Courts Don't Grant Rights, Either

This story from the AP was put on KOLO-TV’s Twitter feed today. In brief, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled that an illegal immigrant’s rights, including the right to keep and bear arms, are limited and not fully protected by the Constitution.

Most of the comments are some variation on the theme of “he isn’t a citizen, so he does not have the rights of a citizen.” I have to disagree. The Constitution (or any other Law made by man) does not grant the people rights; it simply recognizes certain of the rights we have as people. The right to defend ourselves, our families, and our liberty is one of them.

I realize there exists a policy where convicted felons are denied the exercise of the right to keep firearms. I’ve seen an explanation along the lines of: when a person commits a felony–becomes a criminal–that person has broken the unwritten compact of society. He thus no longer has the rights society enjoys, including freedom and firearms.

In this case, however, Mr. Huitron-Guizar was not a convicted felon when he was in possession of firearms. He did plead guilty to being an illegal immigrant, though, so I suppose it could be argued that he had committed a crime that broke the societal compact. Still, he was not yet convicted when he actually had the firearms.

Which leads me to another puzzlement: why should this restriction apply only to firearms? Why would we not also forbid felons from owning any sort of weaponry after they are released from custody, including kitchen knives, baseball bats, and even automobiles? In fact, if one has been released from custody, doesn’t that signify that we are accepting him back into society? Why should we then restrict any of the human rights recognized as belonging to society?

But I digress. My point is that the Constitution does not give us rights, by the same measure that the courts do not give them to us.

Shaking My Head (Part 1, probably)

As I was getting on the freeway this morning, in front of me was a late-model gold-colored Subaru Outback (NV plates 912-TKR) with a “Keep Tahoe Blue” sticker. For those who don’t know of the League to Save Lake Tahoe, it’s a local environmentalist group focused on water clarity, but also concerned with scenic beauty.

You can imagine my shock and surprise, then, when the driver tossed a blue cardboard package out the window.

Now, I do not know for certain that the driver was the owner of the car, and the sticker. It may be that he was borrowing the car, and didn’t want to forget to remove his trash when he returned it. I only know that he is a litterbug.

P.S. I had tweeted a couple of weeks ago about seeing a KTB sticker in Russian. It is an official product of the LSLT, as is the Spanish-language one.

Eliminating the Penny

The recent move by Canada to remove pennies from circulation has caused speculation on how this would work should the United States. A Twitter discussion has prompted me to offer a small example based on my experiences in New Zealand. For this example I will assume that, like in many states, food items are sales-tax-exempt.

Suppose I made a quick run to the local Super Mart Center to pick up a few things we didn’t realize we were nearly out of. (I’m using “F” to represent food items that are exempt from sales tax, and “T” to represent items that are subject to sales tax.)

Milk	3.86	F
Bread	2.36	F
Paper Towels	2.16	T
Subtotal	8.38
Tax @7%	0.15
Total	8.53

If I’m paying cash, the total would be rounded to the nearest 5¢, and I will pay $8.55 for the bill. If I instead pay with a debit or credit card, or even *gasp* write a check, the total will be $8.53.

Now suppose at the checkstand I decide I need a box of Altoids:

Milk	3.86	F
Bread	2.36	F
Paper Towels	2.16	T
Altoids	2.27	T
Subtotal	10.65
Tax @7%	0.31
Total	10.96

Now the cash amount paid will be $10.95. So you can see that over time and volume of purchases, the amount of rounding will approach zero. That is, there will be just about as much rounded down as rounded up.

And I want to stress again, this applies only to cash purchases. Electronic purchases will not be rounded, nor, I suppose, would check purchases–since checks are usually negotiated electronically nowadays, anyway. The printed receipt looks normal, but if the cashier hits the “Cash Pmt” key, an extra line will print showing the “Cash Total” with the rounded amount.

One further point: in New Zealand, they’ve eliminated not only the 1¢ coin, but also the 5¢ coin. Cash purchases are rounded to the nearest 10¢. No one there seemed to think they were missing anything by it.