Deoccupy DC

In my list of top three positive consequences of the 2010 elections is the fact that Nancy Pelosi was no longer Speaker of the House.  As a result of that, she does not infest my television as often as she used to.

I remember when she was lashing out at the Tea Party in 2009, coining the famous “Astroturf” comparison.  Then there was her heartfelt speech in September 2009, “I have concerns about some of the language that is being used, because I saw . . .” (sniffle, eye roll, attempt to hold back the tears) “. . .I saw this myself . . .” (greater effort to hold back more tears and great emotional distress throughout the rest of this) “ . . .in the late ’70s in San Francisco.  This kind of rhetoric was very frightening and it gave, it created a climate in which we, in which violence took place.”

In further comments, she noted, “I wish we would all curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements and understand that some of the ears that it is falling on are not as balanced as the person making the statements may assume.”

Now, almost two years later, actual violent rhetoric (with words like “revolution” and phrases like “Jew-Zionist pig” and “the NYPD are murderers” and “Put the pigs back in their sty.”) is being used by the OWS crowd.  There are also a variety of crimes being committed in their ranks, including murders, sexual assaults, rapes, theft, and drug use resulting in overdoses.  (Newsflash:  Yes, illicit drug use is a crime.)  When arrests are made, some are found to have outstanding warrants for their arrests on other charges.  Most animals would not treat their living space with the same disrespect the OWS crowds are showing to theirs.

Nancy, instead of calling for a few curbs on rhetoric and enthusiasm in this crowd composed mainly of the unbalanced, comes out as Tiny Tim to say about the OWS crowd, “God Bless them for their spontaneity!” beaming her biggest botox smile.

Groovy and far out.  I want to start a new movement—Deoccupy DC (DDC).

First of all, when Nancy Pelosi referred to the violence (sniff, sniff, stiff upper lip, continue) in the late 70s in San Francisco, it was perpetrated by leftists, similar to the OWS crowd.  (See http://politics.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978019888.)  It was not perpetrated by law abiding, right wing crowds willing to exercise their Constitutional Rights without burning police cars or shouting anything more incendiary than “Kill the bill.”  (“Bill” not being an actual living being, but a piece of legislation.)

Even though the Tea Party does not resemble the 1970s San Francisco crowds, it may help to explain Nancy Pelosi’s 2009 reaction.  In her world, there is only one way to express political anger—be disruptive, riot, and demand a violent change.  Make a pretense by calling for peaceful demonstrations (makes good headlines), but set up the dynamics to ensure that the crowd becomes a mob.  Challenge authority by act and deed.  In Nancy’s World, it is incomprehensible that non-political elites can be angry with the system and yet willing to work within the rules to effect positive change.  Breaking into a building with large glass pane windows is comprehensible; breaking into God Bless America is not.You can’t really feel something that strongly unless you are willing to trash your opposition, vandalize public and private property, and scream hate and obscenities at and about living human beings.  In her world, someone who can gather and protest peaceably is unreal, as fake as—Astroturf.  The real world reality of numerous Tea Party protests with 0 arrests and no violence is a false reality in Nancy’s World.

However, Nancy should realize—valuing diversity as all leftists do—that there are realities outside of her world.  She should realize that the Tea Party does not represent people within her value system, but that doesn’t make their beliefs nor reactions artificial.  Nancy’s public reactions to these two disparate groups should be enough to dethrone her in DC and discredit her throughout the country.  She is either incredibly stupid for her inability to see reality, or incredibly immoral and dishonest for praising lawless approach merely because she agrees with their ends.

What is amazing to me is that in this country, where we have a choice, this is the kind of person who is not only elected and reelected for decades by an electorate, but elected and reelected as a leader of and by other political leaders.  I am, quite honestly, disgusted.  She is either incompetent (the way that she wields power makes this a slim possibility) or willing to do anything to achieve her ends (which is exactly the kind of person who should NOT be in a position of authority anywhere).  She is the embodiment of what is wrong with our federal government.

Every time I start to think that the US can get turned around to head in a positive direction, I think of Nancy Pelosi and I despair.  However, in order to register my displeasure, I will not go trash a neighborhood for weeks on end, defecate on a police car, (for a truly stunning visual: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046586/Occupy-Wall-Street-Shocking-photos-protester-defecating-POLICE-CAR.html),  refuse to report a rape so as not to distract from the “good of the cause,” throw bottles and stones at anyone (much less the police), nor participate in any of the various antisocial activities committed by the God-Bless-Them Pelosi group.

When pundits or “journalists” say that the OWS crowd is like the Tea Party crowd, they paint a wholly inadequate picture.  Yes, both groups think the system is corrupt, but everything else is different, from the root cause of the corruption through the means of protest and the method of fixing what is wrong to the final solution.  It’s like saying that a communistic state is like a republic.  Both may have the same goal, a system of government for people to live together, but everything else is different.  If you look at the conduct and atmosphere in the OWS crowd versus the Tea Party crowd as representative of the world they would create, anyone can see that they are fundamentally different.

When Tea Partiers say that we want to take our country back, what we want is a place where our political leaders do not disparage the actions of lawful, peaceful demonstrators (on either side).  We want disruptive, rude, lawless behavior to be condemned rather than excused or even lauded.  We do not want agreement with a sentiment to be used to forgive the bad behavior.  In short, we want to withdraw from Nancy’s World.

In order to accomplish this end, we need Nancy Pelosi—and others like her—to deoccupy Washington.  Unfortunately, we don’t have a vote where Nancy is concerned unless we live in her district.  About all that we can do is vote in other members of Congress who will do the responsible thing by adhering to the Constitutional limits on their own power.  If we can manage to put in a majority of adults, they will enforce their own curfew and govern responsibly.  So, join me at the voting box next year for a rousing DDC rally!  (Constructive anger ok, but bring your own port a potty.)

Comments from a Tea Partier

I took a peek at my friend’s Facebook last week.  I have known this person for decades. He is one of my dearest friends, although we are separated by several moves, many years, and—most importantly—politics. That alone currently limits our relationship.  He wrote:

“It has becoming increasingly clear that the Tea Party is just the ultra-conservative Christian Right Wing of the Rep. Party. Nothing wrong with holding those views, but I for one still prefer to have a separation of church and state. They have caused enormous harm economically over the past couple of months. Perhaps they should keep their religion in their churches, and not force it into our government.”

This Facebook entry took me back a couple of years to a restaurant in Rome next to the Pantheon.  My husband and I sat next to an English mother with her two home-schooled children who were there on an educational experience.  When the little girl—about 9—found out that we lived in Texas, she spewed forth her knowledge of the place:  Everyone carried a gun and lived in a shantytown.  It didn’t seem to matter that I actually lived there when I told her she was mistaken.  Her knowledge was so certain that it precluded allowing actual experience to influence it.  Although polite, she remained firm in her beliefs.

The mother obviously was not providing her children with the wonder of the internet to establish facts.  I am positive that the same cannot be said for my friend.  I just wonder what the source of information was upon which he formed his opinion of this composition of the tea party.

If he had gone to the source (or even Wikipedia) of the Tea Party for their agenda, he would have realized that their agenda has simply to do with fiscal responsibility and adherence to the document which founded our system of government—i.e., the Constitution.  That doesn’t top the list of issues for the “ultra-conservative Christian Right Wing.”  Even better, if he had attended a Tea Party Rally, he would have realized that they aren’t talking about abortion, capital punishment, or same sex marriage.  Those “right wing Christian” issues are simply not part of the Tea Party agenda.  Yes, some Tea Party candidates hold those views, but the Tea Party is united around a single issue: fiscal responsibility in government.  This is the current burning issue on top of the root agenda, which is adherence to the Constitution.

