News bits: Property rights over human life; Never-Trumpers losing hope; Democracy unravelling

Vice reports about legislation pending in the Kentucky legislature:

In Kentucky, politicians are preparing to vote on a law that would authorize the use of force against unhoused people who are found to be camping on private property.

The bill, known as the “Safer Kentucky Act,” or HB5, would target homelessness, drug possession and mental illness by drastically increasing criminal penalties for a range of offenses.

In addition, it says that “deadly physical force” is justifiable if a defendant believes that someone is trying to “dispossess” them of their property or is attempting a robbery or committing arson, language that could also have ramifications for tenants overstaying their lease.

The bill contains many hallmarks of a template produced by the Cicero Institute, a libertarian think tank founded by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, which has been drafting and lobbying for anti-homeless bills across the country. Cicero’s model legislation criminalizes public camping and restricts funding for evidence-based permanent supportive housing.  

Yet no other bill modeled after Cicero’s template sanctions the use of force against homeless people, as the Kentucky bill does, a provision advocates have called alarming.

Two points are important:

• Here, property rights are elevated over human life. The ambiguity of someone trying to “dispossess” someone else of property allows a property owner to shoot someone dead, claiming he was being dispossessed of property. It’s a lot like a stand your ground law that allows someone to murder someone else and justify it by claiming they were standing their ground against a threat from the dead person. I was under the impression that lethal force was justified only in defense of one’s own life or the life of another(s). Apparently that was a mistaken belief. 

• This is another example of (1) the power a hateful authoritarian billionaire and radical right politicians have to chip away at a key aspect of democracy, namely civil liberties, and (2) authoritarianism being cloaked in morally rotted, radical political ideology, libertarianism in this case. Note the antipathy of authoritarianism to evidence-based policy. That trait is common or dominant among radical right authoritarians who hate government. 

Q: Is this pro-democracy compassionate conservatism, pro-democracy pull yourself up by your bootstraps conservatism, old fashioned anti-democratic authoritarianism, or something else?

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The Hill reports about pessimism among Republican Trump opponents as he is on the verge of being the Republican nominee for a 3rd time:

The Memo: ‘Never Trumpers’ are close to giving up hope

“It’s his party, plain and simple. I’m not a fan of his, but it’s a MAGA party now, and he’s the leader of that,” said former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), who mounted a long-shot primary challenge to Trump in 2020 and left the GOP soon afterward.

“This party cannot be reformed, cannot be fixed. It’s on the track it’s on,” Walsh acknowledged. “I don’t see, in my lifetime, it getting off this track.”

Susan Del Percio, a strategist who has remained a Republican despite her fervent opposition to Trump, struck a broadly similar note — though she believes the party could move back onto a more traditional footing once Trump eventually leaves the political stage.

“The party needs to burn to the ground and rebuild itself,” Del Percio said. “It’s not going to happen in two years.”

Q: Who is morel likely to be right, Walsh who says the GOP is broken and not fixable any time soon, or Del Percio, who says the GOP can come back after demolition and reconstruction after Trump leaves the stage?

I think Walsh is probably closer to the mark than Del Percio because the monster has outgrown Trump and now has a life of its own.

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The AP reports on a USSC decision in a border dispute between Texas and the United States:

Supreme Court allows federal agents to cut razor wire 

Texas installed on US-Mexico border

A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed Border Patrol agents to resume cutting for now razor wire that Texas installed along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border that is at the center of an escalating standoff between the Biden administration and the state over immigration enforcement.

The 5-4 vote clears the way for Border Patrol agents to cut or clear out concertina wire that Texas has put along the banks of the Rio Grande to deter migrants from entering the U.S. illegally. Some migrants have been injured by the sharp wire and the Justice Department has argued the barrier impedes the U.S. government’s ability to patrol the border, including coming to the aid of migrants in need of help.

None of the justices provided any explanation for their vote. The one-page order is a victory for the Biden administration while the lawsuit over the wire continues.

The vote was 5-4, meaning four USSC judges wanted to let Texas establish and enforce it’s own international border law. That is an example of American democracy falling apart. The fact that a lawsuit about this is still to be decided indicates that the USSC could still let Texas do whatever it wants on its border with Mexico. 

Two points merit a mention:

• The border situation with illegal immigrants and asylum seekers needs to be fixed or it could be one of the factors that cost the Dems the 2024 presidential election and maybe congress too. Then all of us could lose our democracy. 

• Fixing the border situation seems to be unlikely, with opposition coming from both the radical right and progressives. House Speaker Johnson has problems with a proposed Senate fix. So does Trump. By keeping the border situation unresolved by a bipartisan compromise, the issue appears to significantly favor the radical right authoritarian political movement.