This is a short post about the Federalist Society (or rather, why I don’t agree with them) that I need to do so I can link to it when my very long post about abortion finally makes it onto the site. It was a part of that abortion post, but it took up too much space for what is really a side issue. As it’s so short, I’ll add a few tweets at the end to keep you entertained a bit longer!

The Federalist Society (full name: The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies) is a powerful legal society in the US made up of conservatives and libertarians. Their aim is to change the legal system in line with their interpretation of the meaning of the US constitution. They say they want to bring the law into line with the original meaning of the constitution. To them, that means getting rid of all laws that don’t directly relate to the constitution.

As far as I can tell, their positions, among other things, take little regard of the fact that society has changed since 1787. As such, there is a lot of cherry-picking. For example, while they oppose marriage equality because they say the Founders never envisaged such a situation, they don’t call for a return to slavery.

My opinions on the society were formed while watching a show on Fox News a few years ago presented by libertarian John Stossel.

John Stossel, Fox News

John Stossel

John Stossel (Source: Wikipedia)

Stossel outlined how he thought the law should be stripped back to basics, in line with Federalist Society aims. His passion for the topic was obvious. I’d frequently seen Stossel discuss his libertarian views. He has a way of making simplistic arguments, supported by cherry-picked data, sound reasonable. I’m always horrified and worry that a lot of people may not be thinking about the consequences of what he’s saying.

For instance, he thinks there should be no laws around opening a new business. The example he was using when he spoke about the Federalist Society was the number of laws around opening up a food truck. He moaned that the US is becoming anti-capitalist because of all the regulations someone had to meet, just to open such a business. His opinion is that the law of supply and demand should govern whether or not a business survives. If a restaurant is good, people will eat there. If it is bad, people won’t and it will fail.

Why’s Stossel’s Argument is Stupid

I guess the people who get sick or die from food poisoning in the meantime are just collateral damage.

Besides, he’s wrong about how difficult it is to open a business in the US, at least by international standards. There is an international index about most things, and ease of doing business is one of them. The criteria for the international Ease of Doing Business index includes ease of opening a new business. Despite the whines of Stossel, the US is currently 8th in the world on that index. Interestingly, despite Trump’s claims on the subject, the US has been slipping in the rankings since Trump became president. However, it still places well within the “very easy” category, which currently includes 53 countries.

The “collateral damage” argument appears to be how the Federalist Society feels about the Second Amendment too. The looser a state’s gun laws, and therefore the closer its laws are to how the Federalist Society thinks they should be, the more people die in that state each year because of guns.

 

Libertarianism

I can understand why people might lean to the left or right of centre when it comes to politics. Extremists on either side, as in religion, I always disagree with. Despite their animus to each other, they’re actually far closer to each other than they think. Both would try to control peoples’ lives in various ways.

In my opinion though, libertarians are just plain selfish. The lack of depth to their thinking mean they’re unable to understand that they’re actually worse off when the vulnerable in society aren’t given help via the taxes of the majority. The arrogance that they can make better decisions about what to do with the money they earn is wrong. No one has a broad enough understanding of all the issues to make such judgments. It’s one of the primary reasons we need governments.

Libertarians fail to understand that the more equal a society is in every way, the better off everyone is.

 

Nice Tweets

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tweets About ANOTHER Trump Racist Rant

Trump says he doesn’t have, “a racist bone” in his body. I only know what I see. He displays the behaviour of a racist in multiple ways and has for decades. He is racist. End of.

Cartoon of Trump as a snail (no bones) saying he doesn't have any racist bones.

I find this latest episode (the “send her back chant”) from the Trump rally so, so shocking. I saw a group of eight Republican women in Texas being interviewed on CNN yesterday. None of them thought Trump’s tweet was racist. Their opinion was he was trying to unite the country, and by saying his tweet was racist, it was these women that were the problem!

For those that haven’t heard about it, here’s Trump’s original tweet thread first:

 

 

 


 

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