* * *
De Tocqueville Nailed it 190 Years Ago
Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch,
recently quoted Alexis de Tocqueville, the brilliant French observer of
American life almost two centuries ago, as saying that ‘there
is hardly any political question in the United States that sooner or later does
not turn into a judicial question.’ This, I
suppose, is why we have a judicial system and lawyers. This is very pertinent
today, as this excerpt from a recent column by Goldberg suggests. It
follows:
”De Tocqueville’s concern was that the
relegation of political questions to the courts results in legalism
overpowering other considerations. The ‘spirit’ of legalism ‘infiltrates
all of society’ until ‘the entire people’ acquire ‘the habits and tastes of the
magistrate.’
‘In each of the modern impeachments (Bill Clinton’s in
1998 and Trump’s in 2019 and 2020), the political debate ended up being
monopolized by lawyers and technical questions of criminal guilt. For
instance, on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump may not have violated the legal standard for
criminal incitement of violence. But is the president coming within
millimeters of doing so OK?”
Is this ‘spirit of legalism’ what is
keeping so many of those who have committed crimes out of jail? Where are
the indictments which the purloining of classified documents by the defeated
former president, his attempts to engineer a change in election results in
Georgia, and his paying hush money to hide an adulterous affair just before an
imminent election obviously warrant, at least from a political
standpoint?
I’ll tell you where these indictments are. They are
buried in our legal system which well serves those who can afford expensive
lawyers to manipulate that system.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? My opinion is that no
one, including a defeated former president, is above the law, but no one, including
a defeated former president, should be deprived of the safeguards of that law
either. Why? Those safeguards may eventually be needed to
protect you and me.
Look to one of the choruses of America, the Beautiful: ‘America,
America, God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy goal with self-control, Thy
liberty in law.’
JL
* * *
A
Repeated Reminder: Currently, I am sending out
emails to about 60 individuals letting them know each time that a new posting
has been published on JacksPotpourri. Periodically, I ask that any
readers of the blog who had not received an email notifying them that a
new posting, like this one, had been published let me know so that I might
advise them of new postings in the future. I really would appreciate your
doing that. Reach me at jacklippman18@gmail.com.
Thanks.
Jack Lippman
* *
*
Freedom, Florida-Style
The governor of Florida boasts of the freedoms available in the
Sunshine State. What he really means is that in Florida, individuals are
freer here to make their own choices in areas like health issues, education,
possession of weapons, environmental issues, and election procedures, than they
are in other States. Republican super-majorities in both State
legislative houses reinforce his views.
Of course, there are laws that they must obey, often at the
federal level, but in Florida, the
general idea is that laws exist to protect people’s rights to behave as they
wish, and not put them under the control of a government bureaucracy, even
though that bureaucracy’s laws might be for the benefit of the majority of
people. Such laws, however noble their aims might be, can lead to
dictatorship and Florida’s freedoms aim to stop that from happening.
This is a way of looking at democracy as something which often
minimizes the necessity of some laws, particularly as they affect other people,
and not just an individual. Such a view of democracy and of freedom is a
selfish one. It is a libertarian one. It opens the door to
anarchy. But many believe that democracy itself permits them to insist
upon having such freedom in order to restrict the freedom of others.
All of us should obey traffic laws. They exist for the
safety of all drivers. Nevertheless, I do understand why some
drivers weave in and out, cutting from one lane to another at ninety miles an
hour on I-95 or on Florida’s Turnpike. They are expressing
their innate right to do what they want, and so long as they don’t hurt
themselves, they feel that’s okay. (Until a trooper pulls them
over.) They really don’t care about anyone else. And that is the core of the supposed freedoms
available in Florida, not caring about anyone else.
The ‘anyone else’ includes
pregnant women, people of color, immigrants, atheists, poor people, and those
who believe that traditional gender identity is not immutable. They might
believe in the freedom of choice for themselves, but not for anyone else, who
is different from the way they are, or believe differently from the way they
believe.
Florida has nice weather, low taxes, and the ‘freedom’ discussed
above. Only you can change it for the better by voting for the right
candidates locally and Statewide. That will take a very long time, but is
it worth a try? Maybe. Maybe not.
JL
* * *
Permit-less Gun Carry in Florida
Here’s the text of a letter I’ve just sent to the Palm Beach
Post. Watch for it there. I will let you know if they print it.
‘The Republican State legislators who supported House Bill
543 allowing the permitless carrying of weapons by Floridians, supposedly
enabling them to better protect themselves and their families, ignore the fact
that it is they themselves that have made guns readily available to those from
whom Floridians need to protect themselves! Most of them are too young to
remember Walt Kelly's 1970 'Pogo' cartoon pointing out that 'We have met
the enemy and he is us.'
JL
* * *
Housekeeping
Blog Alerts: If you are not receiving emails
from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just
send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if
you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the
same, so they will be similarly alerted. ( You can
pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com .
)
Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might
benefit from reading it. If you want to send someone the blog, exactly as you
are now seeing it, with all of its
bells and whistles, you can just tell folks
to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or by providing a link to that address in your email to
them.
There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it
too! oogle Blogspot, the platform on
which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on
the envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, (it looks like
this: .png){kind=small}
), you will have the opportunity
to list up to ten email addresses, along with a comment from you, each of which
will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog
that you now are reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in
typography, or the ‘sidebar’ features such as access to the blog’s archives.
Either
way will work, sending them that link or clicking on the envelope at the bottom
of this posting. Again, I urge you
to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading
it.
Have a nice day.
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