Your Little Phones
Piers Morgan has been making news in the US for his views on the Constitution’s Second Amendment. In a recent debate on the air, he made it clear that he considers himself knowledgeable on the subject.
MORGAN: — on the American constitution and the second amendment. It’s exactly what you’ve tried to do. You come in, you brandish your little book, as if I don’t know what’s in there –
SHAPIRO: My little book? That’s the constitution of the United States. It’s our founding document, Piers.
MORGAN: I know what its your constitution.
SHAPIRO: Do you really?
MORGAN: I have been debating this for a long time.
But Morgan’s real claim to fame rests on his actions in his native Britain where he is being accused of improperly abetting what might be called unethical journalistic practices, most notably the hacking of celebrity phones by journalists working for him. The inquiries against Morgan are doubtless going to be used by the British government to more strictly regulate the UK press.
Bureaucrats are salivating at the prospect of using a journalistic Sandy Hook of the sort Morgan is accused of to impose more word control. Those who are manifesting fake outrage over Morgan’s supposed violations are probably not particularly concerned about privacy. But they will never let a crisis go to waste when it presents them with an excuse to grab power.
With that side of the Atlantic uncomfortably hot, Morgan may find things much more conducive in America, where such press regulation is harder to impose than in Britain, due to a provision in the reviled “little book”, the one which comes before the Second. Maybe Morgan likes the odd numbered provisions in the Bill of Rights more than the even.
However that may be, once press controls have become legitimized in a Western European country it sets a bad precedent which sooner or later will get imported by Americans seeking to do the same thing. Eventually British press regulations may chase Morgan to America and he will be hoist on his own petard. In the end Morgan may wind up doing more damage to the First Amendment then to the Second, even without intending to and contrary to his own interests.
Don’t you hate it when things boomerang on you?
The problem with exercising power over others is that when eventually the Wheel of Karma turns your enemies wind up wielding power over you. The fox is now chasing the hound in the UK. And that’s the way things go.
Everybody winds up on the receiving end sometimes and therefore it behooves him to respect the framework which shelters others because one day he may need it also. Part of the reason the Constitution exists is to protect Piers Morgan from people like himself. Robert Bolt put it eloquently in his screenplay for the Man for All Seasons.
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
It’s easy to think you won’t need the Constitution when you’re up. But wait till you’re down. Rule by virtue of privilege, position and fame is fundamentally dangerous for the aristocracy. They are much better served ruling through the provisions of “your little book”. Who knows but they may need it themselves some day?
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Wretchard, that exchange from A Man for All Seasons has been much on my mind these days when it comes to liberals and our Constitution. I think it was the Con Law prof’s Op-Ed in the New York Times that brought it up. It’s ingrained in our left these days to think of all the “good” they could do if they weren’t hamstrung. It never seems to occur to them what harm someone else could do.
So their solution is, give us this power, and then we’ll just have to make sure no one who disagrees with us (who are presumptively bad) ever gets to wield it. See for example US Supreme Court nominations from Bork onward.
If he only likes odd-numbered amendments, I’d like to see him wrap his Euro-head around the Ninth.
Piers Morgan’s ratings are down. CNN is in the tank. The Newtown Massacre was a gift.
There is no little irony in the fact that Newtown was the site of one of Connecticut’s most notorious insane asylums, Fairfield Hills.
It closed its doors in the ’60s. Congress was suppose to construct an outpatient mental health program. It didn’t.
Connectict put its savings from Fairfield Hills closures into each town’s general fund. Any thing that went into mental hill was by accident.
I’ll bet Morgan doesn’t know that. Too hard. Screaming “no guns” is easier and cheaper…and sticks it to those guns & Bible clutchers.
“Why is it, do you suppose, that an Englishman is unhappy until he has explained America?” — E.B. White
Wretch:
“They may need it some day” is a powerful argument for not changing the law to suit your current situation — except with Democrats. Remember when Massachusetts Dems changed the rules so then-governor Romney could not name a replacement Senator? Then changed the rules back when Kennedy died because they had a D in the governorship? Or Harry Reid speaking out against changing filibuster rules when the Republicans would have benefited from that move, but now calling for the very same changes? Or then-Senator Obama decrying the raising of the debt ceiling and now calling for it either to be raised or done away with altogether? They truly have no shame.
Perhaps what we need is a tradition that says no law voted today will be implemented until the next Congress. That would work well with Congressional pay raises too.
Today’s winners never imagine that the day could come when they will be on the losing side & need protection. Something to do with human nature — we internalize success (I have earned it!) and externalize failure (That bum Biden let me down again!).
