How Not to Write a Constitution: Part I - Freedom of Speech

See my previous post for the full text of the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution. (The one that does not contain the word "separation".)

Now have a look at this from another constitution. This is not the original text, but the closest thing to an "official" translation to English (found here).

Article 7 [Expression]
(1) No one shall require prior permission to publish thoughts or opinions through the press, without prejudice to the responsibility of every person under the law.
(2) Rules concerning radio and television shall be laid down by Act of Parliament. There shall be no prior supervision of the content of a radio or television broadcast.
(3) No one shall be required to submit thoughts or opinions for prior approval in order to disseminate them by means other than those mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, without prejudice to the responsibility of every person under the law. The holding of performances open to persons younger than sixteen years of age
may be regulated by Act of Parliament in order to protect good morals.
(4) The preceding paragraphs do not apply to commercial advertising.

See the problem?

It only protects from prior restraint. It lacks any clause about abridging the free practice.

Consequently, all that this protects is a person's right to physically speak the words without clearing it with the government first. It does not prevent the government from enacting arbitrary penalties based on content.

This is the reason why a man speaking truthfully about islam can be hauled before a tribunal in Holland. The government has made it a crime to hurt the tender-feelings of islamists. Don't call them "violent" or they'll riot.

In a similar way this doesn't cut it either:

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.

Why not? Well, without being a lawyer and without being well-versed in the circuitous mass that is this particular constitution, I nevertheless observe that there is no text which prohibits limitation or abrogation of these rights. Now there might be text somewhere in this constitution that does that, but it is demonstrated that such a clause is regularly ignored if it does exist.

My evidence for this is that so-called "Provincial Human Rights Commissions" in the country from whose constitution that is taken have tried and condemned Christian ministers for teaching parts of the Old Testament and roundly harassed columnists and publishers for quoting muslims on the subject of muslims. Again this was done on the justification that one must not hurt the tender feelings of islamists.

The underlying point is that you can't trust governments to restrain themselves. The restraints have to be explicit and proximate to the language regarding that from which you wish to restrain them. Otherwise the the most inspiring statements about what rights citizens possess eventually become just worthless ink on worthless paper.

More Examples:

Germany

Article 5
[Freedom of expression, arts and sciences]
(1) Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate
his opinions in speech, writing and pictures, and
to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible
sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting
by means of broadcasts and fi lms shall be guaranteed.
There shall be no censorship.

...so far so good.

(2) These rights shall fi nd their limits in the provisions of general
laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons,
and in the right to personal honour.

Doh!

I'm sure they meant well here, but the problem is that they created an ambiguity that can be, and in fact now is being abused. This is actually one of the better ones out there, but unfortunately, it was apparently not written by people who understood the how and why of governments becoming tyrannical.

Here's one of the worst:

Statutes shall guarantee the expression of diverse opinions and the equitable participation of political parties and groups in the democratic life of the Nation.

So only by statute is there any guarantee at all, and what you're guaranteed is some statutory definition of "diversity". There is no guarantee that you will get to express your opinion unless some bureaucrat decides it fits within their understanding of the statutory definition of "diversity". The very idea should make you sick to your stomach... and that my friends, is just one more reason why France is most assuredly not the pinnacle of Western Civilization.

Here are some more links for further reading:

Constitution of Spain
Constitution of Portugal
Constitution of Austria (horrible)
Austria's "Bill of Rights"
(British) Constitution Society's Webpage
European Convention on Human Rights (orig. 1950)
Constitution of the Czech Republic
Constitution of Sweden
Constitution of Norway
Constitution of Denmark
Constitution of Australia
Constitution of New Zealand
Constitution of India
Constitution of Japan
Constitution of the Philippines

Election Wrap-Up

Well for a start my predictions were much too optimistic. I have begun to re-assess my analysis of the whole business of opinion polling. More on that at another time.

A shift of more than 60 seats in the House, is a big deal making this a "historic" election by any stretch of the imagination. What is the actual historic significance, is a much harder question to answer. The outcome of the next election will tell us a lot about that. So get back to me in two years on this question.

