Ignorance and Insanity

“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”

~1984

Federal debt as of 12/05/11: $15,068,133,903,969.13

Federal debt as of 12/04/12: $16,347,055,651,380.32

(Source: TreasuryDirect.gov) 

That's roughly $1.3 trillion in debt over the last calender year.  In Washington, our President is absolutely demanding tax hikes on the "top 2%" which will supposedly raise $1.6 trillion over ten years.  That's $160 billion per year, assuming of course rich people do not abandon this country.  The United Kingdom just jacked up taxes on their rich and now collect $11 billion less in revenue than they did before.  

$1.3 trillion minus $160 billion is still well above a trillion dollars in the hole per year. 

This is not a serious plan for a very serious issue.  This is purely about attacking innocent civilians who can only be accused of being successful.  And our electorate put Obama back into office purely for this politics of envy. 

No wonder Washington is so dysfunctional. 

The truth is, we are going bankrupt.  The President's plan is not even aimed at this problem but at attacking people he despises for no particularly good reason.    And the American people are so damn ignorant that they can't even do the basic arithmetic to find out his glorious plan leaves us a trillion short for the upcoming year. 

It's not so much that the future isn't bright as that it's horrific.  And it is incredibly frustrating to realize my future is tied to this ship where the captain is a petty minded fool and the rest of the passengers are convinced the ship cannot sink. 

Are These Truths Self Evident?

The bedrock of this nation's conception of justice has been summed up with Jefferson's beautiful phrase 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

But our nation has changed greatly over the past 236 years.  Among those changes is the nation's lack of faith in Jefferson's Creator.  Now, I will not condemn that change, for as an agnostic I too hold doubts of any such Creator existing.  Any honest person will note, however, without the Creator, the source of our endowment becomes unclear, raising the question: are we endowed with any such rights at all? 

I have been sifting through the works of various philosophers of positive and natural law in search of a solid footing on which such rights might rest, but the search has largely been in vain.  A ridiculous amount of verbiage is spent to create ludicrously few solid concepts, but this much I see:

There is no natural law or natural rights in the sense that "Good" requires those laws to be and anything in contradiction is not actually law.  "Good" itself has no objective existence.  Positive laws, those that are actually imposed by men on other men, do exist, no matter how poorly expressed or even insane they may be.  Laws are judged not in objective abstract terms of how will they coincide with the philosophical concept of law but in whether it aligns with one's political philosophy.  As atrocious as it seems to me, Nazi law was in fact a legal system in that it allowed those subscribing to Nazi ideology to fulfill their goals.  We may condemn those ideologies and their attendant jurisprudence, but we cannot point to a Higher Power that condemns them.  If God is dead, so is the Devil; there will be no retribution on evil men who live out long and happy lives.  

This fact has driven philosophers I otherwise respect into flights of fancy.  Friedrich Hayek, for example, condemns positive law as the rule of those who make the rules rather than dispassionate, impersonal law.  Hayek (and my) political philosophy may very well depend on limiting the power of those making the laws, but all of the rules ever written to that effect are in vain if nobody is there to enforce them.  In any democracy, it is easy to bribe a segment of the populace by promising the redistribution of the wealth of another segment's.  Those of us who see this as both morally wrong and economically harmful to most of us (even many in the bribed party) face Plato's daunting task of convincing the tyrant with the ring of Gyges that he personally would be better off doing good, even in comparison to doing evil with absolute impunity.  

Plato did not have a particularly good answer.  Neither the Myth of Er nor the Creator have much sway these days and pushing them would be a pathetic Nobel Lie.  I believe respecting the life, liberty, and property of all citizens it he only way to preventing our government from being an organ of theft and corruption to benefit whichever party currently occupies the Capitol.  But so long as some citizens are willing to be bribed with the wealth and happiness of others while most remain ignorant and apathetic, those on the throne making our laws will reap the benefits of Gyges' ring.  All appeals to natural law will fail, as those corrupt governors are following the natural law of their ideologies.  The only appeal that will demand their attention is the use of force. 

A Congress of Common Men?