Protection is not offered by a Constitution; it is offered by the culture which produced a Constitution, i.e. people who voluntarily accept the need to impose limits on their own behavior as the price of long-term benefits. Undermine the culture and the printed words are indeed useless — as the kind of people who have spent the last hundred years undermining the culture will some day find out.
Why should a man who judges tawdry talent contests on both sides of The Great Pond have any influence to begin with?
Morgan is a shining example of how unserious the western world has become.
Off topic, refer to the following video:
http://www.therightscoop.com/syrian-rebels-praise-osama-bin-laden-as-americas-worst-nightmare-celebrate-memory-of-twin-towers-falling/
What you just observed was one of the most target rich environments since the death of Mohammed the Prophet. What a shame there wasn’t a couple Reaper drones overhead along with a dozen USMC snipers to mop up the survivors.
Scary bit: Those bozos are fighting ***against*** the Syrian dictatorship (They are the “good” guys). We’re observing a replay of when we were supporting the Mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
What it is, is are we all buying into the same social contract, or are we at war, all against all.
OTOH, and speaking from California and the USA, what do we do when the system freezes up, is captured from within? Look at the city of Los Angeles, somehow they collect seven billion dollars per year, but don’t have any money to fix potholes in the street, so will put out a new three billion dollar tax for that. In other words they have STOLEN three billion dollars and now want to tax us for it TWICE.
Well, the elite, our government, are not living up to their duties, so they’re not buying into the contract, and if it has turned into a license to steal the same money over and over, then the people should not buy into the contract any more, either.
No Constitution, no taxes, right? No reason not to smack Piers Morgan in the snoot, and I mean right now, on camera, and why not?
I suppose the Obama group feels that even if they start a Civil War they can do a Bolshevik and win it. That seems to be the way most wars start. Some optimist thinks all the other groups are born losers. Then before they know it, they are face up under the blade of guillotine. Luck is a double edged sword with a lose grip.
toadold @ 10 said:
“I suppose the Obama group feels that even if they start a Civil War they can do a Bolshevik and win it. … Some optimist thinks all the other groups are born losers. Then before they know it, they are face up under the blade of guillotine.”
All that has kept our economy alive since March 2009 has been fraud and money printing. There is little doubt that Bernanke, Geithner and others have committed many serious felonies to prop up the economy. To seize absolute power, all Obama needs to do is let the economy crash and then cast it as a “Reichstag Fire”. He could trout out the old canard about a conspiracy of Jews, financiers, bankers, etc. to take over the world. Anti-semitism has been rife at the various moonbat websites. Obama would be “playing to his base” if he threw the financial services sector under the bus and made Jews a scapegoat. One might sputter back and reply that communists don’t attack Jews (that’s only a Nazi behavior). This is obvious nonsense. The narrative phrase for “Jew” in the Soviet Union was “rootless cosmopolitan”. Stalin used traditional Russian anti-semitism to advance his hold on political power and orchestrated major purges against Russian Jews as a consequence, refer to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin_and_antisemitism
It appears that our Piers is about to say Cheers
To the land of Amendment the First
He was far from the top of the talking head tiers
And in fact he was one of the worst
And now that the Feds in old Blighty have looked
Into hacking the phones of the snobs
He may soon be arrested and possibly booked
And treated like one of the yobs
At which point he’ll sob, the good life beyond reach
As prison doors slammed shut and clanged
Reflecting had England the right to free speech
Lord Haw Haw would not have been hanged
There are rules of Hospitality, binding on both the host and the guest. They are ancient, going back thousands of years. Maybe they are hard wired from even earlier. They may be as universal and primal as the incest taboo. We owe Morgan nothing. Kick him out and treat him to routine public contempt and abuse “no fire, water food or shelter” until the door hits him on the rear. His employers should be punished by the market.
Semi-topical
Many of us fear the worst, armed internal conflict. Some (Drudge this morning) report that a race war is coming. Others a left-right divide.
The Soviets developed the concept of ‘Correlation of Forces’ to a great art. In their view if one could know enough about the opposition, the actual ‘war’ would be won or lost on paper. In some ways they were right, even though losing, circa 1989. The Confederacy in 1860 got it wrong.
Without total knowledge I offer some thoughts regarding the correlation of Leftist(Minorities and anti-constitutionalists-progressives)Forces verses Correct (Right-Constitutional) Forces.
- How many on the left ever served in the military? Few. The Correct side has more veterans than the left, thus, in the streets, institutional combat knowledge, training and experience is largely a Correct side advantage. Beware, this did the Confederacy little good.
