Thoughts on Justice

In response to Death penalty, who gets it and who doesn't.

I am going to have to side with the Supreme Courts’ majority opinion on this case. I do completely understand the passion that is involved in deciding a case like this. I have a daughter, a sister and a mother, and were someone to rape any of them, I would most definitely want the death penalty for the offender. That said, the law is not supposed to be passionate it is supposed to be blind. Taking a human life, no matter what offense they might have committed, is a grave and serious matter. In this particular case, where one might feel certain that this man is guilty, one might find it easy to decree his execution. Instead, think of a scenario where a man stands accused of a child rape he did not commit. The inflammatory nature of child rape cases often has the accused convicted the instant they are accused. The potential exists that we start to execute innocent people. It is much easier to frame someone for child-rape than it is to frame someone for capital murder. Our system of justice is set up such that we would rather have 10 guilty people walking free than 1 innocent man in prison. It is obvious that the system doesn’t always function as such, but I certainly agree with the philosophy.

Unintelligent Design

The “religious right,” have been persistent as moral entrepreneurs to push creationism/intelligent design in to public science curriculum for some time now. As we know from Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), the Court established the three prong test to determine if legislation has violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The three prongs are, legislation must: have a secular purpose; must neither inhibit, nor advance religion; and must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.

In Edward v. Aguillard, the Supreme Court ruled that a Louisiana law which mandated the teach of creationism with the theory of evolution was indeed in violation of the Establishment Clause. Since then, the religious right faction of our country have started a social movement centered around the concept of intelligent design. The major player in the movement is a conservative think tank called The Discovery Center, which is marking intelligent design as a scientific theory. The “Theory of Intelligent Design” is in fact based on a concept which they call “irreducibly complex,” meaning that, taken what we know about the Universe to the point where we have not yet explained a phenomenon or observation scientifically, and calling it “irreducibly complex.” This is a fallacy called argumentum ad ignorantiam which means it is an argument from ignorance, which is based on the idea that if something cannot be proven false, it must be true. Furthermore the “theory” of intelligent design is not a theory at all, at least not in the scientific sense, since there is no way to test its validity.

Even still despite the fact that the scientific community almost unanimously rejects the idea of intelligent design as anything that is even closely related to science, there is an active social movement to affect public policy around this issue. These are the reasons the framers of the Constitution saw fit to separate church and state. These are the reasons that Alexander Hamilton warned us of the dangerous nature of factions.

Outside the box

In response to Caught Up in the Past

When I began reading this post, I was noting points on which I disagree. Having such a powerful opening line, with which I whole heartedly disagree I read with the assumption that I would disagree with the point. Then I got to paragraph two, and while I find that we do loose site of what is important, I believe it is the unavoidable allure of power which interfere and not the constitution. It is the political conflict which makes the government slower than perhaps it should be.

While a behemoth bureaucracy such as our federal government will never be what one might call nimble, it could certainly use a dose of efficiency. With that, the essence of this editorial (if I might be so presumptuous), I most definitely agree. I think this is a ballsy, out of the box way to think about things. I think it is far easier to say this is problem with no solution and it requires courage to ask the question this begs. If there was a way to solve our slow to progress government’s lack of social dexterity, what would it be?

I think your ideas here are not thoroughly thought out, but I am always impressed with people who think about things outside their normal boundaries.

Shame On US

There has been a lot in the news in the past several years about very controversial events regarding what Americans have come to take for granted as rights and civil liberties. A few things come to mind, including the abuses which were documented that took place in the Abu Ghraib prison, the president’s authorization of wiretapping, the CIA’s involvement in training our military how to effectively torture detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

When did we as citizens become alright with these things? How can we hold that these rights apply to only us? We are holding people we suspect of “terrorism” indefinitely, without the right to habeas corpus. We are recording the phone conversations of American citizens. We are not only advocating but also researching “best practice” torture methods. Isn’t this the kind of actions which we condemn other countries for taking? Our country founded on the value that people, all people, have the right to civil liberties.