It is "common wisdom" that our Congress lacks truly common men and women, that those who represent us are rarely drawn among a representative strata of the society they represent.  If only the more average citizens could be elected, these patriots would work wonders for the common good rather than putting politics or certain segments of society first.  I find plenty wrong with this commonly held belief, but let's put aside the supposed conspiracy keeping average folk out and the intellectual weakness of the "common good" concept.  Even if a majority of such working class heroes were elected, little would be done of use.  To create change, Congress must legislate.  This is not a patchwork of unrelated laws but rather an immense set of legislation and regulation running into hundreds of thousands of pages, dealing with hundreds of agencies and trillions of dollars, exclusive of contracts with the private sector.  Senator John Q. Public has no chance of effecting meaningful change in this labyrinth he cannot navigate. 

Perhaps more frightening, Representative Silverspoon N. Mouth, with his years of public service and elite education afforded him by his privileged status in society, cannot comprehend this interminable Gordian Knot, either.  That's a frightening thought: nobody actually understands the law.  The most studious lawyers among us only become experts in parts of that law. 

If there are so many laws written in a language only a few can understand, any pretense of our laws being subject to democratic approval should be dropped.  Our elections are never based on the laws passed by politicians but rather on whether the quality of life has seemed to improve or not; most people could no more connect the impact of laws to actual life than they could read the mind of God himself. 

In their ignorance, people call for more regulation from the government.  It has nothing to do with having a sound understanding of economics, finances, or the law, but rather a primordial gut response that the people in charge need to "do something" to prevent bad economic outcomes.  Again, the people in Congress hardly understand the law, much less our entire economic system, but because of political pressure they feel compelled to create some new law or another.  Since the folks in Congress do not understand the laws well enough to change anything in a meaningful way, they turn to the experts in those particular areas of laws to be impacted by the new regulation.  

Those people are called lobbyists.  Their entire point in existing is to understand segments of the law relevant to their interest and write proposed changes that will change those segments in their (or their employer's) favor.  The more we regulate, the more complicated the mess becomes, and the more power lobbyists end up with due to this black hole of legal information. 

"It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood"

~Federalist 62 (I recommend reading it in its entirety)

Test The Test

I'm currently reading Teaching America: The Case for Civic Education, edited by David Feith with contributors ranging across the political spectrum.  A single theme is dominant in each work: civic literacy is unacceptably low for a republican government like ours to function correctly.  Study after study has revealed America's profound and distressing ignorance of its own history and Constitution.  The rule of the People is based on the notion that the People will be a strong check on government abuse.  That, however, requires the People to first know that abuse is even going on (current events), to understand the proper sphere any particular public official operates in with corresponding powers and limits (the Constitution and attending laws), with a solid understanding of what is right and wrong in politics to begin with (political theory).  Public schools fail on nearly all of these categories; those who learn them do so on their own initiative.  

I think everyone knows this.  It's not even really controversial.  And yet, we continue down the same path, perhaps more out of apathy than anything else.  I've pointed out my discontent with New York's history curriculum before.  It is a creature of bureaucracy, more bent on allowing quantification of student results than improving student knowledge.  Recalling for two years arcane factoids and writing a vapid essay qualifies as acceptable in New York.  This hardly lives up to the lofty goals of Social Studies our state's Department of Education lays forth: 

Courses of study should give students the knowledge, intellectual skills, civic understandings, and dispositions toward democratic values that are necessary to function effectively in American society. Ultimately, social studies instruction should help students assume their role as responsible citizens in America’s constitutional democracy and as active contributors to a society that is increasingly diverse and interdependent with other nations of the world. For example, students should be able to use the knowledge and skills acquired through social studies courses to solve problems and make reasoned decisions in their daily lives. Social studies courses should provide students with the background to conduct research in order to cast informed votes, with the skills to place conflicting ideas in context, and with the wisdom to make good judgments in dealing with the tensions inherent in society such as the enduring struggle to find the proper balance between protecting the rights of the individual and promoting the common good.

Not having a high school diploma in this era is an economic death sentence; failing to pass the history Regents Exams bars graduation.  When the room has a high proportion of students who may not pass, the only option a teacher realistically has is to focus on those border line cases and do whatever possible to get them to squeak by.  The highest achieving students have to hope there is an AP program in order to receive attention, the lowest students are considered lost, and those border line cases hopefully pass the test.  This hardly helps "students assume their role as responsible citizens in America's constitutional democracy" (most people could not tell you what constitutional democracy means) who will "cast informed votes" (take a look at our voting rate and those who vote on issues rather than personalities) who "conduct research" (The Daily Show constitutes the main source of news for a ridiculously high proportion of Americans). 

