Isaac Laquedem

Freddie Gray and the Second Amendment

The death in police custody of Freddie Gray, the Baltimore man arrested last month who was severely injured while riding in a patrol car, has resulted in the indictment of six officers who were responsible for his care.  Mr. Gray was stopped and searched; the search produced a spring-operated knife which the arresting officer believed to be illegal, and he arrested Mr. Gray for carrying it.  One of the raging debates in the last two weeks has been whether Mr. Gray's knife was legal or illegal; it was apparently legal under state law, but prohibited by Baltimore city code.  The reasoning I've read (not mine) is that if his knife was illegal, then his arrest was improper.  The liberal websites I read argue that his knife was legal, and his arrest was therefore illegal; the conservative websites argue that his knife was illegal and therefore his arrest was legal.  Here's one of the best examples: a website called "legal insurrection" whose author explains that whether Mr. Gray's knife was legal or not, the officer who found it had probable cause to arrest Mr. Gray for carrying it. 

The irony is that the website's author, Andrew Branca, also writes a blog on the law of self-defense (he seems to favor it), and he likely believes that the Second Amendment prohibits the government from banning or limiting private ownership of guns and other deadly weapons.  (Here's his post from which I draw that conclusion.)  Mr. Branca can't be the only person who simultaneously believes that (a) the City of Baltimore can prohibit its residents from carrying switchblades, but (b) neither the city nor any other American government can prohibit its residents from carrying guns. I would have expected the NRA and its supporters to be outraged that Mr. Gray was arrested for exercising his Second Amendment right to bear arms.

 

Another long struggle lies ahead

Despite its claims that the occupation will quickly pacify the native population and bring them to respect the American ideals of democracy and liberty, the Obama Administration quietly believes that it may take years of struggle to bring Texas into the modern era.

The real reason the House Republicans want to kill the estate tax: it's for the children

Under current federal law, a married couple can pass about $10.9 million to their children free of federal estate tax, so the parents of five can give or leave each child more than $2 million free of federal tax.  Above that number the tax is 40%, so a couple with $100.9 million can pass $64.9 million to their children after tax, or about $13 million for each of the imagined five children.  

On April 16, the House passed a Republican measure that would repeal the estate tax.  House Speaker John Boehner explained the majority's reasons this way:  "Family farmers, ranchers and small-business owners work tirelessly to create jobs in our communities, put food on our tables and, God willing, have something to pass on to their children and grandchildren.  Taking away that opportunity with a massive death tax bill is simply wrong."

Democrats immediately assailed the move.  The New York Times, in the story linked to above, described the White House press secretary,  Josh Earnest, as saying that (in the Times's words, not Mr. Earnest's): the White House press secretary, said "Republicans were applying a double standard since they usually demand that Mr. Obama offset any tax cuts he proposes, while theirs would simply add to the deficit." The implication is that the House Republicans simply want to kill the estate tax so that the ultra-rich can pass to their children all of their wealth, instead of only lots of their wealth.

It occurred to me that the Democrats are being insufficiently charitable.  I think the real reason that the Republican party wants to eliminate the estate tax, and thus allow centimillionaires to pass $20 million to each of their (in my example) five children, instead of only $12 million each, is that the party recognizes that their ultra-rich patrons are, as a group, rotten parents -- that is, the House leadership is tacitly acknowledging that even though Mom and Dad have enjoyed the talent to earn or otherwise acquire $100 million, they and their cohort have been such failures as parents that their children aren't able to stretch out $12 million to last a lifetime, and risk starvation if they inherit less than $20 million each.

I think this is a grand move: the House leadership is protecting the megawealthy even as it insults their children.  It's almost enough to make me think that Mr. Boehner is a closet Socialist.