Another Loss for the ACLU

Another Loss for the ACLU

I mentioned several months back my surprise at seeing an Indiana license plate with "In God We Trust" on it--and that I was surprised that the ACLU hadn't filed suit. There is nothing quite as predictable as the ACLU's willingness to file suits over trivial matters. From the April 18, 2008 Indianapolis Star:

A judge has halted a lawsuit over Indiana's popular "In God We Trust" license plate, ruling the state can sell it without charging an extra $15 fee.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana argued that without the fee, the plate was elevated above others bearing messages supporting the environment, education and other causes.

Introduced last year by state law, the "In God We Trust" plate is carried by more than 1.6 million vehicles.

Marion Superior Court Judge Gary Miller's ruling, issued Wednesday, says the plate is different from special group recognition plates that carry the administrative fee. Those often require a contribution to a group or university and require special handling by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

The "In God We Trust" plate, the ruling says, "was designed by a process similar to the Standard Plate, mass-produced like the Standard Plate, and widely distributed like the Standard Plate based on consistently high sales."

Aside from the points that the judge made, I would also point out that if the ACLU chose to sue on the basis that "In God We Trust" doesn't belong on state license plates because it shows a preference for religion, they have a somewhat larger problem in their wallet.

As I have pointed out before, the First Amendment's establishment clause was intended to prevent special preference given to a particular church or denomination. There is simply no historical basis for believing that the intention was to create a separation of church and state, and the evidence is clear that the goal was not to put religion and irreligion on an equal footing.

Corvette Repairs and The Virtues of Living In Idaho

Corvette Repairs and The Virtues of Living In Idaho

I started the Corvette yesterday morning, and it made a far more...aggressive noise than usual. I found myself wondering if perhaps a rock had punched a hole in the muffler.

So I ran into Big O Tires in Eagle, who are a friendly and helpful bunch. They don't do mufflers, but they ran it up on their rack (no charge) to see what the problem might be. It appears that it might have been hitting a big rock, but it wasn't a hole in the muffler. Instead, the flange where the tail pipe is welded to the cross over pipe (the one that goes up and over the rear axle) was cleanly broken. Big O Tires doesn't do mufflers, but I they recommended Boise Muffler in Garden City.

So I drove down to Boise Muffler. I walked into the shop, and the guy behind the counter, Webb (or maybe he stole Webb's shirt) says, "Clayton, what are you doing here?" I checked--no, my employee ID (nerd tag) wasn't showing. It turns out that he goes to the same church, and he knows me--even though I don't know him. (How embarrassing.)

This Boise Muffler, in spite of the name, doesn't do mufflers, so they sent a few blocks away to the other Boise Muffler. An hour and $30 later, they had welded the parts back together and sent me on my way. I wish everything was this easy!

Big O Tires had pointed out that I wasn't just out of tread on the rear tires--cords were showing! Bad news! But it turns out that there are no Michelin Pilots available anywhere in the U.S. at the moment. They are back ordered for Big O, for Tire Rack--at least 6-8 weeks before the next production run in my size.

Fortunately, since I am a notorious cheapskate, I still had the Goodyear Eagles that came off the rear a couple of years ago. They were sufficiently low on tread at the time that driving in wet weather had become...adventuresome, but they still had tread, so I was reluctant to throw them away. My wife has been begging me to get rid of those tires in the corner of the garage, since I wasn't likely to need them.

Anyway, they still had tread on them--instead of exposed cords! So I had Big O put them on the rear wheels. These should last me at least two to three months, all of which will be dry weather--by which time the Michelin Pilots will again be available.

Who Is Keith Russell Judd?

Who Is Keith Russell Judd?

He's one of the choices on the Democratic Presidential primary here in Idaho May 27th--and whether you think Barack Hussein Obama or Mrs. Bill is going to get the nomination, you have to admit that Keith Judd is probably the least likely winner. From the April 16, 2008 Houston Chronicle:

BOISE, Idaho — A federal prison inmate got himself listed on the ballot for Idaho's May 27 primary as a Democratic presidential candidate, the state's top election official said.

Keith Russell Judd is serving time at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Texas for making threats at the University of New Mexico in 1999. He's scheduled for release in 2013.

Judd, 49, qualified for the ballot by submitting a notarized form and paying the required $1,000 fee, state Secretary of State Ben Ysursa said. As a result, Democratic voters will be able to choose between Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Judd.

"We got conned," Ysursa told The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash.

