Category Archives: law

U of C students demonstrate to defund and disarm campus police; University says “no way”

August 31, 2020 – 1:15 pm

UPDATE: From Block Club Chicago (click on screenshot): An excerpt: The action continued into Sunday with yoga, breakfast and organizing workshops. Students will remain there “indefinitely until we hear publicly” from Lee, CareNotCops organizers said in a tweet. In a statement Monday, organizers said they would remain on the block until Lee agrees to meet their […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in Chicago, law enforcement, students behaving badly, wokeness | Comments (30)

The insanity defense: is it sane? Thoughts from the Leopold and Loeb case.

August 17, 2020 – 10:30 am

I’m reading the book below, which I found in a free book box, about the famous Leopold and Loeb murders of 1924.  The murders took place in Hyde Park/Kenwood, just a few blocks from where I sit. Nathan Leopold (left on the cover below) and Richard Loeb, once University of Chicago students, 19 and 18 […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in books, crime, crime and punishment, determinism, law enforcement | Comments (85)

Should we narrow the First Amendment to forbid speech urging violence?

July 8, 2020 – 11:00 am

The limitations on “free speech”, as construed by the courts’ parsing of the First Amendment, are well known. No personal threats, no harassment in the workplace, no child pornography, defamation, or false advertising. And, of course, no calling for violence that will predictably lead to imminent violence.   The Encyclopedia Brittanica describes the law.  . . . […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in First Amendment, freedom of expression, freedom of speech | Comments (105)

Supreme Court hands victory to Right and religion, compelling taxpayer to fund religious schools in Montana. Roberts votes with majority.

June 30, 2020 – 1:45 pm

I haven’t read the decision, so I’ll just leave this in passing. But save your approbation for Chief Justice Roberts, for he joined the court’s 5-4 majority, and wrote the opinion that tax money could be used to support religious schools. The Montana Supreme Court had previously struck down a voucher scheme for school funding […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in First Amendment | Comments (43)

Stare decisis rules! John Roberts again votes with the liberals, nullifying Louisiana’s restrictive abortion law

June 29, 2020 – 10:00 am

According to CNN and the New York Times, John Roberts has once again joined the Supreme Court’s four liberals to produce a fantastic 5-4 decision, this time overturning a restrictive abortion law in Louisiana that would have effectively blocked nearly all abortions in the state, limiting the number of doctors in Louisiana who could provide abortions […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in abortion | Comments (34)

Once again: is the higher per capita rate of black deaths at the hands of police due to racism?

June 21, 2020 – 12:30 pm

In the past couple of weeks I’ve written about the views of the African-American English and Comparative Literature Professor John McWhorter (e.g., here and here) on whether the higher per capita rate of deaths of black people at the hands of police implicates racism.  His view was “not necessarily,” and he posed an alternative hypothesis. […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in law enforcement, racism | Comments (69)

Supreme Court blocks Trump’s attempt to dismantle DACA

June 18, 2020 – 9:52 am

This just in: by a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court voted to leave in place Obama’s DACA (“Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals”) plan, protecting those immigrants known as “Dreamers” from being deported. The Trump administration had signaled that it was going to dismantle DACA. (There are about 700,000 of the Dreamers., who are surely […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in immigration and migration | Comments (43)

Calls to literally abolish the police

June 13, 2020 – 11:00 am

There’s been some discussion about what the demand for “defunding the police” really means. To some it means cutting police budgets in ways to minimize their brutality, and the example often used is their acquisition of discarded equipment from the U.S. military, or more training in social work by cops. To others it means deeply […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in crime, crime and punishment, law enforcement | Comments (98)

Trump threatens to sue CNN for publishing a poll showing his low approval and status behind Biden; CNN swats Trump down like a fly

June 11, 2020 – 1:00 pm

UPDATE: From Ken, a tweet from Team Trump with their threatening letter: .@CNN “reported” on our letter sent privately without linking to the full letter, then tweeted their response. Another attempt to skew the narrative! Here is the @TeamTrump letter we sent yesterday, out of actual transparency. pic.twitter.com/tcPbQov2kE — Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) June 10, 2020 […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in Trumpiana, Uncategorized | Comments (115)

Dismantling (or defunding) police departments

June 8, 2020 – 10:15 am

One of the misguided goals of the recent protests ignited by the murder of George Floyd are the calls not just for “defunding” police departments, but to abolish them entirely. Now it’s often not clear what “defunding” means, but sometimes protestors conceive of it as diverting money from the police force to social programs. In […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in law enforcement | Comments (163)