My friend’s main problem is primarily not with the Tea Party, but with what he calls the “ultra-conservative Christian right wing of the Republican Party.”  It was simply convenient to aim his shot at the entire Tea Party.  I’m not exactly sure who constitutes this right wing group in his mind.  Baptists?  Mormons? Fundamentalists?  Born again Christians?  Non-unitarian Christians?  Certainly, some tea partiers are ultra-conservative right wingers by any definition.  Many are not.  There is a large contigent of Ron Paulites in the Tea Party, who believe, as the far left believes, that anything socially possible is acceptable and should be legal.  All drugs should be legalized.  Anyone can have a relationship with anything that moves (not only same gender or not, but same species or not, underage or not) and that relationship should be sanctified.  These people are part of the Tea Party because social issues are not part of the Tea Party agenda.  When the Occupy Wall Street crowd says they have Tea Partiers present, they are referring to these stoned individuals that see Ron Paul as their best hope for legalized drugs.  Also, don’t confuse the Christian right wingers with the Democrat Tea Partiers who are simply fed up with the spending and remain unchanged in their support for social change; I’ve met quite a few of them.  You simply can’t pigeonhole the Tea Party the way that my friend has if you have actually been to a Tea Party.

I was rather disappointed in my friend for not checking the facts.  He has always had some pretty far left opinions, but it’s the first time that I have known him to confuse the distinction between opinion and facts.  Why did he do this?  I suppose that it’s comfortable to misrepresent the Tea Party as “right wing Christians” (or, more frequently, as racists), because then they can be dismissed easily in this day and age without looking at what they are truly saying.  The left wing and its captive (or captor) media don’t have to argue issues when they assassinate the character up front.  It shuts down discussion to say, “They are right wing Christians.” Saying “They want to balance the budget.”  would invite an honest discussion on a real issue that the Tea Party stands for.

It is easier to understand where my friend’s position came from on “separation of church and state.”  That is a matter of opinion, not of fact, but it is an opinion I vehemently disagree with.  It is what he has been taught from his childhood, what I was taught, and what all of our children are taught today.  It’s not in the Constitution.  The phrase comes from a letter by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to a Baptist church:

“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.  Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience . . .” (emphasis mine).

In one of the classic “taken out of context” examples of all time, did you catch why the religion clause was placed in the Constitution?  Individuals have a “right” of conscience, a right to believe what they choose to believe, and the government cannot dictate what is or is not the proper belief.  The “separation” was a restriction on the government, not on any individual.  It was not to keep individuals from expressing their religious convictions in government forums.  On the contrary, the founders’ writings and actions make clear that it was expected that every individual would bring his personal religious convictions to his work in the government.  This says it all: It’s in the Bill of Rights.

However, the Supreme Court dredged this letter up in the late 1800s and the catch phrase “separation of Church and State” subsequently found a life of its own, severed from the idea in the source letter that it was one of our rights to have a conscience and to use it.  The interpretation replaced the actual intention of the religious clause of the Constitution.  Educators and atheists eagerly picked it as a tool to transform freedom of religion into freedom from religion.

Our founders prayed as government officials, openly spoke of “Divine Providence” and the role of God in the formation of our nation, and memorialized for all time that we are endowed with unalienable rights by our Creator (although Barack’s teleprompter seems to lack the letters to spell this out).  It is the supreme irony that the clause which guarantees our religious freedom as individuals in the Bill of Rights has been twisted in an attempt to suppress those rights.  Even in Jefferson’s letter, he speaks of separation between “Church and State” (note Church—i.e., organized religion) not “Individuals who belong to a Church and State.”

If you follow my friend’s logic in saying “Nothing wrong with holding those views, but I for one still prefer to have a separation of church and state,” then you end up in Alice’s Wonderland.  What he is saying is that the views are only valid if they spring from some motivation other than religious conviction.  If you are a Christian who is not right wing,  or an atheist, or a member of some religion that is not Christian, or a Wiccan, you can drag any conviction into government.  Why are “right wing” Christians not allowed to do what everyone else can do?  That would fly in the face of Jefferson’s “separation of Church & State” letter because he claimed that the Constitution included the religion clause as an “expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience.”  In some denominations, a key tenet is that they are supposed to bring their convictions into their public life.  How is it that something providing for the “rights of conscience” is used as a tool to suppress those rights?

Look at the logical implications of this.  Nancy Pelosi can vote for abortion rights because her views conflict with her church, and therefore she is not forcing church into government.  However, a person who is against abortion cannot vote against it because his or her views are based on their religious belief.   Does the Christian not have the right to drag his belief in the sanctity of life into politics?  My Facebook friend is against capital punishment.  He is allowed that view because it is not founded in a religious belief.  Is Nancy Pelosi precluded this position because she openly states that it is based on her religious convictions?   What about the Quakers and their strong position against slavery and their agitation for its abolition?  Should they have kept it in their churches and not “forced” it into the government?

As far as the economic harm caused by the Tea Party, I’m not sure what he is referring to.  There are individuals with Tea Party connections who have been elected to Congress that are doing their job of representing their constituents. If their positions have caused economic harm (which is not an established fact, but an opinion), then it would pale in comparison to the economic harm done by a President and Democratic controlled Congress who have racked up more debt in less than 3 years than all of the Congresses and Presidents since the country was formed over 200 years ago.

I slunk away from my friend’s Facebook page.  I know better than to waste my time reacting to him because his political views are as much a part of him as his gray-green eyes and his dark brown hair.  He, like the English girl, has some preconceived notions that are entrenched at this point.  For him, his politics are a part of his core being.   The problem is that I miss my friend.  I miss his quirky smile (which I can see sometimes when I read his words) and his ready wit.   But I, like most in the Tea Party, are sick of the misrepresentations.  It gets us no further along to solving the deep crisis we are in.  And the fact is—it hurts when a friend strikes the blow.

A question for today’s America: Who is John Galt?

I’m reading Atlas Shrugged once again.  The last time I read it was sometime early in the 90s.  The first time I read it was sometime in the 80s.  I don’t agree with everything that the book concludes, but I have very strong feelings about everything it concludes.  Agree or disagree, it’s a powerful book.   You can’t read it without exposing something raw in yourself.

Reading this book is causing me some problems this time around.  My nights are either sleepless or filled with bad dreams.  Before, the realism of the situations in the book was striking, but the scenario seemed somehow distant, almost like science fiction.  Now, the abominations visited upon the people by the government in the book aren’t in some distant “it could be this way . . .” The abominations are NOW.

For one example, in the book federal regulations are being written by the Coordinator of the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources “in the name of the national emergency.”  One of the regulations noted in Part Two, Chapter 1 of Atlas Shrugged, at location 7877 in the Kindle Edition:

“All the manufacturing establishments of the country, of any size and nature, are forbidden to move from their present locations, except when granted a special permission to do so by the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources.”

Does this sound silly?  Why on earth would our real government do that?

Enter the real life Boeing controversy.  Last month, the National Labor Relations Board filed suit against Boeing.  They are asking a judge to grant an order that Boeing must open a second assembly plant in Washington State to build their Dreamliner 787 instead of using a facility they are now completing in South Carolina.