The shift in the Senate was indeed much smaller than anticipated and for reasons I've noted previously, that's a good thing. Tactically, assuming that two years from now I'm still on the side of the Republicans, I want them where they are: very much able to control the Senate, but not in the position of looking like they are responsible for what goes on there. To have the roles reversed at this time would be a very very bad thing.

About the races I was following: Maine 2 went to the Dem. This for me was the first indication that the Republicans were not going win as big as I'd predicted. On the good news side, Dem Congressman Bob "Drunken Brawler" Etheridge lost. Unlike Massachusetts voters, those in North Carolina at least seem to have a sense of decency.

Lt. Col. Alan West won in FL 22. Yay Col. West! It's really going to be fun to watch him in the house.

Here in Arizona, the Republicans won every state-wide race except the one for US Senate, in which there was no Republican. Best of all, Terry Goddard has to go look for a job. Good riddance for now. He's one of those people who never goes away even though they should. I'm confident he'll run again.

The two congressional seats on the border are currently very close but look to both end up in the hands of the Dems. There is certainly enough Dem fraud in border areas to keep these seats Democrat. In case you didn't know, non-citizens vote in Arizona. Of course they're not supposed to, but complaining about it or trying to stop it is "racism".

Overall the election went well, but not in all quarters, and the real issue isn't what happened in the election, but what happens in DC starting in January. Stay tuned.

Random Thoughts: Election Day

22:34 EDT

No one's called it yet, but it looks to me that the Republican Rick Scott is going to win the race for Florida's Governor. That's very good news. From what I'm hearing Florida is going R overall as well. Among others, Alan Grayson, the Democrat Congressman from Batshitcrazyland is out and the challenger he went out of his way to slander is in.

Lt. Col Alan West looks like he's doing well but the returns are slow coming in. Maine 2 is coming in even slower and so Michaud's lead doesn't yet indicate much.

Congressman Bob "WHO ARE YOU!" Etheridge is in a squeaker. Currently he's trailing by 59 votes with 85% reporting.

I decided to start following Texas 23 which covers El Paso and the Big Bend. The Repbublican Canseco has a small lead at the moment. The incumbent is long time Dem Congressman Ciro Rodriguez. This is a district that I'd normally expect to stay blue.

21:35 EDT

The House seems to be shaping up well, but it remains to be seen whether it will go anything like the way I predict. Of the races I've been watching, unfortunately, Barney Frank, who has more responsibility for the mortgage crisis than anyone else in congress has been re-elected. Massachusetts proves again that you can't fix stupid.

With West Virgina going for Joe Manchin, and the Democrats getting their turn out in Delaware, it is probable now that I will get my wish that the Republicans will not gain a majority in the Senate. I'm relieved. In a closely-divided Senate, being in the majority is the same as having a job where you've got no authority but full responsibility.

20:01 EDT

Now that actual returns are starting to come in here are the races I'm watching:

Maine 2: This is the more rural and less Dem of the 2 districts in Maine. IMO it makes a fair bellwether for non-urban, blue-state districts. One thing that sets it apart from other parts of the country is that apparently you have to be Acadian to be a candidate.

Massachusetts 4: The sick ego-maniac Barney Frank vs. a US Marine. This one I just have to watch.

North Carolina 2: This is the seat currently held by the drunk old guy who assaults college students who have the nerve to ask him where he stands on issues. Bob Etheridge is his name. Watching because he's another guy I would really like to see lose as a matter of justice.

Florida 22: This is the seat for which Lt. Col. Alan West, USA (ret) is running. This man, IMO could change politics in this country. Early returns have him leading the incumbent 55/45.

Florida Governor: This is a big deal. Florida is one of the states the Dems have been working full-time to take control of for more than a decade.



18:05 EDT

Not a single poll has closed and the so-called election coverage has started. Ugh.

17:33 EDT

Problems With Voting Machines

The latest reports of "problems" with voting machines are from Minnesota. As usual, those on the short end are complaining and those on the long end are saying "nothing to see here, move along."

