Scott Caplan's blog

A very quick post

Scott Charles Caplan — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 22:30:57 +0000

There’s other more important things that I’d like to post about, but this caught my eye when I was reading a link from The Forward. Maybe it’s me, but isn’t this logo just disturbing?

Link: Republican Jewish Coalition.

Tags: rjc,, forward,, eagle,, logo,, fascism

Europe, Jews, and a cartoon

Scott Charles Caplan — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:59:49 +0000

Quick Link: a rare political post from Hugh MacLeod.
Food for thought:

And while on the subject of the Arab-Israeli conflict, I’ll point out that my friend (and fellow Yalie) Aatif Iqbar often has interesting things to say on the issue, including this recent post. Aatif may not have clever cartoons with his writing, but how on Earth would I have heard of this news story otherwise?

Tags: israel, gapingvoid, al-durrah, al-durah, antisemitism, europe

Second quick post

Scott Charles Caplan — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 23:45:55 +0000

I started 1776 a little while ago (though I don’t think I’ve indicated that yet on my sidebar), and the other night I was inclined after reading in it to look something up in the Declaration of Independence. In particular, McCullough referred to the United States of America as having been established by the Declaration. I wanted to verify this, so I sat up in bed, pulled my copy of the National Constitution Center’s Constitution + Declaration of Independence off my Gropius bookshelf and flipped to the Declaration:

“WE, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GENERAL CONGRESS, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World…”

Whether McCullough was right in the context of how he referred to the United States of America in 1776 is still not clear to me, but he certainly wasn’t off his rocker…

Now, I told you that bit there to remind you of something else in that sacred document, for after I read that paragraph of the Declaration (the last one), I felt like reading the rest of it, where I noticed this allegation among the several detailed against King George III.

“FOR transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:”

Now it seems like King George II is at it. And who says there’s no such thing as progress? In 225 years, it’ll be an elected president using secret prisons in Romania and Egypt, and in 450 years, it’ll finally be a thing of the past!

Tags: 1776, david_mccullough, cia, detainees, war_on_terror, king_george

Makes me like Tim Tagaris even more…

Scott Charles Caplan — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 14:23:58 +0000

I’m already moved into Cambridge (though not quite ensconced; thanks Max for the new word), and my first post since my arrival really should have been about HLS. I’m sure I’ll get to that some other time, seeing that I have three years ~~for my sentence~~ until my degree. But in the meantime, I saw this item from the Ned Lamont campaign blog and have to post it before the Boylston Chess Club beats me to it. You should be confused right now as to how a Connecticut Senate campaign has anything to do with a Boston chess club, so I’ll quote from the post and relieve that confusion for you:

“They’ve played checkers all campaign, now they’re trying to pick up a chess board. Don’t let them.”

And all I can think is, “Checkers is for tramps.”

Note for friends and family: if you haven’t already, go read the explanation of how to use RSS to keep up to date with me through my site.

Tags: lamont, chess, checkers, paul_morphy

The Only Constitutional Lawyer in Congress

Scott Charles Caplan — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 03:58:19 +0000

Or at least that’s what I was told about DC’s non-voting representative Eleanor Holmes Norton by someone or other. More importantly, however, this segment (found through http://del.icio.us/popular) from The Colbert Report shines some needed light on the issue of DC’s undemocratic status in our political system. If you want to do something about it, check out DCVote.

Tags: dcvote, from_delicious

Je suis malade.

Scott Charles Caplan — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 20:49:32 +0000

Va vomiter.

Technorati Tags: lang:fr, Russie, racisme, puke, racism, Russia

DCVote

Scott Charles Caplan — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 14:48:58 +0000

Just a quick note on something I should have put up a while ago: I’ve been published!!

My sophomore year ConLaw paper on DC Voting Rights was put on DCVote’s web site. You can read a copy in PDF form here. I’ve got to say, it’s pretty cool to have it included up there. I sort of wish I could have spent more time reviewing it before I sent it to the people over there. Maybe I’ll get a chance to review and revise it over the summer. Then again, I did submit it for class, so I shouldn’t be too worried.