This is a truly disgraceful period of time for our country. We will someday look back on this with the shame which we now look upon the McCarthy era. When did it happen that the office of the president rose above the rule of law? We are the keepers of the east gate in this country. We are not subjects of our government, we ARE our government. It is our duty to challenge this movement to chisel away at the liberties we take for granted. I remember hearing someone say once, in the context of the Tienanmen Square protests, that freedom was like air, meant to be taken for granted. It is only when it is not available that it becomes apparent.

Our freedom is by no means gone, but one day, if we aren’t vigilant, we will look up and wonder where it all went. We will remember a day when our liberty was the envy of the world, and our system the model of self government. We can’t divest ourselves of responsibility, its not our government, its is you and I. We are responsible for every person who is unlawfully detained without due process, every person who is tortured, and every man woman and child who is killed in the name of the righteous. It is not a level playing field, and we will always face an enemy who is less scrupulous than we. There is still no excuse.

Dissenting Opinions

An interesting thing is happening in this country during this “war on terror.” While you will never hear me calling from the mountain that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, I certainly am concerned about the general attitude of tolerance in this country. I am not sure why I expect the United States to exist in a space closer to the ideals on which it was founded, like integrity, justice and equality. These concepts, as abstract as they are, are so beautifully articulated in our constitution. I further realize how much further away we were in 1776, and how far we have come. It’s not far enough.

“The Enemy Within,” is an editorial by Dahlia Lithwick posted on Slate.com. In it, she references the Supreme Court Decision last Thursday in Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the President could not, even with Congress, deny the Guantanamo detainee’s the right to habeas corpus. Lithwick warns that this “as all the big enemy-combatant cases have been – both enormously important and relatively insignificant.” She describes Justice Scalia’s dramatic dissenting opinion quoting his closing: “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today.”

It is a difficult thing to hold ones’ integrity ahead of ones’ profit or safety. It is rarely if ever easier to the right thing. It is however hard to swallow the thought that we have people sitting on the bench of our Supreme Court who would chose what is safe over what we know to be right. To “detain” people indefinitely without due process can never be right.

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” - Benjamin Franklin

Right Wing Drama Queen

Sensationalist right wing pundit, Ann Coulter posted her commentary “OBAMA WAS SELECTED NOT ELECTED,” on her blog, anncoulter.com, early this month. In her editorial, she makes the argument that the 2008 Democratic primary race was analogous to the 2000 presidential election where Democratic Presidential Nominee, Al Gore won the popular vote, but lost the electoral vote and the presidency to President George W. Bush. With her trademark effusive sarcasm she goes on and on with that analogy as if it was in-fact equivalent.

For starters, there are no clear numbers to establish the popular vote victory. Since caucus states like Iowa, Nevada, Washington and Maine don’t officially report their popular vote, these numbers can only be estimated using the official caucus turnout and the distribution of delegates. Furthermore, a Clinton popular vote victory would have to include votes from Florida and Michigan which although they will have some allotment of delegates, will have no real quantifiable number of votes to count, since Mr. Obama was not even on the ballot.

Ann Coulter, true to her pedantic form is taking another opportunity to stretch the fabric of reality to draw attention to her inflammatory politics. Additionally, she sites the constitutional process of electing a president though the Electoral College as appointed by the legislature to diminish the value of the popular vote, comparing it to a beauty contest.

I believe that in the last few presidential races we have demonstrated that our process for electing a president is need of revisiting. I also believe that politics is largely the sale of ideas. Ann Coulter has certainly marketed herself well creating an ever trendy brand of elitist ideals and imperialism.

Chess and Other Games of Position

As anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock knows, this year’s Democratic Party primary race has been an epic contest full of twists and turns and last minute buzzer beaters. This past weekend the Democratic Party’s rules committee met behind closed doors to discuss a solution to the debacle caused by Florida and Michigan in their judgment to hold their primaries early.

Katharine Q Seelye of the New York Times describes in her article Gauging Fallout From Rules Committee’s Decisions,” this fiasco has more to it than meets the eye. Epitomizing the praxis of politics, the move to hold their primaries early, according to Seelye, who references Michigan Senator Carl Levin's comments on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” is all about jockeying for position in future primary elections.

Additionally, Seelye describes the artful positioning of the presidential candidates in the negotiation process of deciding how to place the Michigan delegates. The moves are chess-like and seem for all intents and purposes to have Ms. Clinton with in a few moves of check mate.