What's It Mean? The Federal Judiciary

Amongst real conservatives, and by that I mean real ones, not libertarians (who aren't conservatives) and not amongst country club Republicans, but the real deal, one of the few saving graces of the Trump election is that it would appear to mean that appointments to the Federal bench will be made up of individuals who take a conventional approach to statutory interprestation, rather than excessively straining the text to reach what a very ancient body of judges think is an emerging social context, something they should not be doing.

You know, the kind who read the law, and actually apply it.

That sounds, I know, extremely harsh, but right now on the Supreme Court we have at least a few judges who are tending to sort of make stuff up.

Judicial interpretation of statutes can be difficult, if they are poorly written, but that usually isn't the case. Usually, you can read the text, and its plain meaning is obvious.  That is is, in fact, the first principal of judicial interpretation.  Read it.  Does it make sense?  Do that.

If it doesn't quite make sense, then the second thing you are supposed to do it to see if the intent of the drafters can be discerned. That's  more difficult, but often can be.  If the left notes, discussions, text of their debates, you can research them, and find out what they meant, quite often.  Then you do that.

If you can't do that, you have a problem.  Indeed, a maxim of interpretation is "void for vagueness".  That means, "I can't tell what this is supposed to do, so it does nothing".

What you don't do is interpret by "evolving social norms" or pretend that a bunch of text on a paper is a "living document".

You do not want, for example, a judge to say "the text of the statute says that the speed limit, where not posted, is 30 mph, but the evolving social norm says 45 mph is super nifty, so 30 means 45!"

No you do not.

But that's exactly what the Supreme Court has done within the last year.

This is particularly problematic as its highly undemocratic, and when the Court renders decisions of any kind based on what it thinks the law ought to be, rather than what it is, and contrary to the opinions of a sizable percentage of the electorate, it creates havoc and dissension.   As a general rule, the only times taht this doesn't occur when the Supreme Court gets out on a limb is when an overwhelming percentage of teh population has already reached the opinion the court has.

Otherwise, people prefer to have a voice of their own, and that's the way that the system is generally designed. There are, surely, liberties and rights that are protected in the Constitution, but only where that is clear are people generally willing to accept rulings that are otherwise contrary to their personal views.  For example, a lot of people would squelch some speech, and some people would interject religion into law, and lots of people would be happy with broader police powers to search, but they accept that the  Constitution restricts all of these things.  Where such acceptance is wide it will occasionally express itself in an effort to amend the Constitution accordingly, such as efforts to restrict Congress' ability to pass deficit budgets, or for the President to serve more than two terms, or for states to allow the sale of alcohol, etc.

When the Court just makes stuff up, however, it tends to spark real bitterness and disrespect for the Court.  And it puts the nation into what are sometimes decades long efforts to overcome what a nine judge body has determined ought to be the law.  Ironically, this often tends to assist the very body that the Court was seeking to oppose.  The Dred Scott decision did receive acceptance from abolitionist, Roe v. Wade was not accepted by opponents to abortion.  Obegefell will not be accepted by people who wish to retain the traditional, natural, definition of marriage.

Indeed, Supreme Court decisions that do violence to the actual text of the Constitution not only do not receive acceptance, they actually tend to focus and sharpen the arguments that are contrary to the Court's opinion.  In those instances in which the Court, made up of nine older folks, attempts to get out in front of state legislatures and foist a minority view on the nation, those who were campaigning for that minority view tend to go home, but the losers go to work.  Of note, for example, support for abortion has massively declined since the generation that saw Roe v. Wade become law aged out.  The support for the opinion is largely gone.  Support for abolition became so high the country fought a massive Civil War after Dred Scott.  During the period during which the right to keep and bear arms was sort of regarded as mushy by the Federal Courts support for gun control, which was extremely high in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, evaporated.  Those rejoicing over Obegefell, if they really support the holding, ought to hope that the Supreme Court reverses itself immediately so they can try to get back into the legislatures while they still have time.

Because, while people will support clearly spelled out rights, they won't support an anti democratic body telling them what they ought to think.

No matter what else the results of Trump's election may be, based upon his campaign, the one thing actual conservatives can probably safely take some relief on is that the next couple of Supreme Court justices are unlikely to be judicial liberals.  That may actually be the one thing that can safely be predicted about the upcoming next four years.

Pavel Miliukov's speech to the Duma, 14 November 1916. The stupidity or treason speech

Gentlemen, Members of the State Duma! 

With a heavy heart I ascend this tribune today. You remember the circumstances under which the Duma met over a year ago, August 1, 1915. The Duma was then suffering from the blows of our military failures. These were due to the scarcity of munitions; and for this scarcity the Minister of War, Sukhomlinov, was responsible. You recall how at that moment the country, under the influence of the terrible period that had become obvious to all, demanded a union of the national forces and the formation of a ministry composed of persons in whom the country had confidence.  . . . You remember that the government then yielded. The ministers who were odious to the public were then removed before the convocation of the Duma. Sukhomlinov, whom the country regarded as a traitor, was removed, and, in response to the demand of the popular representatives, Polivanov, at the session of August 10 announced to us, amid general applause, as you may recall, the a commission of investigation had been appointed . . . our army obtained what it needed, and the nation entered upon the second year of the war with the same enthusiasm as in the first year. 

What a difference, gentlemen, there is now, in the 27th month of the war! . . . We are now facing new difficulties, and these difficulties are not less complex and serious, not less profound, than those that confronted us in the spring of last year. . . . 

We ourselves are the same as before; we, in this 27th month of the war, are the same as we were in the tenth and in the first month. As heretofore, we are striving for complete victory; as heretofore, we are prepared to make all the necessary sacrifices; and, as heretofore, we are anxious to preserve our national unity. But, I must say this candidly: there is a difference in the situation. We have lost faith in the ability of this Government to achieve victory, because, as far as this Government is concerned, neither the attempts at correction nor the attempts at improvement, which we have made here, have proved successful. . . .

And, if we have formerly said that our Government had neither the knowledge nor the ability which were indispensable at the moment, we say now, gentlemen, that this present Government has sunk beneath the level on which it stood in the normal times of Russian life. And now the gulf between us and that Government has grown wider and impassable. Gentlemen, a year ago, Sukhomlinov was placed under judicial investigation. Then the hateful Ministers were removed before the opening of the Duma session, but now the number of such ministers has been augmented by one. . . . 

The twenty-eight presidents of guberniia zemstvo boards, who met at Moscow on the 11th of November of the present year [said]: "Painful, terrible suspicions, sinister rumor of treachery and treason, of occult forces fighting for the benefit of Germany and striving, through the destruction of national unity and the sowing of dissension, to prepare the ground for a disgraceful peace, have reached the point where it is generally felt that an enemy hand is secretly influencing the course of our State affairs. . . ." 

Yes, gentlemen, there is a vast difference between that meeting of ours, under Goremykin, which took place on the first of August, 1915, and even in February, 1916, and the meeting taking place today. These meetings are just as different as is the general condition of the country. At that time we could talk about organizing the country with the help of Duma legislation. had we then been given the opportunity to carry through the laws which we had planned and prepared for passage, including the law on the volosts, Russia would not now be so helpless in the face of the food supply problem. That was the situation then. But now, gentlemen, the problem of legislation has been shifted to the background. Today we see and understand that with this Government we cannot legislate, any more than we can, with the Government, lead Russia to victory. Formerly, we tried to prove that it was impossible to start a fight against all the vital forces of the nation, that it was impossible to carry on warfare within the country when there was war at the front, that it was necessary to utilize the popular enthusiasm for the achievement of national tasks, and that otherwise there could be only killing oppression, which would merely increase the very peril they were trying to avert by such oppression. 

Today, gentlemen, it seems that everybody feels convinced that it is useless to go to them with proofs; useless when fear of the people, fear of their own country, blinds their eyes, and when the fundamental problem has become that of hastening the end of the were, were it even without gain, merely to be freed from the necessity for seeking popular support. On the 23d of February, 1916, I concluded my speech with the statement that we no longer dared to address our appeal to the "political wisdom of the Government," and that I did not expect any answer from the existing Cabinet to the questions which agitated us. At that time, my words appeared to some people too pessimistic. But now we go further, and perhaps those words will sound clearer and more hopeful. We are telling this Government, as we told it in the declaration of the Bloc: "We shall fight you; we shall fight with all legitimate means until you go!"

