Excused Lame

Professor Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics has written a book entitled “A More Perfect Constitution” with 23 proposals for revising the Constitution in order “to restore equity for ordinary citizens” and reform “outmoded provisions.”

Among these is this proposal:

Expand the Senate to 136 members to be more representative: Grant the 10 most populous states 2 additional Senators, the 15 next most populous states 1 additional Senator, and the District of Columbia 1 Senator.

Professor Sabato explains this proposal further (the emphasis is his):

In the early years of the Republic, the population ratio of the most populated state, Virginia, and the least populated state, Delaware, was 12 to 1. In 2004 that ratio was an incredible 70 to 1 between California and tiny Wyoming. Therefore, the current Senate is absurdly skewed in the direction of the small states. Theoretically, if the twenty-six smallest states held together on all votes, they would control the U.S. Senate, with a total of just under 17 percent of the country’s population!

Additionally, on most crucial policy votes, such as the Iraq resolution example that opened this section, the arcane rules of the Senate permit 41 of the 100 senators to prevent a final vote on the floor by means of a filibuster–that is, continuous debate. Therefore, just 21 states can provide the 41 senators necessary to block action. The 21 most lightly populated states comprise a mere 11.2 percent of the nation’s population as the Senate is currently constituted.

The key to keep in mind is that under the Constitution’s bicameral system for the legislature, nothing passes without Senate assent. Therefore, the Congress has a one-house veto on legislation, and to control the Senate is to control the legislative outcome, and indeed much of what the federal government actually does. James Madison foresaw this dilemma, and he vigorously argued, during the Constitutional Convention, for proportional representation by population in the Senate, not just the House. Madison‘s fears have been validated as the gap between small and large states has grown to the point that states with fifty-one times the population as others have the same representation.

Let’s forget for a moment that the smaller states ratifying such an amendment would be like the turkeys voting for Thanksgiving and examine Professor Sabato’s contention that population/representation disparities have grown. In truth, the Senate has always been “absurdly skewed in the direction of the small states” to an extent little different from the present.

Professor Sabato’s own University of Virginia has helpfully put historical census data online. Just after the 1790 census, with Vermont and Kentucky admitted as states, a majority of Senators (16 of 30) came from states with 24% of the population. Fifty years later, 28 of 52 Senators came from states with 26% of the population. In 1900, 46 of 90 Senators came from states with just 19% of the population. And if you think that today’s 70 to 1 ratio of the populations of California and Wyoming is bad, a century ago the ratio between New York’s population and that of Nevada was an incredible 172.

How troubling have these disparities been in the history of the Republic. 37 states have been admitted to the Union since the Constitution was established. Most were admitted with sparse populations relative to those of the larger states. In some cases the debate over their admittance has been controversial: over issues of slavery (Missouri, Texas, Kansas), over religion (Utah), over economic viability and remoteness (Alaska) and because of out-and-out racism (Hawaii). But that admitting a territory as a state would increase the skew that Professor Sabato describes has never, as far as I know, been a bone of contention.

If this disparity is really a problem, the less constitutionally subversive solution would be to divide larger states into a number of smaller ones, just as West Virginia and Kentucky were split from Virginia and Maine was hived off Massachusetts.

And yet the population of states waxes and wanes. Pennsylvania, which had 36 representatives between 1913 and 1933, is down to 19 and will probably lose more after the 2010 census. At the beginning of World War II, Florida had just 5 representatives; now it has 25. Who knows? Maybe there’s hope for Wyoming yet.

The Tom Buchanan of the ’90’s talks about his wife, Daisy:

Former President Clinton says his wife is a “world-class genius” when it comes to improving the lives of others…

Calling the ability to help others the most important quality in a president, Clinton first compared the successes of his administration in creating jobs and other areas to the failures of the Bush administration before finally turning the focus to his wife, a New York senator.

“The reason she ought to be president, over and above her vision and her plans is that she has proven in every position she has ever had in life, whether it was in elected office or not, that she is a world-class genius in making positive changes in other people’s lives,” he said.

