It wasn't that we were looking at one of the broadcast networks and we didn't know that they'd decided not to let the President cut into their prime-time shows:
The White House asked the networks for time at 8 p.m. on Thursday night, and were greeted with little more than a "Mmm, no thanks." ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS knew that their customers would not be happy if the President ate into time reserved for some of the most popular shows on television, including "The Big Bang Theory" and "Bones."That's the first I'm seeing that the speech was on at 7 (our time). Anyway, we were tuned to CNN, and yet somehow we missed it. These presidential prime-time appearances don't mean what they used to. There are always other channels, other distractions, and if we actually want to see the speech, there will be streaming video. I originally wrote "read" for "see," because the truth is, I want to read the speech. I prefer the transcript. Even in the old days, the transcript was in the paper — in the paper I read, the NYT — and — speaking of reading — even when the President could take over every channel, we could turn off the TV and read.
You know, I still haven't watched or read last night's speech. I'm interested in seeing how the legal argument was put together, and I wonder how many of those who've already written about the speech have understood and made a reasoned assessment of the argument for presidential power. Or does everyone accept or reject it based on the political/policy preference they had in the first place? It's hard to expect more from people who probably — by now — believe that's what Supreme Court justices do.
Now, I'm going to read that transcript and give an assessment of it as if I had no policy preference about how to resolve the immigration problem. It happens to be true that I have no policy preference (because I'm not an ideologue and I don't understand the realities and practical problems deeply enough). But I have no illusion that anyone is interested in reading something that approximates an unbiased, legal assessment of the argument.
No, Althouse, shut up if you aren't going to say it's obviously soooo unconstitutional.
Did I just hear you yell that?
Posts
176 comments:
You might have heard someone say it, but no-one actually did, so maybe that says something about you.
I would still be interested in your analysis, of course. The fact that Obama's acting in bad faith doesn't mean it's unconstitutional.
What I got out of the speech was that the borders are open for anyone who wants to come into the U.S. I would also state that Obama is taking the long view betting that the families who make it into the U.S. illegally will provide children as a voting block as they grow to voting age. By the way, I think he gave those who voted against him and didn't vote the proverbial "finger" for their efforts or lack of.
I'd be interested to see what other laws are inoperative if you can just conceal that you've been breaking the law long enough, and if you are doing so for a good reason. I entered the US illegally to make a better life for my family, and I've avoided deportation for 8 years, so now it's too late to enforce the law, my life has become too entwined with American's lives to remove me. What if I don't pay any income tax for 8 years to help send my kids to college? I was breaking the law for a good reason, I was helping them pursue the American dream. You can't expect me to pay my back-taxes now can you? You can't send me to jail for Tax evasion, that would mean splitting up my family and leaving my kids without someone to take care of them. Right?
It was cynical and dishonest. And left the average American completely out of the equation.
But it soared beautifully in its rhetoric and was therefore perfect for manipulating Gruber-voters such as yourself. Just the kind of speech that delights and fools people like you.
As Michael Feldman would say, the President is "itching for a fight"
I don't consider myself an ideologue ( does anyone? ), but I'm certainly not a moderate or a centrist.
I'm interested in the legal analysis, but I suspect it is not unconstitutional, at least no more so than the millions of other ways in which various presidents have failed to faithful execute the laws.
"Or does everyone accept or reject it based on the political/policy preference they had in the first place? "
Yes, pretty much everyone does, it seems.
"Down to the banana republic..."
"...about how to resolve the immigration problem."
i don't get that.
The question of Constitutionality will be moot in a few days: the Ferguson firebomb has been on hold until after this speech, and is now set to be thrown for a change in national topic.
You don't think this would be a coincidence, would you?
" It happens to be true that I have no policy preference (because I'm not an ideologue and I don't understand the realities and practical problems deeply enough)."
If the 5 million were law professors, Althouse would have an opinion. But since they are mostly low/no skill workers she can't make a judgement. Sort of a reverse Gruber.
The black plight, held waiting on the tarmac until the DREAMERs have taken flight.
And I listened to the speech for its cadences, modulation and tone. My initial response was he was reading...poorly. And then I tuned him out. I'd rather read the transcript, too.
A great question from a tweet I read: Why try to work for a compromise bill that would outlast your presidency when you can cynically prevent one to get a political advantage?
(David Freddoso)
To a great extent we have been governed under a norm of respect for the law and the constitution, but Obama seems willing to discard societal norms with ease.
I'm torn with whether Obama best fits the definition of psychopath or sociopath as he has characteristics of both, but I'm leaning more to psychopath. Sociopaths largely don't know what they are doing, by psychopaths do and that fits Obama.
I actually do want to hear a reasoned argument from you, either way. Not that it makes any difference. Obama himself has been on both sides of this and I don't doubt he acts only in his interest as he sees it in a given moment. I agree with the assessment of Slate BTW, judges have been twisting the law to fit their ideology from the beginning. This Republic is quite broken - possibly beyond fixing. Principled actors are too rare and mutual respect across party lines is practically nonexistent. Obama is burning down the house. I doubt he cares who gets hurt as long as he benefits, even if his own party suffers. This action weakens the rule of law and that weakens society as a whole. He'll get away with it of course; his actions are too in line with the corrupt elite.
Wow I'm cynical today - need to give it a rest.
A few months ago I asked you how the Constitution's separation of powers was being taught in law school these days. I think I recall your cynical answer: whatever can be gotten away with. That was unsatisfactory, even if accurate. I honestly look forward to your legal analysis of the analysts in this case.
We saw the speech in our house. He sounded angry and mocking and small and petty, lecturing about this and that morality, quoting bible, while he had the chance to pass a bill in his first 2 years, had the chance to do this EO before 2012 election, before 2014 election. Just a fucking cowardly community organizer from the hood.
"To a great extent we have been governed under a norm of respect for the law and the constitution...."
Not for at least a dozen years or so, if not longer.
one more thing -- after missing all the chances he had to do something about this, he now wants 'credit' lest the new congress pass something reasonable that he can't not veto. He wants to go around saying that he and his EO made them do that. He is a very small, small man.
Watched the Big Bank Theory. Someone there got a short haircut. Mistake.
Is the Zero still a con man and a liar?
Well .... Doh!
Is it ok to hate him now, or do we still have to make believe he's a great guy we disagree with?
"This Republic is quite broken - possibly beyond fixing."
Not "possibly;" it's broken beyond fixing. We do not live in a representative democratic republic any longer, (to the limited degree we ever did), but in a police state...owned and operated by and for the wealthy.
President Obama's actions with respect to this address are what one does once one has secured the historical title of President, the presidential pension for life, and all of the rest of the perks, that is, one then breaks the mold to ensure one will be the only one of one's type to have been President.
Obama's actions hardly help anyone in any area affected by them, Democrat, immigrant, Republican, legal citizen or resident. They are, instead, a gauntlet thrown down declaring "There will only be one President like me", insuring his uniqueness in the historical record for the foreseeable future.