Ok, so we're not living up to those lofty goals, but students will at least recall some basic facts from world and U.S. history because they can pass the test, right?  Everyone should be laughing at that thought.  Once the test is passed, the information can be and usually is forgotten, except for those few who found the material interesting; those students generally knew the information prior to taking the class. 

I would love to see a study on how many voting New York residents that passed the Global and United States Regents Exams in high school could pass them again now.  We'll eliminate the essay part and give a passing grade of 30 correct responses to 50 questions.  This is the general rule of thumb as to whether a student will pass the test. A response of 2 out of 5 is required on the essays, which amounts to making some vague statement about the topic at hand that wasn't handed to the student in the written directions.  I would wager good money that less than one in four would pass. 

So, why are we doing this?  We're not creating engaged and thinking citizens.  In the long run, we're not even creating citizens who recall factoids from the class. 

We do it because we're in a rut.  Getting out of that rut would require a great deal of work and squarely facing many unpleasant truths, among them that many students do not have the aptitude to understand our government well enough to hold them accountable.  Some will never get it, no matter how much education you throw at them.  We have a strong egalitarian streak in this nation and the notion of a natural aristocracy sets many teeth on edge.  Nevertheless, it exists, and we would be better served by focusing squarely on those with the talent than in wasting our time getting uninterested and incapable students to squeak by a test that has no bearing on long term civic literacy. I mean no disrespect to those who do not have the mental aptitude to govern as voters; the theory of multiple intelligences is one I happen to agree with.  Those with the ability to become mechanics should have that ability improved and polished rather than ignored while becoming frustrated as their intelligence is measured by some other standard.  But just as I don't want somebody who does not understand mechanics (like myself) working on my car, so I don't want those without understanding of government working on that, either. 

I don't know if we'll ever be ready for that as a nation.  Until we do, though, we will continue to fail to develop potential minds by wasting resources on those without the potential.  The first step will be removing these damn state tests and the best way of removing them is to prove how worthless they are.  Some institute or college should be looking into this.  If the History Regents are so important for students to pass that their futures can be ruined without satisfactory performance, then the test itself should be tested to see if the state standards are being met by voting age citizens who successfully completed New York's curriculum.  If there's no link between passing the tests and being informed (even about the exact same material), then the test serves no purpose whatsoever.  

Let's test the test. 

We Are Awake In A Nightmare

Over at RedState, Erik Erickson has a post arguing that John Robert's otherwise unaccountable defection is a blessing in disguise for the Tea Party.  They will arise from their slumber and whoop up on the Democrats in November, leading to the repeal of ObamaCare.  He argues, " A giant woke in 2009. It went back to sleep thinking it had saved the republic in 2010. It’s awake now and I don’t think it is going back to sleep."

I respectfully dissent.  

For starters, even if Erickson is correct about the ObamaCare ruling revving up support for libertarian beliefs and elects enough Tea Party politicians to Washington to overturn ObamaCare, it will take all of one election to undo that and bring back the mandate.  Additionally, more mandates may be coming down the line from our statist foes.  As I argued in March, we had to win that case to keep Pandora's Box from opening.  I erred in believing the Commerce Clause would be the main argument (as did every lower court judge, regardless of their vote on the legality of ObamaCare), but the now solidified "constitutionality" of mandates is a reality.  Every election is now a battle to keep mandates out of our lives, and sadly we will not win them all.  The expansion of the federal government into our lives will accelerate regardless of the outcome in November. 

But Harrison, I don't believe our boys will reach that wall (in November). 

Nearly every argument conservatives and libertarians make about the damaging impact of Obama's policies on our lives is just too complicated for the average Joe or Jolene to follow.  It's far simpler to believe the grocery store is just jacking up prices to make profit than to understand how low interest borrowing by the federal government increases the money supply, decreasing the value of money down the pipe but not for those initially receiving that spending.  It's pretty damn tempting for people suffering in this economy to take a "free" entitlement of any sort, especially when the real downside won't hit for another few years or even decades (think Social Security, Medicare, ObamaCare, etc.).  It's too damn real out there for most folks not to want some great leader to magically pull us from the morass; they will follow that hope even when their reason tells them our leaders are egotistical, corrupt, and blatantly incompetent.  You can literally point this out to people: ask them if they think Congress is competent and generally not corrupt.  They will tell you no.  Their polling is usually in the low teens.  Ask those same people if Congress should be more involved in "fixing" our problems.  You won't like their response.  It's doublethink; the cognitive dissonance should be deafening, but it isn't.  We should throw more power to the corrupt and incompetent to fix our problems. 