Who could he be thinking of? People like Webb Hubbell, Susan McDougald, Vincent Foster, Billy Dale?…

Once again, Michael von Blowhard slobbers over teenage girls.

Six years and one week ago, I started a blog – at a time when there were few around – called “A Dog’s Life.” About two years ago, in a fit of melancholy, I not only deleted the blog but did everything I could to destroy all the archives.

With the Internet, though, nothing seems to be fully extinguished. Thanks to Alexa and it’s Wayback Machine, I saw some of the old posts. Needless to say, lots were dreck but some were pretty good. That, and a visit to my brother’s over Thanksgiving where I met some folks who used to enjoy my blog and wondered why I stopped, impelled me to start again.

A new name for the blog seemed in order, as “A Dog’s Life” is now being used elsewhere. Sadly, I was strongly discouraged from using the splendid “International Jew Banker.” And so we’re “Excused Lame.” I hope you’ll stop by and get something good out of what’s here.

A new report now says that the Mozart effect is a fraud (via Terry Teachout). For you hip urban professionals: no, playing Mozart for your designer baby will not improve his IQ or help him get into that exclusive pre-school. He’ll just have to be admitted into Harvard some other way.

Of course, we’re all better off for listening to Mozart purely for the pleasure of it. However, one wonders that if playing Mozart sonatas for little Hillary or Jason could boost their intelligence, what would happen if other composers were played in their developmental time?

• Liszt effect: Child speaks rapidly and extravagantly, but never really says anything important.
• Raff effect: Child becomes a bore.
• Bruckner effect: Child speaks very slowly and repeats himself frequently. Gains reputation for profundity.
• Wagner effect: Child becomes a megalomaniac. May eventually marry his sister.
• Mahler effect: Child continually screams – at great length and volume – that he’s dying.
• Schoenberg effect: Child never repeats a word until he’s used all the other words in his vocabulary. Sometimes talks backwards. Eventually, people stop listening to him. Child blames them for their inability to understand him.
• Babbitt effect: Child gibbers nonsense all the time. Eventually, people stop listening to him. Child doesn’t care because all his playmates think he’s cool.

It can scarcely escape my notice that many of the libertarian bloggers I read aren’t the religious type. Fine, I’m not going to be like, you know, judgmental about it. I do get a little griped, though, when it crosses the line from non-belief to active hostility to those who are believers. Even here there are degrees.

As I’ve said, I think the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment combined with the free-exercise clause which follows, as well as the no-religious-test clause in Article VI were extremely wise, though I think it’s because religion is corrupted by association with the state. What concerns me about the Katha Pollitts in this country is that they want the state from which religion is to be separated to grow ever larger. Combined with the coercive power of the state, this can serve to push religion out of public life altogether. Already we’ve seen attacks on the conscience clauses of religiously-affiliated hospitals.

Tell you what, Katha. I’ll respect a strict interpretation of the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment if you’ll respect a strict interpretation of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments and the free-exercise clause of the First. Deal?

Katha Pollitt has a fit of anti-religious mania (via Protein Wisdom):

Just think of the damage religious mania (combined, as it tends to be, with nationalism and patriarchy) has wrought around the globe this year, the first of the new millennium–the World Trade Center attack, the Taliban, suicide bombers in Israel versus yet more settlements on the West Bank. And that’s not even mentioning our own home-grown fanatics, like the recently apprehended fugitive Clayton Lee Waagner, who threatened to murder forty-two abortion clinic workers and who is the main suspect in some 550 anthrax-hoax letters to clinics, or the mainstreaming of conservative religious views, as in the explosion of abstinence-only sex education and theologically motivated restrictions on stem-cell research.

Hope you didn’t miss anything there, Katha! Well, let’s try a little experiment in substituting terms and see what you think…

Just think of the damage socialism (combined, as it tends to be, with state power and coercion) has wrought around the globe this century, the last of the old millennium – the gulag, the Great Leap Forward, the mass slaughter in Cambodia under Pol Pot. And that’s not even mentioning our home-grown adherents, like Alger Hiss and the Rosenburgs, who sold the secrets of their country to those dedicated to destroying it, or the spread of multiculturalism and postmodernism in our universities, and in the explosion of government regulation, clean-water laws, and politically-motivated restrictions on land-use.

