Voting on Trump's "Emergency"

The Democrats in the house and senate plan to vote on cancelling Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to construct part of a wall between the US and Mexico  without legislation allowing and funding it. Republicans who care about the constitution, the separation of powers, and limited government should vote with them. The issue is clear enough that it will be reasonable to wonder whether the Republicans who vote with the president really care about these things or only talk about them to gull voters who do care.  Trump’s opponents are right on this issue, and he is wrong. He proposed legislation to build his wall, and the congress failed to appropriate money for it. That should have been the end of it. Whether he was right or wrong in wanting the money is irrelevant. 

 However rejecting this “emergency”  is not enough. Congress should  repeal the laws giving presidents any general power to declare something  to be an emergency and then to act pretty much as they like to respond to it. Legislators could then pass new laws giving presidents authority to respond to specific categories of threats such as actual or imminent attacks on the United States, major epidemics, and so on. 

Those in congress who rightly oppose Trump on this should admit that the congress  opened the door for it and then clean things up. For as things stand now, Trump probably had formal legal authority for what he did even though it went beyond the  funny business on emergencies from other presidents.  

Best Basketball Player

A while back LeBron James made news by announcing he was the best basketball player ever. This led to arguments on TV, many over whether Michael Jordan had the better claim. (Some cynics wondered if the more interesting question was which of the two was the bigger jerk.)  To consider who is best at something, one must first decide what he means by being the best. When people call Tom Brady the best quarterback ever, they usually do not mean he is the most athletically talented or is  the best passer or has the best statistics. They generally mean he is the most successful quarterback ever, with success defined as being the starting quarterback on a league’s championship team.  By that standard the argument for him is a strong though not conclusive one with only Bart Starr and Otto Graham as his peers. 

Applying a similar standard to basketball gives an easy answer. Whatever one may think about who was the best in other ways, Bill Russell was indisputably the most successful basketball player of all time, if success is defined as being the  key player on a championship team. He led the Celtics to eleven championships in thirteen  years and probably would have made it twelve if he hadn’t  been injured in the finals one year. 

 James and Jordan have good cases if one judges by athletic ability and statistics. But so do Kareem Jabbar,   Oscar Robertson, Julius Erving,  Jerry West, and others.  However, for my money,  the best case probably belongs to Wilt Chamberlain. He was a remarkable athlete and physical specimen who put up impressive  statistics in scoring, rebounding, and minutes played per game. He holds the records for both most points per game (a little over 50) and most rebounds per game (over 27)  in a season.  He even once led the league in assists. Of course one thing he could not do often enough was beat Bill Russell, but neither could anyone else.

Deserving Wealth

Bill Gates was quoted  this week as saying that he did not deserve his fortune. In one way that statement is correct, though not in the way people in the media are interpreting it or perhaps Gates meant it.  No one deserves that any wealth should be bestowed on him by virtue of his existing or because he is a fine fellow. The world does not owe anybody a living. However a person has a right to the wealth he earns  by producing goods and services (for his own use or for selling) and by saving and investing and deserves not to have that wealth stolen from him. He also has the right to give property of his  to someone else if he wants to. Once he has, it belongs to the new owner by right, and that person deserves not  to have it stolen from him.  A person, rich or otherwise, does deserve that others  should  respect his right to whatever wealth he acquires honestly in these ways, whether or not  they think he deserves it in some other sense.  

A Big Parade

Conservatives are wrong to be focusing on Ocasio-Cortez. She is not what is worrisome.  To paraphrase an old columnist, she is only the majorette twirling a baton as she struts  in front of the marching band while the parade was planned and the music selected by someone else.  The thing to worry about is that  some people who make the decisions for the American left and  the traditional media now want this particular parade.

It does not matter that the Democrats’ next nominee for president probably will not campaign on killing all beef cattle and dairy cows in the country, banning air travel, and partially or completely demolishing all buildings in the country (though several supposed serious candidates of theirs have endorsed a plan demanding these thing among others).  Neither does it matter that a Soviet-style direct expropriation of people’s property via a so-called wealth tax is not likely  either.  What does matter is that many of the American leftists who count now feel safe to drop pretense and  demand that level of power openly. 

They’ve wanted it all along, but with a few infrequent  exceptions such as the McGovern campaign most of them kept it mainly to themselves because they knew Americans would not go for it.  For many of them that fear is now gone, and that is something for the rest of us to take seriously and deal with instead of fretting distractedly over the twirlers.

Progressive Leadership in Virginia

One does not have to be sympathetic when an arrogant, malicious, sanctimonious scoundrel gets a comeuppance, but one should be fair. Racism is the belief that the  members of some races are intrinsically superior or inferior because of their membership in the race. It is not just anything that offends a black politician or some nitwits on social media. Racial prejudice is belief in  judging someone on the basis of his race rather than his individual characteristics and behavior. It is not just  anything that offends a black politician or some nitwits on social media.  Virginia governor Northam’s appearance in a photo in 1984 dressed as either a Ku Kluxer or in blackface as an undignified looking  black man is not proof of either. It could have been only  a  crude and tasteless attempt to be funny. Most of us have tried to be funny in crude or tasteless ways about one thing or another at one time or another, and the 1980s were a far less puritanical and uptight  time than the present.  Northam is a loathsome character even by the standards of his trade, and Virginia would be better off if he were run out of office, but in a sane world he would not be hounded out for this.

Still some of it is  amusing.  There is poetic justice in  is having  a so-called rising star of the Democratic party get taken down for a thirty five year old violation of the canons or political correctness in a yearbook.  It was fine fun  to see those objective,  sharp eyed newshawks at CNN tell their audience that he was a Republican, as was watching other active or potential candidates for the Democrats’ nomination for the presidency in 2020 righteously denounce a possible  rival. It has been a hoot to see him admit he is in the photo and apologize, and then change his mind and deny it when things got really hot.

It also is interesting that the old photo is what caused the commotion among Democrats, rather than his statement seeming to approve of  post-delivery infanticide.  Some people believe abortion is a crime, and some do not, but all civilized people should agree that killing a viable, new born  infant is a crime. That he apparently does not see it that way is a far better reason for pushing him to resign in disgrace than a picture in a yearbook.   That other politicians in his party have not disagreed with him in public on that reveals a lot about them – none of it good.