We see it in Europe.  Nobody at all wants to face the fact that most nations over there are bankrupt and need to cut spending immediately.  Our people will be no different. 

Us Tea Party folks may very well awake to find ourselves in a living nightmare from which we cannot escape.  Erickson says they fell asleep after 2010; maybe so, maybe no.  But their impact in 2010 was not particularly great.  We may have slowed down the expansion of government some, but we are not reversing it, and 2010 was very likely our high water mark in terms of support. 

I am becoming increasingly convinced that the only options before us are secession (highly, highly unlikely) and going into the thousand years of darkness Reagan warned us of.  If the Tea Party cannot put government growth into reverse, then that second outcome is inevitable so long as we stay within our current political system. 

If we are serious about our stance on personal liberty and limited government, we will have to start taking a hard look at that first option.  But I don't think most people, even within the Tea Party, are that serious.  When given the choice between fighting for those liberties we supposedly hold sacred, putting our lives, fortune, and sacred honor on the line, or maintaining our admittedly shrinking comfort in the land of soft despotism, you'll find the forces of revolution being mighty small. 

I'll continue struggling against this parental tyranny because it is wrong and I cannot quietly abide what I see as wrong.  But I do not continue this struggle with a belief that it will work, at least within our current political framework.  And I'm pretty certain I'm not alone in that. 

We are awake.  The nightmare isn't a dream.  The monsters are real.  And we are now very, very naked before them. 

Sorry, Mr. Freedland

Reading Jonathan Freedland at The Guardian today is both amusing and painful.  You can tell Freedland is not a conservative/libertarian type, but he keeps skirting with their conclusions before fleeing them once their impact dawns upon him.  His problem, like so many on the Left, is that he takes democracy to be the best form of government by the people, rather than a republic governed by laws and respecting certain rights regardless of what a majority may say.  As Freedland says, democracy is like a car; if the people vote right or left, the country should respond accordingly.  

I'm going to ignore Egypt because it was never a democratic government to begin with.  They had a popular uprising, but no plan of action for establishing control afterwards.  Freedland's comments on Greece are illuminating, however.  

The point is, the answer is not in the Greeks' own hands. They are subject to the decisions of others, over whom they have no democratic control. Fair enough, you might say, since the Greeks are demanding the help of others – in the form of cash to bail out their ailing economy. But the effect is the same. For the Greeks, the ancient, animating promise of democracy – that it allows a people to be the master of their own fate – no longer holds.

But, Mr. Freedland, the Greeks were masters of their fate.  This is their fate.   The is the fate of the welfare state.  

Crudely, it means that governments whose prime task used to be giving things to people now have to take things away from them. 

Government cannot give without first taking away, Mr. Freedland.  Up until now, the welfare state has subsisted on taxing the rich and borrowing the remainder.  Now Europe can't borrow.   Europe has promised so many things to people and couched them in terms of "rights" but now cannot deliver.  They have run out of other people's money.  

Do not be surprised.  Conservatives and libertarians have been predicting this for decades.  So long as politicians can use the money of some people to bribe others, they will, even if it means promising more than there actually is.  A supranational solution does not exist for the same reason: mathematics will rule against you every time.  You cannot give more than there actually is, and how much there is depends on how much people are willing to produce, and how much they will produce depends on how much those people will get to keep.  

 

Politicians suddenly look small. The big forces that shape our lives – whether the euro or the bond markets – are increasingly beyond the reach of any national government.

For some of us, the abilities of government always looked small; they created a temporary boom with a gigantic bust.  Welcome to the club.  

All of the Rules Apply

"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

~Rule 13, Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals

"Never go outside the experience of your people."