Barack Obama, the only black President of the United States.
Women and Hispanic presidents, even gay ones, may surely follow, but the example of what a black president looks like now is Barack Obama and Barack Obama only, very likely by the concerted design of Barack Obama himself.
So, he found a different way of doing it. He is not going to issue an Executive Order, but do it by letters - internal memoranda - to the several agencies, for which he not only can, but should, claim Executive Privilege.
I think this amounts to a declaration of war to Congress and the Courts both, and by no means is an invitation to "work with him" to solve these or any other problems.
I also think it is too clever by half and will appal a good many Democrats too, whatever their opinions in immigration matters might be.
My dilemma is whether to believe Swaggy Law Prof who claimed it was obviously sooooooo unconstitutional for years, or cynical Swaggy Law Prof who now says it's obviously soooooo constitutional.
Do Hispanic people feel like they were played for fools? How do Eva and JLo splain this to their people? Do law profs feel like they are played for fools by the Swaggy One?
I am very curious to hear your opinion. Did you have an opinion when he said he wasn't Emperor and couldn't make laws?
You know, I still haven't watched or read last night's speech.
Instapundit posted a bunch of links around 8:45 pm, but all of the commentary was a desultory rehash of reactions to what already was known to be coming. Nobody drunk-blogged it, as far as I know. Why would you? It would be like drunk-blogging a press release.
And good. Let no one watch. The Obama show is repetitive and dull and will soon be canceled.
"What I got out of the speech was that the borders are open for anyone who wants to come into the U.S."
Could you quote the transcript? Where is there anything that makes that any more the case than it already was?
Please count the number of false choices he presents. This is MO. Sort of like, "Are we going to be greatest nation ever and do what I say, or are we going to rip children out of the arms of their parents and drown the parents in the Rio Grande".
All you had to do was look for "The Biggest Loser" and you would find Obama's speech.
Should have read, "This is his MO".
It was actually a good speech. One of the better I've heard from Obama. He acknowledged the Dreamer groups who relentlessly followed him around and heckled him at every stop. They were interviewed last night and it was nice to see at least one group of people in this country happy. Direct action works.
I think the whole 'networks not showing it' was Kabuki theater - it is what the WH wanted, and they played along.
Does the President lie to everyone, or just us?
If the President wanted to defer deportation for parents of American citizens, why didn't he ask Congress for that, specifically?
@AustinRoth, agree.
Robert, I'm still hopeful that restoration is possible. I remember when the wall came down peacefully so unexpectedly. It doesn't have to end here.
"Robert, I'm still hopeful that restoration is possible. I remember when the wall came down peacefully so unexpectedly. It doesn't have to end here."
The only ones on the other side of our wall are the Chinese.
Speaking of spoiling for a fight...
On the Dreamers, Amnesty, etc. I have mixed feelings. America has always been made stronger by people willing to take a huge risk in order to build better lives for themselves and their children. (FWIW, when Congress gets around to passing something to passing something, I hope they call it "Earned Amnesty" and I hope that's really what it's about.) But illegal immigration really does hurt the people who are here legally who have to compete in a market where the value of their labor is diluted.
It isn't an easy problem.
I am interested in the Constitutionality question, but for what it's worth the only opinion I really value on that is Senator Obama's. He was stridently opposed to that kind of Executive Overreach, and since he was such a good, intelligent, and wise man I take him at his word on it.
In my industry 80% of the people I work with are Chinese immigrants - what wall?
I have no illusion that anyone is interested in reading something that approximates an unbiased, legal assessment of the argument.
I'm interested!
Although the argument that you or I or anybody is without bias or passion strikes me as silly. It would be nice to have objective Supreme Court Justices who are just following the text, or the history, as best they can. That's what we hope for, anyway. In fact that's one of the arguments for textualism, for following the actual language that was adopted. This is why Scalia sometimes sounds like Black, even though Scalia is so conservative and Black is so liberal.
The President has wide powers to "grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States." This has always been on an individual basis. If he is going to pardon a few million people all at once, he ought to say that's what he's doing. Nobody's done that before!
Article II also gives the President what might be called a duty. The President "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." To me this contradicts the idea that the President can simply ignore any criminal law that he does not like. Rand Paul can't pardon everybody who violates the income tax laws just because Rand Paul doesn't like the income tax.
Citizens should feel free to read Article II. You might be surprised at how limited the President's authority is.
It's no surprise to me that people who think the Constitution gives unelected judges the authority to rewrite our abortion laws (or define unborn children as property!) are willing to sign on to whatever the Executive wants to do. I suspect many of them of having a secret desire for an authoritarian ruler. But perhaps they are just cynically ignoring (or destroying) our Constitutional order because they think this or that policy is so important.
Anyway, that's my bias!
Direct action works.
You're in for a rude awakening one day, dude.
"Robert Cook said...
"To a great extent we have been governed under a norm of respect for the law and the constitution...."
Not for at least a dozen years or so, if not longer."
If you are to be consistent, you should say "never".
How do Eva and JLo splain this to their people?
Their people? Their people are fellow white liberals/progressives.
And, oh yeah, it is all B.S.
The big thing is "path to citizenship," but it is contingent on paying a fine and back taxes for more than 5 years?
So where are these poor, downtrodden "undocumented (Democrat) immigrants" going to get the money for that?
The foolishness permeating this issue is obvious in that the proponents for years have been affording illegal aliens benefits and privileges that are not available to the resident Spanish-speaking population.
I think they should just turn it into law, no path to citizenship for illegals, work permits for migrant workers that makes it easier to cross the borders. Tighter controls on the border itself. No mass deportations of the law abiding. And, in exchange, tighter voting controls.
There is so much inexplicable hate on the left toward the Republicans. I thought in the beginning it might just be to win elections, the way Obama made them look like monsters - hey, he made a murderer out of Romney, talk about stupid voters! But it seems like he and his supporters are channeling this hate to mask his incompetence all along. If you just go around vilifying the other side for no reason, you don't really have to do any real work.
"garage mahal said...
It was actually a good speech. One of the better I've heard from Obama. He acknowledged the Dreamer groups who relentlessly followed him around and heckled him at every stop. They were interviewed last night and it was nice to see at least one group of people in this country happy. Direct action works."
And if the next POTUS sends them all packing making another group happy, you will be okay with that too, right?
"In my industry 80% of the people I work with are Chinese immigrants - what wall?"
I was referring to the wall in the sense of the Berlin Wall falling: those of the Communist countries had a more prosperous world waiting on the other side.
For us, if our country collapses the other side of the wall is China.
Robert Cook, if we live in a "police state," what word do you reserve for East Germany?
You're in for a rude awakening one day, dude.
Oh for sure man.
I was hoping you would give a legal assessment. I, like you, don't have a position on the policy. But to me, a lay person, it does seem like an expansion of Executive authority beyond the Constitutional restraints.
I am (rather obviously I'm afraid) not an immigration lawyer. It's possible that Obama's actions can be defended as an interpretation of some existing statute (that I have not read).