- Who owns the guns? This is home run for the Corrects. This is opposite of the case in the last civil war.
- Which way will the active, guard, reserve and retired military break (and to an extent, law enforcement). Unknown, but my guess is they will support the Constitution more or less completely. I remember my Officer’s Oath was to protect and defend…against all enemies foreign and domestic.
- Who has the technical skills to support a longish war? Liberal arts majors of the past were at least raised on a farm. Not today. I spent my non-naval career in construction. I can build stuff, including barricades. Metro-sexuals might break a nail.
- How many Blacks really buy the racial bulls**t? Don’t know. Here in Northern Virginia, among my construction work crews, I would be surprised at more the 65%. Working men get it.
- Which side has more ‘Hard Men’?
- Which side understands history?
- How long can the media distract? Apparently a long time. Advantage left.
- Can Low-Info’s be pressed ganged into combat service and sufficiently trained to be effective… remembering that most were/are unfit for service anyway? Unknown. Will not guess. Call this a tie.
- When the hard men stop manning the infrastructure in the urban areas, how long will the left be able to function. Backed up sewage is sooo third world? Not long, but more importantly, the disease and lack of food puts them in a tactical bind.
- Which way will food produces break?
- Which way will IT and communications break? Hard left. Corrects will have to develop ways to coordinate without mass comms.
- Which way will Business Break. Mixed. Those large entities with Ivy MBA etc will break hard left, while small business will go mostly Correct. Wall street will finance both sides, with the left at advantage. I give the left this one, by a middling margin.
More and more and more comparisons needed.
Who wins? How long? And the big question… when will the Corrects get the picture and man up?
One would think the left, brilliant as it is, would do correlation of their own and gauge their actions accordingly. NOT.
WE CANNOT COMPROMISE. WE CANNOT COMPROMISE AWAY ANYMORE OF THE CONSTITUTION. WE MUST RECLAIM IT ALL. THE ONLY COMPROMISE IS FOR THE LEFT TO SURRENDER IN RETURN FOR THEIR LIVES.
Ta
(ps, wow being an old curmudgeon is fun.)
Slavery was a losing cause, apart from any moral considerations, because it was economically obsolete. Men in bondage never reach their full potential as human beings. The cost keeping slaves in their subordinate position grows ever larger.
It is economics that is killing the Blue system today.While the liberal plantation is not the slavery of old, it nevertheless resembles it in that it keeps people in straitjacket roles. It is economically unsustainable, a trait it shares with the EU, another bankrupt institution. The incentive structure of the Blue system creates an imbalance between productivity and state spending caused by the change in emphasis from freedom to central planning.
The economic crisis of the Blue system is an indicator not of its strength but of its weakness. For example, there was time when people like Piers Morgan could command by legitimacy and respect. When he had to resort to calling his guests names I said to myself: the king has fallen — and I didn’t mean Larry either.
This is a direct consequence of their economic failure. Back in the day when the system was perceived to work, the cornucopia was proof of their competence and their legitimacy. Today, with so many unemployed, with so much falling apart, the Voice of Command don’t work no more.
When the King has to bluster, hector, brandish his cane and rattle the rusty sabers to get the peasantry to sullenly comply his days are numbered. Time for plan B. To a large extent the name of the game in the coming years is to make the transition ahead of the curve; to recognize the emergent institutions which are creeping up, like shoots the shadow of the moldering forest and to get in at the ground floor.
The elite are in a dilemma as regards the Constitution. On the one hand they rule in its name. But on the other hand it has become an obstacle to getting the added power and money they need to keep the flickering lights on. The more they shred it the more difficult governance becomes. Ruling a country the size of the US can only be done economically with the wholehearted consent of the governed. Otherwise it becomes hideously inefficient and expensive.
Thus the Constitution, while only a piece of paper and a “little book” has a tremendous implicit force field girdling it. To depart from it requires a lot of energy. More energy than even the elites can muster. So it will continue to be relevant for that reason alone.
Any on who is foolish enough to take it down completely or substantively will find out why it was established in the first place. It keeps in check the destructive powers of factions — and not just the Republicans either — that will prove unmanageable if allowed to run wild.
W @ 15 “Slavery was a losing cause, apart from any moral considerations, because it was economically obsolete. Men in bondage never reach their full potential as human beings. The cost keeping slaves in their subordinate position grows ever larger.”
Thus also the union worker. The most basic manufacturing calculation is the cost of human labor verses the cost of a machine. Deus ex machina; loosely.
