Monday, April 1, 2019

Random thoughts while riding

So if sliding off the road in winter is automatically a ticket (considered driving too fast for the conditions) why isn't failure to have an accident considered an affirmative defense for not driving too fast for the conditions?  Just wondered, while we were riding the bikes down south the other day.

Side by side, nose to tail, is a blast.  Four bikes packed into less than thirty feet of road at highway speed.  It takes utter concentration.  Those of wonder at the clubs riding and think that it looks dangerous, you practice and then you practice some more, and then you stay completely focused the whole time.  You don't focus on the bike ahead of you, you focus on the road past them and you watch them with your subconscious.

So St Patrick was Welsh and converted the Irish to Christianity. The Irish are now one of the least Christian countries in Europe. But St Patrick's Day is still a holiday in Ireland and the pubs there are closed on that day.   Meanwhile they want the island to be united and not subject to a foreign power.  Self rule.  But the Irish are a part of the European Union which imposes laws on its member countries with little or no input by the people of those countries.  The Irish in Northern Ireland are at least consistent in that they both want British rule and they voted by a larger percentage to stay in the EU.  I think I have that all right.

Does Congress have the right to give local communities veto power over the exercise of federal power?  That was a small item in the immigration legislation that was passed, that local communities could veto building of a security barrier in their localities.  I wouldn't have thought that would stand up to Constitutional muster.  I am hearing that it is hypocritical to support states refusing to enforce federal law on firearms within the state boundaries, but I think there a significant difference.  The feds are given complete authority over immigration.  They are also given authority over "commerce between the states" and supposed to defend the right to own firearms.  If firearms are being built and never moved across state lines, not sure how they ever had the authority to regulate them (SCOTUS gave the feds a lot of power in Wickard V Filburn (1942) that I am not convinced that they were intended to have or should have. To get back to the original point, the states have no independent authority to regulate immigration into the country.

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