Archive for the 'Politics' Category

Jackson in the Age of Paternalism

Published
by
Christopher Meredith
on Jul 2, 2008
in Current Events, Politics and Property
. 2 Comments

Mississippi has taken another paternalistic step forward. This week, the City of Jackson voted to ban smoking in all restaurants. Reading through the comments on the article, and based on conversations I’ve heard, there appears to be a general concern for children underlying the support for such a measure. Says one commenter:

I am all for a total ban on smoking, but I think to be reasonable that the law should ban smoking anywhere that children may be present. It should be allowed in stand-alone bars, nightclubs, and casinos. It is fair that smokers have somewhere to go, but they should not be allowed to smoke around children. And I should not be forced to keep my child at home to avoid their smoke. It is time for smokers to have some responsibility.

This is a very interesting statement. It implies that tobacco smoke and children should not exist in the same place at the same time. Assuming for the moment that this is true, why prefer children over smoke in Red Lobster? If smoke is irritating, what about screaming, crying babies and poorly behaved children? It’s almost impossible to relax and enjoy a good cigar after dinner with all the annoying children carrying on. So again, why not pass a law prohibiting children from restaurants? Because it would be absurd, that’s why.

There once was a day when politicians and judges would refuse to hear these issues, preferring to let the market self-regulate. In this age of state paternalism, that seems to be an antiquated notion. In the old days, property owners had the right to allow or prohibit perfectly legal behavior on their premises. If you didn’t like smoke and a non-smoking section wasn’t good enough for you, you could register your displeasure and not come back. If enough people did the same, the restaurant would lose business and be forced to reassess its position.

Likewise, if a restaurant voluntarily prohibited smoking and you like to enjoy a cigar or pipe after dinner, you could register your displeasure and eat elsewhere. In either case, property owners were free from government intrusion and the market would regulate itself.

But not anymore. Now, if there’s something that annoys you, you don’t have to be content to merely utter “there oughta be a law…” Now, you can actually get one. If you’re annoying enough.

Can We Get That Nobel Prize Back, Too?

Published
by
Christopher Meredith
on Mar 11, 2008
in Current Events, Politics and Torts
. 6 Comments

There is vindication for those of us who have refused to buy into the liberal hype of global warming over the past several years. It used to be that suggesting global warming was a myth was a virtual invitation to ridicule. But my father tells stories of being in high school and being shown videos depicting mock news reports in the year 2000 which would feature segments on where you could go to obtain breathable oxygen. These sorts of government hypes have been around for a while.

So it was realtively big news last November when Weather Channel founder John Coleman called global warming “the greatest scam in history.” Then, just months later, came a report that all four major global temperature tracking stations recorded sufficient temperature drop over 2007 alone to erase the past 100 years of global warming.

Now John Coleman is calling on people to sue the global warming alarmists, including Al Gore, for fraud. This strikes me as a rather interesting idea. Al Gore and the creators of the carbon credit scheme have made big money off of the global warming hysteria and scientific evidence has been around for a long time that the earth is on a regular cycle of minuscule temperature variance to which human activity does not contribute. There might be merit to a suit alleging that Gore and his cohorts knew or should have known that global warming was false, but misrepresented the truth to induce people to buy his sham credits for his own personal gain.

It should be interesting to see if anyone takes Mr. Coleman up on his suggestion.

HT: The Legal Scoop

Butchering English to Stay PC

Published
by
Christopher Meredith
on Feb 13, 2008
in Law School and Politics
. 2 Comments

When I was in the 10th grade only a decade ago, my English teacher made it perfectly clear: in English, the generic singular pronoun is masculine. If someone wants to object to this convention, he should take it up with the Saxons. This is not difficult and following this rule merely places us in a long line of English-speaking people. But now that I’m in law school, I’m noticing an apparently concerted effort to change this convention. What I don’t see is a good reason for doing so.

The issue has been discussed in many fora, including this representative article. The use of the masculine pronoun is now viewed by our culture as inherently sexist. The alternatives range from illogical to utterly bizarre:”she,” “(s)he,” “he/she,” and, “they” are some common examples, the latter of which amounts to a decision to replace the singular pronoun altogether with the plural. Some of the more creative approaches involve alternating “he” and “she” every time a generic pronoun is required.

The solution to this imaginary problem which legal writers have apparently adopted is the blanket use of the feminine. Therefore, whenever examples are given in law school (and there are lots of examples), all the criminals, tortfeasors, parties, judges, attorneys, witnesses, and victims are women.

Since English has no separate generic pronoun, we obviously have to use something. The compound pronouns (he/she) are unwieldy and the plural pronoun (they) is just simply wrong: Any student interested in the optional seminar should bring their enrollment form to class. That is (and should remain) a wrong answer on the SAT.

So then what’s the answer? It is suggested that using the masculine is sexist. If this is true, using the feminine is no less sexist. Since we are resolved that our only options are sexism or the devolution of the English language, let us err on the side of sexism. Furthermore, though the number of women in the legal profession is increasing, men still constitute the vast majority of American judges, lawyers, and criminals. So if we are going to be sexist anyway, let us do so in a way that is not only supported by over a millennia of tradition, but is also likely to be accurate four times out of five.