It is said that a member of the Council of Ministers,--and this was correctly heard by Duma Member Chkheidze--on being told that the State Duma would on this occasion speak of treason, exclaimed excitedly: "I may, perhaps, be a fool, but I am not a traitor." Gentlemen, the predecessor of that Minister was undoubtedly a clever Minister, just as the predecessor of our Minister of Foreign Affairs was an honest Minister. But they are no longer in the Cabinet. And, does it matter, gentlemen, as a practical question, whether we are, in the present case, dealing with stupidity or treason? When the Duma keeps everlastingly insisting that the rear must be organized for a successful struggle, the Government persists in claiming that organizing the country means organizing a revolution, and deliberately prefers chaos and disorganization.  What is it, stupidity or treason? Furthermore, gentlemen, when the authorities, in the midst of this general discontent and irritation, deliberately set to work stirring up popular outbreaks, that is to say, when they purposely provoke unrest and outbreaks,--is that being done unconsciously or consciously? We cannot, therefore, find much fault with the people if they arrive at conclusions such as I have read here, in the words of those representatives of guberniia administrative boards. 

You must realize, also, why it is that we, too, have no other task left us today, than the task which I have already pointed out to you: to obtain the retirement of this Government. You ask, "How can we start a fight while the war is on?" But, gentlemen, it is only in wartime that they are a menace. They are a menace to the war, and it is precisely for this reason, in time of war and in the name of war, for the sake of that very thing which induced us to unite, that we are now fighting them. . . 

And, therefore, gentlemen, for the sake of the millions of victims and the torrents of blood poured out, for the sake of the achievement of our national interests--which Sturmer does not promise us--in the name of our responsibilities to that nation which has sent us here, we shall fight on until we achieve that genuine responsibility of government which has been defined by the three points of our common declaration. . . .

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Fellowship Baptist Church, Yale Oklahoma

Churches of the West: Fellowship Baptist Church, Yale Oklahoma:

This stone church is located in the small Oklahoma town of Yale.  In some ways, its appearance causes me to suspect that it was converted to this use from some other use, but at the same time it's general shape supports the idea that it has always been a church.  Otherwise, I have no information on it.

A D- Analysis: "Energy, Cheney helped fuel Trump's success in Wyoming"

The Tribune has a headline today that declares:

Energy, Cheney helped fuel Trump's success in Wyoming

An article follows.

Oh, what complete bumpkis.

Trump won in Wyoming because he was the GOP candidate.  Absent a spectacularly successful and credible third party candidate, that was never in doubt.  The GOP candidate was going to win here no matter what.

The bigger story is that there were actually over 2,000 write in votes in the Presidential campaign in the state this go around. Given the small population of the state and the accordingly small number of voters, that's the story.

And Cheney aiding Trump?  As if.

Cheney won because Tim Stubson and Leland Christenson tore each other apart in the primaries. Together they took more votes than Cheney.  A person can argue about it, but if one of those two had dropped out, chances are not bad that person, not Cheney, would be the new Representative.

I suspect that Liz Cheney is much less popular than people suppose.  She was, however, the Republican and that seat was going to a Republican. Greene ran a good campaign, it should be noted, but his early support for Bernie Sanders and the fact that he came out in support of Clinton sank any chance he ever had, as my analysis on the local races noted.

But energy and Cheney aiding Trump?  Nah.

What's It Mean? Getting the "race" story all wrong

 The American concept of race has been long lasting, but who fits into a "race" has changed dramatically over the years.

One of the most persistent stories we have heard before the election, and now after, is that Donald Trump won the election due to "white people". Even George F. Will, citing demographic information that supports this "white people" thesis, notes this in his lament over Trump's election in his recent post election column.

The problem is, who are the "white people"?

The press, when it talks about this, tends to redefine it if it looks at it in depth, as the analysis doesn't seem to work from the very onset, so we soon learn that they aren't talking about all "white people", but something like white men without college educations, or maybe white people without college educations, or maybe white people who are or were blue collar.

Well, bumpkis.  This is part of the whole, clueless, press analysis this year.

Here's the problem.

This way of looking at demographics is racist, but fits in with an historical American approach.  Traditionally, although not for a long time, "white people" meant White Anglo Saxon Protestants.  The mere fact that we, in the US, define who is white and who is not dates in large measure to this.  Speaking of WASPs was common when I was still young, and it basically fits this mold, except that the WASPs, to the extent its any kind of real classification, doesn't really fit what actually occurred in this election or what is supposed to have occurred either, let alone what actually occurred.  It does have a lot to do, however, on how Americans inaccurately categorize "race".

This is actually a flyer for an old detective movie, but the press could use some historical detectives themselves.  They use the term "white" as if it is a real classification, which is questionable, without even pondering what it means and how it came to mean anything.

I've written on this before, but this entire way of looking at the world dates to an era when to be a "real American" meant you were probably descendant from a British Isles Protestant.  Some continental Europeans got a pass, but only somewhat.  But many didn't.  If you look back at literature of a century or more, you'll see that Italians, Irish, Greeks, and Eastern Europeans were not "white people".

Oh, surely you say, that can't be right.

It most certainly can be.

All of these groups shared certain characteristics, the most common of which is that they were not likely to be Protestants.  They were likely to be Catholics or Orthodox. Virtually nobody admitted that their racial concepts were based on this, but in fact, they largely were.

Added to this is that the British went into a period during the Victorian Era when they hugely admired the Saxon invaders of their homeland and came to the conclusion, erroneously as we now know, that everyone in England was descendant from the Saxons as surely the Saxons had killed off all the Britons who didn't end up in Wales ultimately. As it turns out they did nothing of the kind, and the English are, genetically, more Celtic than Germanic, but at the time, they were imagining the opposite. This fit neatly into the early views of the United States which emphasized British colonist as being on a civilizing, Protestant, mission.

At the tend of the day, therefore, what defined "white" was whether or not you were part of the culture of the Reformation.  The English fit that nicely, the Scots less so as they were not Germanic, but they were British, and were given a pass, and even the continental Germans and Dutch were as they had to be to fit this definition.  And oddly enough, this definition persists.  In looking at this earlier, I noted: 

So turning to race in general once again, consider that up until probably World War One or so Italians and the Irish were regarded as separate races, and as much so as American Indians or blacks.  Jews were very much a separate race.
Indeed, so were the "Anglo-Saxons".

And that tells us a lot about how "race" categorizations are false.

The early colonist in this country were largely from Great Britain. They were also almost all Protestant, if not all the same type of Protestants. And their view of the world was that they were the vanguards of Protestant Christianity against Catholicism and Heathenism.  They were English and Scots pioneers, and they viewed themselves as right thinking.  People could come around to their way of thinking, or get out of the way. Those who didn't, even if it was King George III, would be pushed out of the way.

Over time, what happened to these various non white (in the concept of the time) is that they were assimilated into the American mix and became "white" Americans.  It sure didn't happen all at once, however.  With the Irish it started with the Mexican War but it lasted all the way until the 1920s and the real assimilation was accomplished by World War Two. This is true of the Italians as well, who were some sort of weird, swarthy, dirty people in the public eye up until after World War Two when they were just part of that great old American melting pot society.  

 Political cartoon from the 1860s, depicting the fear that the United States would be consumed by Irish and Chinese immigrants, who are both depicted as odd looking races.  In the cartoon, the Irish and Chinese immigrants swallow the US, and the Chinese immigrants swallows the Irish one.  Today, nobody would regard the Irish as a separate race, and by and large Asians tend not to be either.

Of course, in this time frame some things had actually changed, both in these groups and in our view of them. The odd accents, and in some cases the strange languages, became less common. And as they worked themselves into positions in the Middle Class, association with them caused familiarity and they seemed more American all the time. And of course, they actually became more American.

And as that occurred, they became "white". That was a pretty significant development, as in doing this, the meaning of "white', except apparently to the American press, changed quite radically.  Irish Americans would never have been regarded by early 20th Century Americans as real whites.  But by the mid 20th Century anyone would laugh at that notion.

