Thou Shalt Covet

Dear Indigna,

Can Russia actually "claim" the polar regions simply by planting a flag there, all international laws to the contrary? Can the U.N. do anything to prevent this? I ask because I would very much like to expand my real estate holdings.

Potential Plutocrat
NY, NY

Dear Future World Leader,

U.N., Spew N! Of course this is legitimate, and has been for thousands of years! Okay, so the so-called "international law" "differs" -- for no more than the last half-century mind you! -- but that is just because of activist judges who have legislated from the bench by completely ignoring the fact that there is absolutely nothing in the "World Constitution" justifying this infringement on empirical rights (i.e., empire-building, per my free-speech-guaranteed personal dictionary)!

No, no, no! I subscribe to the Scalia/Thomas view of any "constitutional" question that does not impact my personal life or financial status. We must return to the "Original Intent" of the Framers of the (World) Constitution.

Here's the kicker--no such Constitution exists! HA! Therefore we must return to the accepted interpretation of laws and whatnot that existed when such a document failed to be drafted, i.e., anytime before, oh, say, whatever date seems most convenient. If, just in the U.S. alone, we can roll back seemingly settled precedent like, I don't know, the 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education (Justice Thomas in 2007: "it is far from apparent that coerced racial mixing has any educational benefits, much less that integration is necessary to black achievement"), we can certainly ignore any so-called "decisions" made thereafter. Fer example, Roe v. Wade, 1973, was partially overturned in 2007 'cuz, you know, it totally ignored the long-accepted axiom that our delicate little ladies need to be protected from their own decisions by ball-swingers. Justice Kennedy:

[S]ome doctors may prefer not to disclose precise details of the means that will be used [to perform an abortion] ... It is self-evident that a mother who comes to regret her choice to abort must struggle with grief more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns, only after the event, what she once did not know [i.e., surgical details] ... It is a reasonable inference that a necessary effect of the regulation and the knowledge it conveys will be to encourage some women to carry the infant to full term, thus reducing the absolute number of late-term abortions. The medical profession, furthermore, may find different and less shocking methods to abort the fetus in the second trimester, thereby accommodating legislative demand. ... While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained. [emphasis mine] (Gonzales v. Carhart No. 05-380 sec. IV-A)

This logic is clearly on the side of Right, as is the idea that "he who smelt it, dealt it." In other words, take responsibility for your own actions--or failure to act! To return to the question of Russia's bold claim of the Arctic Ocean, did anyone else put a flag there yet? No! So no one has any right to whine about Russia's getting there first. As for U.S. law, under the Thomas/Kennedy theory of jurisprudence, we must reject so-called "evidence" and "precedent" and decide the question of ownership using nothing more than common sense and speculation about the likely opinions of the eighteenth-century Framers of our Constitution. Yes, we must fall back onto the simple doctrine that governed land acquisition for thousands of years, yea, even unto the twentieth century. That doctrine is "finders keepers, losers weepers," provided the finder is better-armed than the loser. After all, where would our country be today if not for colonialism?