~Rule 2, Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals

Scott Walker won a decisive victory over Tom Barrett and the public service unions last night.  Given the raucous protests in 2011 from Madison to the Occupy movement and the supposed retreat of the Tea Party, folks on the Left are wondering how Walker could possibly have own.  The straw they are latching onto is that Walker's spending advantage, bolstered by the Citizens United decision, is weak.  Ask yourself, when was the last time you voted for a candidate because of how much money they spent?  Have those 30 second ads ever swung your vote?  Possessing a large war chest is more often a symptom of popularity rather than its cause. 

So what went wrong for the unions and their OWS prototype protest?  They followed Saul Alinsky's most famous rule to a T.  Scott Walker was their target, they painted him as evil incarnate (often literally), and made it clear that supporting the governor was morally unacceptable to anyone who would listen.  The negative rule 13 tactic has rarely been carried out as ruthlessly as against Walker.  It pumped up union members and liberals to nearly hysterical levels.  They remained focused on portraying collective bargaining as a basic human right to stay within Alinsky's second rule, to not go outside the experience of your people. 

But those folks misread Alinsky and America.  Middle class Wisconsinites were the people to be organized and they play by rules very different from those of the radical Left.  Trashing the Capitol and war monuments, screaming obscenities, drum circles; these are poison to average John Q. Public III.  He is revolted by them.  "The failure of many of our younger activists to understand the art of communication has been disastrous.  Even the most elementary grasp of the fundamental idea...would have ruled out attacks on the American flag."  The OWS types can scream that they are the 99% until they are blue in the face, it just isn't so.  Both the Wisconsin Democrats and OWS made the incredible mistake of assuming Middle America resembles the protesters!

What does Middle America actually see when it comes to Scott Walker?  A challenge to a privileged class.  Note not "the" privileged class, but certainly a class with privilege.  My step-dad would fit in with most middle class Americans.  He is 59 and is a supervisor of a few dozen employees, but started decades ago at the bottom.  Retirement is a fading dream for him; likely as not, he will work until he physically cannot out of financial necessity.  There is no love for Wall Street bankers, that's for damn sure, but they rarely show up in our part of the world.  What burns his ass on a daily basis are "public servants" complaining about not getting a bigger raise, chipping in for their own health care, or the travesty of retirement at 55.  

Again, my step-dad is 59, retirement is a fading dream, his property taxes are skyrocketing to pay for others to retire at 55...and they are ungrateful. 

The wonder isn't so much that Walker won as it is that Middle America has not smashed this machine until now.  "Fairness" should never leave the mouth of anyone retiring before 60 on a public pension, if not for moral reasons than just out of basic tactical considerations.  But the unions and the Democrats pushed this issue.  They were resoundingly defeated and every governor in the nation facing budget troubles (nearly all of them) knows now that public sector unions are not invincible machines.  They can be beaten, and more importantly, there is a huge groundswell that wants to see them beaten that extends far beyond the Koch Brothers. 

If Republicans are smart, they will tie the President to these unpopular public unions and force him to declare where his loyalties really lie.  If the Democrat Party renounces their top financial and organizational support structure, both could find themselves estranged from each other and significantly weakened for years to come.  Their strength lies in reinforcing each other; the unions provide votes and cash for the Democrats, who in turn provide privileges to the unions.  But apart from each other, they both lose.  The unions are unquestionably unpopular and it is easy to point out their privileges to those paying the bill.  Let's make Obama lose his union support or that of those disgusted with union privileges.  I think this is something we absolutely must focus on.  Unemployment and the bad economy hurt Obama for sure, but they are complicated enough for the average American or Harvard economist not to fully understand, which makes assigning responsibility difficult.  Supporting union privileges, on the other hand, is straightforward. 

Perhaps the most important takeaway is that the Left is in a bubble, a point noted by many conservative bloggers.  The Tea Party is extreme, public pensions are popular, Walker was weak, ObamaCare is popular and unquestionably constitutional, Occupy would play a large role within our political system, etc.  It's frustrating to deal with somebody who just cannot see a damn wall in front of their own face, who is adamant that the wall doesn't exist.  But I'm long past done trying to convince those people of their own weaknesses (though I still love creating cognitive dissonance wherever possible).  Keep telling yourself that people who face a lifetime of working for no retirement will support paying higher taxes to hear the recipients of tax money, retiring with color still in their hair, bitch about how hard the public servant's life is.  Don't work within the experience of the very people you need to convince.  When you skip right to Rule 13, it is your own cause you freeze, personalize, and polarize.  We'll make every election a Pickett's Charge in which you assault our fortified positions with actual Middle America. 