In any of the reports of problems with voting machines, the problem is the same: the very fact that you are using voting machines at all.

Let me be clear. If your system of balloting does not require you to fill out a piece of pre-printed card stock with a permanent marker, then your voting system is an open invitation to corruption. Voting Machines of every description are just too damn easy to rig.

There are many more features of what would constitute a verifiably honest election system, and that is appropriately the topic of a much longer and more-involved post.

Nevertheless, you need the paper ballots (actually medium card-stock) as a pre-requisite, and every voter needs to be required to use them. If you are one of those unfortunate citizens who is using any sort of machine, internet voting, or punch-cards and not a pre-printed paper ballot, then you need to start agitating for a change. I assure you that if you are using any of the above then your elections are already corrupt.

15:06 EDT

Don't Give up on Delaware!

The early reports I'm hearing from Delaware are that the Dem precincts aren't turning out the way Dems had hoped.

Delaware more than any other state demonstrates what has become the tired refrain about this election: It's all about turnout.

The official narrative has always been that A-conservative-can't-win-here-you-have-to-run-so-called-"moderate"-republicans-to-have-a-chance.-Oh-you-stupid-tea-partiers-you've-ruined-everthing-by-nominating-a-nut-and-not-the-party-blessed-RINO. Ha-ha-tea-partiers-you've-lost-this-one-before-it-started.

I don't buy that conservatives can't win, even in the bluest of blue states for these reasons:
1. If you've never tried it how do you know what will happen? When was the last time the Republicans put up a credible, committed, conservative in any of these states? [here's a hint: not in my lifetime]
2. Delaware goes by turnout. If the Dem region of the state, that is to say the northern tip, Wilmington and suburbs (suburbs of Philadelphia mind you) turn out then the Dems win. If the Republican region (pretty much everything south of Wilmington) turns out and Wilmington doesn't then the Republican wins.
3. Southern Delaware must necessarily include a share of non-affiliated conservatives.

Who are these "non-affiliated conservatives"? Well they exist in every state, even the very red like mine, but they are more likely to exist in states like Delaware where the party only run RINO's. These are the true-believing conservatives who are so fed up with the BS from the national republican party and that they only ever get RINO's for candidates that they had given up on voting.

When polled about party affiliation these people will respond "Independent" because they don't recognize any of their beliefs being manifested by the actions of the GOP. Some are frustrated that the GOP talks a good game but then never seems to fight over any core issue but rather surrenders pre-emptively. (Think gang of 14.) The '06 and '08 election cycles made a lot of people who would previously have called themselves "Republican" go this way. This has everything to do with the low turnout and low party ID numbers for the Republican party between '06 and '09.

One more thing about this phenomenon: Pollsters and analysts generally assume that all conservatives self-ID as "Republican" and that therefore everyone who self-ID's as "Independent" is a moderate. This is garbage. Repeated surrenders to the left by Republicans in Washington has made a lot of conservatives stop calling themselves "Republicans". I was one of those people in '92. I changed my registration to "Libertarian" until '96 when I was pursuaded that that the only way to get the changes I wanted was to work inside the Republican Party. If the new congress doesn't put up a good fight for two solid years I will again change my registration to Independent until we can create the successor to the GOP.

So, despite all the conventional "wisdom", don't count Delaware out for the Republican party this time. There will be some surprises today. That state could well be a source of 2 or 3 of them.

Time to Go On the Record

The mid-term election is tomorrow. Time to make my predictions, for good or ill.

I don't have any special knowledge or any special sources. I'm not privy to anything any other American can't find on the web. I'll start from the map of house races posted at Real Clear Politics. At the time of this writing they show 224 seats leaning, likely or safe for the Republican Party, 167 seats leaning, likely or safe for the Democrat Party and 44 rated "toss-up".

If we are to assume that the polling is indeed predictive the cautious prediction would be to split the toss-ups in half. That means an ultimate split of 246 R, 189 D. That would be a gain of 68 for the Republicans. That's already huge, and assuming that they do as they have promised and actually fight rather than try to make friends it's a great day.

