Tillman's Irish Times' Interview on Western Demography

It is a pattern law lecturer at Maynooth University Seth Barrett Tillman noted recently, when []he wrote: "Have you noticed the number of western leaders with no children? Odd."

Tillman believes politicians are reflective of a wider society that is simply not reproducing. Reports reveal a looming fertility crisis across Europe, as birth rates fall below replacement rates. Ireland has the second highest birth rate in the EU, with 1.92 live births per woman, compared with the EU average of 1.58 - but a rate of 2.1 is needed to maintain population size.

"It's an important issue," says Tillman. "It may very well be the defining issue of our time. The demographic implosion of the western world: people just aren't having kids. The whole system was built on the presumption there would be a pyramid in terms of workers, with fewer going into retirement than coming into the working world, so state payments can be supported by an ever-growing population. That presumption has been proved wrong.

"Politicians are reflecting a societal shift towards not having children, or waiting too late in life to do it. The idea of having two children - and just being at replacement level - let alone three or four children, is lost. Not having children is part of a larger trend of delaying marriage, delaying children, not having children at all, or putting it off until you're infertile. It's not where western society was even a short time ago.

"One of the interesting things about Trump is he has lots of kids. That didn't hurt him at all with the sort of people who live in the key states he was trying to win."

From: Larissa Nolan, Pregnant pause: why more people are choosing not to have children; The number of childless European leaders is reflective of a wider society where fertility rates have fallen dramatically, The Irish Times, Oct. 9, 2018, Health p.8 <https://tinyurl.com/yazew3qk> (Press Reader), <https://tinyurl.com/yczyzt94> (available on Nexis) (quoting Tillman); 

And also reported in: Larissa Nolan, Pregnant pause: why more people – including politicians – are choosing not to have children, The Irish Times (Oct. 12, 2018, 6:01 AM), 

https://tinyurl.com/y79oljzp (quoting Tillman); 

Seth Barrett Tillman, Tillman's Irish Times' Interview on Western Demography, New Reform Club (Oct. 9, 2018, 1:53 AM), 
https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2018/10/tillmans-irish-times-interview-on.html. 

My Post on CONLAWPROF on Kavanaugh and Perjury

Professor XXX, 

Throw me a bone here. 

The underlying purported wrong happened in the early 2000s, the (first purported) perjury happened in 2004 and 2006 during Kav's confirmation hearings. Post 2004 and 2006, the Democrats had party control of the House and Senate several times. But they never ran an investigation into (then Judge) Kav and produced an official report on the matter. President Obama came into office in 2009 and the Democrats had several years to investigate and prosecute, but the DOJ did not do so. 

More recently, Judge (now Justice) Kav has testified again on these matters. You don't point to any particular inconsistency between his old and new testimony. But you think it probable he lied and/or committed perjury.

Does not the absence of a timely investigation and timely prosecution by the party that had incentive to do so and the power to do so, indicate (perhaps strongly) that no cognizable wrong had taken place? Even with impeachment off-the-table as a practical matter, the Democrats could have investigated and produced a House or Senate report. The DOJ could also have prosecuted. If you maintain that a legal wrong has taken place--should not the fair-minded conclude that Justice Kav is now on the Supreme Court because the Democrats in Congress and President Obama's Justice Department were unwilling to do their jobs? 

Are you aware of any other such egregious failures by Obama, Holder, et al? This is probably a good time to tell us all--before the next Article III appointment to the Supreme Court or otherwise. 

Seth

Seth Barrett Tillman, My Post on CONLAWPROF on Kavanaugh and Perjury, New Reform Club (Oct. 8, 2018, 3:57 AM), https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2018/10/my-post-on-conlawprof-on-kavanaugh-and.html. 

In My Darker Moments . . .

In my darker moments, I sometimes ponder what the contours of the civilian court-access right extending to citizens supported by Justice Scalia in Hamdi and, perhaps also by Professor XXX, might look like. In World War II, the United States detained hundreds of thousands of Axis prisoners of war. A great many were guilty of war crimes and a fair number were tried for such crimes. During the war, these prisoners were duty bound to escape and to tie up the resources of the United States and its allies. Would such prisoners have hesitated to assert—even entirely falsely—that they were each and all United States citizens by birth, transported to Axis nations as children by their parents before the war, drafted without their consent, and forced to commit crimes against their will? Would not their affidavits in support of one another support such claims? And where purported claims to United States citizenship are supported, based merely on oath and affirmation, should such prisoners get a free ticket to the civilian courthouse door? What kept Axis prisoners from making such false claims was not a sense of martial honor common to warring nations, but the belief that their enemies were hard men, that their opponents were serious about victory and understood the consequences of defeat, and that the legal system incarcerating them was not run by madmen in judicial garb. Whatever else Ex parte Quirin was, it was a victory for common sense—during war time.

Seth Barrett Tillman, In My Darker Moments . . ., New Reform Club (Oct. 8, 2018, 3:47 AM), https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2018/10/in-my-darker-moments.html. 

Legal Question of the Moment: the Role of the Prudent Lawyer

Seth Barrett Tillman‏ @SethBTillman

Legal question of the moment: if Roe [v. Wade] and its progeny are overruled, and state statutes (on the books) making abortion illegal are revived, may states lawfully prosecute providers for abortions done during the time it was legal?

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Seth Barrett Tillman

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If "yes," it would be prudent for lawyers to NOW (no pun intended) to advise their clients (individuals and entities [e.g., insurers, hospitals, etc.]) in regard to [potential] civil and criminal liability. Maybe to pursue legislative and exec[utive] pardons/amnesties, etc.
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See William Michael Treanor & Gene B. Sperling, Prospective Overruling and the Revival of "Unconstitutional" Statutes, 93 Colum. L. Rev. 1902 (1993); 

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see also Jonathan F. Mitchell, The Writ-of-Erasure Fallacy, 104 Va. L. Rev. 933 (2018); Richard H. Fallon, Jr., If Roe were Overruled: Abortion and the Constitution in a Post-Roe World, 51 St. Louis U. L.J. 611 (2007).

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Seth Barrett Tillman, Legal Question of the Moment: the Role of the Prudent Lawyer, New Reform Club (Oct. 7, 2018, 4:15 AM), https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2018/10/legal-question-of-moment-role-of.html