The NLRB is alleging that in building a plant in South Carolina, Boeing is engaging in unfair labor practices.   They allege that Boeing’s motivation in constructing its new facility in a right to work state (South Carolina) is to retaliate against the union in Washington for the workers’ strike in 2008.

Boeing did not shut down or reduce the output of its facility in Seattle.  No jobs in Washington State have been or are planned to be eliminated in the production of this plant.  As a matter of fact they have increased the number of employees at the Washington facility and are planning to hire more.   Current plans call for 70% of the production to be in Washington State and 30% to be in South Carolina.  What worker is being “protected” by the NLRB?

The similarity between the fictional regulation in Atlas Shrugged and the reality of the Boeing case is what keeps me up at night.  Both situations result from the rationale that government is protecting “workers.”  The reality in both circumstances is that money is greasing the palms of the politicians.

Can the government really dictate to companies that once they have located a business in a certain state, they can’t even expand into other states?  How can we, as citizens, accept this?  Is this another step along the way of the government deciding who will do business and where?  I thought that government interference in the GM situation was bad, but this is thousands of times worse.

It is not just the similarity between the fictitious and real government regulations that disturbs me, it is the similarity of the reaction of the people in the book with the reaction of real life people.  What I read on the internet could have been written in the book.  For example, there is an intellectual elite in the book, one of whom could have written the New York Times editorial published April 25 at  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/26/opinion/26tue2.html?scp=1&sq=Boeing%20NLRB&st=cse

“It may be a difficult case to prove, but the complaint filed last month by the National Labor Relations Board against Boeing is a welcome effort to defend workers’ right to collective bargaining.”

Tom Wroblewski, president of Machinists Union District Lodge 751, predictably used lofty doublespeak that can be seen as illogical not only by an unemployed person in South Carolina, but by any fifth grader who has not yet been indoctrinated by our school system:

“A complaint issued Wednesday by the National Labor Relations Board against the Boeing Co. is a victory for all American workers — particularly aerospace workers in both Puget Sound and South Carolina.

Then there’s this reaction from a “common” citizen:

“Well, there’s no time to palaver when it’s a national emergency.”

That one is from the book, but how many times in the past few years have we heard, “There’s no time to talk about this legislation.  Just pass it.  It’s a national emergency.”

There is a real danger in government officials, elected or appointed, controlling where businesses operate.  They can legislate or regulate to favor some companies (e.g., Goldman Sachs or GM) over other companies (e.g., Lehman Brothers or Ford) instead of letting incompetence drive the bad businesses out of the marketplace or force them to reorganize to operate more efficiently.  There are many inevitable consequences to this kind of control, all of them bad (unless you are a corrupt politician or businessman).  It would take a book just to name them all.

I would like to credit Ayn Rand with being a visionary, but many conditions that she describes in her book were a product of observation rather than imagination.  She lived through a time when the insidiousness of government control over what we term the free market had asserted itself in many places, especially in Europe.  Look at what happened there, in pre WWII in Germany and Italy, in post WWII in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.  Ayn Rand could see the harm in reality.  It required not an imagination, but brains.

Ayn Rand’s real insight was in applying the unthinkable:  This is what it would be like if it happened here, in America.

I think of what our government has been doing to our free market system. I consider the similarities between the atmosphere in the country as described in the book and the atmosphere in our country as it is now.  I recognize that human nature is basically the same now as was described in the book.  All of these thoughts make me lie awake at night and wonder if we are able to wake up in time to avert the inevitable cage into which we are locking ourselves.

The time has come in this country to ask the question posed in the book:  Who is John Galt?  I hope we find the right answer.

New York State Plays Fool’s Tag

Ah, the New York State political process!  Activity for the entire country to view with awe.  When I say “awe,” what I mean is in the same light as we look at the havoc visited by the twisters in our Midwestern states.  It is awesome to think of what damage a little bit of wind can do.

The last time that I noticed the New York State Legislature in the news was in 2009 when a rich guy who had helped the Democrats gain control of the New York Senate was miffed because a Democratic leader that he had helped to get elected paid more attention to his Blackberry than the rich guy in a meeting.  The rich guy simply switched his support to the Republicans, luring two of the most disreputable Democrats then sitting in the Senate to switch to be Republicans.  One of these outstanding Senators was facing charges for stabbing his girlfriend in the face with broken glass.  The other had been fined for campaign finance irregularities, and was also under investigation for steering government money to his own business and possibly not living in the district which he represented.

The party affiliation change by these two lawmakers changed the Senate balance from 32 Democrats and 30 Republicans to 32 Republicans and 30 Democrats.  However,  the Democratic Senate leadership refused to acknowledge their loss of power.  They locked the Republicans out of the Senate.  When I say “locked out,” it was a literal lock out, with a key, which the Democratic leader refused to relinquish to the Republican.  I guess that locksmiths are unionized (i.e., Democrats) in New York, because the Republicans fussed at the Democrats from outside of the chambers, unable to enter.

This all occurred in a year when there were severe budget problems which had been plaguing the State for years.  The Legislature had also been honored for five years with the distinction of being branded the most dysfunctional State Legislature by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.  The honor of leading the 50 states as being the most dysfunctional state legislature was reinforced in July 2009 in an analysis done by NationalJournal.com, a nonpartisan group reporting on politics and policy, and 83% of New York residents in a poll agreed with the evaluation.

Yet somehow, in that tempestuous 2009, the New York State Legislature found the time to amend a law on the books which regulated summer camps to include, well, more of them.  It was said that they were intent on plugging a loophole which allowed indoor summer camps to operate without oversight by the legislature, which had seen fit to regulate outdoor summer camps.

However, instead of just adding two words to make “outdoor” read “indoor or outdoor” in the legislation (which would have achieved their stated intent), they added a lot more, including as part of the definition of a summer camp, any program “involving two or more activities of which at least one is a nonpassive recreational activity with a significant risk of injury.”  They also added that regulation would be in effect where “such activities are conducted as part of a one hour or less recess period.”  Also added to the law was “Nonpassive recreational activities with significant risk of injury shall include swimming, boating, contact sports, horseback riding, bicycling, hiking, rock climbing, challenge/rope course activities, shooting sports and other activities determined by the State Department of Health.” (Italics are mine.)

This law kicked in April 1, 2011.  Inspired by the current federal model of extending government by regulation when legislation does not go far enough, the State Department of Health determined, in accordance with their responsibilities under the law, additional activities which held a “significant risk of injury.”  Included in the list are: capture the flag, Wiffle ball, dodgeball, tag (all varieties), kickball, flag football, kickball, red rover, and steal the bacon.  How did Ring Around the Rosy, where a violent encounter with the ground is required by every participant, or London Bridge, in which a mock incarceration involves the violent tossing back and forth of the child’s body, escape the list of dangerous activities?

I would love to take responsibility for the humor in this list, but this is not the product of my imagination.  Just in case you still think that this is a put on, you can read a copy of the eight-page letter of rules and instructions that went to one of the New York programs at http://images.bimedia.net/documents/Day+Camp.PDF.

With this new regulation, your local recreation program in New York state that offers a playground director for a couple of hours a morning where two or more of these dangerous games is played is now a full-fledged summer camp that must pay a $200 fee to register to be regulated by the State of New York AND must hire a certified nurse to be present at all times while the program is functioning.