And that's because concepts of race are purely cultural, and not without prejudice, having no other basis in anything at all, other than perception.  The culture had changed to accommodate Christian people who weren't Protestants.  Bizarrely, it still hasn't accommodated African Americans to the definition, keeping its oldest racial category, in spite of the fact that most African Americans are more a part of the culture than many more recent arrivals, and more part of the original colonizing culture, which forced them over and into it, than many of the later ones now regarded as "white".

Perhaps one of the best examples of this are Lebanese Americans, of which there are a lot.  They're regarded as white.  I have a large collection of Lebanese-Irish cousins and nobody would ever put them in some separate race.  Nor would I.  But, in terms of DNA, they share genes from the Middle East, which some Americans today would regard as the land of a separate "race".  Most Lebanese Americans are Catholics and always have been, and indeed Christianity is the sole defining thing, really, between who was Lebanese and who was Syrian at one time.  I suspect most Americans today would regard most Muslim Syrians as members of another race.  They aren't.

Because, as noted, race is cultural and a matter of perception.  

Or let's take Bernie Sanders.  He's white, right?

Well, he is today, but a century ago he would have been a mistrusted member of the "Hebrew Race".  Indeed, one of the 1916 newspapers I just ran referred to Americans who were Jewish in that fashion.

Modern Americans don't regard Jewish people as members of a separate race even though they have a distinct culture.  And we haven't had that view for a long time.  The reason is that acceptance of the entire culture came in as they largely assimilated.  This came to be so much the case that an entire meaningless word was adopted to rationalize it, that being "Judaeo-Christian".

Judaeo-Christian as  word, is entirely meaningless. There is no such thing as a Judaeo-Christian culture and the United States is not a Judaeo-Christian nation.  The US started off, basically, as a nation with a Protestant Christian culture and its evolved into one with a broad Christian culture, although its still more Protestant than anything else.  We just adapted our definitions and accepted the Jewish culture into our redefined definition.

Which brings me to election puditry babble.

The entire concept that there's a "white vote" is a completely erroneous way of looking at the election demographics.  What it does is make a false assumption that skin color defines how a person thinks and what they are, and it more particularly acts as if being an Hispanic or a Latino is some deep DNA classification that defines how a person thinks, as if they are a separate species.  

And this is important, by speaking of the new "minorities" or "diversity", in an ethnic sense, the Press, while it includes other groups, mostly means Hispanics.

In truth, as we've noted before, the term Hispanic is so broad a person can be an Indian, black, or a European American and still be attached that label.  It's a fairly meaningless label, therefore.  

It's particularly meaningless as quite frankly but for the fact that most are of relatively recent arrival, and have Spanish names, a large percentage of these individuals would otherwise be classified by people who must make such classifications as "white".  And this is what will occur in fairly short order.  Here's what we noted before:

This brings me to Hispanics and other new groups.  I'm constantly reading that the country is becoming more "diverse".  Maybe it is, but I suspect that Hispanics are a group that's going to be regarded as its own race, now that they are a significant demographic, about as long as Italians were, and for the same reasons.  Fifty years from now, to be Hispanic will be to claim a certain ethnic heritage, and that will probably be about it.

Indeed, it's already the case that I read piles of wedding announcements in the newspaper every week between people with Spanish surnames and English, or other, names. These cultures are already mixing at an extremely rapid rate, and not just in terms of marriage, but culture.  Some time ago I attended something at Mass where a person self identified as Hispanic, but who would have been impossible to identify that way by appearance, and this is becoming the absolute norm.  Hispanic last names are rapidly only indicating ethnic heritage and not race, and usually mixed American ethnic heritage, the same way Irish, German or Italian last names do.  Hispanics may have been a strongly identifiable minority in many places, and indeed they still are, but they're rapidly entering the mainstream and vice versa, the latter being an interesting process we rarely think of.  Just as minority cultures pick up and adopt large parts of the majority culture, the majority culture adopts parts of the minority culture as well.  Across the street from my office, for example, there's a Mexican restaurants that's really Mexican.  It's very popular with local Hispanics, but most days at noon, any more, it's swamped with everyone else.  An establishment that started off being patronized mostly by members of its own culture now no longer is, even though it hasn't changed a bit.  Restaurants are, of course, a superficial example, but it's also interesting how many people now celebrate Cinqo De Mayo in some fashion, and Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated at Catholic parishes everywhere.

This doesn't mean that any one ethnic group doesn't have its own unique cultural aspects to it, of course. But the differences in culture do decline over time. St. Patrick's Day, for example, is still a serious day with strongly Catholic Irish Americans, but it's also a national party for those looking for one.  Cinqo De Mayo has already gone from being a date somewhat remembered in Mexico as the anniversary of a battle against the French, to being an excuse to have Mexican food.  Columbus Day still brings out Italian Americans in some parts of the country, but in most regions they ignore it like everyone else.  And of course the American habit of intermarriage means that after awhile everyone is pretty much everything.

And this is why the Press is so far off the mark.

This election wasn't about "race", but rather culture and economics.  And the cultural war here isn't between "white America" and " the new more diverse America".  It's between the deep urban white upper middle class and upper class America and middle and lower class America.  So, if there's a cultural war going on, it's between two different "white" demographics, with any other ethnic groups merely filling in, in a highly temporary fashion, where it suits their immediate needs.

This is certainly the case with the Hispanic demographic.  Almost completely missed in this entire story if the fact that while a large Hispanic minority many be somewhat new, that same demographic is assimilating so fast it soon will not be there in the sense that the press imagines it to be.  In this fashion, that particularly demographic strongly resembles that other "race" of our early history, the French.

What, you didn't know that French were a race?  Oh yes they were.  Or at least the early English colonist thought they were, as long as they were Catholic, which they almost all were.  And they did something the English did not, they intermarried at a high rate with other cultures.  This is true, we should note, of Hispanics as well.

A person can get into the history of this, and we need to a little, but the entire topic would be a lengthy one.  Basically, it gets back to their Catholicity.  Anglo Saxon, i.e., English, culture of an earlier period discouraged intermarriage.  It's a complicated story, but the English colonist to the United States and elsewhere saw themselves as a superior, Protestant, civilizing people, as noted above.  No matter how down and out you were, at least you were English, and that made you, in the 17th, 18th, 19th and early 20th Centuries, part of a civilizing mission to the world.  I don't want to be all down on the English, who did a much better job of colonial administration than most other European people, but that was part of their outlook at the time.  The French were bad colonial administrators, and in their later colonial period they also saw themselves as missionaries for French secular Republicanism, but early on, and shared with the Spanish, their rank and file colonist were fairly devout Catholics who believed that everyone was an equal before God.  So intermarriage was not uncommon at all, resulting in a highly mixed population wherever the French and Spanish went.  This carries right on to the present day and unlike some other immigrant cultures they do not spend the first several generations principally amongst themselves.

Which doesn't mean that their culture evaporates.  Like the Irish Catholics, and Italian Catholics, it'll tend to assimilate with the existing culture.  The  point is that people who imagine that the Hispanic culture is some mysterious other, and practically genetic in nature, with a genetic affiliation for the Democratic Party that will cause it to rise up unaltered once again, are fooling themselves.

Indeed, we should note that this year it was the GOP that ran one Catholic Hispanic and one Protestant Hispanic in the primaries, while the Democrats ran two really old white people.  Cuban Hispanics, which would describe the two individuals just noted, are already highly assimilated and. . . gasp. . . frequently Republican.

Hmmmm.

And New Mexico has had Hispanic governors twice who were. . . Republicans.

Gee.. .

Anyhow, that takes us to the next step of this.

If this years vote doesn't amount to a pure racist "I'm white and you are not" vote, what does it mean?

Well, I've already noted a lot of what it means just recently.

But what I think it means is that people paid their $20.00 to come to Ray Kinsella's field.

Eh?

Recall this line from Field of Dreams:

Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

Okay, what do I mean by that?

Well, this.

People don't like what the United States has become and they're sick of being told to accept it.

