to 1917 blog, before her tragic passing, observed on M. L. Wright's blog:

The difference between sound of a jet and the sound of any kind of prop plane, let alone the differences between various kinds of prop planes, is striking. It dawned on me at some point that the world we live in now has completely different sound effects than the worlds of the past. To take a trivial example, the cash registers of the past had a very distinctive “ka-ching!” when the transaction had been punched in and the cash drawer shot out. A lot of this difference in sounds has to do with the change from mechanical to electronic. Mechanisms gave us the distinctive rhythms and pulses of objects made of metal moving in some fashion. Even where the item in question remains essentially mechanical—say the diesel locomotive that replaced the steam locomotive—the sounds are different. The sounds of steam—that is a whole other story.

Right she was.

Is it smokey in here?

I ran this item last week, at the time that the Casper City Council reinstated a complete ban on smoking in public buildings, following the victory of an initiative movement in the Wyoming Supreme Court.  That movement, backed by former city council woman Kim Holloway, achieved the Court's declaration that some signatures had been improperly rejected.

Lex Anteinternet: Today In Wyoming's History: September 8: Today In Wyoming's History: September 8 : 2015  In a controversial move, the Casper City Counsel reinstated a tavern and restau...

Subsequent events have brought to light the truth of Otto Von Bismarck's comment that "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made."

Last night, making the first of three required votes on three readings, the City Council went on to officially repeal the amendment to the City's smoking law which had exempted bars. The thought was that by doing that, and restoring the original ordinance's complete ban, the need to hold the special election the initiative would have required would evaporate, as the goal of the petition was therefore met.  So, we must note, there was a degree of cynicism in the vote, as the councilmen, as shown by their next vote, did not wish to genuinely reinstate a complete ban, as the petitioners did.  Having said that, a couple genuinely supported the restoration of a complete ban.

Next the council voted to completely repeal the ban, thereby allowing smoking everywhere once again.  Only two councilmen voted against that.

The debate heavily focused on property rights and on the plight of tavern owners whose patrons have fled to Mills, Evansville and Bar Nunn, neighboring towns which those from outside of Casper no doubt generally regard as part of Casper, but which have separate legal status and governments. The arguments against repealing a ban were weighted heavily on public health issues.  I saw the council meeting on television, and the sides were well behaved and presented their views quite well.

The instinctively sympathetic view, around here anyway, is that a business owner should be allowed to do what they will, and the patrons can vote with their feet. There's some logic to that, but it does miss the point, raised but often not really well developed, that employees of any one workplace often are in a position where they have to work where there's work.  I know that there's people who really like and aspire to be bar servers and tenders, but there's also a lot of people who find there way into those jobs, often temporarily, but sometimes long term, and have to stick with them for one reason or another.  The "you can always quit" argument doesn't work for most other occupations anymore in recognition of that, but it's a common one for these occupations, which are often occupied by the workplace demographic that's least able to switch employments readily.

It also somewhat applied to patrons of restaurants and bars, although people rarely recognize that.  If you are in business and everyone breaks for lunch and the nearest establishment is Smokey Joe's Bar Grill and Smokapalooza, you're gong there with everyone else working on that big project, as you'll have little other choice.  No matter what your health situation may be.  I well remember, for instance, being on breaks in trials for lunch where the only nearby restaurant, or the one the client recommended, featured smoke and being very conscious that I was now heading back to court smelling like cigarette smoke, something that non smokers are extremely conscious of but which smokers seem not to notice at all.   This doesn't touch on the numerous people who are allergic or have reactions to cigarette smoke in one form or another.  These folks don't really have the option of making a big deal out of their situation in a lot of instances.

I guess that makes it obvious that I wish they keep the smoke ban in place, but then I also feel that they shouldn't have voted to eliminate their compromise position that allowed smoking in bars, not because I want to smoke in a bar (obviously I don't smoke), but because it seemed to be a compromise that was working.  

Which brings to mind the Italian proverb "Le meglio è l'inimico del bene", or "the perfect is the enemy of the good".  It really is.  

Passing a smoking ban was difficult in Casper in the first place.  When it first came up around 2002 it was voted down, but then a decade later the full ban (oddly called the "fully leaded ban" in the debate) was passed, but thereafter shortly amended to exempt bars.  That law was no doubt not perfect from anyone's perspective, but then the perspectives are so radically different that no law could satisfy that.  For those who take the "property rights" position, no ban, perhaps on anything, would be ideal. For those who a radically opposed to cigarettes, I suppose banning cigarettes entirely would be ideal.  No compromise is going to make everyone happy.

