Obama's rights

Dear Sir,

In Obama’s full court press – Monday 15 February David Waywell suggests that “the Republicans might realise that they’d be best served by allowing Obama his choice of nomination…If Republicans block the vote, Democrats will call foul given President Obama’s Constitutional right to nominate a Supreme Court justice. ”

President Obama has a duty to nominate a Supreme Court Justice, but confirmation of that individual is up to the Senate, which can choose not to confirm. The last time a Supreme Court Justice was nominated in an election year and confirmed by a Senate controlled by the opposite party was in 1888. In July 2007, when the Senate had a Democratic majority, Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said that he would not allow any Supreme Court nominees from President George W. Bush to be confirmed for the remaining 17 months of Bush’s term. Now Senator Schumer goes on television and calls the Republican Senate obstructionist, but he and his party were even more obstructionist when it came to approving Bush’s judicial nominees.

Mr. Waywell does not appear to realize that although Republicans might endear themselves to Democrats if they were to approve a new Supreme Court nominee, they would alienate their own supporters, and hence lose votes in the general election. Republican leaders are only following precedent, and know precisely on which side their bread is buttered.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Senior Fellow and Director, Economics21, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, Washington DC, USA     |    @FurchtgottRoth

Culture Clash

The author of Debating the idea that nations have exclusive property rights on their culture – 11th February 2016 is missing a major point. While she is correct that culture cannot be owned, a large influx of people who bring a very different culture, and despise the host culture and consider it to be inferior to theirs – this most certainly can, in extreme cases, completely alter the local culture. While examples of that happening to whole countries are relatively rare, on a smaller scale (e.g. a part of a city or a neighbourhood) they are very common.

Furthermore, the groups that are more willing and able to use violence and intimidation, usually are the ones who eventually end up victorious.

So in that respect, what difference does it make whether a culture is “legally owned” by individuals or not? In fact, I can’t even quite see how the concept of owning private property could be applied to culture, as culture is essentially a personal choice of behaviour, not a resource, access to which can be expressly denied by somebody else. Furthermore, the complaint of the indigenous population in this context is not that the newcomers adopt their culture, but that they refuse to do so! So in that respect, the example of a swimming pool is completely off mark.

Gintas Vilkelis, Buckinghamshire, UK     |    @GintasVilkelis

Does any nation claim exclusive ownership of its culture ? On the contrary, many nations have tried to export their culture. If you start your argument based on an incorrect theory you are going to come up with strange answers; defence of a culture is nothing to do with any club theory. It seems almost incontrovertible that if you swamp a national culture with immigration of another culture you destroy or, at least, minimise the former. Take the successive cultures that have dominated at various times in Britain – Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norman. More relevant to recent experience has been the problem of encouraging immigrants to take on their host country’s culture rather than remaining in their own cultural ghettoes ; the polar opposite of a club opposition to sharing a culture.

Robert Thomas , Galloway, UK

Dead beat

Re: The not so strange death of the Independent – 12th February 2016

Perhaps it is not print that’s dying or dead. Perhaps it is the model of printing vast quantities of newsprint on massive central printers and then lugging the tons of newsprint to thousands of distribution points for readers to access that’s theproblem. Why can’t quality publications be printed on demand at points of consumption (such as in a private home)? It’s not like the technology doesn’t exist, it’s more the business model.

Instead of trying to fit newspapers into cellphones, newspapers should start looking at how cellphone providers supply their customers with expensive cellphones on contracts and consider something similar with high-quality, in-home printers. That way newspapers will secure subscribers who will be able to configure their subscription to receive what they want, when they want, at a much lower cost to customer and much greater profitability to publisher.

Mike Chandler, Buffalo City, South Africa

Iran's double agent

Nile Gardiner criticizes European nations for trading with Iran after the sanctions deal. (Europe’s reckless deals with Iran will backfire – 9th February 2016).  But as was pointed out by Bloomberg, the US has long been operating a double standard as they used their legal system to create favorable conditions for US banks and corporations to increase trade with Iran while penalizing their European counterparts, through large fines and even extraditions to face criminal charges. US moral authority has been weakened by this behavior. So it is unlikely that business in Europe will pay much heed to scolding from the other side of the Atlantic.

Colin Turfus, London, UK

Bonkers Marginal Arguments

Robert Colvile’s article On the NHS, the Tories are betting against the free market – 15 February 2016 misses some aspects of the junior doctor drivers and the BMA dynamics.

The BMA, despite trappings of an authoritative medical institution, is a trade union.

And inside the members hierarchy the senior consultants hold the whip hand and use that to protect their status and income. As the NHS wage bill is largely a zero sum game they gain by keeping union control over juniors, who can (like barristers) remain ‘juniors’ for many years – the title is not just for recent graduates gaining skills.

Overall I suspect among the several causes of the seemingly absurd marginal arguments (e.g. shift payments do not reward enough those who work fewer Saturdays – c’mon guys) are the healthy, well paid older consultants who want to extend their careers and not be so challenged by the new generation.

Paul Goss, London, UK