A more historically-based prediction says that the party benefiting from a "wave" event gains 70% of seats "in play". If we call all the leaners in play as well as the toss-ups then there are 106 seats "in play" for a gain of 74. That's interesting in as much as it's 1 seat shy of the biggest gain in over a century.

My assessment is based on 3 factors:

1. Most polls this cycle are based on turn-out models which either copy or weigh heavily the 2008 turn-out. I can't seen any reason to believe that is right.
2. "TEA Party" voters are a combination of fiscally-conservative Republicans and fiscally-conservative socially-liberal Independents who voted for BHO and disgruntled conservatives who didn't vote last cycle. All three of these categories are going to turn out en masse. The latter of the three can't be accounted for by a turnout model that is based on 2008 nor 2006.
3. A very high-proportion of the toss-ups and leaners are Democrat incumbents who poll under 50%. Think about that, even using a model that clearly gives the Dems too high a turn out and in no way counts the people who sat out '08 and '06 these Dems aren't polling 50%.

For these reasons I believe that this will be a bigger loss for the Dems than most people are willing to risk predicting.

My prediction is the House will end up 258 R, 177D or a shift of +80 R. That is one seat more than a complete reversal of the '08 result (not of the shift but of the final 2008 257 D, 178 R split.) There it is. I'm on the record. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. Wouldn't be the first time.

Now consider this. What if these toss-ups are all mis-characterized and all 44 of them go to the right. In that case the final split would be 268 R, 167 D or +90 R. I think that's possible, but I wouldn't bet much on it.

It's become a tired phrase, but it's true: It's all about turn-out. My feeling is that, especially in light of observation 2 above, the turn-out is going to blow away many many more Dems than most people are willing to admit.

What about the Senate?

The map I'm looking at right now has 45 R, 48 D+I and 7 toss-ups. The toss-ups are: California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Washington and West Virgina.

Among those there are only 2 in which I hold any doubt. So 50 R and 50 D+I seems the most likely outcome on paper. I would actually like that a lot. I would prefer for the Dems to hold the Senate rather than have Republicans with a bare majority. This is a political calculation. Contrary to popular belief, 51 seats in the Senate is not the condition of being "IN CONTROL". Not at all. There is a reason why the Dems had to steal an election in Minnesota in '08. (BTW Minnesota, congratulations on that Banana-republic election-system you've created for yourselves.) The reason is that since 2000 it's been repeatedly demonstrated that if you have less than 60 seats in the Senate, you are NOT "in control".

I would very much like to see Republicans in control of the Senate, but that is simply not possible in this election cycle. Politically it is a stronger position to not be the party that voters are going to be told every day is "in control" when you are not in fact "in control". Also, I have a lot less confidence in Senate Republicans to be confrontational, and I believe that being confrontational is required to maintain the support of the TEA Party voters through 2012... and they WILL be there in 2012.

So, I actually consider it bad news but I am predicting 51 R, 49 D+I for the Senate. My one hope is that if that happens, Chuck Shumer will do what's best for Chuck Shumer in the most immediate sense and try to peel off a RINO. Honestly I'd like him to go ahead and peel off all four at once, but I'll take what I can get.

Two more issues I haven't discussed here but which I have discussed in the past.

1. Political polling is not an exact science. Not by a long shot. Despite claims of margins of error in the range of +/-3 to +/-4 for the typical opinion poll, they are a lot less reliable than that. Those margin of error claims are based on an assumption that the sampling model is completely accurate. There is in fact no way to assess the accuracy of a sampling model. I know people pretend, but it is simply an impossibility.

This is why you get one polling agency showing a candidate +7 and another showing him -3. The sampling model makes for the difference and they fundamentally cannot both be right. In this cycle the worst offender in oversampling from one side beyond any reason is the polling agency PPP. They are oversampling Dems by pot-head-fantasy quantities.

