The Second Amendment Solution: Searching for the Right Problem

I could provide links to all kinds of places where the toll of firearm deaths in America are recorded and listed, sadness heaped upon tragedy.  I won’t, though, because this isn’t about the tragedy;  plenty of folks have written about that, and I doubt I could add much to that heap o’ words.

What I do want to do is to talk about my own feelings regarding the Second Amendment and the state of firearm ownership in America today.

When I grew up in Texas, starting in the 1950’s, private gun ownership was unchallenged.  Our TVs were filled with the Westerns in which every citizen carried a firearm;  my dad owned one with which he taught me the basics of firearm safety and how to shoot.  (bolt action 22)  His lessons on safety started out with, “Don’t ever point a weapon at someone unless you intend to shoot them.  If you DO point it at someone with the intent to shoot, don’t hesitate.  Do it.”  There were other details, including the same thing my Drill Instructors in the Army taught us, “There is no such thing as an unloaded weapon.  They don’t exist.”

If every firearm owner in the US followed just those two precepts, the numbers of firearm deaths in this country would be much lower.  Unfortunately, there isn’t an IQ test for buying a firearm in America.  Or, probably, anywhere.

Ok, that said, on to the Second Amendment.  So, yeah, I grew up with the assumption that firearms were the unchallenged right of every American to personally own.  Then I went to college and got educated, and in that Constitutional Law course, I learned that there were some wrinkles to that assumption.  Since, of course, serious constitutional Scholars have written online articles noting that many scholars had felt and understood that Amendment to mean exactly what it said about militias, and seeing the real, actual history about the Revolution, I can see the point.

Unfortunately for those folks, the SCOTUS ruled a few years ago that people DO have a personal right to own a firearm, while still leaving in place the rulings which give States and Cities the right to regulate firearms in the name of public safety.  This is, of course, an ongoing struggle to define what public safety means, requires, and what the Constitution allows.  It may never be decided.

Which isn’t a bad thing.  Unlike the most conservative of the right wing, it is obvious when reading the writings of the Founders that they intended the Constitution to be a living document (sorry, Scalia), and therefor provided a method for amending it.  They even made statements like Thomas Jefferson’s in which he hoped future generations would alter it regularly to stay updated with current political and social realities.  The man wasn’t stupid, he was a radical of his day, not a conservative.  He wanted us to keep it real, and relevant to our own time and reality.

Times change, people change.  When the Constitution was written and ratified, the Revolution was the biggest story, that and creating a new country.  The Founders wrote that document based on their experiences and based on how they felt about what they had just done.  The frontier of 19th century America wasn’t on their radar yet.  As time went on, the frontier got more and more important, and people’s experiences with pushing the natives off of their land made it apparent that anyone attempting the move west was going to need some kind of weapon to just feed themselves, not to mention protecting themselves from resentful natives.

I suspect that if that experience had been more on the minds of the Founders, the Second Amendment would have looked very different.

But wait about 50 or 60 years past the turn of the century, and things began to look different.  As the frontier States moved west, and the easternmost territories began to civilize, settle and become States, one thing became very clear.  Folks in settled towns and cities didn’t want a bunch of nutbags running around with firearms on their belts.  Most of them, as they became settled, enacted laws forbidding the open carrying of firearms, and I imagine concealed carry wasn’t far behind.  Even towns on the active frontier like Dodge City had laws forbidding open carry beyond certain limits.  They kept the riffraff on the other side of town to safeguard their homes.

It is a lesson apparently forgotten by today’s Republican Party and the NRA.

I won’t go over the stats about how many people we kill every year.  I don’t need to, they are well known.  The obvious conundrum we have today is how to satisfy the very large and politically influential gun lobby while still fulfilling the requirement for safeguarding public safety.  Now that the SCOTUS has ruled we can all own one, until that gets overturned (if it ever does) our task is to balance that right with the public’s rights to be safe and secure in their persons, homes and workplaces.  The problem we have is that the right wing doesn’t see it that way.  The NRA and other right wing interests have so stirred up their base that their only and main fear isn’t public safety, it’s preventing the government from taking their guns.