But his remarks seem to indicate that he is not following a statute at all. He is acting because Congress has failed to act. He said that specifically. He is declaring that he has the power to do this. Which means it's an Article II argument, not a statutory interpretation.
"Robert Cook, if we live in a "police state," what word do you reserve for East Germany?"
Role model?
I think you should look at his actions only. He says whatever will get people off his back. I did not hear the speech but I gather that he said we are a generous people and a nation of immigrants so we should welcome these newcomers. I don't think he said that we are now free to pick and choose which laws to obey and we should follow the example of our new neighbors who know how to beat the system. But lots of us are thinking along those lines. You get your way in Obama's America by just taking it. Message received.
Sparrow,
You said in your comment you were "cynical today." Well, not cynical--or realistic--enough. I'm sorry...there's no fixing a system where "the fix" has been in for decades: both major parties have been bought off, as has the judiciary, and the executive serves primarily as the paid overseer of Plantation America for its owners.
Life as we have got used to it in post-WWII America is over, never to return. The century ahead will see wrenching upheavals domestically and globally, upheavals in economies and balances of power, catastrophic species die-offs, loss of natural resources, (potable water not least among them), climate and ecological change, etc.
Global life and human society will likely look very different by the end of this century...or before.
I thought you were referring to the "Guantanamo Wall" the one where Cubans post snipers and throw grenades in the water at swimmers attempting to escape the best health care system in the world. My bad. Miami Herald Apparently the penalty for "false consciousness" in Cuba is death.
But one day, when Robert Cook gets his way, we will have a worker's paradise here, and finally escape our own police state.
Did anyone else think it was slightly offensive he boiled them down to fruit pickers and nannies?
sparrow: This action weakens the rule of law and that weakens society as a whole. He'll get away with it of course; his actions are too in line with the corrupt elite.
Wow I'm cynical today - need to give it a rest.
No, you need to stay cynical, sparrow. Trust and honesty don't work in Third World countries, and that's where you live now. (You've been there for a while, before Obama showed up, you just hadn't noticed.)
I'm alternately touched and exasperated by fellow Americans sitting around quibbling about constitutionality, when it's been obvious for a while now that "constitutional" means nothing but what "the corrupt elite" want it to mean. Obama is just a little nastier and smaller, a little more childishly petulant, a little more puffed up with moral vanity than his peers and predecessors (who are and were already stuffed to the gills with it), as befits a later representative of his vapid and heedless class and generation.
I'm not going to jump on the "it's illegal" bandwagon, I'm just going to wonder how many people illegally in the country will sign up?
Given this administration's record of dealing honestly, how many people will say "phooey -- if I sign up to regularize my status I'm just putting my name on a government list that might be used against me later?"
You know: "if you like your legal residency you can keep your legal residency."
I know, that was not what he said, but was it a subtext?
I am wondering if Obama got a heads up about the Ferguson decision and decided to make his amnesty annoucnement the day before the SHTF. That way, Ferguson gets the 24 hour news and he gets his way without constant discussion.
LuAnn Zieman -- yes, it was delivered in a singsongy, speaking to children tone. I suspect that was for people who don't speak English as a first language- IOW, the people to whom he is pandering.
@ Peggy Coffey
see my 7:35 comment; it has been orchestrated to a T.
tim in vermont:
If the revelations of rampant NSA spying on America didn't alert you, or the constant reports of police abuse of their powers, maybe this will give you something to think about.
Robert,
You might be right; I can't see any reason to disagree. But I'll hold on to hope because that's my nature and part of my faith. The US arose out of horrid mess of European despotism it or something like it can rise again. Will it? Not likely, but it is still possible.
I, and most of the news networks, didn't watch the 'Gruber-in-Chief' give his speech.
The courts will be the first to have a crack at Obama's shit. Then in January the new Congress will have theirs.
But like Reid's changing the Senate rules, there will be vast unintended consequences to that Obama has done.
I, for one, will do everything I can to convince immigrants, legal or illegal, to see that the Republicans are the way to vote in order to have prosperity.
Even 32 percent of the legal Latinos here in the US didn't want Obama to do this. And almost a majority wanted legal immigration via congress.
Virtually everything Obama has done in six years has turned into a disaster for this country in general and Democrats.in particular.
And so shall this. but we want this disaster to be for the Democrats, not this country.
This is kinda funny: we are at over 60 comments to a post that is basically about a post that is yet to come.
His decree actually doesn't make sense.
Why not the parents of the "Dreamers"? (and why do news organizations use that propaganda term?)
Why not people who came here recently?
Is he really going to direct his administration to try to get back taxes out of some fruit picker (his characterization, not mine)?
What will he use to determine the legitimacy of claims?
if you are basing your reasoning on sympathy, why are the parents of dreamers or people who came here more recently less sympathetic than the people he has chosen?
"if you like your legal residency you can keep your legal residency."
F, that's a good way to start to undermine what Obama did. Yea, pass that around and give the illegals a suspicion that it's all a trap. Just like Obamacare.
I mean, it's not like Obama would Gruberize you, right?
Waiting for Godot
If this goes to the Supreme Court, will the Wise Latina recuse herself?
Obama: "I just sewed up the wet back vote for a hundred years."
And if the next POTUS sends them all packing making another group happy, you will be okay with that too, right?
The next POTUS isn't going to send anyone packing. And he or she certainly isn't going to campaign on that.
After the '94 mid terms, Peter Jennings said that the american people had thrown a temper tantrum.
Guess who threw a temper tantrum after the 2014 midterms?
The next POTUS isn't going to send anyone packing. And he or she certainly isn't going to campaign on that.
Yeah, I think that's what he's counting on.
Once you give out the candy before dinner, it's hard to take the candy away.
Saint Croix said, "[Obama's]remarks seem to indicate that he is not following a statute at all. He is acting because Congress has failed to act."
Megan McArdle asked, Does Obama even know how to negotiate?
I think not. Most people do not know how to negotiate-- how to make the most of what they have in order to get the best deal from the people they're dealing with.
It's like playing Blackjack. You look at what you have, look at what the dealer might have, and do the best you can. Sometimes you stand on 12; sometimes you fold on 16.
Obama does not act like someone who knows how to do this. His primary argument on immigration is "I wanted this, and Congress didn't do it, so I must do it myself, no matter what I've said about such POTUS moves in the past".
That's a child-like argument. Obama is behaving like a child, and I fear that the electorate will largely applaud that behavior.
The White House spokesman said Obama, when he was saying he couldn't do this, was actually saying he couldn't do away with *all* deportations.
Nobody asked him why not, but why not? If he can administratively get rid of some, why not all? How does that explanation make sense?
A flood of low skilled labor? Anyone know the unemployment rate among african-americans? Why didn't BET show the speech?
First, our immigration system is not "broken" it would work fine if it were enforced.
Second, if we want to reform it, my one condition would be a constitutional amendment ensuring that henceforth children of illegal aliens born here are not granted natural-born citizenship.