Oddly enough, the law and regulations have additional loopholes.  The law stipulates that a facility must offer two or more activities to be a summer camp.  That does not preclude a “Freeze Tag Day Camp” which could operate unregulated because it only offers one of the dangerous activities.  Maybe no one would come to such a boring camp, but being safe, it might qualify for a government subsidy.

Also not precluded are variations on these old games or the invention of similar games.  For example, in Don’t Come Red Rover, the children could chant, “Red Rover, Red Rover, Don’t send Jimmy right over.”  Then, Jimmy would not go over.  This game would have the added benefit of heightening the self esteem of those children who never get picked, because all of a sudden, they would be the most frequently picked.  Or perhaps a rousing game of “Vote Tag,” where the children could cast votes as to who was “It.”  Or, they could play, “Wisconsin Legislature,” where the blue shirts would get to leave the playground and hide in the next state.  “Wisconsin Legislature” is really a variation of a childhood game that escaped the New York State’s Black List, “It’s my ball and if I don’t get my way, I’m taking my ball and going home.”

When the list was made public by the New York Department of Health, a surprise was in store.  They expected, perhaps, the gratitude of a populace for the enhanced protection being offered their children.  Instead, they experienced ridicule, at home and abroad, as well as a wee bit of anger from parents.

It took a very short amount of exposure before the list of dangerous games were withdrawn for the present.  In their own defense for having published them, a spokeswoman from the New York Department of Health named Claudia Hutton pointed out that the list was proposed under the “prior administration.”  This defense (which is a variant of the non-dangerous childhood game of “He did it.”) only begged the question of why the list was not at least reviewed before release by the nonprior, i.e. current, administration.  After a period of public comment, new guidelines will be offered May 16.

By the way, State of New York:  Fool’s Tag.  You’re it.

de Vattelist . . . er . . . de Vatteler

-gate     Noun suffix denoting a scandal of tremendous proportions.

First, there was Watergate.  I don’t even have to go into the details because everyone knows them.  The Watergate complex was the scene of a national scandal that took down a president.  With the beauty of a living language, -gate became a suffix that rendered any word a name for a scandal.

There is even an extensive Wikipedia entry that lists the various –gates that became part of our public discourse and includes such interesting facts as that –gate was even used in foreign countries to indicate a scandal.  In our country, there was Billygate in the 70s.  There was Contragate in the 80s.  The Clintons alone in the ‘90s spawned a slew of  –gates all on their own, including Whitewatergate, Fostergate, Travelgate,  and Lewinskygate or Monicagate.  It seemed to me for a while that a new –Clinton suffix might become interchangeable with –gate, as in, “Did you hear about the Monicaclinton scandal?”  My personal favorite from this century is Toiletgate, which occurred during the 2006 World Chess Championship.  One of the participants accused the other of visiting the toilet suspiciously often during the match.

Time and the English language march on, and with our new sophistication in our new millennium, there is a new suffix that the ambiguous “they” are attempting to add to our language.  Actually, it is an old suffix which is being given an additional meaning:  -er.  -er is a suffix which being used to indicate that whatever word to which it is appended represents a person with a point of view that is so extreme that you need not even look at the details to know that it is off-the-charts ridiculous.

It began with the “truthers.”  Those are the people who don’t believe that Muslim extremists blew up the world trade center.  They believe that members of the Bush administration either planned and executed it, or knew about it and let it happen, while a compliant media effected a cover up.  Even if you ignore the problems with attributing this to our government, anyone who thinks that the media would cooperate with George Bush has probably been partying with Charlie Sheen too much.  That’s why these people are known as truthers.

With the success of expressing so much with adding a simple “-er” to the end of “truth” came the birth of “birthers,” or people who believe that Barrack Hussein Obama was not born in Hawaii.  The –er has done its job once again because these people are deemed to be as far out as the truther without even knowing any facts about the reality.

Evidently, it is ridiculous to assume that a possibly unmarried mother bearing the child of an already married or bigamist African in the 1960s would have made sure that her child was born in America in appearance if not in fact, and that a government official would mislead the public decades later.  Let us assume that this is truly ludicrous.

The de Vattelists, er, de Vattelers could also assume this to be truly ridiculous and still not have their issue addressed.  In labeling them –ers instead of –ists, and lumping  them in with birthers, you can ensure that no one checks the details.  Call them “birthers,” even though they are quite willing to admit that Obama was born in Hawaii and that all of what he says about his birth is true.

They are named after Emmerich de Vattel, a Swiss philosopher, diplomat, and legal expert from the 1700s who wrote a book in French, which translated into English as Law of Nations.  This book was, according to Benjamin Franklin, one of the books that the Constitutional Convention kept a copy of to refer to when writing the Constitution.  Many famous statesmen before and after the revolution, including Supreme Court justices, quoted de Vattel in many kinds of documents.

In Chapter 19, section 212 of the first volume of this book, de Vattel said something in French which was translated in the 1760 English version as, “The Natives, or indigenes, are those born in the country of parents who are citizens.”  In 1797, the new translation stated, “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”

There is a compelling argument that this definition of “natural born citizen,” a person born in the country of parents who are citizens, was what was intended by the requirement that the President be a natural born citizen.  If this were the case, it means that Obama, whose father never was a citizen of the United States, is not eligible to be President according to the Constitution’s authors when it was written.

The other side of the argument is that “natural born citizen” simply means born in this country, based on English Common Law.  Anchor babies, by this definition, are natural born citizens.

The idea that the founders intended that “natural born citizen” was a person born in the country of parents who are citizens is crazy, off-the-wall talk, right?  It’s so crazy that NO major media outlet, cable or network, has covered it up until now, instead simply raving about the insanity of collective birthers.

The Supreme Court could clear the matter up with a ruling as to the meaning of natural born citizen.  They have not to date.  Although they gave us anchor babies in 1898 in United States v. Wong Kim Ark by ruling that a person born in the United States to foreign parents is a United States Citizen, they did not call Wong Kim Ark a  natural born citizen.

The closest that any court came to speaking about the meaning of a natural born citizen was in Lynch v. Clarke in a New York District Court in 1844.  The judge in the case, Lewis Sandford, took “natural born” by the horns in saying:  “Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the constitution? I think not.”  The quoted excerpt is dicta, which means that it was a personal opinion which did not play a part in the decision of the case.  It can be viewed as the equivalent of an 1844 judge’s blog.  No court is bound to follow it, including Judge Sandford’s New York court.  In 2044, if you asked a judge, “Suppose a person should be elected president who was born while his or her mother was in New York having purchased an Anchor Baby Package, but was raised in his or her parents’ country.  Could there be any reasonable doubt that he or she was eligible under the Constitution?”  I wonder if the answer would still be, “I think not.”

In the case of birthers who question Obama’s birth place, there is only one person who can clear up the confusion, and that is Obama.  Instead of spending hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to hide whatever it is he is hiding on his birth certificate, he could tell the state of Hawaii to release a long form copy.

In the case of the de Vattelists, er, de Vattelers, who raise a definition issue, clarification requires multiple individuals—the Supreme Court  Justices.  They are the only ones who can clarify the meaning of “natural born citizen” in the Constitution.  The hundreds of thousands of words “blogged, texted, twittered or otherwise massaged” about both sides of the issue have not settled anything legally, with all due respect to Judge James Robertson.