Which brings us to a likely ironic result of all of this. When Kim Holloway, a former city councilwoman, took to the streets with her petition to take this to the voters, the goal was to restore a full ban.  But what now appears likely is that her actions have killed off the partial ban, or soon will.  No doubt a new petition drive will start, and I'd guess Holloway will be leading the charge, but just listening to the city council and those who came to speak, I suspect that the tide has turned on this issue and the voters will side with the property rights argument.  That will likely have less of an impact than supposed, as smoking is slowly declining in the population anyhow, and my guess (and hope) is that most of the restaurants aren't going to restore smoking, indeed a lot didn't allow it before the ban, and more than a few busy bars aren't going to allow it again either, now that they know that they can survive without smoking in the premises.  So the hard feeling that we must ban smoking to have an impact is likely gone, and as our local economy declines, the feeling that we shouldn't mess with business owners will increase. But some bars that did allow smoking recently will go back to it, and I'd guess a few small cafes in town will also. The petition backers who sought to fully ban smoking, may have in fact restored it.

Lex Anteinternet: A few Labor Day observations. But wait. . . .

 I recently ran this item:

Lex Anteinternet: A few Labor Day observations.: World War Two vintage Labor Day poster, produced by the Office of War Information. Labor Day was made a Federal holiday in 1886, when ...

This sort of touched on the decline in labor, and the reduction of blue collar labor as a demographic in the US.

But is that really true?

Perhaps, or almost certainly, it is, but as the Labor Day article by George S. Will pointed out, there's a lot of labor in the US, and a lot of it in the traditional categories.  Lots of car manufacturing, and not just by the big three, for example.  Indeed, a quiet story has been the re-industrialization of the US, often by foreign companies, coming in to take advantage of a skilled labor pool and shorter distance to their markets.  All sorts of "European" and "Japanese" cars, for example, are made here in the US.

What is different about that, however, is that the workers aren't nearly as heavily unionized as they once were.  Indeed, to some extent, heavy industry went overseas, shook off the unions, and came back. But in coming back, they largely were careful to preserve the gains the unions had made in many instances.  It's been an interesting evolution over time.

Blog Mirror, for MId Week at Work: Quit Hating on Your Job

Esther J. Cepeda on Quit Hating On Your Job.

Definitely not the sort of career advice you commonly hear in the modern economy, but more realistic?  And interestingly sort of a throw back to an earlier era.

Mid Week at Work: Standard Oil strikers, Bayonne, New Jersey 1915.

Evidence of changes in technology and transportation in geography.

The photograph above depicts a United Methodist Church in Hillsdale, Wyoming.  Hillsdale is a really tiny town, with a population of under fifty people.  It's on the Union Pacific.

By rail, it's less than 15 miles from Cheyenne.  It's less than five miles from Burns, another little town, albeit one that's bigger than Hillsdale.  Another five miles down the Union Pacific is the town of Egbert.  And a few more, maybe eight or so, is the town of Pine Bluff.  In Pine Bluff, I know, there's a Catholic Church.

I've been in Hillsdale (as of yesterday) and Pine Bluff, but I've never been in Burns.

Of these towns, only Pine Bluff and Cheyenne on are the Interstate Highway.  Hillsdale is probably four miles or so off the Interstate Highway, effective marooned out there in the rolling hills of Laramie County, Wyoming.

I was actually amazed that this United Methodist Church is active.  The Catholic church in Pine Bluff also is.  So these communities are obviously keeping on keeping on, but what a change this evidences.

All of these towns were built on the Union Pacific Railroad.  Only Pine Bluff and Cheyenne are on the Interstate.  Coming in from Nebraska, I'm sure that well over 90% of all travelers go right by Pine Bluff.  Leaving Cheyenne (and no, not the song, that takes you to Montana), probably nearly 100% of travelers go right by Pine Bluff.

All of these towns, save for Cheyenne, must have been built as farming towns along the Union Pacific.  They're not far from each other today, but when founded they would have been just far enough to travel to each other, by wagon, and get back home, which is how they served the area farmers. That is, towns in this area where just far enough from towns so that you could get into one, conduct your business, and go back home.  Saturday was traditionally the big "into town" day for farmers and these towns were probably pretty big on Saturdays.  I'd guess that their populations swelled during Sundays as well, but how farmers got to services I don't know.  In some regions of the country the population prior to World War Two heavily reflected a single faith or perhaps only a couple of faiths (and this is still the case in some regions), and perhaps that was the case in this region of Wyoming, but it wouldn't be the case for Wyoming in general at any single point.

These towns remained viable in the early automobile era, but clear by the 1950s the handwriting must have been pretty visible on the wall.  Cheyenne is the dominant city in the area, and it always has been, but for all practical purposes its the only one that is truly fully viable now. That wouldn't have been true at one time.

If I could eliminate one thing from the planet for all time. . .

it would be the cell phone.

I hate them.

It's not that I don't use them, I do, a lot, but I really dislike them.

I dislike them for more than one reason, but my principal reason is that everyone under 25 years of age, and increasingly more people in older age brackets as time goes on, are glued to their little screens actually missing life.  It's amazing.

People can't avoid checking Facebook or Instagram at the drop of a hat, on their little screens. They sit in restaurants and meetings with other people, looking at artificial electronic life over real life.  They've grown unable to enjoy passing scenery from a car or airplane window.  It's a sickness.