Actually the 14th amendment was intended to do somewhat that with the "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" clause. While children of accredited foreign diplomats born in the US are currently covered by this and not granted citizenship, illegal aliens clearly don't recognize or agree with the US jurisdiction when it comes to immigration or they wouldn't be here. Regardless of their personal view of financial need in coming, they still are in violation of the law and we should not encourage such flouting of our laws.
Removing the ability to gain citizenship for their children by breaking our laws and subsequent ability to obtain residency and then citizenship via a relationship chain should be eliminated.
Robert, in East Germany, a significant percentage of the population were employed as informers. 277 people were "Shot vile tryink to escape."
Your lack of moderation in language just undermines whatever case you are trying to make. Counterpunch long ago lost any credibility that the The national socialists and the international socialists have the market on a surveillance state.
I don't give a crap if the NSA is monitoring international phone calls, I really don't. Cross the border sometime and demand that your car not be searched.
As for the 'case' that we live in a police state, this seems to be the meat of it:
The Times reports that IRS personnel have been going undercover posing as accountants and even as physicians to root out tax fraud, that the Supreme Court has been dispatching some of its guards (all of whom have been trained in undercover work) “dressed down” in civilian clothes to mingle with protesters (notably abortion-rights activists) to spy on people simply exercising their First Amendment rights outside the court building, that the USDA sends out agents posing as Food Stamp recipients to try and entrap shop-owners to commit Food Stamp fraud, and that even NASA and the Smithsonian Institution have undercover operatives. Undercover cops and agents are assuming the identities of teachers, doctors, journalists and even priests.
All of these sound like legitimate functions of law enforcement and security personnel. I am not an anarchist, I guess you are.
"If, as you suspect, President Obama wants Republicans to try to impeach him, this raises the disturbing prospect that the next two years will feature Obama attempting to provoke an impeachment fight by committing more and more acts that violate the Constitution."
- Jim Geraghty
Obama says "Mi casa su casa".
Obama probably views any impeachment as a martyrdom as close as he can get to MLK's murder without actually, you know, dying.
The funny thing is that, I guess I am supposed to be outraged, but I am not.
Voter fraud outrages me. I guess this is a preamble to that.
I am exactly aligned with what PB said above. Only children born to American citizens and certain classes of non-cititzens - persons with permanent residency, for example -should have birthright citizenship. I don't understand how the jurisdiction clause of the 14th Amendment allows children of illegal aliens to claim American citizenship when it is hard to understand how someone here illegally can be under US jurisdiction! The US doesn't even recognize that they are here. They should be citizens of the country of their parents. Of course, this would not be a problem if we controlled our borders properly and illegal aliens did not exist.
RecChief said:
Obama: "I just sewed up the wet back vote for a hundred years."
In spite of what Reagan and Bush41 did, the wet back vote has been sewed up for the last 30 years! So tell me why Republicans need to court Hispanics?
Megan McArdle asked, Does Obama even know how to negotiate?
Negotiate with the people that are suing him? That needed to see a birth certificate? Where do you start negotiating?
When all seems worthless and lost, and it seems there is no point in even giving a damn, I just have to spank a wriggling high-school cheerleader to regain the Hope perfectly expressed in those taut buttocks. It is Always Morning Again in an American Cheerleader's Panties.
From Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer (Steel Seizure Case) - 1952:
"In the framework of our Constitution, the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker. The Constitution limits his functions in the lawmaking process to the recommending of laws he thinks wise and the vetoing of laws he thinks bad. And the Constitution is neither silent nor equivocal about who shall make laws which the President is to execute. The first section of the first article says that "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States . . . ." After granting many powers to the Congress, Article I goes on to provide that Congress may "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” - Justice Hugo Black in the majority opinion
"With all its defects, delays and inconveniences, men have discovered no technique for long preserving free government except that the Executive be under the law, and that the law be made by parliamentary deliberations.” - Justice Robert Jackson, in a concurring opion
RE: "Obama probably views any impeachment as a martyrdom as close as he can get to MLK's murder without actually, you know, dying."
If you view his actions through this context the next two years will make sense.
Conservatives, riddle me this!
How is this any more "illegal" than Reagan's 1986 amnesty?
Whether it is constitutional or not doesn't matter to Obama, and practically, there is little anyone else can do about it in the short term (the next few years). One of the practical problems with making policy through executive decree, or administrative interpretation -- like the IRS regulatory interpretation on who gets the subsidy -- is that the next guy can change it back by invoking the same authority used to create it. This process lacks the legitimacy needed to create general acceptance of the law and instead breeds resentment. It is not a good way to run a country.
Remember when Obama gave the finger to Hillary in the campaign? It was petulant and small, and his followers dismissed it as only scratching an itch. That was a few seconds of a long campaign, but it revealed the essence who Obama is.
He just did it again to everyone not on his side.
Paving the way for anarchy is what obama does best. I wonder if pelosi helped him with the Bible quotes.
Best thing for the Repubs is to not react to this EO but do a bang up job with their majority, earn the trust -- do the right things, publicize it, talk about it, court the Latino community organizers and do a good immigration bill so they know whom to trust...
We are nearing the end of Obama's own chosen Passion Play.
How is this any more "illegal" than Reagan's 1986 amnesty?
http://thefederalist.com/2014/11/20/no-reagan-did-not-offer-an-amnesty-by-lawless-executive-order/
Kim Strassel at the WSJ has a great commentary here.
Paving the way for anarchy is what obama does best. I wonder if pelosi helped him with the Bible quotes.
I doubt Pelosi has much familiarity with the Bible.
Alex, the Democrats were on board with the 1986 amnesty. There was no separation of powers dispute.
No harm, no foul.
The Liar in Chief was in full campaign mode for the next elections to the President of the PanAmericas. He invited tens of millions of voters to invade our former country over our former borders that he will see no longer enforced except as welcoming stations.
I seem to recall that Obama's response to the election was to demand that congress pass immigration reform by the end of the year, or he would act alone.
The election was less than three weeks ago. Indeed it was earlier this same month. So much for good faith. This is not politics as usual. This is political scorched earth.
I wonder how many of Obama's supporters back in the day thought this was what he meant when he was spouting his litany of "fix Washington" platitudes.
Note: reposted from the previous thread. Seems to apply equally to both.
In one of the Valerie Jarrett articles, there was a description of how Obama and she treated the Latino activists in their visit to the WH; Obama came off really bad and did not impress the activists. These people know that he has been all political in this EO and it is not a long term fix for them -- Repubs if they do the right thing, they can get these people's support and Obama would have screwed Democrats once again.
Keep spinning conservatives, the people are perfectly fine with this. Obama was elected in 2012 with a mandate.
Goodness, Alex. Reagan, in the photo in the NYT, is signing a bi-partisan bill PASSED BY CONGRESS. It was not a unilateral decision on his part implemented only via executive branch orders.
Is he really going to direct his administration to try to get back taxes out of some fruit picker (his characterization, not mine)?