Personally, I think that the Founders intended that the President be born in this country to parents who are citizens.  I think that they felt that this meaning was so clear that they had to define it no more than they had to define what the meaning of the word “is” is.

However, I am not a Supreme Court Justice.  In this day and age, some Supreme Court Justices feel that the Constitution should not be interpreted by the Founders intent, but by the Justices’ opinion of current thought.  Additionally, even a Justice examining the Founders’ intent might decide that they intended only “born in this country.”  I’m not sure, if the issue came to the Supreme Court, which way the definition would go.  All I know is that the Supreme Court should stop hiding and hear a case.  Either definition of “natural born citizen” would be preferable to the confusion and of uncertainty now in existence.

And in this “era of greater civility,” people should not be mocked as –ers when they have a valid legal argument.

PA in Maryland is not Pennsylvania

A bill passed by the Maryland House and sent to the Maryland Senate was released to the full Senate yesterday by the Senate Rules Committee.  This bill is known as HB235.

Maryland’s HB235 is a discrimination bill dealing with gender identity.  It defines gender identity as “a gender-related identity or appearance of an individual, regardless of the individual’s assigned sex at birth.”  It would protect transgender individuals from discrimination in the areas of employment, housing, and lending.

The italics in the bill’s definition, indicating my astonishment, are mine.  I didn’t know that babies were simply “assigned” a gender at birth.  Does God stand around assigning XX or XY chromosome pairs without asking for volunteers?  For those who deny that God has a role, how is the confusion introduced by the forcing of chromosome pairs on humans without first considering their feelings?  We get taught concepts in biology from Darwin such as perpetuation of the species, survival of the fittest, and that we are no different than a sloth or an ant (and related to both).  Who are we to challenge these concepts by encouraging behaviors that can’t possibly perpetuate the species?

What’s even more astonishing to me is the concept that your gender is determined by the way you feel.   If you are a biological female that feels like a male, then you are a male.  If you are a male that doesn’t necessarily want to go the surgical/hormone route to have certain parts enhanced and certain parts removed, you can simply be gender non-conforming.  No matter how you feel, you still have a biological gender defined in your very makeup.  You may not like that, but you can’t deny it.

The transgender community is absolutely thrilled with HB235, right?  No.  Some of the most vehement opponents are transgenders because Maryland’s HB235 does not include provisions for PA.  For those of you who have lived several decades thinking of PA as an abbreviation for Pennsylvania, I would like to disabuse you of that notion now that I have been disabused on the internet.

Most of the bloggers that favor the concept of outlawing transgender discrimination are highly indignant about the lack of PA in the bill, even calling it worthless without the PA language.  So, it’s worthless to have a law that says that you can’t be denied housing or employment or financing because you dress funny if it doesn’t also allow you to “use public facilities” (to be very Victorian) based on what gender you feel you are.

A quite vocal set of activists are campaigning to have PA language added to the bill, or to have the bill withdrawn until a truly fair and comprehensive bill with the addition of PA language can be introduced.  They refuse to acknowledge that the PA language was stripped from the bill because not enough Representatives in the House would vote for the bill with that language included.  It appears that some of those accustomed to the XX, XY scheme of things thought it was discrimination to deny someone employment or housing based on a feeling, but not necessarily discriminatory to keep biological guys out of the ladies’ room.

One of the transgenders against the bill without PA made an impassioned plea in testimony to the legislature.  This individual said, “It must also be noted that the expression ‘public accommodation’ does not apply exclusively to public bathrooms, showers and changing facilities. Public accommodation also includes schools, libraries, hospitals, restaurants and retail establishments.”  (This individual’s full testimony is posted at: http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2011/03/hb-235-opposition-testimony.html.)

OK, let’s face it.  One of the main problem with providing PA does surround public bathrooms, showers, and changing facilities.  It’s quite one thing to see a bearded man in a dress walk into a library; no one is liable to ask him (“him” biologically speaking) to leave.

It is quite another thing to have that same bearded man enter a ladies’ room in a dress or whatever else tickles his fancy.  It has always been felt that the ladies room was a place where females (defined by biology, not desire) could go to do the most private of things without fear of being observed by males (also defined by biology, not desire), and vice versa.

I have never asked a gentleman this question:   If a sexy blonde female (in appearance) entered the public facility intended for males when you were attempting to relieve yourself at a urinal, might that cause in you a sudden hardening of certain blood vessels that would preclude you from being able to immediately relieve yourself?  I not only have never asked a gentleman that, I don’t want to ask it or have any reason to ask it.  I respect privacy.

Transgendered individuals want the right to use public facilities for their chosen, as opposed to biological, gender.  Why?  Choose the facilities which represent your biological gender.  In effect, by desiring PA, a transgender is saying, “I don’t want to share public facilities with someone who is a different gender than what I have chosen as my gender.  I want to go to facilities only for my own chosen gender.”   It is also saying, “But anyone who doesn’t want to share public facilities with me because I am a different biological gender should have no problem with sharing facilities with ME.  Gender is not biological; it is a choice.”  Everyone has to accept gender as a choice rather than a biological fact.

There are probably many transgenders who pass as a person of their chosen (as opposed to biological) gender and don’t need PA.  They may be suspect, but no one is going to throw them out of a restroom because you just can’t tell for certain.  So you don’t need the law for them.

However, when a person has chosen a gender that is obviously at odds with his or her biological gender, there is a problem.  One proponent of the law argued that since bathrooms have stalls, privacy is not an issue.  If privacy is really not an issue, then why does the XX-XY approach to gender determination for the purposes of choosing facilities need to be changed?  Stick with your biology, and you still have privacy.  Somehow, it doesn’t sound like equality to me to impose on everyone a definition of gender determination that is held by a small minority.

This whole Maryland situation is enough to make me choose to be a redhead.  Maybe I’ll  dye my hair red.  That would, however, only change me to appear to be a redhead.  I would still be a brunette.

Revisiting “The Three Little Pigs Revisited”

Who can forget the immortal lines:  “Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.” and  “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.”

It’s from that exciting children’s classic, The Three Little Pigs: The terrifying story of three little pink cutsies being traumatized by the ever villainous wolf.  This story has been around for centuries.  In the older versions, the first two pigs have their houses destroyed by the wolf, who then eats them.  The third pig has to outsmart the devious wolf, who continues his onslaught on the third pig after the wolf’s failed attempt at house demolition.   The pig does so by NOT trusting the wolf to be honest.  Disney, who perhaps thought that the killing of Bambi’s mother maxed out childhood trauma, let all pigs survive.  The fundamental moral, at the end of all of the versions, is that you can’t simply throw things together and survive the bad things that happen in life.  Your chances of survival in this dangerous world improve if you are industrious and apply yourself.

Now there is a new version of The Three Little Pigs being used to teach our young children values.  If you would like to read it yourself, go to http://www-k6.thinkcentral.com/content/hsp/reading/storytown/na/gr4/se_9780153597763_/grade4/shell.html?grade=4.  From there, pick theme 2, lesson 8.