Another cool note: I just added this new Wordpress installation to Performancing on Firefox. And, like this guy says, it’s remarkably easy.

But one thing that’s not cool is DC’s lack of a vote in Congress. More people than the population of Wyoming continue disenfranchised in the House and the Senate while American soldiers die all too routinely to make sure that people in Baghdad can vote in their national legislature. Many of those soldiers are from the district. I can’t for the life of me understand how people tolerate this. If you agree (and by you, I mean the three people reading this blog), support the DC Fair Act by sending an email to your Congressman (you at least have one). Better yet, wait for tax day (Monday), and send your representatives a simple fax that says “No Taxation without Representation: Free DC” on it, nothing more, nothing less. 10 citizens in each Congressional district doing that on the same day could make a big difference (inspired by Seth Godin)

Technorati Tags: dcvote, performancing, dcfair, sethgodin

What’s wrong with RailsPlayground?

Scott Charles Caplan — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 17:12:05 +0000

This has been a long time (I haven�t measured, but at least several weeks) since railsplayground.com is having difficulties. I can�t seem to even load http://railsplayground.com/cpanel, and that has nothing to do with my account. It simply won�t load. I don�t even have the opportunity to put in a bad password. Arrgggh.

On the bright side, the Yale College Democrats are bringing back the YCD blog.

Note to self: I have to figure out how to put Technorati tags in here more easily.

Reflections on class January 13, 2006

Scott Charles Caplan — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 07:01:25 +0000

Stupid people voting as a first step: One idea that I came up with was that voting is a first step. Even if somebody is stupid and is voting for entirely the wrong reasons, their vote is something that brings them further into the process. Now they have a candidate�s name in their mind, and a sense of ownership (I voted for that guy). When they hear something about them in the news, they now react to it, and form increasingly sophisticated political opinions.

Question: I don�t have an answer. Is voting more or less restrictive than other forms of participation? Felons can hold office, but can�t vote. Poor people can vote, but how feasible is it to say that poor people or those without connections have a very good shot at getting elected to public office.
International implications of the American democratic ideal: Bennett (I hope I spelled his name correctly) brought up the issue of how Zinn treats internationalism, which turned into a discussion slightly surrounding Iraq. I don�t think the philosophical issue needs to go there. In fact, I think it has a real application as concerning immigration policy. The ideal is that �all men are created equal.� So what does it say about how well we uphold that ideal that a Cuban who finds his way to American soil has no worries about American citizenship, but that�s not true for a Haitian, even in the days when Haiti�s regime (which may be today, I�m not too up to date on Haiti) was as evil as Fidel�s?

Secret ballots: The professor�s comments on secret ballots and colored ballots reminded me of Dick Gregory�s Memoirs, A Callus on My Soul, in which he told the story about when he ran for Mayor of Chicago (against Dailey) as a write-in candidate. Apparently, when people went into the booth, and picked up the pencil attached to a string, their hand had to reach below the curtain to get the pencil, so the woman sitting at the desk checking the voters in could check off the fact that that person had voted for Gregory. In the next election, he had his supporters bring their own pencils!

Jury nullification and marijuana: In elaborating on my reaction to Zinn�s tenth criterion (see earlier post), I suggested that one example of civil disobedience could be a jury not convicting somebody of possession of marijuana because they think it unconstitutional to criminalize marijuana. Note that I wrote here unconstitutional. I didn�t clarify this in class. Juries should not serve as legislators. Rather, they should hold a check on legislators in terms of ensuring that legislation is constitutional. This is not a question of substituting moral judgement, but rather a safeguard for the Constitutionality of prosecutions. I could write more on this idea, but I really don�t have the time right now.

Smith (1-38) Reading

Scott Charles Caplan — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 23:41:00 +0000

Well, I just wrapped up the reading for Voting Rights and Representation, and I have a bit fewer comments about Smith.

