Been there, done that, not gonna do it again.
Some say that deflation will yield irresistible deals, but that's just hype -- our collective buying power has been shrinking right along with prices. Truth is, for most commodities and must-have holiday items, real prices haven't shrunk much at all.I see no point in joining a stampede of retail sheep, so I'm staying put, doing some laundry, updating my family's emergency plan, tinkering on the motorcycles and watching college football. In fact, the WVU-Pitt "Backyard Brawl" just kicked off -- let's go Mountaineers.
Mostly, I'm going to avoid the crowds, keep my wallet in my pocket and enjoy this brilliant November day.
Saving precedents
My early-morning reading included today's column by George Will, in which he discusses the views of conservative Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson.
Judge Wilkinson posits that the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision and its recent Heller v. DC ruling on the Second Amendment both are examples of judicial activism. One is more palatable than the other to conservatives, but each, according to this jurist, thrusts a politically subjective court into a legislative morass of its own making.Mr. Will skillfully highlights the apparent contradiction and the resulting division among conservatives. His commentary is typically sound, but I want to expand on a few important points.
Today's conservatives mistake ideology for principle. Conservatism is an ideology, liberty is a principle, and the Constitution codifies the latter -- not the former -- in fundamental law. Making the distinction depends on something called intellectual honesty.
Mr. Will, whose thoughtful conservatism shames the mindless klaxons of talk radio, has that quality. So did former Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater:
"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."Neo-conservatives, as they swing their ideological hammer at activist judges -- or even at William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright -- ought to admit that activism and "extremism," judicial or otherwise, are perfectly acceptable in pursuit of their agenda.
That'd be the honest thing to do, anyway.
I may not be a constitutional lawyer, but as a citizen I don’t subscribe to Judge Wilkinson’s premise. To me, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is clear and unambiguous:
"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."Article I of the Ohio Constitution (1851), by the way, is likewise straightforward:
"The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security; but standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be kept up; and the military shall be in strict subordination to the civil power."What Mr. Will calls "a thicket of fine-tuning policy in interminable litigation" is the natural result of the court upholding a constitutional right that's been diluted, even decimated, by legislatures at all levels of government -- in other words, it goes with the judicial territory.
Further, Judge Wilkinson's correlation of Roe, which created a right, with Heller, which restored a right, falls apart in the face of a constitutionally guaranteed liberty -- the right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms.
Principle knows the difference. Ideology does not.
