Posts by S. Marty Pantz

In 2014, Scotland had a referendum on secession from the United Kingdom.  The process was an exemplar of democracy.  The country was evenly divided between the proponents and opponents of the schism.  In the end, the Scots voted 55% to 45% to remain part of the UK.  The voter turnout was 85%.  In this election, the issue was clear, the decision straightforward and the significance paramount.  There was only the single question on the ballot.  Choosing whether Scotland was to be an independent country or, alternatively, was to maintain its 300-year old affiliation with its neighbors, was not a decision…

In the simplest case, a single word may be a collective noun. It can refer to people (crowd, team, mob), to animals (herd, bevy, pack), or to things (clump, bunch, batch). These are usually general in nature. You can have a team of cyclists or a team of scientists or a team of oxen. A more elaborate construction refers uniquely to a group of something and takes the form:

a [collective term] of [noun]

The doctrine of qualified immunity grants government officials performing discretionary functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.  In other words, unless the harm done is blatantly egregious, the government is not responsible for violating the rights of citizens.  Misbehavior which would clearly result in legal action when one party harms another is virtually impossible when one of the parties is the government. Qualified immunity is in the news these days because it is the principal which protects government entities from lawsuits resulting from police…

I went to a high school with about 3,000 students.  I do not remember the exact numbers, but I am sure that there were just over 600 in my graduating class.  To have 3,000 students and 600 graduates in any given year, each class had to be smaller the next. To account for drop-outs, I would assume the classes in my high school had to be something like 900, 800. 700 and 600.   I would have thought that a freshman class of 900 would have yielded a senior class of more than 600, but the assumed numbers are not unrealistic.  …

In 2016, 63 million Americans voted for Donald Trump for president of the United States.  His opponent received more votes, but POTUS is not elected by popular vote.  The Electoral College is an anachronism, but its provisions are clear.  It allows for a candidate with fewer popular votes to be elected.    With possible exception of John Quincy Adams, Hillary Clinton’s credentials for the presidency were probably stronger than anyone who ever contended for the job. In stark contrast, Trump could well be the least prepared candidate ever.  Electing Donald Trump to the White House was the equivalent of signing…