Oh, no. Based on their low level of income, they'll not PAY any income taxes, they'll get Earned Income Tax Credit. (This has been verified by an Obama administration official - when asked this direct question, she said that they'll be held to the regular laws - so yes, they'll get EIC.)
Negotiate with the people that are suing him?
Yes garage. Smart people do that all the time, stupid people who would rather spend their children's education on their lawyer's children's education don't.
the people are perfectly fine with this
Election results say.... Nooo.
You are the one spinning here Alex. Keep it up.
Yes the election results in 2012... Obama was re-elected handily.
Alex, did you support Reagan in 1986?
(FWIW, I was in college at the time, too busy trying not to flunk Intro to Differential Equations while also chasing the girls and occasionally catching one. So I honestly don't know if in comparing Reagan's Amnesty to Obama's we are comparing apples to apples.)
So in direct answer to your question, I don't know whether Reagan's actions were more, less, or the same level of Unconstitutionality.
What I do know is that Amnesty hasn't in the past worked to slow down the rates of illegal immigration, hence the "need" for the latest (and largest) iteration of it.
You'd think that the Smartest President Ever would understand that if you're in a hole, the best approach isn't to reach for a bigger shovel.
I was 10 years old in 1986. But I knew back then conservatives were full of shit.
Illegal immigrants will receive huge payments from American taxpayers under rules now being imposed by President Barack Obama’s unilateral amnesty.
The illegals will get work-permits and Social Security cards, and will be required to pay taxes, according to Cecilia Munoz, the former immigration lobbyist who is now a top Obama aide.
That means they’re part of the tax system, she said, when she was asked if the illegals would get annual payments under the Earned Income Tax Credit program.
“They are subject to our tax law,” she said, carefully.
...
However, once illegal immigrants are enrolled in the tax system, they’re would be entitled to EITC payments
Viva la Reconquista!
Yeah, Alex, let's just ignore the election that happened a couple of weeks ago. That one was massively inconvenient.
"[T]he people are perfectly fine with this. Obama was elected in 2012 with a mandate."
That's what Jarrett said to Obama. In Obama's mind, that makes it true.
And believers in the One, like Alex, must follow.
From the joint letter
We are law professors and lawyers who teach, study, and practice constitutional law and related subjects. We have reviewed the executive actions taken by the President on November 20, 2014, to establish priorities for removing undocumented noncitizens from the United States and to make deferred action available to certain noncitizens. While we differ among ourselves on many issues relating to Presidential power and immigration policy, we are all of the view that these actions are lawful. They are exercises of prosecutorial discretion that are consistent with governing law and with the policies that Congress has expressed in the statutes that it has enacted.
1. Prosecutorial discretion--the power of the executive to determine when to enforce the law--is one of the most well-established traditions in American law. Prosecutorial discretion is, in particular, central to the enforcement of immigration law against removable noncitizens. As the Supreme Court has said,“the broad discretion exercised by immigration officials ” is “[a] principal feature of the removal system.”
Arizona v. United States, 132 S. Ct. 2492, 2499 (2012).
Even apart from this established legal tradition, prosecutorial discretion in the enforcement of immigration law is unavoidable. According to most current estimates, there are approximately 11 million undocumented noncitizens in the United States. The resources that Congress has appropriated for immigration enforcement permit the removal of approximately 400,000 individuals each year. In these circumstances, some officials will necessarily exercise their discretion in deciding which among many potentially removable individuals is to be removed.
The effect of the November 20 executive actions is to secure greater transparency by having enforcement policies articulated explicitly by high-level officials, including the President. Immigration officials and officers in the field are provided with clear guidance while also being allowed a degree of flexibility. This kind of transparency promotes the values underlying the rule of law.
2. There are, of course, limits on the prosecutorial discretion that may be exercised by the executive branch. We would not endorse an executive action that constituted an abdication of the President’s responsibility to enforce the law or that was inconsistent with the purposes underlying a statutory scheme. But these limits on the lawful exercise of prosecutorial discretion are not breached here. Both the setting of removal priorities and the use of deferred action are well-established ways in which the executive has exercised discretion in using its removal authority. These means of exercising discretion in the immigration context have been used many times by the executive branch under Presidents of both parties, and Congress has explicitly and implicitly endorsed their use.
The specific enforcement priorities set by the November 20 order give the highest priority to removing noncitizens who present threats to national security, public safety, or border security. These common-sense priorities are consistent with long-standing congressional policies and are reflected in Acts of Congress.
Similarly, allowing parents of citizens and permanent lawful residents to apply for deferred action will enable families to remain together in the United States for a longer period of time until they are eligible to exercise the option, already given to them by Congress, to seek to regularize the parents’ status. Many provisions of the immigration laws reflect Congress’s determination that, when possible, individuals entitled to live in the United States should not be separated from their families; the November 20 executive action reflects the same policy. The authority for deferred action, which is temporary and revocable, does not change the status of any noncitizen or give any noncitizen a path to citizenship.
In view of the practical and legal centrality of discretion to the removal system, Congress’s decision to grant these families a means of regularizing their status, and the general congressional policy of keeping families intact, we believe that the deferred action criteria established in the November 20 executive order are comfortably within the discretion allowed to the executive branch.
As a group, we express no view on the merits of these executive actions as a matter of policy. We do believe, however, that they are within the power of the Executive Branch and that they represent a lawful exercise of the President’s authority.
Lee Bollinger
Adam Cox
Walter Dellinger
Harold Koh
Gillian Metzger
Eric Posner
Cristina Rodriguez
Geoffrey Stone
David Strauss
Laurence Tribe
Alex woke up in trolling mode today lol.
Exactly, Lily Bart! So the new rules and declarations of "no benefits" are all a smoke screen, right?
It's ridiculous. This is what happens when you rule by sympathy.
"Mark said...
Alex, did you support Reagan in 1986? "
Mark, you're kinds new around here. Ignore Alex. His only goal is to get a response. He argues both sides of issues, sometimes in the same thread.
Still operating on premises you established at 10 years old Alex?
That had been obvious to most of us, but we had thought it impolite to point it out.
I was kinda worried about Laslo. I think he's OK now.
Completely lost in all of this is Obama demanding a political solution to the problems in Mexico, like he does in the middle east.
There is no reason people from Mexico should have to come to the US to work and escape the cray that is Mexico. It should be a rich, first world nation. Why do we treat them like some incapable, backwards, natural resource-poor little brother?
The order exempts people who say they have been here for 5 years. There are no papers required to prove that...just say the magic word and the duck comes down.
Tim in Vermont:
I like your posts. I generally agree with your views. Good on ya, mate.
What breed of dog is that?
Next week, we will hear Swaggy quote Bible verses on SSM and abortion.
So......legalize a bunch of people who are picking fruit and nannying for under minimum wage, then increase minimum wage to $10/hour. That's Obama's big vision, is it?