To summarize this version:  Three little pigs live where there was both a housing shortage and a building material shortage.  They decided to do their own thing to build their own houses.  The first pig built of recycled newspapers, the second of aluminum cans, and the third built of adobe.  A wolf who was “chased” out of his apartment for nonpayment of rent for two months came upon the newspaper house, demanding entrance.  When refused, he did his huff and puff thing, chasing the pig to the aluminum house, where the scene was repeated.  True to the original, the wolf could not huff and puff and blow down the third house (made of adobe, in this case).  In fact, he passed out from a supposed heart attack upon an extended session of huffing and puffing.  The pigs administered CPR, which revived the wolf.  A conversation with the wolf then revealed that he did not want to eat them (he was a vegetarian).  He was just testing the stability of the houses.   It was simply a miscommunication.  With chiding by the pigs, the wolf asked nicely to move in, even saying, “Please,” when prompted.  It ends with, “They learned the importance of cooperation and communication, and they all lived together happily ever after.”

The basic moral of this most recent version is quite obviously the importance of cooperation and communication.  (Socialism, while not explicitly mentioned, is part of the “cooperation” learned if you read the story in its entirety.)  This story is very clever because it introduces several cutting edge liberal concepts to our youngsters.  Why settle for just teaching them to be industrious when you can throw in things like “housing shortage” and recycling and (my personal favorite) vegetarian wolves?

As a matter of fact, I have my very own version of the story that I am thinking of publishing.  Here it is:

Once upon a time there were three little pigs.  Their parents finally threw them out of the sty because their free veterinary care expired when they were old enough to get a sty of their own and the farmer did not want to carry them on his plan several years longer.

The first little pig, named Barney, took several of his friends to the house of a nearby banker.  They hung around in his yard until it looked like a pigsty.  The banker agreed to build Barney a house if they promised to leave.  Barney’s choice of building material was mud, since pigs like mud.  However, it was a three story mud house in the best of neighborhoods.

The second little pig, named Nancy, built her house of credit cards, knowing that legislation would pass which would protect all owners of credit cards from those big, mean, evil creditors, thereby making her house a fortress backed by the protection of the federal government.

The third little pig, named Paul, built his house of copies of federal regulations.  This was a very thrifty house because the building materials were in such plentiful supply.  Paul also dug a bunker under his house.

In that area, however, an evil wolf named Hussein moved in.  Hussein’s name used to be Tom, Dick, or Barry, but he changed his name in honor of moving into a new neighborhood.  Wolves often do that.

Hussein came upon Barney’s house and said, “Dirty pig of an animal, I spit upon you and your house which you will allow me to enter.”

Barney responded, “Everyone should have a house of their own.  I can help you get a loan.”

Hussein said, “Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house down.”

So he huffed and he puffed and he blew so hard that the mud dried out and the wind carried the dust away.  Barney scampered away and conned another man in the next county to build him a new house where his life went on pretty much as before.

Hussein came upon Nancy’s house, and said, “Dirty pig of an animal, I spit upon you and your house which you will allow me to enter.”

Nancy responded, “You will do no such thing.  I am Speaker of the House, and this is my house.  Since you are a vegetarian, you have to be a democrat.  If you are a democrat, you WILL do what I say.”

Hussein responded, “Vegetarian Republican may be an oxymoron, but so is Far-left follower.”  So Hussein huffed and puffed and blew so hard that the credit cards blew into a corn field where they were harvested for fuel.  Nancy stayed where she was and pretended that her house was still standing.

Then Hussein went to Paul’s house, and said, “Dirty pig of an animal, I spit upon you and your house which you will allow me to enter.”

Paul said, “Go right on ahead.” And ducked into his bomb shelter.

Hussein huffed and he puffed and he blew the federal regulations so far and wide that they were Humpty-Dumptyized.  Unfortunately, in the process, he suffered a coronary heart attack.  Since the Affordable Health Care Act had passed, he was part of the 88% increase in heart attack deaths that had occurred, and he was toast.

As soon as Hussein was a statistic, Paul came out from his bomb shelter.  When everyone saw what devastation had resulted from vegetarian wolves and credit card houses, they vowed to remember that some things in this world are bad and should be guarded against.  Then everyone lived happily ever after.

THE END

A note:  I would no more suggest that this version of the classic should be introduced to young minds than I would the version that teaches that there is no bad in the world and they can talk their way out of every bad situation.  Some things are simply age inappropriate.  Let’s teach our kids values—like being responsible and growing up to be productive.  Let’s not brainwash them with agendas—like socialism and vegetarianism.

Another note:  If I have offended any pigs or wolves in my story by comparing them to unsavory characters, it is most regrettable.  There was no intention on my part to stereotype.

I draw the line at schizophrenia

There is an epidemic in a disease that is running rampant in America now.  I call it organizational schizophrenia.

The beginning of this epidemic was caused by the federal government policy that everyone should be able to buy their own home. The federal government chose banks as its partner in this venture.  The banks were “encouraged,” as only a strong federal government backed by well organized underprivileged groups willing to demonstrate can encourage.  With true Yankee ingenuity, banks rose to the challenge by inventing ways to approve the flood of highly unqualified but eager homeowners rather than risk government audits (bothersome even if everything is legit); or risk organized protests at their business doors or home by highly enraged, discriminated-against non-homeowners (sympathetically backed by union muscle).

One of the “think outside the box” or “think outside conventional mortgages” solutions that the lenders came up with was to give two mortgages to a single purchaser on a single property. The first mortgage was for 80% of the property, and the second mortgage for 20%.

Unfortunately, no invention can make an unqualified buyer qualified.  With the inevitable record foreclosures resulting from the of the stupid, er, compassionate federal policy, the “two mortgage” invention has caused some problems. In 2009 there was a condo in Florida that traded its single citizen-buyer-owner for a schizophrenic owner through foreclosure.  The schizophrenic owner?  It is the bank that provided the two mortgages—Wells Fargo and Wells Fargo.  To get a clear title, Wells Fargo had to sue itself, complete with one legal firm for Wells Fargo and another legal firm for Wells Fargo.  (In our legal system, it would be a conflict of interest for the same legal firm to represent both plaintiff and defendant.)

In this suit, the two sides did not see eye to eye on the issues.  When Wells Fargo answered the complaint for the lawsuit, Wells Fargo denied all of the allegations that Wells Fargo made except for the admission that the defendant (Wells Fargo) was the owner and holder of the second mortgage.  Wells Fargo, in other words, called itself a liar.

Here is the really scary thing.  Al Lewis wrote in a July 9, 2009 article in the Dow Jones Newswires Column that he was so intrigued by the case that he called a mortgage foreclosure lawyer in Florida.  This attorney, Kristofer Fernandez, said that he had seen several such cases.   “Four or five years ago, you would have never seen this,” Fernandez said. “Now, it’s very common.”  Four or five years ago, Mr. Fernandez?  How about NEVER before.  (You can read about this at http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/al-lewis-wells-fargo-bank-sues/)

Common?  Just how many of these silly schizophrenic lawsuits are there that we, the taxpayers, have subsidized through bailouts?  Couldn’t one lawyer have figured out how to write off Wells Fargo interest in the second part to clear the title?  Wouldn’t a quit claim deed clear something up without the expense of a lawsuit?  At the very least, couldn’t the second side simply have failed to respond so that a default judgment could have been obtained?  I’m not sure how the suit ended, but if Wells Fargo hasn’t won and lost by now, it is inevitable that it (or should I say they?) will win and lose at some point.

Another bit of organizational schizophrenia was created when Obama made the UAW the biggest stockholder in Chrysler (55%) and a major stockholder in GM (17.5%).  What that means is that the UAW workers who work at Ford own a majority stake in one of their competitors and a major stake in another.  This may be the screwiest Employee Stock Ownership Plan ever.  Usually, the employees end up with stock in their own company as incentive to improve the product.  How exactly does it work, when you own a majority stake in your major competitors?  At least the UAW has now sold some of its stock in GM, but not nearly all of it.

