Words Poorly Used #93 -- Legal/Moral

The term "legal" is most often miscarried when it has not been put in the light of a moral origin.  This relationship is the first puzzle of humanity.  Morals are abstract and difficult to pin down.  Artificial laws (legislation) are more or less successful attempts to make instances of moral behavior concrete.  I make a distinction between "artificial" and "natural" law.  Morals and natural laws co-exist.  Workable morals arise from natural law.  For example, when A kills B, B no longer participates.  There is no natural law for deciding who "should" participate.  There is only natural law for determining who, what, where, when, and how.  Therefore, no person can, by artifice, determine who "should" kill whom.

-- Kilgore Forelle

Legality, Beside the Point

Nobody asked but. ..

The pundit cosmos queries, "Is it illegal?" A considerate homo sapiens counters, "Is it moral?"  A proper society, a nation of laws, arises because humans desire moral order.  A "legality" process, diverted to lesser uses, often confounds the only useful goal.  (NB -- Here, we define "useful" as  serving a distinct, unique purpose with a minimum of undesired consequences.  "Net usefulness" is not a useful notion.)  Restating Ockham's Razor -- the laws that most closely attain a true moral outcome are the laws that are most likely just.

-- Kilgore Forelle

POTUS Medius Ocris

Nobody asked but ...

I have opined for a very long time that there have been no above average POTUS'es.  The scorecard reads 45 incumbents, 45 ho-hummers.  Even great Americans, such as Jefferson, Cleveland, Coolidge, and Eisenhower barely got out of the office without serious repair work required on their reputations.  In 41 other cases, excellence never enters the picture.  Do you doubt that there are thousands of real estate minds, just in NYC, that exceed the wrestling promoter/reality show clown that serves as the current, most mediocre, resident of the Whitehouse.  Of course he is making the media look bad.  That's no extraordinary behavior.  That should be entertaining for a day or two, max.

-- Kilgore Forelle

Brand X

Nobody asked but ...

Why is it that authoritarians, sycophants, and jingoists think that the only genuine brands of patriotism are authoritarianism, sycophantism, and jingoism.  Make mine Brand X.  And still if I were to list all the places and things I love about the USA, we would all be here until some 4th of July well beyond 2017.

 -- Kilgore Forelle

Paper Fail

Nobody asked but ...

One of the oldest lawyer dodges is to hit somebody with a masive demand for a document dump.  It is obfuscation!  POTUS opened his mouth and inserted foot about voter fraud some time ago.  When asked to put up or shut up, the response was to appoint a commission to bury the inquiry (at taxpayer expense), then the commission made an onerous data request (which locally would cause 50-fold taxpayer expense).  The commission knew that most states would not, probably could not, comply with the demand.  Therefore, they have a perfect set of excuses for all the politicos involved -- others failed to cooperate.

-- Kilgore Forelle

Save Us from the Voters

Nobody asked but ...

Even worse than the if-you-don't-vote crowd are the it's-your-duty bunch.  And then you have the voting-should-be-compulsory mavens (and what a fine premise for the land of the free [irony alert]!)  Acknowledging that any state or local vote is irrelevent to countrywide representation, here is what you get:
-- 1 vote every 4 years for POTUS,
-- 1 vote every 2 years for HOROTUS, and
-- 2 votes every 6 years for SOTUS.
That's it!  As POTUS may say, "that's a bad deal for us."  People say that voters are ignorant.  The above calculus confirms that, but what kind of education would fix this stupidity?

-- Kilgore Forelle

Explanations

Nobody asked but ...

Almost any idiosyncrasy can be explained by knowing markets.  Any bad consequences can be explained by knowing about statism.

-- Kilgore Forelle