This has been going on for a long time.  Indeed, it's always going on to some extent.  But its been much more noticeable over the past twenty years and now a lot of average people are really fed up. They're fed up in part because the GOP has kept telling them that it would address their concerns, and the Democrats  kept telling them to learn to love the new reality that the Democrats would bring and that everyone would be happy on that bright, shiny, Greenwich Village on the Hill.

So what are they fed up about?

By and large, contrary to what pundits tend to believe, and particularly contrary to what the political left believes, and to the surprise of people from other nations, Americans culturally are a fairly conservative people who go through bouts of liberal fevers.  They have private libertarian tendencies, but they aren't "liberal" or "progressive" in the way that the Democrats would like them to be.  Basically, therefore, to put it crudely, a lot of voters looked at the Democratic Party of Hillary Clinton and barfed up all over it.

As noted earlier, what people are saying is that they liked the more rural, more working class, lives they once had.  They are also saying that they value traditional societal views even if they don't adhere to them, which has often been the case for a lot of people.  They were appalled when, and it may have been the final straw for them, when Anthony Kennedy wrote a legal opinion that said that there really wasn't any difference between men and women, as they know that there is, as unlike Kennedy, they live in the real world.  They're sick of being dragged to the cultural left. And they want things to slow down, and even reverse. And that's their right.  That doesn't make them bigoted, and it doesn't make them wrong.

Also, and very importantly in this context, we are also seeing something within the "white" culture that seems likely to spread to the "Hispanic" culture as it assimilates.  And that's that the Catholics, who have never defined "whiteness" in this society, suddenly rediscovered themselves as a voting block and bolted the Democratic Party. This is a huge, and missed, development.

No Catholic voter could have been comfortable with Trump, but sincere Catholic voters found themselves in a situation in which they cold not morally vote for Clinton. Clinton defined the death from cradle to grave view that Progressives have taken up.  Indeed, its been noted a bit that the demographic that's most identifiably Democratic, the white, urban, Protestant, upper middle class is now in the self eliminating mode as it doesn't reproduce. A person can analyze what that means, but it is curious that a group that has come to define marriage in terms of "happiness", "life support" and economics is the one that backs gay marriage. It would, as it has come to believe that sex is a species of entertainment and that personal Joy is the end of life, and that at that end, that's pretty much that.  Most people don't think that way at all, as they live in the real world, and Catholics definitely don't think that way.

Indeed, not only most people not think that way, most people don't live in an economic strata that would allow them to.  Most people still have children, still have bills, and still struggle to some extent to get by.  It's easy to imagine how nifty the new economy is if you are a comfortable urban sophisticate in the high value condo district, with two  high incomes, not children, parents you don't need to take care of, and enough surplus cash to afford anything you reasonably want to your exclusive enjoyment, but that doesn't define most people.  It's come to define, however, many in the upper echelons of the political class. Think Huma and Anthony, before the implosion.  I may be completely unfair (knowing nothing about them personally), but do they match the nature and appearance of the couples of the same vintages you know?

Catholics have generally been Democrats since they first showed up in the country in numbers as the Democrats were good at organizing them and passing out patronage.  That tradition reflects itself in the Hispanic community today, but with it assimilating so rapidly, that's unlikely to continue.  If this election is any guide, the demographic time bomb may be going off inside the Democratic hall, not the Republican one.  Indeed, it may have exploded this election.

This election it appears that a majority of Catholics, who are a minority in the country (recall, they weren't even mostly "white" until the 20s and 30s, the way the culture defines it) voted for Trump. They likely held their noses and voted for Trump, but they did.  They felt they had no choice.  This is huge, however, as its the first time that they've voted as an identifiable voting block since the 1960s, its the first time that they really strongly followed the homily from the ambo on a political issue in all that time, and its the first time that the Church itself came out with blistering attacks on cultural issues in the political sphere.

Snotty Progressives did notice that this was going on early on, but their reaction was to bitterly attack the beliefs of the Church and make no effort to accommodate a demographic that had been loyal to them, and indeed Progressive, for well over a century.  Now they're gone.  John Podesta should get a dope slap for his insulting comments on Catholics and should have been fired about 30 seconds after they went public, but instead the Clinton campaign kept him on, just as it stupidly entrusted its campaign to people too close to the Weiner scandal.  Now, Hispanics are overwhelmingly Catholic in culture, even when they are not individually Catholic. As their economic fortunes increase and they come more and more into the American mainstream (i.e., as they become "white", as the press defines that) they'll quite being Democratic for patronage reasons and start acting more on their individual cultural beliefs.  That doesn't bode well for the Democrats at all.

Does all of this make Trump nifty?

Not hardly.

Indeed, its flat out bizarre that multiply married, super rich, former Democrat Trump became the choice for voters in this class.  As a salesman, he tapped into the current and read it right.  That doesn't mean that he personally believes any of it.  We have no idea.  But as a salesman, with something to sell, we can suspect that he'll keep selling it for at least four years.

During that four year period the GOP and the Democrats have a chance to reform. But will they?  I doubt the Democrats will.  The Democratic Party's halls of power seem to be mostly populated by the ghosts of the politicians of the 1970s.  George McGovern seems to be their guiding hand every year.  A party that claims to represent minorities can't seem to find a single person of color to run. This is particularly bizarre in that African Americans, who have been highly loyal to the Democrats since Franklin Roosevelt, just can't seem to get into the Presidential race and be treated seriously.  The only black candidate this year who performed at all was in the GOP.  This does not mean that there should be a racial litmus test to run for President, but how could a party that actually ran a post Baby Boomer black candidate, successfully,  the past two terms only mange to find a pants suit wearing 1970s throwback and a pre Baby Boomer New Yorker (yes, I know he was the Senator from Vermont, but he's a New York) to run this go around?

Indeed, are there no viable Democrat candidates located outside of New York state?

It's hard to take the Democrats seriously and the voters didn't.

And my guess is that they won't reform.

The Democratic Party is too controlled by crowed that go to trendy cocktail parties in big cities to begin to grasp that most people aren't vegans who wear their trousers five sizes too small.  A world in which women gush at little babies, where boys oogle attractive girls, where those girls seek to be chased, where men go hunting on the weekends, and where crowds spill beer rooting for baseball teams that have no chance of winning is completely foreign to them.  If they have any chance of success, after this, they have to find some candidates that 1) aren't ancient, 2) don't see every womb as a chance for sterilization; 3) seem to care about the native born; 4) don't hate Catholics, Orthodox, and Orthodox Jews.  But are there any left that have a chance?

This doesn't mean that the GOP can sit on its laurels either. The GOP basically lost this election at the Presidential level, as Trump isn't a recognizable Republican.  He's something else, somebody, the way he ran this time, who would have been more at home in the old Populist Party of the 19th Century.  But as he ran as a Republican, and as the Republicans held on to Congress, and as Trump adopted the positions of the social conservatives, they have an opportunity that they didn't before.

They also have a duty to act on it.  If the GOP doesn't act right away to curtail abortion and to reverse the court imposed redefinition of marriage, it's sunk.

It also has to act on immigration, as Trump does, but it ironically has an opportunity here to begin to reshape itself into something that the new immigrant communities and the old persistent minorities  can recognize and support.

Immigration in the US has been controversial along ethnic lines forever.  But in modern times, and seemingly now forgotten, the post World War Two battles over restricting immigration came originally from the far left.  It was organizations like Zero Population Growth that argued for strict immigration control, and still do, on environmental grounds. They argue, and frankly correctly, that you can't take in an infinite number of immigrants and still have a country that is nice living in, basically.  Put another way, we don't want to have the population density of India or China. That has nothing at all to do with "race".

Democrats and Republicans, at the Congressional level, have given lip service to immigration issues but at the end of the day the Democrats imagine every immigrant as a Democratic voter and the Republicans imagine every immigrant mowing their lawns.  So they've done nothing.  But poorer Americans, white, black and whatever, know that more immigrants mean more competition for jobs.  And middle class Americans who are not on the threshold of being rich know that more people in general make for towns, cities, and a countryside, that's more crowded.  All of that's what fuels anger over immigration, not really the culture of the immigrants.

Indeed, immigration at the level we have is most harmful to urban blacks, who often have a really seething resentment towards new immigrants for that reason.  The late Richard Stroud, a liberal, used to argue that the employment impact on American blacks was so severe that immigration should be shut down completely until blacks achieved economic parity with whites. That's hardly a "conservative" or "racist" position, but it's one that a lot of people hold instinctively.