It's Judd's second presidential bid in Idaho, the newspaper said Wednesday. In 2004 he declared as a write-in candidate for president, which requires only the submission of a declaration, and didn't get any votes.

No matter how many votes he gets this time, he won't get any national convention delegates. Idaho's delegates are chosen at party caucuses.

"The good thing is the Democratic presidential primary has absolutely no legal significance," Ysursa said.

Prison officials told the state elections office that Judd sent out about 14 checks to states seeking to get on the presidential election ballot and about half had been returned. He qualified as a write-in candidate in Kentucky, California, Indiana and Florida, but Idaho apparently is the only state where his name will appear on the ballot.

"It's a mockery of the system, and it's too bad that this kind of thing can happen," said Chuck Oxley, a state Democratic Party spokesman.

You don't say.

What Does Divorce Cost?

What Does Divorce Cost?

When I was young, there was a joke to the effect that marriage cost $10 and divorce cost $10,000--it would be better if it was the other way around. Since then, no fault divorce laws mean that divorce is often not dramatically more expensive than getting married. Red Ink In Texas points to some of the social costs of having reduced the individual cost:

$112 Billion

That is a really big big number. That is almost as much as the combined fortunes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. That would pay for nearly half the cost of the return to the moon through 2025 at current funding levels. That number is the conservative estimate of how much divorce and unwed parenting costs taxpayers PER YEAR according to the Institute for American Values. This study does not include the costs of abortion, which in 2006, the US government paid out over $305 million dollars to Planned Parenthood alone. Nor does it include the costs of cervical cancer treatment, STD treatment, condoms, birth control pills, and IUD giveaways, and all the other hidden costs of the sexual revolution. Our society has forgotten what society exists to do. Society exists, in all it's forms, to promote the one common thread of human existence. The family. The family is the one common feature of every human society from time immemorial. It took three and a half million years to get to where we are and to build up human society, it has taken less than 50 years to damned near destroy it. How did we manage to do that? Liberalism in it's many guises. Birth control freed people to have sex without consequence (usually). But since birth control was imperfect, accidents happened. Some of those women having sex without consequence did so outside of their marriage, or with men who were married to others. Men and women felt more comfortable exploring "alternative lifestyles" and "non-traditional families". People started thinking that "if it felt good, DO IT!" was the order of the day. They no longer felt any need to think about the consequences of their actions, either on a personal level or on a societal level. And then LBJ's "great society" programs took away all of the personal economic consequences and put them onto the back of the taxpayer.

As a result we have an entire generation of kids that grew up in single parent households, or worse, in the households of their grandparents. In many instances those grandparents raising grandkids are second or third generation single parent households.

The costs aren't just money, either. I fear that in some weird metaphysical sense, easy divorce and its associated baggage has cost our society a bit of its soul as well. When my wife taught at a Christian school in California, we had a chance to see the enormous damage that divorce was doing to kids.

Maybe we can't get the genie back into the lamp. I think that pursuing a restoration of traditional divorce laws, with the current state of our society, would be more destructive than helpful. Some of the problems are economic: a lot of workers can't afford to raise a family on one income anymore.

Some of the problem is consumerism: an unwillingness to say, "We don't need that. And that. And that. And that." And without all those things that require money to support, perhaps one income is enough--or perhaps one and a half incomes is enough.

Some of the problem is selfishness: couples that are too focused on their own wants, and not enough on each other's needs. To fix this is just beyond the capacity of government.

A Divorce Of Which I Can Approve

A Divorce Of Which I Can Approve

This case, unfortunately, wasn't a kooky bunch in a compound in Texas. From AFP:

SANAA (AFP) — A Yemeni court on Tuesday granted a divorce to an eight-year-old girl whose unemployed father forced her into an arranged marriage this year, saying he feared she might be kidnapped.

"I am happy that I am divorced now. I will be able to go back to school," Nojud Mohammed Ali said, after a public hearing in Sanaa's court of first instance.

Her former husband, 28-year-old Faez Ali Thameur, said he married the child "with her consent and that of her parents" but that he did not object to her divorce petition.

In response to a question from Judge Mohammed al-Qadhi, he acknowledged that the "marriage was consummated, but I did not beat her."

Yemen, one of the world's poorest countries, has no law governing the minimum age of marriage.

Nojud was a second grader in primary school when the marriage took place two and a half months ago.

"They asked me to sign the marriage contract and remain in my father's house until I was 18. But a week after signing, my father and my mother forced me to go live with him."

