Older Than All Of Them Combined

Maybe it just takes someone who came from outside this nation to point some things out. Maybe being born here blinds one to some of the things that we take for granted. Maybe some of the things we take for granted here blind us to some facts as well. Mark Steyn points a few things out.

We know Eastern Europe was a totalitarian prison until the Nineties, but we forget that Mediterranean Europe (Greece, Spain, Portugal) has democratic roots going all the way back until, oh, the mid-Seventies; France and Germany's constitutions date back barely half a century, Italy's only to the 1940s, and Belgium's goes back about 20 minutes, and currently it's not clear whether even that latest rewrite remains operative. The U.S. Constitution is not only older than France's, Germany's, Italy's or Spain's constitution, it's older than all of them put together.

Americans think of Europe as Goethe and Mozart and 12th century castles and 6th century churches, but the Continent's governing mechanisms are no more ancient than the Partridge Family. Aside from the Anglophone democracies, most of the nation-states in the West have been conspicuous failures at sustaining peaceful political evolution from one generation to the next, which is why they're so susceptible to the siren song of Big Ideas – communism, fascism, European Union.

If you're going to be novelty-crazed, better the zebra-mussel cappuccino than the Third Reich.

Even in a supposedly 50/50 nation, you're struck by the assumed stability underpinning even fundamental disputes. If you go into a bookstore, the display shelves offer a smorgasbord of leftist anti-Bush tracts claiming that he and Cheney have trashed, mangled, gutted, raped and tortured, sliced 'n' diced the Constitution, put it in a cement overcoat and lowered it into the East River. Yet even this argument presupposes a shared veneration for tradition unknown to most Western political cultures: When Tony Blair wanted to abolish, in effect, the upper house of the national legislature, he just got on and did it.

I don't believe the U.S. Constitution includes a right to abortion or gay marriage or a zillion other things the Left claims to detect emanating from the penumbra, but I find it sweetly touching that in America even political radicalism has to be framed as an appeal to constitutional tradition from the powdered-wig era.

In Europe, by contrast, one reason why there's no politically significant pro-life movement is because, in a world where constitutions have the life expectancy of an Oldsmobile, great questions are just seen as part of the general tide, the way things are going, no sense trying to fight it. And, by the time you realize you have to, the tide's usually up to your neck.

So Americans should be thankful they have one of the last functioning nation-states. Europeans, because they've been so inept at exercising it, no longer believe in national sovereignty, whereas it would never occur to Americans not to. This profoundly different attitude to the nation-state underpins, in turn, Euro-American attitudes to transnational institutions such as the United Nations.

The American left likes to lecture that we are not more like Europe. I'm not seeing that as a bad thing. Steyn is devastatingly correct here. Many of the nations that presume to lecture us were dictatorships not so many years ago. Are we, as Americans, perfect? Oh heck, no.

But people still flock here from all over the globe, don't they? I rather suspect that a lot of people move to European countries because they can't get to the US. (Yeah, that sounds a bit arrogant, but I still suspect it is true.) The constitution that governs us is literally older than all of the constitutions of those countries that presume to lecture us, put together The vast majority of nations that make up the United Nations are either not democracies or are democracies in name only.

Maybe it just takes someone who came from outside this nation to point some things out.

And In More Police State News Today

Parents in Upper Marlboro, Maryland were ordered to appear at a courthouse in Prince George's County to either prove their children had mandatory vaccinations or to have them vaccinated on the spot. Failure to comply with the order meant that the parent's faced jail time.

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. - Hundreds of grumbling parents facing a threat of jail lined up at a courthouse Saturday to either prove that their school-age kids already had their required vaccinations or see that the youngsters submitted to the needle.

The get-tough policy in the Washington suburbs of Prince George's County was one of the strongest efforts made by any U.S. school system to ensure its youngsters receive their required immunizations.

Two months into the school year, school officials realized that more than 2,000 students in the county still didn't have the vaccinations they were supposed to have before attending class.

So Circuit Court Judge C. Philip Nichols ordered parents in a letter to appear at the courthouse Saturday and either get their children vaccinated on the spot or risk up to 10 days in jail. They could also provide proof of vaccination or an explanation why their kids didn't have them.