Beyond that, no national conversation about immigration has taken place for at least thirty years other than the incredibly lame "we're a nation of immigrants" argument that everyone hauls out.  I often think that if you are Sioux or Shoshone, etc. that argument must be really aggravating, as in "yeah. ..  your nation is one of immigrants, Wašíču".

Anyhow, as the public is reacting on this, and the GOP has to accordingly, this is a chance for the GOP in numerous ways.  If the GOP doesn't begin to appeal to the social views of Hispanics while taking in its more corporate and collective cultural concerns, it has to be staffed by idiots. At the same time, if it doesn't seek to rebuild an immigration policy based on the countries present population, actual economic needs, and the special concerns of African Americans and Indians, it will have missed the boat as well to come across as more rational less bombastic in an odd way.

And indeed, the GOP has to.

This is the last chance, I suspect, for both of these parties.  The voters have screamed that they don't want any more lies and they're willing to gamble on a nearly completely unknown on the hopes that he'll do what he says, as much as that may scare most of the politically attune.  In doing that they've told the GOP we don't want any more boring Bush's and we don't want your country club culture either.  They've told the Democrats they don't want any more Clinton's and they don't want to have their likes and religious beliefs insulted or ignored.  Maybe this guy won't get the job done of getting that message through, but they're willing to gamble that he will, or that he won't be worse than getting ignored anyhow.

It's going to be a wild ride, that's for sure.

But it doesn't have anything to really do with race, in the mind of the average voter.

Indeed, as close as this election was, and it was incredibly close, if Trump hadn't gotten the support of Catholics, he would have lost.  If he didn't get the support of cross over Democrats, he would have lost.  If he didn't get the support of some African Americans, he would have lost.  If he didn't have the support of some Hispanics, he would have lost.

And for the Democrats, he Clinton didn't have the support of most Hispanics, an eroding base of support, she would have done much worse.  And if she didn't have the support of African Americans, the Democrats most loyal and most ignored based, she would have done even worse.

A clear wake up call for both parties.

But not one based on "race".

The Laramie Republican for Monday, November 13, 1916. Record Cold.

The weather a century ago definitely isn't what we're experiencing this year.

Holding meetings and flat out ignoring the comments

Arrogance.

That's how I'd define it.

A legislative committee, styled the Federal Natural Resource Committee, met this week in Riverton Wyoming for a public hearing on a proposal to amend the Wyoming Constitution to provide that there'd be no net loss of public lands acquired from the Federal Government, should the state acquire any.

Keep in mind the Wyoming Constitution presently "disclaims" any claim to the Federal lands, and has since Wyoming became a state.

A large crowd appeared at the hearing.  Opposition to the transfer was hugely overwhelming.  

The Committee voted to keep on keeping on, but to look at amending their draft.  In other words, they voted to wholly ignore the public on this issue.

Not that this is new, they've been ignoring the public on this all along. It's a disgrace.

Here are the names and email address of the Committee members:

Senator Eli Bebout: eli.bebout@wyoleg.gov
Senator Larry Hicks: larry.hicks@wyoleg.gov
Senator Gerald Geis: gerald.geis@wyoleg.gov
Representative JoAnn Dayton: joann.dayton@wyoleg.gov
Representative Norine Kasperik: norine.kasperik@wyoleg.gov
Representative Tim Stubson: tim.stubson@wyoleg.gov

I wrote all of them.  I received a reply from only one, Senator Bebout, which is to his credit.  I'd note that Rep Stubson is leaving the legislature and won't be in the next one, having given up his seat to run for US House.  Stubson was one of the two Wyoming candidates who basically cancelled out each other resulting in Cheney's advance.

These guys deserve a lot of email.  They also desire, save perhaps for Sen. Bebout who at least graciously and clearly writes back, to be retired forever from Wyoming's politics.  If they can't listen to the voters perhaps the voters need to send them a message with their future that they can't ignore. . .  go home.

There's obviously a battle coming up in the upcoming Legislature.  If you care about access at all, better let your representatives know that this is a no go.

Oh, and why am I so sure?

Well history is one reason. But I'll give another recent example.

Just recently, a couple of weeks ago, my son and I went deer hunting.  Or tried to.  We were shadowed, however, by the reluctant goons of a local rancher (I know him) to make sure that we didn't step foot on any private land.  They can't keep you off public land. . . yet, of course.  But their shadowing was so persistent that was the effective impact.  "There an automatic $1,000 trespass fee".

Oh, bull.

Because I could tell these guys were very reluctant in their role as the Stasi, I didn't bother to tell them that they'd just threatened me with a threat that wasn't legal and I'm a lawyer, and that as a result I'd ponder all the next week what to do about it.  They did point us towards where we could go, and they very clearly felt that they'd been given a sh**y job by their employer.

But it's also quite clear to me that given any chance, people who take this approach would do what they could to lock up the land entirely.

This ranch, by the way, has a nice story that's published to go along with it about how it was founded by a European over a century ago who immigrated here as he dreamed of being a cowboy. Rags to riches. Well, they ought to remember that the essence of that is that the Federal Government stole the land from the native population and had it nearly free for the taking, discounting the massive amount of risk and labor it entailed to homestead, for those willing to do it.  It worked close to the way its recounted in the opening of Red River:

Dunson: Tell Don Diego, tell him that all the land north of that river's mine. Tell him to stay off of it.
Mexican: Oh, but the land is his.
Dunson: Where did he get it?
Mexican: Oh many years ago by grant and patent, inscribed by the King of all of Spain.
Dunson: You mean he took it away from whomever was here before. Indians maybe.
Mexican: Maybe so.
Dunson: Well, I'm takin' it away from him.
Mexican: Others have thought as you, senor. Others have tried.
Dunson: And you've always been good enough to stop 'em?
Mexican: Amigo, it is my work.
Dunson: Pretty unhealthy job.

Now, I'm not casting moral blame on anyone. But this recounting is pretty good film dialog and not bad history.  People who sit on land today that their poor ancestors acquired can't sit back and really have a "we built this land" attitude, cleanly.  Partially, yes.  But partially, it's simply "we got here 20 seconds before you did, so it's mine all mine".  Not good.

And there's a further lesson to be learned as well. There's a general feeling right now that money always talks. Well, people who have that view and are in the Wyoming Liberty Group mindset best realize that they just watched a massive populist revolt seize the White House and burn down both political parties.  Populist aren't libertarians. . . they're a species of liberal actually, at the bottom, popular, level.  People who would lock up land should recall that there's a large group out there, much larger than the monied interest, who aren't really keen on ranchers being on the public land at all.  I'm not in that camp by any means.  But keep out one or two Ohio hunters who aren't rich enough for "trespass fees" or guides and . . . pretty soon you have an Ohio Congressman who not only doesn't think that you should be able to buy the Public Domain, maybe you ought not to be using it at all.

Well, for me. . . Politician/Rancher mentioned above, next time I see your name on the ballot the answer is "no", and the next time I see you at a branding you're getting an earful.

The anti war film War Brides released, November 12, 1916

A now lost American film, War Brides was a melodrama in which a young pregnant widow leads a protest against her country's monarch after he seeks to have his nation's young women marry departing solders to produce another generation of fighting men. The heroine actually commits suicide in front of the monarch after leading a female protest.

If the plot sounds far fetched during World War Two the Nazis did in fact encourage SS men to marry appropriately "Nordic" women for the very purpose noted, one of their many weird efforts during WWII.

Lines at the time of the release were reportedly so long that people waiting in line with the $2.00 admission fee had to be turned away.

Sunday State Leader for November 12, 1916: Guard to remain Federalized, Villa avoids encounter with Carranza's troops.

The Laramie Republican for November 12, 1916: Villista outrages at Parral

Poster Saturday: For the Glory of Ireland

Brats

There has been protests, some of which have turned violent, about the election of Donald Trump.

Now, I didn't vote for Trump and frankly I don't care for him.  I didn't vote for Clinton either, and I think the Democratic Party received a huge wake up call on Tuesday.

And I also think we might have seen some of this had Clinton won.

