Rep. Hatcher has introduced HB 1536 which would modify the definition of the crime of intimidation. The new definition would simply be “a threat to another person, with the intent that another person be placed in fear that the threat will be carried out.” The current definition is a threat: 1) with the intent that the person engage in conduct against their will; 2) with the intent that the person will be placed in fear of retaliation for a prior lawful act; and/or 3) the intent that a dwelling or vehicle will be evacuated or interfering with the occupancy of the dwelling or vehicle.

Obviously the new definition would be much broader. For example, it would encompass fear of retaliation for a prior unlawful act which I could envision being both good and bad. “I’m going to kick your ass for bullying my daughter” is more sympathetic than “I’m going to kick your ass for selling me bad heroin.” I’m sure the change has broader implications than that, but it’s early, and I’m not coming up with anything that’s much more sophisticated.

Sen. Steele has introduced SB 29 concerning “application of foreign law.” I believe this is a return of the Sharia law bugaboo that crops up from time to time. (For example Sen. Kruse’s SB 90-2012).

If they’re just going to re-introduce the same bills, I guess I’m justified in just regurgitating the same analysis:

I believe Sen. Kruse’s SB 90 is properly understood as part of the non-existent Sharia menace.

Prohibits the enforcement of a foreign law (defined as a law established and used outside the jurisdiction of the United States) if the enforcement would violate a right granted by the Indiana or United States Constitution.

This part strikes me as gratuitous. What court in the U.S. is subordinating constitutional rights to foreign law? The whole scheme of statutory construction is premised on the notion that laws are unenforceable if they violate the constitution. So far as I know, foreign law is recognized as, at most, persuasive authority. That can change if, for example, parties have contracted to have their rights determined under a choice of law in a foreign jurisdiction, in which case the courts can be asked to determine the intent of the parties as to their rights under the contract by interpreting the law of a foreign jurisdiction.

The bill goes on to say that a foreign choice of law provision in a contract is void if it would violate someone’s constitutional rights. I think this is already a principle of contract interpretation, but it mostly does not come up because constitutions typically constitute the bounds of appropriate government behavior and not relations between private parties. So you can, for example, enter into a non-disclosure agreement without violating the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. On the other hand, a contract to enslave yourself is unenforceable.

I don’t know that this bill has any practical application. I think it’s properly understood as another chapter in the Great Sharia Freakout. See also.

Article V of the U.S. Constitution describes a couple of ways to amend the U.S. Constitution.

Amendments may be proposed by either:
#two-thirds of both houses of the United States Congress; or
#by a national convention assembled at the request of the legislatures of at least two-thirds of the states.

To become part of the Constitution, amendments must then be ratified either by approval of:

#the legislatures of three-fourths of the states; or
#state ratifying conventions held in three-fourths of the states.

Congress has discretion as to which method of ratification should be used.

The only amendment that isn’t permitted is to deprive a state of equal representation in the Senate without its consent.

Today, the Indiana Senate adopted SB 224 and 225 concerning a Constitutional Convention.

224 purports to limit a delegate’s authority to duties on which the delegate receives instruction by joint resolution of the Indiana General Assembly. 225 provides criteria for appointing a delegate – the person has to be over 18, an Indiana voter, not a lobbyist, and not a federal official. Votes for the delegate have to approved by majorities of each chamber.

I don’t have any particular objection to these provisions on their own terms. And if the provisions were just introduced in isolation, I wouldn’t mind the legislation as a “be prepared” measure that the General Assembly expected to gather dust over the decades. But it’s not an isolated measure. It’s of a piece with the John Birch Society Kool-Aid we’ve been seeing in the General Assembly lately: the nullificationists, the sovereign citizens, the Constitutional Sheriff’s movement – to name a few. It also comes combined with SJR 18 which tries to call a Constitutional Convention “strictly confined to consideration of amendments concerning the limitation of the commerce and taxing powers of Congress”. (Good luck picking just those two worms out of the can once you open it.)

There is a refusal to recognize that we are ordinary people living in ordinary times. Despite the reality that we have a moderate federal government making incremental changes, we hear cries of tyranny and desperate pleas to “take our country back.” This attitude is akin to — and, I think linked to — evangelical insistence that the end is nigh and persecution is everywhere. The Slacktivist speculates on the reason for the persistence of what he calls the “Christian Persecution Complex”:

[B]y pretending we’re a persecuted minority rather than the hegemonic majority we actually constitute, then we’re also able to pretend that we’re: 1) Noticeably different in our dreams, desires and daily lives from those otherwise indistinguishable-from-us neighbors who share our culture but not the particulars of our faith; and 2) Noticeably and intolerably more virtuous and righteous than those otherwise indistinguishable-from-us neighbors who share our culture but not the particulars of our faith.

My theory, in other words, is that we’ve chosen the illusion of self-righteousness over the actual hard work of becoming the kind of love-driven, love-shaped people Jesus called us to be.

In another context, I offered that it’s OK to be an insignificant part of an enormous universe:

It seems to me that, with some people, there is a driving need to see one’s self as a heroic figure in the consequential drama of one’s life. And that need leads to a view of the world that doesn’t comport with reality which, in turn, leads to interactions with the world that aren’t healthy and which aren’t helpful to others.

In this category, I also see the fervent believer with a personal relationship to God that helps them withstand the persecution that is everywhere while they are engaged in a noble effort to stand against evil; perhaps through a desperate battle to save America by battling its destructive cultural decline.

There hasn’t been a Constitutional Convention in the 230 years or so since our Constitution was adopted. There is no reason to think one is anywhere near the horizon; the Indiana Senate’s call to arms notwithstanding. Our time isn’t more laden with importance than normal. It’s grandiose to think it is. The barbarians are not at the gate. The bills don’t hurt anything on their own (though the resolution is irresponsible), but they look to be symptomatic of disturbing pathology in our political psyche.