2. RCP bases its analyses on the average of several polls by different polling agencies. Statisticians should cry "foul" at this. Different agencies use different sampling models so the populations represented by these various polls are in fact quite different. Therefore it is a violation of responsible statistical inference to average the results and attribute any meaning to them.

Moreover this is also very much a matter of "Garbage In/Garbage Out". Once you average in one or two ridiculous samples (like say PPP, Zogby and Newsweek), the number you get out the back end is not merely meaningless, but in fact predictably misleading.

So when you look at some of these Senate race predictions, have a mind to whose polls they are using in their average. Then remind yourself that the average should be suspect to begin with.

Keyword Search This!

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

You may notice that the word "separation" can't be found in there anywhere.

...but you can have been Attorney General of New York and be completely ignorant of that fact.

BMI: The Lie That Keeps on Giving, and Giving, and Giving....

[I originally posted the following almost five years ago. There's not a word of it I'd retract. Enjoy]

Junk science fads come and go. This particular piece of trash is linked over at Hugh Hewitt's blog.

It is a pretty snazzy presentation purporting to document an "obesity epidemic" based solely on the rediculous statistic known as "Body Mass Index" or BMI. According to Mark Twain there are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics. BMI is the latter two.

BMI is a ratio of Mass to the square of Height done in [of course] SI "units" kg/meter^2. That's all it is, Mass over Area. What does that tell us about obesity? Nothing at all. Really, it makes no discrimination between fat mass and non-fat mass. Someone please explain to me how a statistic that contains zero information about the subject's quantity of body fat can be used to deduce obesity? [Don't bother, that's rhetorical.]

Let me give you an example: when Arnold won Mr. Universe he was 6'0" tall, weighed in at roughly 225 lbs. and had approximately 4% body fat. That gives him a BMI of 30.5 at the time. Was he obese? According to the proponents of BMI, emphatically YES.

See the disconnect? Ever seen the Odessa/Permian football team? Guess what? Every strapping young man in their entire line count in the alleged "obesity epidemic". I call shenanigans!

I forgive Hugh for not being a scientist, but enough with this horse dung already. It doesn't take a professional medical researcher to see what a crock it is as an obesity statistic.

The obesity crisis has become the bandwagon for people who expect the government research grant spigot to be open wide over their mouths. Worst of all there are some who use this debate to advocate that the government impose fad pseudo-science "healthy eating" uniformly across our society. Such authoritarianism goes hand in glove with socialised medicine.

Such advocates are happy to blur the reality with misleading statistics because if they didn't they couldn't credibly claim any kind of emergency (national or otherwise) exists.

The Mean Value Theorem on Why You Must Vote Against Tax Increases

Today the State of Arizona was kind enough to offer me the option of voting against a "temporary" tax increase. The argument is that the State needs greater revenues to balance the budget and that therefore, they claim, higher tax rates are desirable.

Of course, their argument is specious. I still remember calculus well enough to understand that any function that is zero at two points but known to be positive in the interval bounded by those points, will have a maximum value in that interval. This is due to the Mean Value Theorem. As a consequence it is not necessarily so that higher tax rates mean higher revenues.

It is necessarily so that a tax rate of zero creates tax revenue of zero. Likewise, a tax rate of 100% will collect zero revenue as well. This second point is a bit more subtle, but ultimately inarguable. In the real world you'll never successfully tax any ongoing activity at 100%.

Those observations lead to the "Laffer Curve" which the left hates as much as any other part of reality. At the same University where I learned about the Mean Value Theorem I had a Macroeconomics TA deride the Laffer Curve as a fiction. All I could say to him was "didn't do well in Calculus then, eh?"

In my lifetime reductions in tax rates have lead to growth in revenues, and we are by no means in an era of low taxes. Americans today are taxed at greater total rates than at any time in 30 years, and we are about to experience the greatest increase in federal taxation in the history of the nation.

Any jurisdictions that want to increase revenues need to be reducing taxes at this time. Politicians who claim to want to increase revenues by raising tax rates are either liars or innumerate (usually both).