The show continues to be on an upward trend.

The continued riffs on the vigilantism motif remain one of the show's best, and most morally fascinating, parts. The TelevisionWithoutPity boards (and the consensus of my Veronica-Mars-watching-friends) strongly supports Logan's resort to jailhouse violence.

At any rate, the titular question still stands. Time and again, Veronica Mars charges into the lion's den, and unlike Daniel, she lacks holy invincibility. I don't criticize this choice: I understand that Veronica 1, feels basically invincible when she's in the right, and 2, has an incredible drive to stop imminent wrongdoing. But in every arc finale so far (Lily's murder, the bus crash, the Hearst rapist) she has been physically outmatched. Given that she is not particularly large, not a Buffy-esque martial artist, and insists on going it alone when in grave danger, shouldn't she be armed? Her dad is.

It does seem possible that a gun would merely increase Veronica's foolhardiness (just as airbags may cause reckless driving). On the other hand, it's not clear how much more foolhardy Veronia could really get (it's not as if her lack of physical power deters her from doing stupid things as it stands). Furthermore, it's also possible that getting and learning how to use a gun would have the opposite effect, because it would force her to take slightly more serious the gravity of the physical danger into which she insists on throwing herself.

What do you think?

A great quote, asking all the right questions, from Justice Jackson, 45 Colum. L. Rev. 1, 28-29 (1945):

What is the basis of power in a constituent state of our federation to govern a controversy, when is it exclusive of a like power asserted for another state on the same or some different basis, and when is it entitled to prevail even in the forums of another state? I leave you pretty much at large on this subject, for that is where the decisions leave me. But I could suggest no more engaging intellectual enterprise to which the scholarship of our profession might turn than to try to find the wise answers on constitutional grounds to these questions.

I've finally gotten around to reading Chernow's Alexander Hamilton. It's a good book, made better by the fact it contains an interesting discussion of the "titles of nobility" prohibition in our constitution. To cut a long story short, Chernow tells us that there was some uproar in Hamilton's time as to whether the hereditary Society of the Cincinnati should be made an illegal title of nobility. The way the constitution eventually shook out, of course, it's only state and federal government titles of nobility which are banned, and foreign titles of nobility held by people serving the United States (§§ 9 and 10 of Article I). So the Society of the Cincinnati issue was rendered moot, and it's still around today.

Nonetheless, that set me to wondering about titles of nobility, setting aside the extremely convoluted and odd theories about the "lost" 13th amendment. (for an explanation of this new to me issue, see the comprehensive debunking here). What ought to constitute a "title of nobility?"

My sense, without having done much research, is that there are probably two somewhat overlapping categorizations of nobility. Clearly, if someone is granted the right to call himself a "Duke" by Virginia, that's probably violative of the constitution, although just as clearly, not all titles are equally infirm (a Ph.D awarded by a public university, perhaps). And equally clearly, there's probably some level of privilege inaccessible to other citizens that would eventually become a constitutional violation, whatever it was called. I would guess that any hereditary designation would probably fall directly into that zone. So, for example, if Virginia decided to set up a branch of the Baronial Order of Magna Charta, that too would probably violate the constitution.

There are, I note, various tax protestor cases available deciding that "person", "officer of the court", "taxpayer", and various other commonly used, obviously non-noble titles are not constitutionally prohibited "titles of nobility", but I know of no substantial even remotely recent case. Can anyone think of an example where this might come up today?

David Lat reports on the investiture of Neil Gorsuch, a newly-minted 10th Circuit (hooray!) judge. The report includes this quote from the Denver Post:

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was in Denver to administer the oath, spoke directly to the little girls before Gorsuch raised his right hand.

"He's doing it to remind all of us that the first obligation any American has is to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States," he said. (emphasis added)