By about 8:30 a.m., the line of parents stretched outside the courthouse in the county on the east side of Washington.

Many of them complained that their children already were properly immunized but the school system had misplaced the records. They said efforts to get the paperwork straightened out had been futile.

"It was very intimidating," Territa Wooden of Largo said of the letter. She said she presented the paperwork at the courthouse Saturday and resolved the matter.

"I could be home asleep. My son had his shots," said Veinell Dickens of Upper Marlboro, who also blamed errant paperwork.

All of my children have had all of their state-mandated vaccinations. When one kid's records got lost, we had to dutifully go get the records replaced. I have little sympathy for parents who do not follow the rules. But I am dead set against this kind of heavy-handed, authoritarian tactic. None of my kids have ever been allowed to attend school without the requisite proof that they were vaccinated. This solution in search of a problem was caused - directly - by the inept school district that allowed the children in without proof of vaccination. There is an established policy and laws governing this. The children should have been barred from school and the parents brought in on truancy charges. The article states that this is in the books. That is the law that should have been followed.

What this judge did was expand the law into areas it was never meant to cover. He has no authority to order vaccinations (anyone familiar with the Maryland statutes feel free to chime in) - only to hold parents accountable for not following the laws that actually do apply. It may be "for the children" but it is against freedom.

Hold the parents accountable, certainly. But do not allow this sort of heavy-handed, police state tactic.  

What the heck is going wrong in this country?

Stand Still, Laddie!

The Boston Police Department has decided that there is no longer any need for trivial things like warrants or probable cause. They will simply begin searching people's homes for guns. They say they'll only do it if people volunteer to let them in. But they are sending teams of three policemen at once to call on people. To ask them to voluntarily let them in - constitution or not.

Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children's bedrooms.

The program, which is already raising questions about civil liberties, is based on the premise that parents are so fearful of gun violence and the possibility that their own teenagers will be caught up in it that they will turn to police for help, even in their own households.

In the next two weeks, Boston police officers who are assigned to schools will begin going to homes where they believe teenagers might have guns. The officers will travel in groups of three, dress in plainclothes to avoid attracting negative attention, and ask the teenager's parent or legal guardian for permission to search. If the parents say no, police said, the officers will leave.

If officers find a gun, police said, they will not charge the teenager with unlawful gun possession, unless the firearm is linked to a shooting or homicide.

The program was unveiled yesterday by Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis in a meeting with several community leaders.

Not everyone is happy with the secret policemen of the People's Republic of Boston.

"I just have a queasy feeling anytime the police try to do an end run around the Constitution," said Thomas Nolan, a former Boston police lieutenant who now teaches criminology at Boston University. "The police have restrictions on their authority and ability to conduct searches. The Constitution was written with a very specific intent, and that was to keep the law out of private homes unless there is a written document signed by a judge and based on probable cause. Here, you don't have that."

Regardless of whether you are pro or anti-gun, you should be outraged by this. Period. That it is being proposed in the city that once held a rather famous tea party and was a hotbed of Liberty only makes it more disgusting. The patriots who fought and died to secure Liberty for this nation have got to be spinning in their graves up in Boston right now. Enjoy your new shoulder patch, Commissioner Commisar* Edward F. Davis, you've certainly earned it.

*Correction supplied by Quilly Mammoth.

NOTE: Bloggers or Liberty lovers, feel free to use the photo, I'd appreciate a link back if you do, but I don't insist on it.

UPDATE: Others: Just Barking Mad, Sadly, No!, Don Surber, LewRockwell.com Blog, Liberty Papers, Free Constitution, Bob Krumm, Traction Control, Big Dog, OK Future,

More Murderous Monkey Mayhem

Well, the monkeys are at it again over in India. This time they are stealing cell phones (we're not making this up), breaking into houses and robbing homeowners of their soft drinks among other things. Woe to the person that tries to stop the simian invaders, too. The monkeys have no qualms about slapping a human silly.

"Monkeys are wreaking havoc in my constituency by taking away mobile phones, toothpastes, sipping coke after opening the refrigerators," Hiren Das told Assam state's assembly.

He said the primates were "even slapping women who try to chase them".

"It is a cause of serious concern in my area, with more than 1,000 such simians turning aggressive by the day," fumed Goneswar Das, another legislator representing Raha in eastern Assam.