First of all, I found that he spent far too much time saying what his focus was or would be and none at all actually justifying it. The only justification for the relevance of citizenship laws in explaining why ascriptive ideals also apply is that citizenship was denied to various parts of the population (nonwhites, nonmales, nonhetersoexuals, in Smith�s words) for 2/3 of the US�s history. He then uses this to launch into a discussion on myths and ideologies that actually form America�s ideologies and myths, and what motivates them.

Besides the fact I just stated, Smith doesn�t cover anything justifying his theories until page 30!

Now, onto textual notes I�ve made (I�m not including all of them, since it was so long compared to previous readings I�ve posted on)

On page 11, Smith writes �US citizens, and people who embrace membership in other political communities, can and should see their citizenships as forms of participation in enormously important collective historical enterprises that in fact do transcend their individual lives in time and space.�

I just wanted to start off with this quote, with which I wholeheartedly agree.

Page 13, the beginning of chapter 1: the term naturalization is interesting. For me and my parents, who are naturalized citizens after the amnesty of 1986, we always thought that they were �naturalized� because, whereas I was a citizen by birth, they were naturalized. It never had anything to do with allegiance being a question of natural law but of political fact. This explanation would still have fit in the time of kings and despots that Smith refers to, so I�m not sure if I accept the premise of the historical explanation of the term naturalization.

Page 15 discusses the requirement that Presidents of the United States be born in the United States. First of all, I will state that I think that rule should be repealed, but I feel that I have a very different from that Smith would have. I feel that the provision has outlived its time. It was necessary in the first 50 years of the republic. Why? Look at the passage it�s contained in: �No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the Untied States at the Time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.� Why these requirements? Some would say that it�s to make sure that America doesn�t get a monarchy! Look what happened to Britain. King George is of German origin (as is President Bush, I believe, ironically enough). George I didn�t even speak English, and George III was his grandson. They were still royalty in Germany as well, and the stupidity of this struck British Americans, who when they drafted a Constitution, insured that the son of the President wouldn�t become the President, and that even in the case he did, there were certain restrictions: He could not be less than 35 years old, he could not be born in another country. Now, Smith attributes this to a form of selecting a people based on nonliberal ideology, but I think it�s just decided out of pragmatism. The one argument Smith still has though is that the historical example could be rooted in ascriptive notions of what British identity is (objecting to a German King), but I don�t think this is accurate since the colonists would have been just as upset if the King were ethically British. Lastly, the argument that the provision remains today doesn�t hold water, since that can be chalked up to a combination of inertia, and ignorance of the history. (�Never ascribe to malice what can easily be explained by stupidity,� or that�s how I think the quote goes).

Page 35: The first useful point I think Smith makes from an academic point of view (I like the quote from page 11 more for my agreeance with the philosophy of citizenship that it espouses): Citizenship laws are the result of political and ideological compromise and therefore don�t reflect a pure ideology. Therefore, they have to be pulled apart into their constituent ideologies in order to be analyzed. Given the focus of Smith�s work, it�s clear that he will be focusing less on the liberal influence.

Page 39: �But often the most wrenching clashes have turned on ascriptive ideologies and institutions as when…. and when black nationalists today oppose integration.� How is that turning on ascriptive ideologies, or are they only ascriptive when they support White Protestants? Moreover, the phrase �turn on� is ambiguous, as it could mean oppose or it could mean hinge on, two meanings diametrically opposed.

Speaking of the term ascriptive, I don�t understand it. Why on Earth is that the word we�re using? I�m not even sure what it means.

Lastly, the idea of looking at myths is interesting, and I think the best way to determine myth is to look at what schoolchildren are taught. Under this notion, there is quite a bit of racism in our myths insofar as Paul Revere�s plagiarized engraving of the Boston Massacre depicts Crispus Attucks as a white man, and up until the 1950s when children in the South were taught that racism is encouraged by the Bible. Finally, even today, the notion that this is a �Christian country� pervades in schools (public and private) in an inexcusable manner.