Law & Justice: May 2005 Archives
Clayton Cramer points to a sad-but-true story about British researchers who want to ban kitchen knives. Apparently these days the sun never rises on the British Empire.
A team from West Middlesex University Hospital said violent crime is on the increase - and kitchen knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.They argued many assaults are committed impulsively, prompted by alcohol and drugs, and a kitchen knife often makes an all too available weapon.
The research is published in the British Medical Journal.
The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all.
Mr. Cramer goes on to suggest that all Britons be required to wear public safety suits that encase their hands and feet in foam so as to prevent them using any sort of heavy object as a blunt weapon. He says that biting someone to death is hard enough that Lecter-like masks shouldn't be necessary, but tell that to these guys.
I've got an idea! Instead of nerfing the world and banning everything that could be dangerous, why not just prohibit people from attacking each other? And then, if they do, we throw them in jail or execute them. The key is that we have to put them in jail long enough that they won't have another opportunity to hurt anyone for a long time. Such laws may or may not deter other would-be criminals, but just by taking thugs out of circulation we should be able to reduce crime drastically.
And now Austria wants to use DNA to catch dog's that poop in public places. If dogs must be allowed in public places, then their owners should certainly keep them leashed and pick up their poop. Although using DNA to catch spitters seems excessive, I'm all for catching dog poopers using whatever technology is necessary, including UAVs and undercover spies dressed like trees.
I asked in April, 2003, about the future of law enforcement:
Will police be enabled to pressure everyone they come across into submitting to a DNA test or risk speculation that they are guilty? Or will everyone simply be required to submit DNA to a central database? How long until there are machines that scour the streets for dried spit, compare the DNA to the database, and then mail you a ticket? It might sound ridiculous, but I get the very strong impression that this is exactly the world that some people want to create.
And now, barely two years later, the UK is enveiling DNA kits to identify motorists who spit at parking attendants. Spitting at people is obviously bad, but c'mon.
Parking attendants are being given DNA swabs to help identify motorists who spit at them.Saliva samples will be analysed in a laboratory and cross-checked against millions of DNA profiles on the police national computer. A match could bring prosecution for common assault.
Hundreds of the £1 "spit kits" are being handed out to the 250 attendants in Westminster this week in a trial backed by contractor NCP. The £200-a-time cost of the DNA checks will be met by the police.
But "met by the police" means that the money will be taken out of the budget that would normally go towards policing serious crimes -- and all police money comes from the taxpayers. I'm in favor of punishing spitters, even with jail time, and using these kits to catch people who spit at parking attendants might even be a good idea... but where will it stop? Robots that scour the streets for DNA and then email out tickets for littering?
Here's a blog run by a real-life traffic warden. No word about DNA tests, but I for one would never spit at this guy.
The idea that the Constitution is a "living document" is patently absurd to me, and I have a hard time comprehending why anyone of any intellectual rigor would take such a position seriously and genuinely. The whole reason we write ideas down instead of transmitting them verbally is so that we can ensure that they don't change over time without consensual and purposeful action.
When it comes to contracts and other legal documents that represent agreements between parties -- such as the Constitution of the United States of America which is an agreement among the various states -- it is essential that the common understanding of the agreement remain fixed. Most contracts, including the Constitution, provide instruments whereby the agreement can be changed with the consent of the parties involved. For example, the terms of my home mortgage can be changed if the lender and I agree to the changes unanimously. In the case of the Constitution, unanimity is not required; instead, only three-quarters of the parties involved (the states) must agree to an amendment proposed by two-thirds of Congress or two-thirds of the state legislatures in order for the amendment to be accepted. This is not an easy process, nor was it meant to be, nor should it be.
It is unfair and illegal for federal judges to change the meaning of the Constitution. Federal judges are charged with applying the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress to specific cases brought before them. They are unelected, and their opinions do not inherently represent the will of the people or the states in the way that the opinions of our elected legislators, congressmen, and President do. Judges have no mandate to ascertain the desires of the populace or to account for "evolving standards". They are charged with the task of simply evaluating individual cases within the framework of the agreement binding the various states. It is for the states to decide when and how they want to adjust their common agreement, and it is only through the amendment process that such a change can be made.
No one would take it kindly if the meaning behind their mortgage or employment contract changed whimsically according to "evolving standards", and we should settle for no less precision when it comes to our national organizing agreement. The Constitution is not the collection of judicial interpretations, and despite the power it has assumed for itself over the centuries the Supreme Court is not the all-powerful arbiter of Constitutionality. I am not a lawyer and I cannot speak with authority as to the current condition of our country, but my arguments from first principles are clearly logical and far more elegant than the amorphous blob that is our current body of Constitutional law.
Douglas Wilson points out that such a structure is not actually "living" at all, but merely "dead and malleable". Justice Scalia agrees that the Constitution should not be reinterpreted (HT: The American Constitution Society), and he also pointedly asked why any American would want his country run by nine lawyers.
In a 35-minute speech Monday, Scalia said unelected judges have no place deciding issues such as abortion and the death penalty. The court's 5-4 ruling March 1 to outlaw the juvenile death penalty based on "evolving notions of decency" was simply a mask for the personal policy preferences of the five-member majority, he said."If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again," Scalia told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington think tank. "You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That's flexibility."
"Why in the world would you have it interpreted by nine lawyers?" he said.
(HT: McQ.)
As for the recent filibuster controversy, the actions of 51 senators are far more democratic and representative of the will of the people than are the opinions of any number of federal judges -- particularly when the senators act well-within the powers granted to them by the text of the Constitution.