But we are seeing it now that Trump has won.

Well, it was an election under the Democratic process.  People who are protesting, and who sympathize with the protests, essentially stand, intellectually, with Southern successionist in 1860.  I.e., if I can't be quarterback I'm taking my football and going home.  Time for them to grow up.

And yes Clinton took, albeit only barely, the popular vote, but the American process, designed to govern a spread out nation, places executive power in the hands of an individual who is chosen in a combined state/popular vote, combination.  This gives the people most of the say, but filtered through their home states.  This is what keeps every President from being a Californian or a Texas.

So they need to grow up.

And, on a final note, Liberals, who have changed their name recently to "Progressives", have become terribly anti democratic, which should give everyone pause.  A lot of the social change that they've been boosting in recently years, well. . . . all the way back to 1973, has come through the courts and is being foisted upon people.  A lot of the reason they have to deal with a President Trump now is because of the judicial coup given voice by Anthony Kennedy last year, which sparked a massive shift in the election demographics that's hardly been noted and is being misinterpreted.  The lesson there is that Liberals might actually have to try to convince voters that their ideas are sound, rather than simply sue their way into nirvana.  Pouting won't do it.

The Casper Weekly Tribune for November 10, 1916: Fine Wilson Sweep

Lex Anteinternet: The 2016 Election

Lex Anteinternet: The 2016 Election: I didn't see that coming. . . like all of the rest of the pundits. It's been a wild election year. Yesterday, Donald Trum...

The popular vote:

Trump: 47%:  59,611,678

Clinton:  48% 59,814,018

Johnson:  3%  4,058,500

Stein:  1%  1,213,103

Others:  .07%  802,119

A disappointing performance for Stein, given that she was trying to riff of the popular Sanders.  Not very impressive for Johnson either, whom some thought would do well.  That's probably at least 3,000,000 votes off of Trump, however.

Trump becomes President with a minority of votes cast.  Clinton took more, albeit only 200,000 more.  An example, perhaps, of every vote counting, or not, depending upon your view.

What's it mean?

I'll likely do a series of posts on what the recent election means, and lessons learned.

Of course, given my poor performance as a prognosticator in this election, the value of such articles may be fairly questionable.

Be that as it may, I think its interesting to note that fully vested organs of the hard left and hard right have already rushed to print with analysis that amounts to "we were right all along".  Right now, right wing comments of that type necessarily have more credence than those of the left, but the basic gist of some of these is "nope, nope, we've been right all along and don't have to listen to anyone" Suffice it to say they aren't rushing out to buy Thomas Frank's book "Listen, LIberal:  Or What Ever Happened to the Party of the People.".  Put another way, simply reassuring yourself that you are right and everyone else is an idiot is an effective analytical tool

Anyhow, I'll put in my two cents, from the outside, here in coming posts.

For the meantime I'll merely note that one thing this election means is that relying upon people like Miley Cyrus to bring you voters is not a sound campaign strategy.

The 2016 Election

I didn't see that coming. . . like all of the rest of the pundits.

It's been a wild election year.

Yesterday, Donald Trump won the Presidency.  I frankly thought that impossible.

As I noted here yesterday, I figured that the coronation of Hillary Clinton meant that her enthronement as President would merely need to be ratified yesterday.  I was sure off the mark, and badly so.

So was about 100% of the national press, I'd note ,which was discussing the inevitable Clinton victory as late ago as early last night.  What happened?

Well, a massive working class revolt against both parties happened.  After well over a decade of being lied to, they poked both parties in the eye.  

When this became inevitable or even probable is hard to say, but the Democrats deserve a lot of the blame or credit, depending upon your view, for trying to coronate a 1970s throwback that was widely despised.  Frankly, had Bernie Sanders been nominated by the Democrats he'd likely be yesterday's victor. But rather than do that, they went solidly with a candidate that nobody loved and who was consumed her entire life with politics.  Most people aren't consumed with politics and are disgusted with it right now. So the disgust flowed over onto her.

And the disgust was deserved.  Clinton had spent her entire life in politics in one way or another.  Her role in the Senate may have made sense to the people who voted for her, but to a lot of Americans elsewhere her relocation to New York appeared purely opportunistic.  Her association with her husband, who I never felt to be a bad President, left a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of people who recalled how she defended some of his bad personal conduct, and it further left people suspecting that her marriage had become a political wagon with a certain direction, whether that was right or wrong.  The Trump comment "such a nasty woman" struck the upper middle class and upper class elements of society as incredibly rude and sexists, but it sort of defined the way a lot of average people already viewed her.

Beyond that, and perhaps more significantly, she defined a certain 1970s view of the world that the Beltway Democrats have and which they deeply believe in, but which is not the same view held by huge segments of the Democratic base, let alone average Americans.  Existing as long ago as the 1920s, but coming up in the world following the disaster of Watergate, this world view virtually defines the Democratic Party's official outlook and has all but killed it off in rural areas which can find nothing to identify with in it.  This even translated to younger Democratic women who did not see a modern American female ideal that they felt any commonality with.  In turn, the old entrenched feminist in the Democratic Party were outright hostile to younger Democratic women whom they felt should shut up and take orders.

Everything combined meant that the Democratic Party nominated somebody who was deeply out of sync with the electorate. The GOP nominated one that was deeply despised indeed, but not in the same way that Clinton was.  We learned yesterday that there were a lot of Democrats and independents who had supported Sanders and detested Trump and Clinton, but forced into a choice, the populist message of Trump called more than the 1970s vision of Clinton.

But that also tells us that a large amount of the vote was based on absolute disgust.

And on to the entire system, quite frankly.

 Bea Arthur in an advertisement for Maud.  Arthur played the brash, loud, pants suit wearing feminist in two 1970s era television series.  For those who recalled it, Clinton tended to come across rather unfortunately as a character from Maud or at least from the era. Younger women never warmed up to her at all, and indeed people who weren't voting by the 1970s were left fairly cold.

Additionally, the late Democratic administration and things associated with it combined with things that have been brewing for a long time overwhelmed both parties.  It turns out that you cannot take in 1,000,000 immigrants a year and tell rust belt voters that they just need to adjust to the new economy, you can't tolerate shipping endless employers overseas and tell those voters that new better jobs will come, you can't tell people who can tell what gender they are actually in that people can determine their "own gender identify", and you can't threaten to reverse course on firearms possession when people have pretty much determined how they feel about that.

The voters who revolted are, no doubt, going to be accused of being racist.  But to desire the America they grew up in, which was more Christian, more employed, and more rural, doesn't make them that way.  The Democrats have been offering them Greenwich Village, the Republicans the Houston suburbs.  It turns out they like the old Port Arthur, Kansas City or Lincoln Nebraska better, and want to go back. That's not irrational.

 

Port Arthur Texas.  I listed to people discuss the upcoming election two weeks ago at the Port Arthur Starbucks and thought they'd really be surprised when Clinton was elected. Turns out, they were much more on the mark than I was.  And it turns out that people in Port Arthur like Port Arthur the way it was twenty or thirty years ago, and they don't like a lot of big, hip trendy urban areas that they're supposed to.

Will Trump be able to do that?

Well, any way you look at it, it's going to be an interesting four years.

Trump will have to act on his populist world view.  I'm certain that it will be only momentarily before the pundits will start opining about how Trump, now that he is the President Elect, will moderate his views, etc., but there is no reason whatsoever to believe that. So far, his entire behavior has been true to what appears to be his basic character. We can anticipate that he will continue to act that way. And an electorate that, essentially, voted to rip everything down wants it down.  I suspect, therefore, that's what we will get.

I also, quite frankly don't think that this is universally bad. As noted, I never supported Trump, and I did not vote for him yesterday.  I'm in the camp so disgusted by both political parties and their candidates that I could not bring myself to hold my note and vote like so many others did. But I do think that Trump will listen to the blue collar element of American society, and somebody needs to.  I do not think that this segment, which knows its being forced out of work by a combination of forces that are not of its own making, but which are more than a little the fault of policies favoring the wealthy, will be quiet.  Clinton would not really have done anything for those people other than to lament their status, Trump will have to do something.  And I also think that Trump will actually nominate justices to the Supreme Court who do not feel compelled to stick to it, such as Justice Anthony Kennedy or who have a social agenda that colors and informs their decisions.  Justices who decide the law are needed on the Court and I think they'll actually be appointed.