Gangs of unruly monkeys have been assaulting and even killing people all over India. But they're going for cell phones now. Which can only mean they are communicating with one another!

“New Vision” Is The Same Old Coup

Although this article in the New York Times does present a fairly good overview of the opposition to (T)Hugo Chavez's coup, the tone is generally sympathetic to the soon-to-be-president for life. This isn't really surprising given the fact that the western media has always had a hard time recognizing the real monsters. That being why Fidel Castro still gets kid glove treatment.

A sweeping revision of the Constitution, expected to be approved by referendum on Dec. 2, is both bolstering Mr. Chávez’s popularity here among people who would benefit and stirring contempt from economists who declare it demagogy. Signaling new instability here, dissent is also emerging among his former lieutenants, one of whom says the president is carrying out a populist coup.

“There is a perverse subversion of our existing Constitution under way,” said Gen. Raúl Isaías Baduel, a retired defense minister and former confidant of Mr. Chávez who broke with him in a stunning defection this month to the political opposition. “This is not a reform,” General Baduel said in an interview here this week. “I categorize it as a coup d’état.”

Chávez loyalists already control the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, almost every state government, the entire federal bureaucracy and newly nationalized companies in the telephone, electricity and oil industries. Soon they could control even more.

But this is an upheaval that would be carried out with the approval of the voters. While opinion polls in Venezuela are often tainted by partisanship, they suggest that the referendum could be Mr. Chávez’s closest electoral test since his presidency began in 1999, but one he may well win.

“We are witnessing a seizure and redirection of power through legitimate means,” said Alberto Barrera Tyszka, co-author of a best-selling biography of Mr. Chávez. “This is not a dictatorship but something more complex: the tyranny of popularity.”

Chavez is not even close to being the first tyrant to mask his takeover behind populism or mob rule. It has happened time and again throughout recorded history. Hiding behind a mask of democracy does not a democracy make. It is one of the reasons the framers of the American constitution formed this country into a representative republic.

In the long run, the people of Venezuela will pay a bitter price for the rule of a tyrant like Chavez. Just ask Doctor Oscar Elias Biscet what life is like under Fidel Castro. If you can get into the prison to talk to him. Then back out, which is the tricky part.

There’s Gold In Them Thar…..Sewage Tanks?

This is right up there on the list of jobs I have no intention of ever doing. Panning for gold in septic tanks.

A town in southern China is proving that where there's muck, there's gold and silver.

In one of the most extreme signs of China's modern grasp of entrepreneurial possibilities, gold panners are striking deals with jewellery factories to buy the contents of their septic tanks.

The price of precious metals has soared to such record highs on the world's markets that sifting the tanks' contents for scrapings and offcuts has become a profitable business.

A reporter from a Chinese newspaper found a new breed of waste collectors touring the jewellery factories near Daluotang, a township near the city of Guangzhou.

They told him that small processing factories had discovered gold and silver filings in the septic tanks that had either washed off workers' hands and faces or been ingested accidentally.

Just remember kids, never put gold into your mouth. You never know where it's been. Which should really improve demand for the $25,000 dessert which has 'edible gold' in it. Well, after the eatery gets rid of the vermin and reopens, that is.

Air Shark

If you thought armor-plated, prehistoric aerial cruise missiles (sometimes called 'sturgeons') were bad news, wait until you see the latest development the Animal Uprising™ has unleashed. Or sent aloft. How about two-ton flying great white sharks? There's photographic evidence.

We're gonna need a bigger boat…

Porking Up The Pork

Pork with a glistening side of pork, smothered in pork gravy. That pretty well describes the budget bills the Democratic-controlled Congress are rolling out. One after another, the bills, bursting at the seams with pork, are coming out of Congress, some are vetoed, some not. All have very questionable earmarks for unnecessary or dangerous items requested by Congressional piggies who just coincidentally happen to get campaign contributions from the beneficiaries of the porky largess. Sometimes at about the same time that the earmark is filed.

Six of the top 10 senators in defense campaign contributions in the 2006 election cycle were Democrats - Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Clinton, Chris Dodd of Connecticut (another presidential candidate), Dianne Feinstein of California, Bill Nelson of Florida, and Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. Last summer, Kennedy requested $100 million for a General Electric fighter engine the Air Force said it did not need.