The US Army COE is even spending money to develop a robot mason.
The issue remains, however, how much damage is done by the Left in figuring out the error of their ways? The lack of humility and arrogance (rather than confidence) of their limited ideas will cause them to jump gleefully into the valcano, knowing full well that… whatever.
If in the process the Constitution is undone, the replacement system, blue, red, green, chartruese is just changing one set of fools for another.
While a much lesser (very much lesser) document than the Bible, they both exemplify the need to have an anchor to windward, something solid and unchanging against which to measure.
ta
15 @wretchard
When the King has to bluster, hector, brandish his cane and rattle the rusty sabers to get the peasantry to sullenly comply his days are numbered.
I used to think that as well, but I’m not so sure anymore. At least in America v2013. A large number of Obama voters (perhaps nearly all) seem to be receptive to deflecting the blame onto the wreckers and capitalist roaders. See the many recent efforts from Twitchy in documenting said madness. See, it’s not Obama’s/Reid’s/Pelosi’s fault because of Obamacare, it’s the damned fatcat capitalists swimming in their giant vault of gold just like Scrooge McDuck. Why won’t they put people in front of profits? Blah, blah, blah…
These people refuse to connect the perverse economic “incentives” in Obamacare with these cuts in worker hours. No, it must be those bastard capitalists screwing over The People just to try to mess with Saint Buraq.
I do tend to agree with your last paragraph. I think they know they will be unleashing powerful forces, but intend to channel it to their needs. But there’s a good chance that the whirlwind harvested is too much for even they to handle.
“- Which way will IT and communications break? Hard left.”
The HELL I will!
14. michael hoskins and 15. wretchard
Thanks – I’ve also been thinking about correlation of forces as well as potential outcomes short of SHTF. One wild card is the States. A possible “optimistic” scenario is one where the Federal Gov’t. in DC becomes something like the late Ottoman rulers in Istanbul. The North African provinces, especially Egypt, pretended to pay obeisance to Istanbul, while in reality they were independent of the Sultan.
In related news:
MILLER: David Gregory gets off scot free
Who really didn’t think this would be the pre-ordained outcome? Guess some animals are more equal than others.
When things get real ugly, just remember who was the biggest enabler of this budding tyranny.
Sorry to intrude on this thread, but I think that Wretchard might be interested to see this article, as will many of the rest of us. It involves a possible showdown between China and Japan over the East China Sea.
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-fighter-jet-flights-diaoyu-senkaku-islands-2013-1
Wretchard #15
“It is economics that is killing the Blue system today.While the liberal plantation is not the slavery of old, it nevertheless resembles it in that it keeps people in straitjacket roles. It is economically unsustainable, a trait it shares with the EU, another bankrupt institution. The incentive structure of the Blue system creates an imbalance between productivity and state spending caused by the change in emphasis from freedom to central planning.”
Yes, Wretchard, economics are killing it. We must ask, then, what counterforce is keeping it alive? What individuals and forces are administering the antidote to the economic poison pill that is killing off the Blue State model?
It seems clear that there are two different forces propping up the Blue State model. One is comprised of individuals who understand that the model is crumbling. They know the end is inevitable and are merely doing whatever they can to keep things limping along at a more or less status quo pace as long as possible, hoping for the big payoff or accumulation of wealth that will make them immune (they think) to the negative aspects of the crash. Count among those much of the executive class in the financial skimming industry, almost all left of center politicians, high ranking bureaucrats and regulators, lobbyists, billionaire leftists like Buffett and Soros, and well connected rent seekers like Immelt.
The other is comprised of those who don’t have a clue of the coming collapse but are dependent upon the Blue State model for their income and sense of self and vote and think and act in ways that have societal inertia to keep the institutions alive. These would be the entire welfare class, the vast bulk of public employees and private sector union workers, the NPR-listening pseudointellectual hangers-on who imagine that their affiliation with the education industry and the information streams they believe in make them well-informed, high-information voters who are part of the cultural elite (when said affiliation does not do any of those things), and the generic tune-in-once-every-four-years low information voters.
In a world full of logical people who could do math and statistics and act responsibly the Blue State model would simply be recognized for the failure it is and be euthanized immediately. Instead, like a terminal cancer patient who forgot to sign a DNR, it is being kept alive by others who somehow benefit financially by putting off the death whatever means possible and damn the consequences and suffering that results to the patient.
A few random thoughts:
1. We need to continue the educational effort. It feels like some progress is being made despite the outcome of the election. Funny that at the same time the Tea Party brand is in the toilet, Tea Party ideas seem to be seeping into the mainstream (no, not the MSM, just the mainstream). Has anyone else noticed that Bill O’Reilly increasingly sounds like he is concerned about the Constitution?
