Oregon's proposed new class of terrorists

[Tim May]

On Wednesday, May 21, 2003, at 04:03  PM, Trei, Peter wrote:
> The feeling I get is that Oregon combines the worst of California and
> the 'classic Western' states.
>
> California has a highly intrusive, interventionist government, but this
> is leavened by the liberalism of many of the positions it holds. Thus,
> while California is really bad for some individual rights (such as the
> RKBA), it's fairly libertine on others (such as lifestyles).
>
> In the 'classic Western' states (I'm thinking of Wyoming, Montana,
> Nevada, Idaho, etc, and I don't claim to be really well informed on 
> this),
> while the general population holds pretty rightwing views, this is
> leavened by a strain of semi-libertarianism in the government, in the
> 'don't intevene' sense.
>
> Oregon seems to combine the worst of both, along with none of the
> good points - a highly intrusive California style government, with
> very rightwing views.

My recollection is that Oregon has legalized/recognized homosexual 
"marriage" and "right to die" schemes.

The Willamette Valley, where most of the population is, is fairly 
libertine. Most San Francisco types fit in quite well in Eugene, 
Portland, Beaverton, Corvallis, etc.

The coastal fishing and logging areas are now more dominated by tourism 
and retirement (from California). The eastern half of the state is 
largely high desert, and is sparsely populated.

I would not class Oregon with Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, etc. (and 
Montana is becoming more like California and the Pacific Northwest, as 
wealthy Californians buy ranches and retirement homes there--too cold 
for me, but they like the "Big Sky Country," until too many people move 
in, that is).

I think Ernest Callenbach had it about right when he described the 
region from British Columbia down through most of coastal California as 
"Ecotopia." (Or maybe this was the book called "The Seven Nations of 
North America"...I lent my copy to someone and never saw it again. 
Extreme southern California has more of a Mexican flavor and is dubbed 
"Aztlan" or somesuch word and is lumped in with Arizona, southern 
Nevada, New Mexico, etc.)

The meta-issue is of course that all of these states, and all of the 
nations of the world, have set up machines for producing more and more 
laws and more and more priests to interpret the laws. Didn't we 
basically have enough laws 40 years ago? Granted, some new situations 
came up, and new legislation was needed, but not in proportion to the 
numbers of new laws and the nearly year-round meeting of legislators to 
pass more laws.

The mischief that all the new legislation about Patriot Acts and 
Terrorist Information Awareness and Bill 742 is creating will never be 
undone. The Supreme Court lacks the guts to take on sweeping cases and 
strike down thousands of very similar and very unconstitutional laws 
across the country.

A good example, one of many, being the bullshit about the 
"incorporation doctrine" and whether the Second Amendment prevents 
_states_ from violating the Bill of Rights in the same way--it has been 
accepted--that the states may not establish official churches or deny 
due process, blah blah. Not being a law student, it has always seemed 
clear to me that the states agreed to support the Constitution of the 
United States as a condition for joining the Union and they clearly 
cannot impose their own press censorship, official religions, etc., nor 
can they violate the Fourth Amendment and just raid houses as they 
wish. Nor can their courts ignore jury trial and other constitutional 
issues. So, somehow the Second Amendment is deemed to be 
"unincorporated" (??). How con-veeeenient!

The Supreme Court should issue a simple and concise statement:

"The Second Amendment is no different from the First, Third (quartering 
troops), Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, etc. amendments. Some of the states do 
not seem to have grasped this. And we have been remiss in not making 
this abundantly clear a long time ago. .... We hereby instruct the 
Federal Marshals Service to visit the various prisons in states which 
have gun laws violating the Second Amendment and release the prisoners. 
We further order...and we order...and those officials which ignore this 
order shall be charged...."

But of course the Supreme Court is unwilling to rock the boat. And now 
that we have the Colored Person Slot, the Jewish Person Slot, the 
Female Slot, the Jewish Female Slot, the Italian-American Slot, various 
groups are clamoring for the Queer Slot, the Hispanic Slot, the 
Hispanic Woman Slot, and, of course the Asian Person Slot. Once the 
last of the whitemales has retired, the Supreme Court can be our true 
Rainbow Coalition and the rest of the Bill of Rights can be further 
shredded.

--Tim May

By the way, I usually have my .sig randomly rotated from about 25 of 
them. Look at what just happened to pop up this time:

"The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the
people at large or considered as individuals... It establishes some
rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no
majority has a right to deprive them of." -- Albert Gallatin of the New 
York Historical Society, October 7, 1789