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I hope this isn’t too bothersome to my cousin who works for Wells Fargo, but this story is too good not to post.  The story has nothing to do with him, personally.

Wells Fargo Meeting Today With Philly Homeowner Who “Foreclosed” On Them (Here’s How He Did It)

I did attend the rally mentioned by the SEIU in my previous post, Join The Revolution.

I have posted pictures on my web site photo album Pro Labor/Middle Class Rally.

Contrary to what the Tea Partiers were saying, the Wisconsin Union agreed to the governor’s request for give backs.  It wasn’t enough for Gov. Walker to accept yes for an answer in the bargaining process.  The governor further wanted to cut off the union’s rights to bargain.  Obviously the governor has an agenda that reaches far beyond fiscal responsibility for the state.

As I head off to the SEIU rally in Boston, it is nice to know what I can expect when peacefully assembling to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The fun starts at about 37 seconds into this video.

You can get more details about this incident in the story Veteran’s Group Demands Apology From Sec. Of State Clinton published in the Sky Valley Chronicle of Everett, Washington

This is a 15 minute talk by Patricia Burchat.

How on earth is this political? It frequently occurs to me when I learn about stuff like this, that the people who are arguing over whether or not evolution is real, are missing some even bigger questions than that. I wonder if they have any inkling about how puny the question of evolution is in the midst of these other issues.

MardyS recently posted a link to a book review on his facebook page.

How We Know by Freeman Dyson is a book review of The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick.

In the review Dyson says, Thanks to the discoveries of astronomers in the twentieth century, we now know that the heat death is a myth.. It seems to me that some of his discussion about the myth does not seem to be cognizant of dark energy as discussed in the video clip.

Speaking of the heat death paradox, Dyson says,

The best popular account of the disappearance of the paradox is a chapter, “How Order Was Born of Chaos,” in the book Creation of the Universe, by Fang Lizhi and his wife Li Shuxian.

Creation of the Universe published in Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., 1989.

Freeman Dyson is a world renowned physicist. I find it unlikely that I would know more about this subject than he does. I must have some misunderstanding if it seems to me he has some things wrong or at least not explained well.

The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution says:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

This amendment says we have the right to keep and bear arms.  Does it also require that to exercise that right we must join a well regulated militia such as the Army, Army Reserve, National Guard, or one of the other military services?

Would the National Rifle Association be so adamant about preserving the second amendment if the enforcement of the  responsibility were backed up by applicable law as well as the right?

I think my interpretation of the second amendment is novel because of the way it makes the connection between the clause “A well regulated Militia” and the clause “shall not be infringed”.

Previously I had heard two points of view. One being the idea that “well regulated Militia” was just a clause explaining why the founders thought up this idea, but it had no other relevance to the unlimited right to bear arms.  The other point of view was that the clause “well regulated Militia” was necessary to the interpretation of the clause without much explanation of how that necessity was to be interpreted.

My interpretation says that to have your right to bear arms without infringement requires that you be in a well regulated militia. Since the Equal Rights Amendment has not been added to the Constitution, how can the Supreme court apply equal rights to their interpretation?

Of course it would be up to the Supreme Court to decide what “a well regulated Militia” means.  Could “a well regulated Militia” have regulations about your right to bear arms?

Apparently the Supreme Court has already decided that they do not agree with my argument.

Rene Churchill supplied a link to the Supreme Court decision that covers the issues I raised.

See if you can understand how the majority opinion can include

a. Well-Regulated Militia. In United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, 179 (1939), we explained that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. That definition comports with founding-era sources. See, e.g., Webster (The militia of a country are the able bodied men organized into companies, regiments and brigades . . . and required by law to attend military exercises on certain days only, but at other times left to pursue their usual occupations);

and still not entertain my interpretation.

Notice that the section quoted does not say that a Militia comprised all males whether or not they were organized and attended mandatory training. I wonder if the Supreme Court would consider the Klu Klux Klan to be a well regulated militia. Certainly the army of the Confederacy was a well regulated militia.

I wonder if this quote also implies that women are not protected by the second amendment? Since the Equal Rights Amendment has never been approved for addition to the Constitution, how can the Supreme Court justify the extension of this right to women? Did the founding ancestors anticipate this in what they wrote?

For further clarification of the value of this discussion see my posting Of Mice And Men

If the founding ancestors of this country had desired to see  the country evolve in only the ways that they envisioned, wouldn’t they have set up a dictatorship instead of a democracy?

They must have known that giving the citizens the right to decide who should represent them would open up the chance that they would elect people who would take the country in directions the founders never imagined.  We don’t think of the founding ancestors as particularly naive people.

It seems particularly ironic that there are people arguing that we should not be allowed to deviate from the founders’ vision on the details of what this country should look like in a future the founders never could have imagined.

Here is where we get to the title of this piece.  We have been catching mice in a live trap all winter.  I take the traps outside every morning and open them up.  Frequently the mice seem reluctant to leave.  I have to poke them a little to get them to take advantage of their newly restored freedom.  This winter, when I introduce them to the cold, cruel free world, the mice seem to want to stay in the comfort of their prison.

Are some of the men and women of this country so comfortable in their prisons of founding ancestors’ intent that they are reluctant to take advantage of the freedom that these founders have given them?

See Rachel Maddow’s evidence that John Boehner Is Bad At His Job.

The New Republic published the article The Worst Case: How health care reform really could get repealed—and why the repercussions would go well beyond health care.

This describes the prior Supreme Court decision that forms the philosophy underpinning the efforts to repeal.

A few years later, in Lochner v. New York, a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court held that New York state had indeed overreached—that government had no authority to exercise such “police power” over what was, after all, private economic activity. In the three decades that followed, the Lochner Court, as it became known, would continue to strike down key pieces of Progressive era legislation and, eventually, the New Deal. In some cases, including Lochner, the Court cited a supposedly sacrosanct right to private economic decision-making, free from interference by the states or the federal government. In others, the Court relied on a narrow interpretation of Washington’s authority to regulate interstate commerce, effectively limiting it to the management of trade that literally crossed state lines.

I won’t spoil your read by quoting the rest of the story.