Thanks. He's a Labrador Retriever. The English version, rather than the American version, which explains his blocky head. Actually, his grand-sire is from France. We call him "Handsome Jack."
A few thoughts about this legal argument.
1) If Obama talked like this he might have more success in the world. Instead he picks fights, declares he is in authority, and challenges people to stand up to him. He's an idiot. Of course Mussolini was an idiot too. You can be an idiot and still be dangerous. The worst part of what Obama did might be his speech about what he did. I'll bet these law professors are embarrassed to be associated with that.
2) Everybody knows about "prosecutorial discretion." As a prosecutor you decide if a case is strong enough to prosecute. What you can't do is go on TV and announced, "I'm not going to prosecute any Republicans for crime." You don't get to pick groups and say "I'm not going to enforce the law against these people because I like them." Yes, you have broad discretion. On an individual basis! And you always have an obligation to enforce the laws.
3. The professors argue "the setting of removal priorities and the use of deferred action are well-established ways in which the executive has exercised discretion." Yeah, but Obama has not just set priorities and deferred action. He's announced he's not going to follow the law! He's made a very public announcement that a new sheriff is in town, with new laws that he has made up himself.
4. "allowing parents of citizens and permanent lawful residents to apply for deferred action..." Is that a fair or accurate summary of what Obama did?
5. "The authority for deferred action, which is temporary and revocable, does not change the status of any noncitizen or give any noncitizen a path to citizenship." Is this how Obama talks about what his new law does? If it does not "change the status," why do it? Come out of the shadows so we can deport you later?
I generally prefer red as the uniform color of the Traditional American High-School Cheerleader, but yellow is fine, too. Matching panties, of course. The Mexican child immigrant of today can grow up to be the Traditional American High-School Cheerleader of Tomorrow, but the panties must match. No Post-Modern Traditional American High-School Cheerleaders, please.
The Traditional American High-School Cheerleader knows she must always have at least two more sets of matching panties than she thinks she possibly needs. This is especially true if she uses shared public laundry facilities.
Traditional American High-School Cheerleader panties, straight from the dryer: THAT is America.
The only thing better than dating a former Traditional American High-School Cheerleader? Knowing that she kept a pair of the panties, all these years later, for special occasions.
I am Laslo.
The Constitution was good while it lasted, but an old piece of paper cannot stop El Commandante Barrako.
He's only interested in getting Republicans to overreact, as easy as knocking a wine glass over.
The law professor brief reads like this:
"We have limited resources and we just want to focus on deporting illegal immigrants who are convicted of crimes. We're delaying action on all the other illegal immigrants." That's fine. I wouldn't object to that.
Contrast these reasonable arguments with...
1. attacking the Congress
2. changing the legal status of millions of people on your own
3. while you imply that your opponents are racists
I do not think Obama shared his speech with the law professors, and I do not think their arguments even describe what Obama did, let alone defend it.
Strange to say today I agree completely with Robert Cook.
I agree with those who think the Rs should make an initial big stink and then go to work on a decent immigration bill that will pass both the House and the Senate. Ozero has been asking for a bill, but is incapable of doing the work to actually get one. If the Rs put one on his desk that has a modicum of support from both parties I believe he will be forced to sign it. There have to be a few principled Dems who can be persuaded to go along if they are given a fair hearing in the legislative process.
I appreciate that you give an unbiased legal analysis. It's something that I don't find many places. Thank you for being a reliable voice of mostly objectivity.
"Did I just hear you yell that?"
We didn't yell it, but I am sure you heard it.
It will be interesting to see what happens to the deportation rate going forward. If Obama's telling the truth and all he's doing is using prosecutorial discretion to re-prioritize enforcement efforts, the rate shouldn't change all that much.
Paul Zrimsek: It will be interesting to see what happens to the deportation rate going forward. If Obama's telling the truth and all he's doing is using prosecutorial discretion to re-prioritize enforcement efforts, the rate shouldn't change all that much.
Very droll, PZ, very droll.
Perfectly constitutional. Look forward to the use of this privilege by Republican presidents.
The Republicans will be wise to clam up and institute a chilling silence that cannot be mistaken for happy but which cannot be interpreted or twisted. Just silence of the type that preceded the Huns rush from the deep woods in full throated fury.
Next year. Wait, Republicans, wait.
As long as you can get your pregnant self to America to have your baby, we will make you a citizen, too! And your entire extended family.
Birth Tourism
I consider myself a conservative, but I think the issue of children brought to this country illegally and raised here is a legitimate one.
My daughter and son-in-law are educators working in a school district that is predominately Mexican, and a large segment of the students are here illegally.
I do think they should have some path to legally stay in the country-- since some of them have minimal roots with their native country. Whether we create a new status of legal immigrant not eligible for citizenship or some path to citizenship after finishing high school and possibly at minimum community college or trade school.
Now this is a very rural community and attitudes no doubt are far different than urban settings where agitation for non-existent rights is the prevailing attitude.
I was opposed to the DREAM act, since like most, if not all, legislation coming from Washington, the exceptions made the most of the provisions irrelevant.
I supported NAFTA, because I thought it would help provide living wages to Mexicans, and reduce their need to come to the US. I don't know if that had any effects, but it doesn't appear so.
The larger issue is whether or not the border can be secured. I know that much of the money thrown at border security was a sop, since the standard answer from liberals is the border is too long and it's just not possible.
It's my understanding that the border fence along the California border near San Diego was stalled by lawsuits.
It is obvious that for a community agitator like Mr. Obama, you must have opposition to agitate. At some level I think he prefers a Republican congress, since that gives him more fuel to agitate with.
garage mahal wrote: Negotiate with the people that are suing him?
Actually that's a very good place to start negotiations. Something is on the table.
Will Althouse do a pure analysis or will she wait until she reads what everyone else opines and then provide her opinion?
This guy is a pretty lawyer, I think he knows the law.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/11/some-consequences-of-obamas-unlawful-amnesty.php
Is it really so outlandish to believe that Supreme Court justices are strongly guided by their personal preferences? As Chief Justice Hughes, a really serious lawyer, said to William O. Douglas in 1939:
"'Justice Douglas, you must remember one thing. At the constitutional level where we work, 90 percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections.'
buwaya puti: Strange to say today I agree completely with Robert Cook.
Yes, it is that kind of day, isn't it? Not quite strange enough for me to go with that "completely", but strange enough. 90% strange. With extra strange sauce for feeling the need to defend him against misreading.
Alex said:
"I was 10 years old in 1986. But I knew back then conservatives were full of shit."
Judging from your comments, I'd say the only thing that you knew were full of sh*t when you were 10 years old were the diapers you were still wearing.
Blogger tim in vermont said...
Robert, in East Germany, a significant percentage of the population were employed as informers. 277 people were "Shot vile tryink to escape."
----------------------------
The comrades in East Germany are gone. Robert's only bright shining light now is Cuba.
tim in vermont:
"I don't give a crap if the NSA is monitoring international phone calls, I really don't...."
You haven't paid any attention to the revelations that have come from the Snowden documents, have you?