Who knows what else shall occur, however.

Locally, 818 Natrona County voters went for write in candidates, myself included, for President and Vice President.  That has to be a record.

And a warning.

If even here, in solidly Republican Natrona County, 818 voters said no to all the recognized parties, and that doesn't include those who voted for Johnson or Stein, something is really wrong  with the system.

Locally, Liz Cheney, Dick Cheney's locally repatriated Virginia daughter beat out Greene and has probably taken Wyoming's House seat in Congress for life, or at least until she wedges that into something else, which she almost certainly will.  The seat is the gift of two other candidates who were really from Wyoming and who destroyed each other, but who jointly took more votes in the primary than she did.  Hopefully she'll grow into her position and learn the lesson that the Democratic and Republican establishments did not on the national stage, that people love their local lives more than they do the big issues of any kind.  A local revolt with populist elements is brewing on these issues and it is not impossible that this will turn out to be a pain for politicians from this state who do not know which way the wind is blowing. While Cheney likely will hold her office no matter what, t his year did see a surprisingly resurgent Democratic Party in Wyoming and there is a growing and very active movement that's focused on public lands that isn't afraid of being very vocal.

More locally, Gerald Gay went down in defeat, a victim of statements he could not explain about women.  Gay was controversial in any event as he had sued fellow legislators and the Governor over matters recently and he may have been more set up to topple than people might have supposed.  His comments were inexplicable and did him in.  Dan Neal, whose campaign literature arrived in my mailbox every day for awhile, lost to Republican Jerry Obermuller.  In some ways, I think Neal may have been a victim of his supporters as his own mailings concentrated on public lands while his recent backers mailings urged support of him because of his support of abortion, LBGT rights and "reproductive health", which probably served to turn votes away from him. Being hugged enthusiastically by somebody who people doubt doesn't engender their support for you but Neal probably couldn't, maybe, have told them to shut up and go away, he was doing fine on his own.  Anyhow, at the close of his campaign the enthusiastic embrace by clearly left of center elements was probably just about as welcome as a big hug at your wedding reception from that lush of a girlfriend you never mentioned to your just married spouse.  Maybe he didn't know that.  Chuck Gray, young radio mouthpiece of the far libertarian right did get in, but the Democratic campaign against him was anemic.  I suspect that if Neal had contested with Gray, Neal would have won.  Todd Murphy, whose Facebook ravings brought attention to him in the press, did survive the sort of attention that Gay did not and ended up on the city council, to my enormous surprise.

The county commission was less surprising, with incumbents generally doing well.  A stable race, it seems.

Stripping Tobacco, 1916

LOC Title:  B.F. Howell, Route 4, Bowling Green, Ky. and part of his family stripping tobacco. The 8 and 10-year old boys in photo "tie up waste"; his 12-year old boy and 14-year old girl (not in photo but they lose a good deal of schooling for work) are regular strippers. Photo taken during school hours. Location: Bowling Green, Kentucky.  November 10, 1916.

Ah yes, the good old days. . . missing school to strip tobacco.

Enrico Caruso, November 9, 1916. They also work who sing.

 

Enrico Caruso, November 9, 1916. That cigarette couldn't have been good for that famous voice.

The Wyoming Tribune for November 9, 1916: Hughes leading.

Cheyenne Leader for November 9, 1916: Wilson leads

Pundit Fail

The election is far from over tonight, but I can't help but note that tonight, when I turned on the news, and only a couple of states were in, the pundits on the news channel I was watching had all but wrapped up the election in favor of Clinton, in spite of Trump being ahead.

Now, at 7:30 Mountain Time, they're stumbling all over themselves to explain why their predictions aren't turning out the way they thought.

I don't like either of these candidates. But its very hard not to feel that the press is very much a Clinton fan club in some ways.

Either candidate of the two major parties could win tonight. But the press has failed the nation, in my view.

The tumult and the shouting

I wonder if there's any chance that Facebook shall return to normal tomorrow or later this week. . . . to the extent it was normal.

Hmmm.

I guess that question answers itself.

The Laramie Republican for November 8, 1916. Results Uncertain

The Laramie Republican, however, was only will ing to go with "uncertain".

The Wyoming Tribune, the 3:30 edition. . not so sure now.

By 3:30 the Tribune was less certain, but still thought it was Hughes, probably.

And other news had crept back onto the front page.

Cheyenne State Leader for November 8, 1916. Getting the election right

The less dramatic leader, however, called the election correctly.

The first edition of the Wyoming Tribune for November 8, 1916: HUGHES WINS

Except he didn't.  The Tribune had been hoping for Hughes. . . perhaps a little too much?

Monday at the Bar and other things: Troubled Lawyers, Troubled Tribal Court, Deluded Law Students and Troubled Trials.

A veritable Monday morning cornucopia of legal stuff.

None of it particularly cheery, however.

And none of it having anything to do with tomorrow's election.  So maybe it's not as bad as it could be.  Indeed, all of the election stuff on this site today (which has been frankly over posting recently) pertains to the election of 1916.

At least that is one which we know how the story unfolds.

The November issue of the Wyoming Lawyer, or maybe it was the October issue (I don't tend to read them right away) recently arrived and I finally got around to perusing it.   It often takes me awhile, as I frequently do not find the articles to be terribly interesting, other than the new case synopsis. I can usually read anything it that I find interesting in about five minutes, which perhaps I should be embarrassed to admit.  This time, however, I was surprised by a couple of items.

The Wyoming State Bar has been really trying to draw attention to its Lawyers Assistance program.  It goes by an acronym I ought to remember, but I don't.  Anyhow, it has been doing this.  I guess a lot of states now have these.  These are all designed to try to aid lawyers that are having troubles in one fashion or another.  And by trouble I mean addictions or depression, and things of that type. 

As has been noted here before, lawyers are far more prone to these things than other professions.  Perhaps we always have been, but I doubt it.  I think the profession has evolved in that direction and frankly I think the forces that have created the conditions that give rise to these things are not going away soon.

Indeed, it's a bit disturbing to realize that the profession is basically running what amounts to field hospitals for its wounded.

 Medics in training, World War Two. . . analogy for the State Bar?

So once again, maybe, we have the unfortunate analogy between practicing law, and fighting in wars.  I know that seems a stretch, but when we start seeing an institution that is setting up crisis entities to deal with its own psychologically wounded. . .. hmm.

Anyway, the issue had articles by two lawyers I've worked in cases with.  I don't know either of them very well, but I do know them,.  In their articles they noted they had problems in the past and detailed them a bit.  One had problems years ago, and related taking them on when there was no help available.  I was, frankly, shocked as he's in the category of people I'd regard as a "big success". This fellow wasn't specific, but it sounds like he was struggling with anxiety issues or depression and ultimately sought help from his physician for it, who didn't really know what to do and sent him to a counselor.  Apparently that helped him out of that swamp.  He was recently, it was reported, an expert in a case and donated the fees for that to the State Bar's program. Pretty darned admirable. . . both to do that and to be willing to write about it.

The other article was by a lawyer younger than me who spoke of his battle with alcohol.  He related that this problem predated his entry into law school, so the law I suppose can't be blamed for that, but the program did help him in overcoming it.  He was apparently the first graduate of the Bar's program on that, and apparently it helped him where other programs hadn't.  Having worked with him, I was frankly shocked to learn that he had a problem. I'd never have guessed it.  Of course, maybe his story diverts a bit here as he didn't become an alcoholic, it should be noted, due to the practice of law, but entered it as one.  I sure have to say that I never realized that, but maybe being a lawyer sort of saved his life I guess, in a way.

Pretty brave of those guys to write those articles.

But, I think we have to confess that if even the big guns in the law, whom have what seem to be hugely successful practices, are driven into periods of despair there's something at work here and its not just the individuals.  Something bad.  And whatever it is, probably requires fundamental reform of a deep nature.  A line of work shouldn't be destructive to its practitioners.  Something here seems to be.  We lawyers like to claim that we have the best justice system in the world (something I frankly do not believe is true), but a system that destroys its own in surprising numbers isn't the "best".