Ready to Go

I'm #ReadytoGo stand in the unemployment line in Obama's economy. 

I'm #ReadytoGo cry after not being able to find a job after 27 weeks in Obama's economy.

I'm #ReadytoGo blow up a bridge to support the 99%! (OWS version)

The Justice Department is not #ReadytoGo prosecute those domestic terrorists.

#ReadytoGo beat he hell out of random white people over Trayvon Martin.

The Justice Department is not #ReadytoGo deal with that, either.  

#ReadytoGo meet my maker since I've been handed back to the Chinese Government. (Chen version)

These guns are #ReadytoGo to some Mexican drug cartels!

I'm horny and #ReadytoGo. (various politicians version)

We're #ReadytoGo on yet another taxpayer funded vacation! (Obama family version)

Obama's #ReadytoGo on yet another taxpayer funded campaign trip.

We're #ReadytoGo get some more Stimulus money! (various Obama cronies version)

I'm #ReadytoGo mock Obama for his Twitter incompetence. 

And since I'm #ReadytoGo look for more work, I guess I'm #ReadytoGo bang my head against a wall. 

I do hope Obama is #ReadytoGo come January. 

Free Speech

Eugene Volokh has a post up about a proposed Constitutional amendment the effectively denies corporations the rights of the Constitution.  I'm trying to put my objection to this idea nicely, but it is hard to do because those proposing this amendment are themselves not being particularly nice.  Let's not set a precedent for banning the speech of those we dislike.  Because someday it may be your speech being banned "for the good of democracy" or some such crap. 

Also, it's not like if corporations couldn't spend money in elections, government would all of a sudden be focused on what is "the common good."  For starters, Citizens United was in 2010; whining about the unequal spending of political money dates further back than that.  Also, it's idiotically simplistic to believe there is a "common good" that is only hidden by corporate political money.  We'd argue and bitch about what is, just like the ancient Greeks and Romans did.  Just like the "ancient" Americans did. 

I do not believe political speech should ever be banned, regardless of who is saying it or what they have to say outside of inciting violence.  Corporations have their own interest, sure, but if they are going to be regulated with hundreds of thousands of pages of laws, corporations should have a say in what those laws will be.  I'm disgusted that people are actually arguing that other Americans should be under the threat of law but should not be allowed to voice their opinions on those laws.  

It isn't like all of a sudden political speech will be equal for everyone on a national scale.  There are over 300,000,000 of us; do the math, and you'll find there isn't even enough time for us all to have an equal input into the national debate during a four year presidential term. 

Finally, I'm tired of hearing that the Founding Fathers didn't mean to include people speaking as a group.  The same 1st Amendment that protects speech protects assembly.  It's asinine to believe we get to pick one 1st Amendment right, but only one.  We get them all, in combination with one another.  So if a bunch of us want to get together and put up an ad saying Obama's policies suck for our business, it is our right.  It is our moral right as citizens that under the threat of law.  People that are impacted as a group have every right to speak as a group. 

Those who love the freedom of speech will never tolerate it being limited, because those doing the limiting always have ulterior motives.  If you disagree with someone else, say so, but don't ban what they say. 

Et Tu, Nelson?

“Scalia said [Wednesday] that it was totally unrealistic to read the whole law. Sen. Nelson didn’t think it was too much for the justices to know what they’re talking about when questioning the law’s content,” said Nelson spokesman Jake Thompson. 

I'm just disappointed nobody bothered to ask senator Nelson if HE read the bill.  You know, since he imposed it upon us and all. 

Funny that nobody on the Left is complaining about the four liberal justices who were and remain considered dead locks in favor of ObamaCare.  No, we'll question the independence of the conservative justices who up until this week were considered in play.  And we certainly won't question Kagan's role as Solicitor General when ObamaCare was passed. 

And finally, the four liberals effective took over Donald Verrilli's role once the Solicitor General made it perfectly clear he hadn't done his homework.  But we won't question their independence.  No sir! 

How dare Scalia ask hard questions!  Seriously?