The NSA is capturing all our electronic communications--telephone calls, internet activity, emails, texts--not just "international calls."
There have been recent reports that they're even, in some cases, opening our physical mail.
Of course, there is also the unceasing public surveillance and recording of our comings and goings about our daily activities.
If this is all you believe to be happening, that they're just "monitoring international calls," you need to get up to speed on what's been made public in the last 18 months or so, (and what the more perspicacious of us suspected was happening long before that).
That just has to do, of course, with government surveillance. There's also the increasingly martial nature of our nation's police forces and their treatment of American citizens not as they neighbors they serve but as unindicted perps to be treated with summary brutality as standard procedure.
He only addressed one fourth of the problem.
Another fourth is comprised of the causes which motivate mass exodus from second and third-world nations. The leaders of those nations are salivating at Obama's affirmative relief of their burden.
Another fourth is the displacement and replacement of native Americans and legal immigrants. America is not a nation of immigrants. Americans are people who were citizens at its founding or were granted citizenship under the law and subject to constitutional jurisdiction.
Finally, he did not address the policies that are normalized through excessive legal and unmeasured illegal immigration. Most notably, he did not address that immigration, legal and especially illegal, serves to obfuscate the consequences of aborting around 2 million American lives annually.
Saint Croix:
Roe vs Wade was decided as a faith-based exemption under the First Amendment. The privacy aspect relates to the exercise of a sincerely held faith... to terminate a human life cycle in a clinic. It exploited a pro-choice argument that reasonable people could disagree when a human life acquires value according to their individual faith or belief.
Essentially, Roe vs Wade was the state establishment of pro-choice (i.e. selective principles) as a religion (i.e. moral philosophy) and spontaneous conception or arbitrary viability as its faith. The feminist movement exploited this law to normalize premeditated murder for money, sex, ego, and convenience, while presenting and obfuscating it as a woman's rights issue. The popular perception is that evolution following conception (i.e. source) is equivalent to evolution approaching death (i.e. sink).
It's all emotional appeals. The arguments for executive amnesty and elective abortion are evidence that the separation of childhood and adulthood is not finely defined but is both a spectrum and fluid.
"...in East Germany, a significant percentage of the population were employed as informers."
An addendum: if you read the COUNTERPUNCH column I linked to, the writer points out the many members of our own population who are presently employed covertly to spy on us and report our doings to their superiors.
There is not a difference of kind between our society today and many of the more well-known police states of present or recent history; there is only, at this point, a difference of degree. And the degree of difference is diminishing steadily, incrementally, and almost unnoticeably, until...suddenly, it will be undeniable.
This aside, the recent study showing that the public's will has no effect on public policy reveals that we certainly no longer have democracy in any form. We have a society run by and for the wealthy elites.
He acknowledged the Dreamer groups who relentlessly followed him around and heckled him at every stop. They were interviewed last night and it was nice to see at least one group of people in this country happy. Direct action works."
Tell that to the anti-Obamacare protesters who followed him around.
Roe vs Wade was decided as a faith-based exemption under the First Amendment.
What they said was it was "substantive" due process. Lots of people who love the result have a strong desire to rewrite the opinion. Tribe and Dworkin are two that have tried to argue it's a First Amendment case. I think it's a weak argument.
The privacy aspect relates to the exercise of a sincerely held faith...
I think privacy was an attempt to link it to Griswold and birth control, and sexual privacy in general. The problem with this is that we've never had a right to do violent acts in private. You can't beat your wife and claim "privacy." We keep sex private to foster intimacy and love. You can't say that about abortion.
It exploited a pro-choice argument that reasonable people could disagree when a human life acquires value according to their individual faith or belief.
I think Casey in particular tried to uphold Roe on that basis. When they start talking about "the universe" and talk about pregnancy like it's an idea:
“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe...”
That's a great sentence in a free speech case, not so great in a stab-the-baby case.
Saint Croix:
Substantive due process is a logical argument for legalizing elective abortion only following the denial of a human life cycle. This is why it was critical for proponents to dehumanize human life before birth.
Some people even argue that abortion is equivalent to emancipation. This makes logical sense in the case of involuntary exploitation (e.g. rape); but, it still ignores consideration for an individual right to life.
They may not have expressed their decision as faith-based, but that is the crux of their argument, and how they rationalize it.
I, unfortunately, or fortunately, cannot reconcile the objective facts and their selective "faith". This is one of the few popular ideas that I cannot reconcile with axiomatic principles of dignity and value, and the natural order, other than through a leap of faith.
BrianE: I do think they should have some path to legally stay in the country-- since some of them have minimal roots with their native country.
I always find this invocation of "roots" very interesting. I do wish the cheerleaders of mass migration would make up their minds about the importance of these "roots" to human beings.
On the one hand, none of them seemed, or seem, at all concerned about the mass uprootings and migrations consequent to NAFTA, etc. (Dislocations that only coincidentally, I'm sure, work to the benefit of, say, south-of-the-border elites or their American colluders.) Most of the displaced, I'm sure, had very long roots in the places they left to head north. Nobody gave a crap about those roots, then.
Yet mysteriously, by merely crossing the border and setting up somewhere in the U.S. for a few years, one develops communi-tay ties so sacred that any effort to budge you is a crime against humanity. Even more mysteriously, the natives among whom you settle have long been expected to up sticks and separate from community and kith and kin at the drop of a hat, and tsked tsked by certain parties for even wanting to maintain traditional human ties of family and community, sometimes the very parties who are lobbying legislators to, er, respect the roots in the communi-tay of their new serfs.
As far as I can make out, surveying global trends, one's right to have one's roots respected appears to depend not on their depth but very much on the profitablity or political advantage to interested parties of your staying or leaving. (This includes not only business concerns but their camp following ideologues and NGO employees.)
Cook: "There is not a difference of kind between our society today and many of the more well-known police states of present or recent history;"
LOL
Marxist revisionism: ever present, ever ready.
Good old cookie.
They may not have expressed their decision as faith-based, but that is the crux of their argument, and how they rationalize it.
I think a lot of the arguments (on both sides) may be characterized as emotional. I think the subtext to a lot of feminist arguments about abortion is rape. And of course pro-lifers are worried about infanticide. I see rape and infanticide as the twin poles of our fight over abortion, and makes the issue really upsetting.
Strong passionate feeling is not a religion. For sure there are atheists on both sides of this fight. So I don't know if "faith" is the right word, at least in the First Amendment sense of the word.
This is one of the few popular ideas that I cannot reconcile with axiomatic principles of dignity and value, and the natural order, other than through a leap of faith.
That's putting a positive spin on it! I think a lot of it is ignorance. Denial, repression, censorship and ignorance. It's why the media censors abortion photographs, why the Supreme Court tries to avoid talking about our death statutes, or our homicide rules. They don't want to think about it.
Pro-lifers are the ones who are called faith-based, but we're not the ones hiding from ultrasounds.
