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It must be a tough job being a speechwriter for Obama. I tried my hand at writing this press conference speech about his Iraq policy.

"What I've said before is always what I've said and what I'm still saying, that we need to be careful and deliberate about how we bring the troops home. That's my policy, and it's always been my policy.

"When I said that we would do it in 16 months, and made this promise repeatedly in order to become the presumed Democratic nominee, what I meant -- and I've said this all along -- is that we might NOT do it in 16 months. The timeline really doesn't matter, as any military expert will tell you.

"I mean -- and I respect Senator McCain's military service -- but when he says his goal is to get the troops out of harm's way and make sure that we don't leave behind an unstable Iraq, but that he won't set a timeline, that is very different from my goal to get the troops out of harm's way and make sure that we don't leave behind an unstable Iraq, because I do have a timeline, even though I will readily sacrifice that timeline if it might risk an unstable Iraq or put our troops in harm's way.

"I haven't changed anything. The confusion here is the fault of the McCain campaign, which has deliberately twisted my words ... I mean, I've been very consistent, nothing has changed at all ... if anything, it's McCain who has changed, since he supported the war from the beginning, but NOW he wants to get the troops out of harm's way! Right? ... WILL YOU ALL PLEASE JUST STOP LOOKING AT ME?!??! I mean, COME ON!!!! I thought you LIKED me!"

Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.

The EFF put up this Fourth of July video.

Which reminded me of a video I put up last year, a cover of "Fireworks" from Schoolhouse Rock .

Happy Independence Day! Having fun blowing up little bits of paper and cardboard with black powder! I sure will.

[NB: I know that, in fact, it was Robert Livingston, not Philip Livingston, who was on the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence. Schoolhouse Rock got it wrong, and when I copied them, so did I.]

Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.

Senator Val Stevens (R-39) has sent out a press release, with pictures, about her campaign signs being set on fire in Skagit County.

She is the incumbent being challenged by Fred Walser, who was convicted and sentenced to a year in jail this month. There is no reason to think his campaign had anything to do with these crimes.

Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.

Once upon a time, there was an amendment to the Constitution.

It was called the Fourteenth Amendment, and it said that any right you have as a U.S. citizen cannot be infringed by any state government. "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

Therefore, since we have a privilege, as U.S. citizens, to keep and bear arms, you would think that this means that the states cannot infringe upon that.

However, you would be mistaken (seriously, read that link, especially the quotes from Black and Howard). Over a hundred years ago, some judicial activist (there, I said it!) came up with the idea that the Fourteenth Amendment doesn't actually mean what it says; rather, every Constitutional right must be individually incorporated by the Court.

Not only is this facially nonsensical according to the plain language and history of the Fourteenth Amendment, but it also literally turns the Court into lawmakers themselves: they get to decide whether we have, in the States, any given right, and we don't know how they will decide until we challenge it.

And even different parts of the same amendment are held to apply to the states, or not. So the First Amendment applies to the states, because of the Fourteenth Amendment, but the Second Amendment doesn't. Why? Simply because the Court hasn't said so.

It's one of the dumbest doctrines the Court follows, completely opposite to the purpose of the Court and the text of the Constitution.

However, there's good news. There's only a tiny handful of rights left unincoporated, and all of them but the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms, and the Seventh's to civil trial by jury, are left unincorporated only because no one is bother to challenge it (such as quartering troops and indictment by grand jury).

We have a clear signal in Heller that there is an individual right to keep and bear arms. This applies to the District of Columbia, but Columbia is not a state. So the open question is: will this apply to the states? Most states banning guns will say it does not, but they will lose (assuming they even bother challenging it at all).

Selective incorporation is ludicrous historically, textually, legally, and logically. But despite that, it has persisted. There is, though, something that is more important today than all of those considerations: it would destroy all societal respect for the Court to rule otherwise. A Court that is not respected is a Court that has no real authority, and a Court that takes such an obviously illogical position is not respected.

The reason why a state cannot restrict your right to free speech, or a speedy trial, or indictment by grand jury, is because the Fourteenth Amendment says, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States," and those are privileges of citizens of the United States. And as of today, the right to keep and bear arms is also recognized as such a privilege.

So for the Court to rule otherwise would make no sense. Society will not stand for it, and the mental gymnastics required by the Court to justify it would make it look more foolish than it has ever looked before. Even if the Court veers to the left under a President Obama -- who has consistently, in recent years, asserted he believes in the individual right to keep and bear arms, though he has also supported significant restrictions of that right -- they couldn't justify such a decision to not recognize incorporation. What they'd be more likely to try would be to say, yes, the states have to recognize the right to keep and bear arms, but the right to keep and bear arms can be severely limited.

I am not sure that would be an improvement, but the point is that as of today, it is absolutely unconstitutional for a state to make or enforce any law abridging your right to keep and bear arms (whatever that means). Selective incorporation is dead. The death certificate simply hasn't been issued yet.

The fight for what rights we have under the Second Amendment, however, continues.

Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.

So I was thinking about a couple of things this afternoon.

The first is Heller, the gun rights decision that came down today. It does not take away any rights, or open the door to such. But some people think it could make the anti-gun crowd more active.

The second is the Kennedy v. Louisiana decsion from yesterday, in which the Supreme Court held as evidence to support its decision the fact that most states were not exercising their rights, so therefore maybe that right (to execute child rapists) doesn't exist any more.

And that reinforces my long-held view that it is crucially important that everyone -- even if you don't have a gun! -- gets a concealed carry permit, if you think we should have the right to keep and bear -- not just in our homes, but in public -- arms. If a million people have permits, the state will be far less likely to try to take that right away.

Washington is a shall-issue state, meaning unless there is a specific reason in the law why you can't have a permit to carry a concealed weapon, they must issue it to you within a set time period, upon receipt of your paperwork, fees, and so on.

If -- I shudder at the thought -- Gregoire wins re-election, I have no doubt that many Democrats will be coming after our gun rights (along with the income tax and other leftist agenda items they've been holding off on until after this election). But that effort won't get anywhere if we exercise our rights now.

And if we have that many people with permits it also removes the main argument against licensure: that it gives a list of gun owners to the government. Sure, there's a legitimate fear that with hundreds or thousands of people on the list, they could come after those people specifically. But hundreds of thousands? Millions? At some point it is beyond their control.

You protect your rights by exercising them. So get your license. You don't even have to carry a gun with you: just protect your right to do so. If you don't, you might lose it.

Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.