I think it’s some kind of government plot to spread this disease intentionally, and not just an “unintended consequences” situation.  In an expanding attempt at the spread of this disease, the administration is now trying it out on individuals:  specifically, TSA screeners.  Otherwise law-abiding citizens are being asked to look at nude bodies all day and to perform same-gender, sexual touching (which is extremely unwelcome according to most of the traveling public).  Didn’t anyone tell the TSA chiefs that online porn can be addictive?  Didn’t they read the manuals at any private corporation that had to design training programs for their employees because of federal laws that define unwelcome touching as sexual harassment?

“Probable Cause” is required by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution before a government official can search you.  In practical terms, that means that a policeman can’t stop you at random when you are driving down the road from one place to another and demand to search you and/or your car without some reason or suspicious behavior.  Just driving your car isn’t enough to create suspicion that you are going to commit a crime.  (At least, not yet.)

In the case of airline travel, the government has decided that it is suspicious that you want to fly from one place to another.  The simple act of trying to board an airplane is deemed suspicious enough to subject citizens to lewd exposure in public and/or fondling.  A federal agent with far less training than a policeman can insist that you are photographed nude or feel you up based on nothing more suspicious than the fact that you are flying somewhere that you want to go on public transport.  What’s even worse for me is the fact that it is same-gender fondling, as if lesbian or gay fondling is less objectionable than heterosexual fondling.

Just how does this make the TSA screeners feel?  Probably pretty schizophrenic.  One side of them knows they are doing something that could get them arrested if they weren’t on the job, the other side knows that they are being paid to do so.  One side of them must realize they are doing what the Constitution says the government can’t do, the other side of them must realize that the government is telling them to do it or lose their job.  At least, I hope that’s how they feel.  If the alternative were true, the screening process that allowed them to get their job probably didn’t do well in the background check department.  Before you feel too sorry for them, though, the TSA screeners will be unionized (promised never to be allowed when they were authorized) so they won’t have to worry about getting fired for overstepping any line.  They’ll probably get fantastic healthcare benefits, including expensive psychiatric coverage, to deal with job stress.

REALITY CHECK

I started writing this over a year ago and let it sit, adding to it when something occurred and seemed appropriate.  Looking at it now, the events, once seemingly so bizarre, now are commonplace.  Bizarre foreclosure stories?  Not even news.  Lots of talk about the greedy bankers, none about the elected officials, many still in office, that held the gun to the head of the greedy bankers.  Auto company bailouts?  I heard just the other day where the UAW is planning for a nasty contract battle with Ford and trashtalking management (SURPRISE!).  I have read several articles, and not one mentions the conflict of interest with the union’s ownership position with respect to GM and Chrysler.  Naked body scanners?  In just a few short months, you have to be arrested for printing the 4^th amendment to the Constitution (the pesky one about unwarranted search) on your chest to make the news.  Just part of flying.

We have accepted the schizophrenia.  A creeping change has once more taken us in the wrong direction and been accepted.  We did vote in the ballot box in November to curb the federal government.  That resulted in a body which agreed to $6 billion in budget cuts on the same day that $72 billion was added to the deficit.  Wow.

Where do we draw the line at acceptance?  I sometimes envy those who live in their insulated world where nothing is changing or has changed in any dramatic way.   For over 200 years the change has been creeping, and it is so comfortable to think of it as same old, same old.  There have probably always been those who have said that something that the federal government was doing would irrevocably change America, but we always adjusted.

There are a great many who think that we have reached the breaking point or soon will.  I hope that the others will wake up before we have lost what we had.  I think it should be now, before we are all schizophrenic.

Success in our Courts!

It’s a success!  Ahmed Ghailani was convicted of conspiracy to destroy US property. We can afford to ignore those other 284 counts of which he was acquitted.

Ahmed Ghailani was a participant in the two Al Qaeda US Embassy bombings in Africa in 1998.  In those 2 bombings, 224 people were killed (including 12 Americans) and nearly 5000 (according to the AP) were wounded.  He was being tried because he collected a lot of the materials used in one of the blasts—including tanks, a truck, and TNT.  His cell phone was used as a detonator.  There were phone records.  A detonator and traces of the explosive were hid in his armoire.

His defense attorneys successfully painted him as a naïve, innocent errand boy who didn’t know the real reason he was making all of those cash purchases or hiding explosives in his drawers.  Prosecutors were evidently not able to convince the jury that he was knowingly a member of the plot.

Iit might have been a little more awkward for the jury to accept the defendant’s naiveté if they had heard the testimony of Hussein Abebe, a Tanzanian miner.  He would have testified that Ghailani purchased 5 crates of TNT the week before the blast, with cash.  (Uncontradicted by the Hussein Abebe, Ghailani testified that he bought some stuff for washing horses.)

The judge barred Hussein Abebe as a witness because Ghailani gave Abebe’s name to CIA interrogators under enhanced interrogation techniques.  It wasn’t waterboarding, but one of those other techniques—maybe sleep deprivation—that the left keeps insisting only result in unreliable information.  The judge said that the prosecution would never have found out about Hussein Abebe any other way than by “coercive interrogation.”  Therefore, his testimony was not allowed.

But Ghailani was convicted on 1 count.  What a success!

The reason that I know it is a success is not the result.  It is because of the statements by our Department of Justice and others in our legal system.

I knew it before the trial results when Holder told the US public that he’d told prosecutors, “Failure is not an option.”  Isn’t it nice to know that the outcome could not be a failure because Eric Holder said so.

I knew it last month when Holder was asked (for the zillionth time) in October if our court system was the place to handle these cases, and he responded, “At the conclusion of the Ghailani case I’ll ask you to ask me that question again and I’ll give you the same answer and that our three courts are fully capable of handling these matters.”  (Uh, Mr. Holder.  Could you just pretend that you were asked again and give us that same answer?)

I knew it when I found out that the presiding judge, Judge Kaplin, said when dismissing the jurors, “You deserve a lot of credit.  You have demonstrated also that American justice can be delivered calmly, deliberately and fairly, by ordinary people — people who are not beholden to any government, including this one.”  I wish that he, knowing what testimony he barred, could have praised their ignorance, too.

I knew it because after the verdict, Ghailani’s lawyer, Peter Quijano, told reporters the verdict was a “reaffirmation that this nation’s judicial system is the greatest ever devised.”

Finally, I knew it because Matthew Miller, a Department of Justice spokesman, said “We respect the jury’s verdict and are pleased that Ahmed Ghailani now faces a minimum of 20 years in prison and a potential life sentence for his role in the embassy bombings.”

Patrick Leahy said last year, “By trying them [Gitmo Detainees] in our federal courts, we demonstrate to the world that the most powerful nation on earth also trusts its judicial system — a system respected around the world.”  Please notice that it is by trying them, not convicting them, that we succeed.  I’d say that’s a pretty low bar for judging success, but it works because we now have success.  I wonder how the survivors of the blast and relatives of those that were killed respect our judicial system right now?  I wonder if the survivors will at last be able to get the images of charred, bloody, dismembered bodies out of their heads, knowing that our justice system has worked?