With the possibility that a Democrat will take the White House in 2008, the defense industry is already throwing its weight behind the Democrats. In the 1992 election of Bill Clinton, the industry gave 54 percent of its contributions to Democrats. But the industry soured on his administration, giving 68 percent to Republicans in 1996 and giving at least 60 percent to Republican causes up to and including the ill-fated (for Republicans) 2006 midterms.

In the 2008 election cycle, the industry is giving 52 percent of its contributions to Democrats. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Democrats now make up eight of the top 10 defense recipients. Dodd and Clinton are first and third, respectively, ahead of Republican presidential candidates John McCain (fifth), Mitt Romney (16th) and Rudy Giuliani (20th). Dodd and Clinton have taken in $171,300 and $125,583, respectively, to McCain's $118,450, Romney's $82,050, and Giuliani's $69,100…..

…..The Seattle Times detailed last month how Senator Patty Murray and Representatives Norm Dicks and Brian Baird, all Democrats, earmarked $17.65 million to a boat company for a vessel the Navy did not ask for and never used. Murray also earmarked $6 million to a company for battle gear the Army rejected. Representative David Wu, an Oregon Democrat, earmarked $2 million for combat T-shirts that were banned because their polyester was flammable……..

…….Of 20 leading domestic spending earmarkers in Congress listed by the Times, 12 are Democrats. The Democrats recently handed the Republicans a cultural cudgel when Clinton and Schumer were nailed trying to earmark $1 million for a museum commemorating the 1969 Woodstock concert. USA Today reported that the museum's sponsor gave the Clinton campaign $9,200 and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee $20,000 after the earmark was filed.

Pork is a bipartisan trough for the Washington lawmakers. It should also be a bipartisan issue that voters can come together on and help end. Regardless of party, this is wrong. Regardless of politician involved, the porkers should be condemned. Campaign contributions in exchange for Federal contracts is nothing but bribery, not matter what lipstick they put on it.

Treasures From Treachery

The FBI has started to release some details of the items they seized during a raid on the home of Harriette Walters, the now-jailed former Washington DC tax office employee accused of stealing at least $20 million for that office. I reads like a catalog of conspicuous consumption. Despite the pricey items found in large quantities only a fraction of the stolen money can be accounted for. The Washington Post reports:

The investigators hauled out more than 100 pieces of jewelry, a mink coat and 90 purses — many of them such designer brands as Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Gucci, according to an FBI inventory that was released late yesterday.

Walters, who was arrested in the predawn raid Nov. 7, also had 68 pairs of shoes, designer luggage and other luxury items, the FBI said. Some of the goods were stored in the garage, near a 2006 Mercedes-Benz, where authorities said they found a pair of silver-plated iguana figurines, a silverware set, a Rolex watch and a silver bar cart.

The inventory, filed yesterday in U.S. District Court, provided new insights into the lifestyle of the woman who prosecutors say masterminded the biggest fraud ever perpetrated against the D.C. government: $20 million and counting, they say. It details items seized by nine agents who went through every room of the house near Rock Creek Park.

Walters, 51, co-worker Diane Gustus and four others are charged with taking part in a conspiracy to generate illegal property tax refund checks for themselves. In a separate court filing yesterday, authorities alleged that at least $12.7 million of the stolen money flowed directly into accounts controlled by Walters's niece, Jayrece Turnbull, whom they described as Walters's principal partner in the scam.

Authorities say that the have identified some real property, houses and cars, that account for some of the money. But there is an awful lot missing. So far they have been able to keep the suspects jailed arguing that they have both the means and a very large motive for fleeing. But there will be another hearing Monday for Turnbull. Arguably, she is the biggest flight risk of the bunch:

Turnbull is a native of Puerto Rico, Su said, and has traveled extensively to that island and also to the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Spain, France and other places in Europe.

"She owns at least one home in the Dominican Republic (where she has also transmitted hundreds of thousands of dollars), the father of her children resides in Puerto Rico, and her mother resides in the Virgin Islands," Su wrote.

"The defendant also noted that she had telephone bills averaging $1,500 per month because she had many friends all over the world," he said.

I have a bad feeling about this.