I also hate the degree of connectivity they have caused, although I enjoy that too.  Now, people are tied to their apron stings to each other as never before, even while they also are able to preserve bonds that our highly mobile lifestyle would otherwise strain.  There's a balance of considerations there, and I don't know how it comes out, but which ever way it comes out, it doesn't save this technology, which "improves" darned near every day, from being an overall bad development.

Judge Posner writes on the Federal bench

The legendary Judge Richard Posner, whom I'm not really a fan of, has just released a book on the state of the law in the United States.

For those not familiar with Posner, he is a well regarded Federal judge who writes a great deal.  Once mentioned as a possible candidate for the Supreme Court every time a Democratic President was in office, that no longer seems to be the case, but his output has not diminished.  Nor has it become less accute in tone.

Now, I'm not really a fan of Posner, quite frankly.  He's heavily associated with the economic school of thought in law, and I'm not a fan of that type of reasoning.  He's generally left of center, and at least his recent critique of the Scalia was regarded as sufficiently unfair that one of his admirers on the Federal bench took after him on his own blawg.

But at least in his current book, if the Wall Street Journal comments on it are any guide, he may be spot on.  Indeed his comments sound a lot like, well, mine.

Consider his comment that relates to the aging on the bench, a topic that's been discussed here more than once.

Not being subject to compulsory retirement and able to delegate much of their work to staff, federal judges sometimes fail to retire even when old age and its related ills have greatly impaired their judicial performance. To be blunt, there is a problem of judicial senility and it is growing with the general increase in the longevity of the American population.

Hmmm. . . Posner sounds like, well. . . . me when I worried about the Wyoming Legislature taking out the state mandatory retirement age for judges.

Or his comment on lack of diversity at the Supreme Court:

I believe that the average quality of justices back then was slightly higher than that of the current justices, that the current justices are overstaffed, talk too much at oral argument, and devote excessive time to extrajudicial activities, but that what made the earlier Court better despite its meager resources by current standards was mainly the diversity in the Justices’ professional backgrounds. Today. judged by educational and professional backgrounds, and despite pronounced ideological differences, the Justices are peas in a pod.

Interesting comment, and I can't disagree.

Here's one where I suspect that Posner must be following me around and reading my blog:

The increase in the number of law schools has caused a reduction in the average quality of law school graduates and a concomitant reduction in the average quality of lawyers who practice in the federal courts. And the increased size of laws school faculties has resulted in an increased number of the faculty members whom I’ve term “refugees” from more competitive or less lucrative fields and who have little interest in the actual judicial process and little ability to contribute to that process.

Law professors as "refugees", well in my entire quarter century of work as a lawyer I've heard one, and only one, lawyer use that term this way, that being. . . me.  Judge Posner, is that you there in the shawdow?  Hey, wait. . . .  Well, good observation.

I may have to buy his book.

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: Tulsa Municipal Building, Tulsa Oklahoma

Courthouses of the West: Tulsa Municipal Building, Tulsa Oklahoma:

This is the Tulsa, Oklahoma Municipal Building which housed Tulsa's government between 1917 and 1960.  While I'm not certain that it housed a courthouse, it has that appearance, and I strongly suspect that the city's municipal courthouse was located here.  This building no longer houses Tulsa's city offices.

What's with the all the hugely overblown football movies?

My long suffering spouse loves football.

I don't hate it, I just can't develop an interest in it.

But my patience with football movies is strained to the extreme.

One of the things that I don't get is the plethora of simply over the top football movies. As my spouse likes the games, she likes the movies, so when they are on television, they're on here, even if we have seen them a million times.

The age of melodrama may be over in all other forms of movies, but not in football movies.  Villains no longer tie damsels to tracks, women don't faint at the sight of violence, war films are cynical even when patriotic, but football movies are the exception.

The coaches are so noble that the films encroach on being hagiographies.  In an era when we've seen real coaches reputations tainted by icky scandals, they aren't in football movies.  The players are noble in the extreme, and rise above adversity in a way that used to be the case for boxing movies.

Sigh.

What happened to The North Dallas Forty?

That annual reminder you just don't get it on the great American national past time.

Conversation with a lawyer down in Oklahoma.

He:  "So, who do you guys follow up there this time of year?"

Me:  "Huh?  Um. . . ."

He:  I suppose you all follow UW, eh?  Are there any other teams?

Me (now realizing that we're probably talking about university football):  "Oh, yeah. . we follow UW, it's the state's only four year university and the only one up here with a team. . . ."

He:  "Are they still coached by that coach. . . oh you'll know the name, who coached in Iowa (or some such place)?"

Me (now realizing the game is up):  "Um, well I don't know. . . I don't really follow football so I'm not sure who the coach is or where he's from. . . "

Embarrassment.

I wish I did follow football, as I'm always odd man out this time of year. But try as I might, I just can't develop an interest in it, and I've given up trying.  I did use to try nearly every year, but I conceded.  It's hopeless.  I don't know what teams are good or bad, and I don't even know how UW is doing or going to do.  Oh well.