2. Romney decided to run a campaign about nothing. Maybe a better candidate or even another mediocre candidate with a different campaign approach can win a presidential election next time around (assuming there is a next time around).
3. Part of Obama’s political success is simply the Wile E. Coyote effect. Most BCers may believe we have already gone over the cliff and are only being suspended in mid air by Bernanke Bucks. But a lot of average Joes just see that the system is still sputtering along so there’s no need to vote out the incumbent – especially when the challenger ran a campaign about nothing.
4. A great fear is that the crisis/Black Swan, when it comes, can be used to further shred the Constitution. That’s why we must keep up the educational efforts. The gun control debate will be instructive. The entire Ruling Class (not just the Stalinists) seem to believe the Newton massacre changed the dynamic on gun control. I am sensing that maybe the past several years of Constitutional education have created a resistance that will not easily be railroaded into going along with the latest scheme to trample our rights.
One more little post. A bit of schadenfreude for some Friday levity.
I just saw this posted by an outraged leftist on Twitter. Apparently this was left instead of a tip at an eating establishment (I’m guessing from the Prop 30 reference this was from one of our besieged brothers in California).
http://i.imgur.com/Xj9SD.jpg
Again, from the outraged reaction, the lesson will not penetrate the fortress of propaganda around most of the progressive minds that see this. But I support the effort, because it will probably still lodge in a few minds, consciously or not.
We’ll see how things go Monday when Lisa “Richard Windsor” Jackson’s illegal email accounts are revealed. Expect all sorts of interesting communications! This is a result of House pressure on the collective Inspectors General via the “power of the purse”.
Who was she emailing on May 26-27, 2010? “Enquiring minds want to know”. Carole Browner? Steven Chu? Ken Salazar? Barack Hussein Obama II?
All those IG Nomenklatura apparatchiks realize that they can lose their salaries and pensions! So throwing “Richard Windsor” under the bus is the cost of maintaining their own sinecures. Sorry, Lisa. It’s just business, nothing personal!
This should rival the CRU email scandal, it certainly shares many of the same “climate change” Envirofreaks in common.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy
French Unilaterally Intervene in Mali!! http://preview.tinyurl.com/btwczxd
I guess with the Three Valkyries licking their wounds from Benghazi, Monsieur Hollande had to go it alone, there are no other skirts to hide behind.
Re: 25 MachiasPrivateer -
Richard Windsor aka Lisa Jackson has a lot more to worry about than collusion with the greens in the creation of her new rules against oil, natural gas, coal, dust, and plant food (carbon dioxide). There is the little matter of human testing on inhalation of particulates that formed the basis of their new particulates / dust rule. At the risk of violating Godwin’s Law, this testing puts Jackson et all in very good company, as long as you think Mengele, the Death Camp Guys, and the Tuskegee Experiments were good company. Steven Milloy over at JunkScience.com is in the middle of it all. It is in federal court, which ought to be a lot of fun.
Cheers -
http://junkscience.com/2012/04/18/whats-hot-at-junkscience-com/
These stories show the effects of blue. Of course I mean the color, not social modeling. EarthCam shows places with red. Look at Times Square- lots of perverts and moral relatives, but still nice and calm. One Trade Centre is almost complete. No Mad Max or race wars are scheduled to happen, and there won’t ever be large tragedies ever again. Nibiru will come sooner, if it didn’t already and scientists missed it due to cloaking.
Conclusion: don’t believe Matt Drudge or Huffington News. KAOS agents say everything’s bad. They want money so they can solve problems like “the children” and “racists”. Everything is OK though, as you can see for yourself.
Wretchard:
Did you ever think that maybe you are giving too much good advice and violating
W.C Fields’ apothegm:
his grandfather’s last words, “just before they sprung the trap”, were “You can’t cheat an honest man; never give a sucker an even break, or smarten up a chump.”
agimarc @ 27 – Do you think the MSM media will refer to her as
“Former chief of staff to the disgraced CEO, Jon Corzine, of bankrupt New Jersey futures services firm MF Global, Lisa “Richard Windsor” Jackson…..”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_P._Jackson
The UK Government rejected Leveson’s recommendation for “statutory underpinning” of press regulation. Its not going to happen. Please do keep Piers though.
The ‘True Leftist’ cares not a whit about the economy. Or the Constitution. Or even the Country. As long as they are on top. If they are in charge then all else are but minor details.