Nojud's father, Mohammad Ali Al-Ahdal, said he had felt obliged to marry off his daughter, an act he claims she consented to.

He said he was frightened after his oldest daughter had been kidnapped several years ago and later married to her abductor. He said the same man then kidnapped another of his daughters who was already married and had four children, resulting in him being jailed.

Dressed in traditional black, Nojud said she would now go to live in the home of her maternal uncle and did not want to see her father.

The girl's lawyer, Shadha Nasser, said Nojud's case was not unique. "I believe there are thousands of similar cases," she said, adding that civil society groups are pressing parliament to set the minimum age for marriage at 18.

All cultures are equally valid, right? Thanks (I think) to Ann Althouse for bringing this to my attention.

Interesting Conversation Today

I had a conversation today with people involved in mental health services in Boise County--such as those services are. What they told me seems inconceivable--unless the objective of Idaho's Department of Health & Welfare Department is to demonstrate the truth of the statement, "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups."

I was told that the rules that Health & Welfare has for Medicaid reimbursement (since states actually administer the Medicaid program) require that mental health counseling must be done in a permanent facility, with at least two counselors, supervised by at least one psychiatrist, also in that facility.

I can somewhat see the point of having a psychiatrist providing supervision for mental health counselors. These rules might make sense in a county of several hundred thousand people. In a county with 7200 people, spread over several hundred square miles, this effectively prohibits Medicaid providing any mental health services in our county--and most others. The density just isn't high enough.

So what happens to patients who are having mental health problems and who are covered by Medicaid (people with very low incomes)? I suspect that they don't get services until they reach the point where they end up hospitalized in Boise. By that point, what was mild depression might have escalated to a suicide attempt--and schizophrenia or bipolar disorder has escalated from something just starting, to something full blown. Before the people I was talking to reached that point, I was suggesting what they want--someone "riding circuit" from town to town on a regular basis. It wouldn't conform to H&W's rules, but it would allow serious problems to be identified before they reach a crisis point.

I'm guessing that there is some legitimate motivation for these rules, and someone either is too stupid to see that they don't make sense in rural Idaho, or too inflexible to work around it. Even if the goal was to save money by preventing poor people in rural Idaho from getting mental health care (and that would mean that there are monsters at work in our state government), I am very skeptical that this even saves any money. A couple weeks in a mental hospital in Boise is going to run well above $10,000. You can pay for a lot of hours of a psychiatrist, psychologist, or counselor for that kind of money--and perhaps short-circuit at least some of those hospitalizations. The money might be coming out of a different budget--but the taxpayers still end up paying it.

Campaign Experiences

Results of the First Mailing

The first mailing effort was a bit disappointing. I mailed a letter and a flyer to every Federal Firearms Licensee in my district. If you don't know what an FFL is--this is a license issued by the federal government which is required to be either gun dealer, a gun manufacturer, or certain categories of serious gun collectors.

The letter explained who I was, and why it was in their interests to have a nationally prominent gun rights activist representing them in the state senate. My letter emphasized that more useful than contributions would be if they could:

1. Arrange an event where they could invite friends and neighbors over to meet the candidate.

2. Let me know that they would be willing to have some flyers up in their shop.

3. Put up a sign (once those are available).

Of the 28 FFLs in the district, exactly one (Ponderosa Sports, north of Horseshoe Bend) responded. I would think if there was any group that would respond enthusiastically, this would be the group.

Door To Door

Sunday afternoon, I went door to door along the old highway. A lot of people weren't home, it being a beautiful warm spring day, but of those who were, I was very pleased at how friendly the responses were--especially from other California refugees. One of them was overjoyed to hear what I had to say: "I don't want Idaho Californicated." At another home, I was able to introduce myself as the husband of the woman that their dog Lily follows home all the time. At another house, the wife has worked with homeless mentally ill before, and was pleased to hear my emphasis on improving mental health services.

I did meet a Democrat, however. He was friendly enough, and startled to hear me talking about the mental health issue--which he imagined was a Democrat issue. I explained that deinstitutionalization was originally a Democrat issue.

And in case you are wondering why I was spending time talking to a Democrat when I have to win the Republican primary, Idaho is an open primary state. You can vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary. This guy was going to vote in the Democratic primary because there were several contested races there, so he wouldn't be of much help on May 27. And you never know: I might end up persuading a few Democrats to vote for me in the general election.