You have to register and the protection from deportation is only temporary? Who even wants this deal?
This is what I've been wondering. It seems like it would make deportation easier, since the government would now have a tacit admission that you're here illegally, paired with up-to-date contact information.
Josh Blackmun post analyzing the OLC Memo supporting Obama's action
As to everyone accepting or rejecting it based on their bias....
I recommend reading Jonathan Turley. Obama is shredding g the constitution with this move, according to turley.
And he is a leftist.
I have no idea whether it's constitutional.
I just think it's a terrible way to make national policy on an important issue.
May I recommend for your consideration the book _Empires and Barbarians_ by Peter Heather. http://www.amazon.com/Empires-Barbarians-Fall-Birth-Europe-ebook/dp/B0035KD36U/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416596431&sr=1-1&keywords=empires+and+barbarians+the+fall+of+rome+and+the+birth+of+europe
Didn't his party lose the elections earlier this month because the GOP had managed to mute its immoderate voices?
The Dems only lost because they sucked so bad that the GOP muted ALL its voices and succeeded to the trough. Said 'party' hasn't got more than half a dozen articulate voices, and has wasted six years in refusing to draft a credible statement of what its goals and principles would be for governing.
But Dem demagoguery and attack ads couldn't pull their disastrous governance out of the fire. Even Obama's unconstitutional pander to five million Hispanics may not improve their situation.
Anglelyne:
"I always find this invocation of "roots" very interesting. I do wish the cheerleaders of mass migration would make up their minds about the importance of these "roots" to human beings."
The reason I raised the ties to the mother country (relatives) is because there are basically two groups of illegals that my kids have observed.
The kind that are still transients-- the kids are pulled out of school some time during the year, and will return at some later time. The school struggles to deal with these types, since they basically are passed through the school with little education.
There is a second type, kids that came with their parents and stayed, some their entire lives, and have never had contact with anyone in the native country.
These are the ones I think deserve some consideration.
Saint Croix:
Yes, ultrasound enables us to peer into the womb and directly observe the early stages of human evolution. That is one consideration, a significant consideration. Similar to the action promoted by photographs from a concentration camp, there are few people who will be capable of denying the physical evidence, and the strictly unbalanced consequence.
I suggest that there is something else to be considered, that exists independent of this observation, and requires no evidence since it is self-evident. This is why I repeat the spontaneous conception or stork's delivery allegory. The premise for legalizing and normalizing elective abortion is not faith at all, but a fairy tale, a false myth, that women and men retell in order to relieve themselves of a mental block or cognitive dissonance.
Evolution is a descriptive treatment of a chaotic process, that is an estimate of the actual physical process. It begins with a source: conception, and ends with a sink: a natural, accidental, or premeditated death. The question that needs to be answered is two-fold: when and by whose judgment does human life acquire value and should a society defend human rights equally or with a bias.
While abortion is not a comprehensive issue, it underlies a comprehensive question: does human life have an independent, intrinsic value? Pro-life people assert that it does, and seek a balance between the lives at stake. Presumably, this is why women who abort their children do not receive the same sentence as other murderers. Pro-choice people assert that it may, and seek a balance that defers or delegates judgment.
Perhaps this all philosophical. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. Individual perspective will not change until there is cause to motivate it. As long as there are consequences that remain unobserved (e.g. private) or trivial, or they are granted dissociation of risk (i.e. moral and legal), then answering the question is only of interest to the minority of men and women who reflect on issues that do not entail a personal or immediate advantage or disadvantage.
I was hoping you would give a legal assessment. I, like you, don't have a position on the policy. But to me, a lay person, it does seem like an expansion of Executive authority beyond the Constitutional restraints.
BrainE: There is a second type, kids that came with their parents and stayed, some their entire lives, and have never had contact with anyone in the native country.
These are the ones I think deserve some consideration.
Yeah, I understood that Brian. I apologize for hijacking your point to make my own, which was just a general rant about the cynical and opportunistic invocation of "roots" by people who absolutely could not care less about the human costs of migration to either immigrant or host.
(Your reply gave me a good laugh at myself, because I read it right after I went off on somebody in the previous thread for hijacking my point - exactly, erp, like I hijacked yours.)
Did anyone else think it was slightly offensive he boiled them down to fruit pickers and nannies?
Yeah, he left the busting-their-ass-washing-cars-in-Venice-and-Century-City ones out.
N.N.,
I am reading a very good book on abortion history, Professor Dellapenna's Dispelling the Myths of Abortion HIstory. 1200 page book, covers abortion throughout Anglo-American law. Expensive book, but quite good. I had no idea how bad the Supreme Court's history was until I started reading this book.
It's funny how one sentence in Roe v. Wade can set people off and turn them into pro-lifers. For me the sentence is:
We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.
For Dellapenna, it was a fragment of a sentence.
throughout the major portion of the 19th century, prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today
Think about that sentence for a minute. Many states, including California and New York, had legalized abortion by 1973. And yet Justice Blackmun is saying that in our past, abortion practices were "far freer" than they are today. He doesn't name any states where abortion was legal, or widely practiced. He can't. The whole thing is absurd.
There was no anesthesia until the middle of the 19th century. No penicillin until World War Ii. All the early feminists were absolutely opposed to abortion. For good reason, it killed women, all the time. Even the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was pro-life. She referred to abortion as "dangerous" and "vicious."
There was no birth control or abortion for most of human history. Anybody who tried to abort a pregnancy either failed, or killed the mom, or both. Killing newborns was the practice in the B.C. era. Dellapenna argues that it was an (underground) practice in much of European history as well.
Saint Croix:
Legalization introduced clinical procedures that served to bypass natural feedback that limited women's choice and enabled normalization of abortion. Pro-choice advocacy overcame any lingering moral sensitivities and cultural stigmas.
You have it exactly right. The poignant moment in the legal case was: We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. That is such an inane remark, that it begs the integrity of its speaker. We know exactly when life begins: conception, the source of the evolutionary process. What we do not know is when a human life becomes conscious or, more simply, sentient.
As I said, this is one issue that I cannot reconcile with the popular position. I begin with two axioms: individual dignity and intrinsic value, then consider the directives and constraints of the natural order, and I cannot reconcile committing premeditated abortion of a human life for causes other than self-defense, where it seems reasonable that women retain a choice.
The issue is not abortion per se, but elective abortion. However, even in non-elective procedures, preserving the lives of the mother and child should be considered. In the case of rape, the best choice may be adoption, which respects the dignity of the mother and the intrinsic value of her child.
Anyway, that's my principled objection to abortion. I understand and appreciate the dissent, but it simply avoids answering the question: Does human life have a special value, should we conserve/defend it equally, and, finally, how do we reconcile independent and competing rights?
Alex said...
Conservatives, riddle me this!
How is this any more "illegal" than Reagan's 1986 amnesty?
Here is an answer to that question
Saint Croix:
I tend to be in sharing or teaching mode. I do not intend to "talk over" people. I do appreciate that you shared your personal experience and insight.
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