I think I’d be deafened by the hysterical shrieks from Katha and company comparing me to a bad, bad man who used to be the junior senator from Wisconsin.

I said I had no business doing this! Effectively, my time to add things to this blog runs from about 4:00 AM, when I usually get up, to 5:30 AM, when I start my morning chores: letting the indoor dogs out to exercise, preparing breakfast for Miss Possum and her puppies, making coffee, waking my lovely bride up, getting showered and dressed, making my lovely bride’s breakfast, and getting out the door. Not being self-employed or having an academic position, I can’t do anything at work, of course, and my lovely bride customarily uses the computer in the evening. I’ve got lots to say, but no time to put it down coherently. Expect more later though.

Now I’m off to feed the dogs in the kennel their evening hot dinner…

The French ambassador to the United Kingdom is said to be in deep merde for his comments describing Israel in the same terms. And I thought he was just reflecting the official views of the French government!

Uh oh. John Rockwell is retiring as editor of the Sunday Arts and Leisure section of the New York Times, as reported in the New York Observer.

The root cause of the upheaval, Mr. Rockwell said, is that Howell Raines wants to change The Times’s cultural coverage.”I found out Howell Raines wanted to take this section in a new direction, which, I might add, is perfectly within his rights as executive editor,” he said. “Howell wants to take it more in a populist direction, more popular culture.”

 So anyone with an interest in the high arts will find even less coverage, while the pages will be filled with more Whitney and Britney. Next, the Book Review analyzes the complete works of Jackie Collins…

Editorialists are shocked – shocked! – that a speech by the publisher of the Sacramento Bee was heckled. This prompted one letter writer to ask whether these comments would have appeared if David Horowitz had been similarly howled off.

Silly fellow. To leftists, conservatives should have no rights. Controversial comments by David Horowitz? “Hate speech,” therefore not constitutionally protected (“no free speech for fascists”). Subpoenas to The American Spectator for minutes of editorial meetings? What they were doing was “not journalism,” therefore not constitutionally protected. Which illustrates an unattractive feature of leftists: their “defining away” of viewpoints with which they disagree with a view to suppressing them.

My lovely bride bought for me a six-volume set of “Famous American Statesmen and Orators,” published in 1902. Reading these speeches one is struck by the majesty of the language. How can one not be stirred by words such as these?

Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as “What is all this worth?” nor those other words of delusion and folly, “Liberty first and Union afterwards”; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, – Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseperable!– Daniel Webster, 1830

Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.– William Jennings Bryan, 1896

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.–Abraham Lincoln, 1863

Then read William Jefferson Clinton’s Dimbleby Lecture. I’m reminded of the scene in Airplane! when Robert Hayes’s seatmate pours gasoline over himself and lights a match rather than listen any longer. Words like these:

Think about how we all organise our lives in little boxes – man, woman, British, American, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Tory, Labour, New Labour, Old Labour, up, down – you know, everything in the world. I like red ties, I got a blue shirt on, you laugh about it, think about everything you define yourself by. Our little boxes are important to us. And indeed it is necessary, how could you navigate life if you didn’t know the difference between a child and an adult, an African and an Indian, a scientist and a lawyer? We have to organise that, but somewhere along the way, we finally come to understand that our life is more than all these boxes we’re in. And that if we can’t reach beyond that, we’ll never have a fuller life

spoken over the familiar Clintonian ground bass of “me, me, me, me.”

Mr. Clinton was certainly glib, but – quick! – can you remember one notable quote from his years as President? Apart from the ridiculous ones, of course?

Jekyll or Hyde?

Number 22 issued today.

Charles Krauthammer says that the U.S. should concentrate on doing the fighting while leaving peacekeeping to others.

The Canadians invented it in the late 1950s and have completely reorganized their armed forces for that role.

Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, Canal du Nord, Dieppe, Normandy. And now it’s all come to this? Poor Canada!