Shortly after I read the article noted above, I was spending a tired morning working on something outside the office when a lawyer I know suddenly went off on the profession.  It shocked me as he's always seemed to be one of the happiest practitioners I've ever known, although recently he has seemed troubled and not himself.  Anyhow, in a totally unsolicited outburst, he really came down hard on the practice.  I'll not be able to think of him the same way again.

This is the second time I've had this happen in recent weeks. The first time was during a deposition in front of a subpoenaed office.  Here too, I was really surprised as I didn't expect this from these quarters. In that case, I only know the lawyer as an opponent in cases and I don't even really know him personally at all, although he's extremely gregarious. Again he seems a super happy

And that oddly led me to consider Law School. 

Before I note that, I'll also note, fwiw, even though its completely unrelated, that the same lawyer mentioned last related a story about a really well known lawyer that was truly foul.  I don't think he thought of that way, but I note this as we've been hearing a lot about the comments Donald Trump made (let's set aside the accusations of conduct) that shocked many people. Well, I was shocked about these as they were vile and also involved comments of a vulgar nature, although not about acts of any kind against other people, other than they sounded downright abusive to the lawyer relating the story, which was from when he was a young lawyer.

I note this, as I wonder how common such vulgar comments are in some context.  Probably a lot more than I care to know.

Anyhow, law school and delusion.

I read yesterday, in the Casper Star Tribune, an article about a Vietnam veteran who returned home and briefly went to law school before returning to work on his family's ranch in LaGrange.  It was an interesting article.  Just two days ago I was working cattle, when an old rancher I know mentioned to me "it seems like you are busier and busier (with the law) all the time".  I said yes, and then he said "well, I guess that's okay if you enjoy it."

That might be right.  

But I think almost every rancher enjoys his work. Statistically, in the US, a lot of people do not.  According to what state bars and the ABA puts out, a fairly high percentage of lawyers don't, but then I have seen the reliability of those statistics questioned as well.  Maybe we really don't know the answer.  But it's interesting to hear work put in the context of being worthwhile if, but only if, "you enjoy it."

And that gets me back to law school.

Law schools teaches people nothing at all about the actual practice of law.  Nothing.  Most law professors at this time don't know anything about the practice of law themselves.  As Judge Posner recently noted, law schools tend to be refuges from the actual practice of law and populated by people who fled it. And yet law schools put out propaganda about  how nifty the practice of law is, and how nifty a law degree is.  They still even occasionally put out the complete crap that "you can do anything with a law degree", which is bull.

That relates to the above, quite frankly, as I think that we now have an environment where a lot of people enter a field that they don't, to put it in the rancher's frame of reference, "enjoy".  Its apparently making a lot of lawyers miserable, if the statistics are to be believed.  Law schools are culpable in that in that they're doing nothing to educate their young charges in that fact.  Indeed, law schools, being populated by professors that are only dimly connected, quite often, with real work, are complicit in creating an illusion for the young that law is a happy, exciting, morally upstanding, profession.  Maybe that's inevitable, as who would emphasize that it's really hard work with a high dissatisfaction and psychological problem rate, with lots of substance abuse problems (apparently, if we believe the stats).  But I think law professors are largely clueless, or worse yet, they're early refugees from the profession and aren't clueless, but complicit.

Maybe some firms are, however, educating their young charges on these topics, even if accidentally.  One of the firms I know of had a young woman who graduated high school with my son. She was a valedictorian for her class last year.  She seemed very nice and pleasant and apparently had a life long dream, I'm told, of becoming a lawyer.  And she planned her future education that way.  Well, according to what I heard, the members of her firm slowly came to her before she departed the state to further her education and mostly warned her not to become a lawyer.  Again, I was amazed.  I guess that's to their credit, but what an indictment of the profession. Rather than encourage her they set out to crush her plans, one by one, but in the apparent hope of saving her from what they worried would be a mistake. Apparently it worked and she's abandoned that career plan, even if she doesn't, I'm told have a replacement.  That's remarkable, and disturbing.

But, back to the rancher's comment, if it seems a high percentage of lawyers don't "enjoy" their profession, but are seeming to endure (a scary thought, really), maybe that's the American norm?  Some time ago I ran an article from one of the statistics outfits that revealed a majority of Americans actually dislike their jobs, and it was a high percentage.  According to news outfits, which may be somewhat exaggerating the way the poll put it, "70%" of Americans "hate" their jobs.  Even if that's not quite right, that's a sad statistic.  And perhaps, therefore, lawyers aren't that unusual.

Which takes me back to Saturday's public lands rally.

 

One of the speakers at that rally was Chris Madson, formerly the editor of Wyoming Wildlife.

I think Madson, fwiw, was a good editor, but his writings tended to be very gloomy, more I thought than deserved.  Reading him tended to be a bit like watching The Seventh Seal and The Last Emperor in a double feature.  But, he served a purpose.

Well, at the rally he was predictably gloomy, but had this interesting observation, which he repeated in an article (as he mentioned) on his website:

These days, Americans are dispossessed, confined in our apartments, on our quarter-acre lots, estranged from the land that, in large part, has defined our character as a people and a nation. We are held prisoner by economics. One of the few physical expressions of freedom we have left is the public domain. Together, we can use it without destroying it; we can enjoy it without dividing it.

I don't know that we're dispossessed, but could be, for the reasons that he noted.  And I think, frankly, that the wholesale adoption of the modern global, everything is about consumption, we must have ever more crowded cities and every more cubicles economy, is causing a lot of the dissatisfaction in work mentioned above, legal or otherwise. We weren't made for four walls and big cities. But increasingly, we are left with fewer choices but to adopt those conditions.  One more reason, as Madson noted, to preserve public lands as public.

On the "best justice system in the world" and on public lands, that justice system, let the Bundy wildlife refuge occupiers off the hook. This has to be a case of jury nullification, and the jury should be ashamed.

I almost always ask for juries, but I have to wonder in a thing like this if a jury serves justice.  I suppose there will always be guys who drop the ball on juries, but this is an OJ jury like fumble.  They should be ashamed of themselves and I hope they come to be.  As another speaker noted at the rally, the local ranchers hadn't wanted them there and it wasn't the occupiers who missed duck season on that refuge that year, members of the public that they were, but rather local duck hunters.  People like the Bundys are a threat to local agriculture and a threat to public land use.  The sooner they bear the just implications of their actions the better, so perhaps in their upcoming trial they'll actually get justice from the best justice system in the world.

Among lawyers having a miserable time right now we'd have to include Tribal Court . . . well now Arapaho Tribal Court, Judge St. Clair.  Apparently the CFR court that will take over for the Shoshones has told him to get out of the court he's occupying, as it belongs to the BIA.  My goodness, what a horrible mess.  Where will they go?

 

 Poor photograph of the Wind River Indian Reservation Tribal Court.  The BIA has told the (now Arapaho) Tribal Court to get out.

I think there was a building on the Reservation that was an Army court.  And I think it's over by the parade ground on Ft. Washakie.  I don't know what its used for now, but if that building contained a court (and I only vaguely believe that it did) it hasn't been used that way for decades.  And how can one geographic space contain two courts based not on territorial jurisdiction, but on a combination of territory and race?

Addendum

As an addendum to this less that cheery entry, we note that Janet Reno, who was the first female Attorney General of the United States, died today at age 78. She had been suffering from Parkinson's Disease.

Her death, coming as it does, on the even of the 2016 General Election is likely to pass less noticed than it otherwise would.  I'll simply note it here. She was appointed AG by Bill Clinton and held the post for a longer period than anyone in the prior 150 years had. Her occupancy of the position was not without controversy, if for no other reason than the Clinton era seems to be the commencement of the modern political period we are in which has featured controversy about everything.

Of some note, however, her first may have seemed to be a really significant first to a greater extent than the first which we're likely so see tomorrow, that being the first woman President.  I still hear that first touted on the weekend news shows but I really think, at this point, nobody cares.  What seems to have been missed on that  is that by this point the acceptance of women and minorities in every walk of life is so general that a first woman President is truly an irrelevant statistic to most people.  The election of Elizabeth Rankin to Congress a century ago was actually truly much more of a milestone.