The internet is abuzz with widely divergent opinion and speculation with respect to this verdict.  It is widely accepted on both sides that Hussein Abebe’s testimony would have been enough to convict on many more counts.  Many focus on the revisited question:  Should the trials be in military tribunals instead?  Hundreds if not thousands of bloggers say yes.  Just as many are claiming that the “coerced” divulgence of a name would have barred Hussein Abebe’s testimony even in a military court.  I don’t know who’s right.  I don’t care.  I don’t think the right issue is being examined by most of the commenters.

Our legal system was designed to protect people living in society from being unfairly convicted.  All of the defaults, including “innocent until proven guilty,” are set up based on the assumption that it is better to let 100 guilty go free than 1 innocent be convicted.  This is not the correct system to use to deal with Islamic terrorists who have declared war on us.  The acts they are committing are not crimes, they are acts of war by enemy combatants.  Have the military figure out if they are enemy combatants, but a trial on the merits is inappropriate in any forum.  I agree with Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law professor and former Bush-era Justice Department official.  He wrote early Thursday, the day after this verdict, on the Lawfare blog.

“Ghailani helped conduct a major terrorist operation on behalf of a group with which we are at war. Military detention was designed precisely to prevent such soldiers from returning to the battlefield.  It is a tradition-sanctioned, congressionally authorized, court-blessed, resource-saving, security-preserving, easier-than-trial option for long-term terrorist incapacitation. And this morning it looks more appealing than ever.”

Amen, and pass on the acquittals.

Blasphemy is a capital offence . . . but asking for ID is a Human Rights Abuse

On Monday, November 8, 2010 Aasya (or Asia) Bibi, a 45 year old mother of 5 (the oldest is 20) was sentenced to death in Pakistan for blasphemy.

She was sent on June 14, 2009 by a village elder to collect drinking water for the field laborers.  Some of the Muslim women laborers objected, saying water fetched by a non-Muslim was “unclean.”   Asia replied to the woman, “Are we not all humans?”  That led to a religious argument.  The Muslim women told their local imam of the argument, who filed a police report accusing her of blasphemy.  One of the blasphemies—she actually stated that Muhammad was not a prophet!

By June 19, nothing had happened because of the charges.  The Muslim women who had been involved in the argument got the local Muslim men stirred up.  They went to Asia’s house and forced their way in.  They beat Asia and her children there.  When the police showed up, they took Asia into “protective custody.”

The charges against her for blasphemy were brought under Sections 295-B (blaspheming the Quran) and Section 295-C (blaspheming Muhammad) of the Pakistani Blasphemy Law.  She has been in jail since June 19 of last year.  The option of being freed on bail was never offered because of the danger of riots by the Muslim population.

Since her sentencing on November 8 of this year, Asia’s family has not been allowed to see her.  Her case is being appealed.  Most sentences such as hers are reversed on appeal, but only after several years.  Capital punishment became the mandatory sentence for a conviction on Section 295-C on May 1, 1991.  (Prior to that, a life sentence was also possible.)  Even though no sentences of execution have been carried out under the law, the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) in Pakistan points out that several accused—as well as their lawyers, and judges who acquit—have been killed or threatened by vigilantes, inside and outside of jail.  Instead of carrying out the sentence of hanging, the condemned simply sit in appalling conditions in prison, mainly in solitary confinement to protect them from death by fellow Muslim inmates.

Switching to an entirely related event, on November 5, 2010, representatives from the United States State Department stood before the United Nations Human Rights Council in a 3 hour session and invited suggestions to the US as to how we can reduce our human rights abuses.  This was the forum in which we raised the Arizona Immigration Law as a source of Human Rights Abuses which we might commit if the federal government cannot prevail in court.  The 47 members  of the Council includes Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Russia, China, Algeria, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Libya, and—get this—Pakistan.  Yes, the country where Asia Bibi was recently sentenced to death for blasphemy and where others have been in prison for decades for the same offense was invited to tell us how to protect human rights.

Under the Bush administration, we had withdrawn from this Council because the member nations makes the entire proposition a farce (my word—the words they used were more diplomatic).  In an effort to reach out to the world community, the Obama administration signed us up to reenter this “Human Rights Anonymous” organization, attend their meetings, and get up in front of them with, “Hi.  I’m the United States and I’m a human rights abuser.  I try hikers as spies if they stray into my mountains.  Er, no, I guess that was Iran (sorry, Iran, no criticism intended).  But I do ask drivers to show ID if they run a red light . . .”  Our membership in this UN organization levels the playing field of Human Rights Abusers between the US and countries such as Pakistan.

What does Pakistan have to say about their Blasphemy Law?  Basically, that all nations in the world should enact similar statutes to protect Human Rights.  As part of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), Pakistan has been trying since 1999 to get the UN to pass a “Defamation of Islam Resolution” which would criminalize words or actions that are against Islam and/or Muslims.  They intensified their push after 9/11.  A couple of years ago, they decided to rename it the “Defamation of Religions Resolution” and push it as a more general law, in spite of the fact that no religion is specifically named in the resolution except for Islam (4 times).  Sparkling new with its generic title, it was passed in March 2009 by the UN Human Rights Commission. The vote count was 23 (Islamic) states in favor, 11 states against, and 13 abstentions.  (Isn’t it interesting that roughly 50% of the countries in the UN Human Rights Commission are Muslim, while only 50 of 194 (195 if you count Taiwan)—or  25%—of the countries in the world are Muslim?)

How can we expect laws passed consistent with this resolution to function in the real world?  We can take a look at Pakistan, who has laws it feels is consistent with this resolution.  Their constitution guarantees religious freedom, so Pakistan is kosher.  But under Blasphemy Laws, there can be a situation like the argument that broke out between neighbors in November of 1992.  As it escalated, Mohammad Sajjad commented that the Virgin Mary had to have been a prostitute.  His Christian neighbor, Gul Masih, retorted that “Mohammad had 11 wives, including a minor.”  Mohammad filed defamation charges. Gul Masih was convicted of blaspheming Mohammad and sentenced to death.  He still sits in jail—for stating a fact.  His neighbor, who uttered the religiously offensive opinion about Jesus’s mother, was never charged with anything.  Yeah, freedom of religion.  In the real world, the law will be used in Muslim Countries to protect Muslims from hearing even the truth about their religion and religious leaders.  In most of the other 75% of the world, it will probably be used to protect Muslims from being offended.

There have been attempts within Pakistan to water down or abolish the blasphemy law.  Fundamentalist Muslims within the country always object, vehemently and with threats or actions of violence.  They want to make it so that it is blasphemous under the blasphemy law to state the opinion that the blasphemy law should be abolished.  Don’t you love that overwhelming moderate Muslim majority that we keep hearing about that exists in the world?

The “Defamation of Religions Resolution” will go before the UN General Assembly in December.  Yes, it will be nonbinding if it is passed.  And yes, it will be a justification for further suppression of religious freedom in most of the world because the “most of the world” that will implement it will be Muslim countries.  Even though they will be as one sided in enforcement as it was in the case of Gul Masih, they will be sanctioned by a UN Resolution.

Our recent election was about the economy and jobs and things that affect us at home.  That is rightly so.  We are hurting.  We need to reestablish a strong economy to be able to competently face the challenge of existing in the current world.  We also need to have time and energy to focus on recognizing our strengths as well as our shortcomings when we interface with other countries. We need to be America again, and not a fading, socialist European wannabe.  The presidential election season for 2012 must begin.