Trying to Be Social

“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.”
― Lloyd Alexander

I'm a small business owner. Nothing emphasizes that point more acutely than passing Thanksgiving, when it becomes obvious I've spent too little time marketing my wares.

Part of that effort is to have a presence on social media. Facebook, Twitter... I have a blog, a web site and books to sell on Amazon. If you want, you can get them on your Kindle, or have them printed. Bring it by the Academy and I'll sign it. The print copy.

Of course, that means I have to write. I have to have opinions and express them. The books don't sell themselves, suddenly pop into a reader's presence and insist on being read. So, from time to time you are offered the opportunity to read other things I've written. 

My web site, for example.

Writing about law enforcement, and law enforcers, has given me an opportunity to make sense of our profession not only for you, but for me. It's given me the chance to create people not out of thin air, but out of the experiences of others. Karen isn't who she is because I invented her. The women with whom I've served helped make her real.

Go onto social media and type something to the effect of "Guns should not just be banned, they should be confiscated." See what happens. A More Perfect Union examines that pitched battle between conflicting principles from a police officer's perspective.

How about a good woman with an abusive husband? How might she juggle the end of one relationship, the beginning of another and do justice to a murder investigation that won't go away? Out of Ideas.

Your friend is dead. Everything about his end suggests suicide - in law enforcement today that's a rational assumption with far too many tragic examples. It gnaws at you. Before you know it you find yourself fighting for your own life. You'd have discovered The Heart of the Matter.

Finally - a mom, a wife... A police supervisor awash in the downside of the digital revolution. My first novel, my first main character. A Miracle of Zeros and Ones.

Every one is a product not just of my own experiences in law enforcement, but of hundreds of men and women who have done their best to serve. If you want to know what real cops think, not just when the body cam is on but when they are being themselves... 

They fit nicely in a Christmas stocking.

The Constitution Says What?! UPDATED

"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer."

— Henry Kissinger

The Constitution has had a busy week. Irony was in the air, thick as mosquitoes on a warm Syracuse evening. People who thought they'd packed the Court, finally to get the "conservative majority" they craved, the outcomes they'd worked so hard to anticipate... Let's start from the easiest part.

The headline was inferential. President Trump had "signaled" he might use an executive order to rescind so-called "birthright citizenship." First - how, exactly, does the Twitterrer-in-Chief signal? Usually, he comes right out and says what is on his mind. Unfiltered. For whatever it's worth. President Trump is learned the art of notion floating an idea? I'll be damned.

Of course, there was an immediate hue and cry. Dude, the...you know...Constitution!

Well, you know, the 14th Amendment. It says, rather clearly:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

If I've read it once in cases, I've read it a hundred and forty-seven times. "In matters of constitutional interpretation, we begin with the text itself." Begin?

It is a mistake to think that the Supreme Court... Hang on, let's do something quick, before the actual substance stuff. The Supremes - sometimes referred to awkwardly as SCOTUS, which doesn't take any less time to type, really - deal in "cases and controversies." Some States (and this is their option) allow advisory opinions on laws that haven't really become a thing, yet. "Hey, [State's Highest Court], what do you think of the law we might pass?"

The US Constitution requires that an actual lawsuit actually be in play. Sometimes, as in Plessy (separate but equal) and Griswold (contraception), court cases are ginned up to cause a case to be brought. The "Scopes Monkey Trial" started when a teacher was arrested in a prearranged agreement between him and the local government so that a case could go forward - a real case and controversy existed.

So, the Supreme Court can do no more than chuckle over their muffins during morning get togethers about President Trump's hint. That is, until the mild-looking guy from Hawaii, or the bearded imbecile from... Washington or Oregon - one of those states where they let weird dudes in black hoodies direct traffic - when one of them issues an injunction, there is much high dudgeon on both sides and the President ultimately gets his way. Okay, maybe it was California.

What does "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" mean? Not a clue. I've read a few essays by people who think they know, but... Let's think about this.

Emma and Noah, a young couple from Thistletown, Ontario, pop across the border to see their beloved Maple Leafs play Buffalo's Sabres. She is eight months pregnant, but due in thirty days. Both are Canadian citizens. Of course, if they commit a crime, or make a wrong turn in violation of New York traffic laws they'll see how quickly they become "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" by some Buffalo cop looking for something to do.

Toronto Goalie Nikita Zaitsev gives up a late, soft goal. The crowd goes nuts. Emma detects an unquenchable flow of... You get the idea. Several hours later Carly Yvonne is born at Buffalo General, a happy and healthy six pound... American?

I've been a lawyer. Isn't there something that tells me whether the world has welcomed a new American, or a Canadian who will soon be back in Ontario learning how to say "eh?" after every third sentence?

No?

We're soon going to find out. And, maybe it's time we did.

UPDATED: Andrew McCarthy has a very interesting take on "Subject to the jurisdiction" and an originalist view of the 14th Amendment. He ends it with an entirely reasonable policy statement.