A problem that obviously doesn’t really exist.

Personally, I am torn on this one.  I do think people should have the right to own firearms, that right has been assumed for so long, it may as well be chiseled in stone somewhere.  But on the other hand, we MUST do something to stem the tide of murder, mayhem and negligence ridden deaths that annually top 25,000 people.

In case you have’t been paying attention, that is more than five times the numbers of soldiers we lost in Iraq.  EVERY YEAR.  Not in ten years, like Iraq.  Every. Fucking. Year.

Somehow, someway, we must find a way to stop murderous, crazy and incompetent people from getting their hands on firearms.  Not being an expert on making laws, nor law enforcement, I cannot really make any reasonable suggestions.

But it MUST be done. Somehow.

I will leave you with a thought.  I follow a blog called Stonekettle Station.  Jim Wright has a very interesting suggestion for how to at least begin to control our issue while at the same time changing the gun culture we have.  I recommend his solution to your perusal.

The Death Penalty, a Broken Justice System and the Constitution.

I was scrolling through Facebook the other day and ran across a post sharing an article about some folks testifying before a Congressional committee about the Justice system, and was struck by a statement by (I think) a Justice Department official which basically admitted that he agreed that our system of justice is "broken".

Now, thinking about that for a while brought up the question:  If our system of justice is pretty much the same organizationally today as it has been for the last century at least, why are we just now recognizing it as being "broken"?

What has changed?

A century ago, few Americans would have said, or noticed, such a thing.  So why now?  What's different?

I think most of us might answer that (of course) it is really American culture that has changed.  A hundred years ago, women couldn't vote, we lived in a heavily segregated culture, the US was hardly a world power (and was barely a regional one), and a significant number of Civil War vets were still alive - and few American soldiers had ever fought in a foreign war, save the Spanish American War just a decade before.

The automobile was in its infancy, the airplane was barely off the ground, the telephone was still a novelty in many communities, neither radio nor TV were even a sparkle in an engineer's eye, and the American monetary system was primitive by comparison to today's standards.

If it weren't for the railroads, it would still take longer to take a horse and/or wagon from New York to California than by boat.

And the number of Americans in this country who had been born in slavery was still a depressingly large number.  In fact, America was still oppressing its minorities (not only blacks) to a very high degree.

A glimpse of why we are today beginning to talk about our justice system as being broken is perhaps illustrated by the state of the death penalty in this country.

Leigh Bienen, JD, Senior Lecturer at Northwestern University School of Law, provided the following response to the question “Is the death penalty an area of our criminal justice system that, today, can be called racist or discriminatory?” published in the Spring 1997 issue of Focus on Law Studies: 

"The criminal justice system is controlled and dominated by whites, although the recipients of punishment, including the death penalty, are disproportionately black. The death penalty is a symbol of state control and white control over blacks. Black males who present a threatening and defiant personae are the favorites of those administering the punishment, including the overwhelmingly middle-aged white, male prosecutors who - in running for election or re-election - find nothing gets them more votes than demonizing young black men."

(http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001187http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001187)

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) wrote the following in its release “Talking Points: Suspend the Death Penalty,” published on www.naacp.org (accessed Aug. 4, 2008): 

“The death penalty is the most lethal form of social injustice in the United States. The race and class bias which permeates the American justice system result in this most extreme punishment being handed out almost exclusively to the poor…Nearly all of the 3,500 Americans awaiting execution on death row today have low-income backgrounds…The justice system is biased against those without the money to hire adequate legal defense. Nearly all death row inmates are poor and most are racial minorities. Temporary moratoriums are a temporary solution. There is only one fair resolution: the death penalty must be immediately and permanently suspended.” 

Aug. 4, 2008 - National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 

 "...Since the reinstatement of the modern death penalty, 87 people have been freed from death row because they were later proven innocent. That is a demonstrated error rate of 1 innocent person for every 7 persons executed. When the consequences are life and death, we need to demand the same standard for our system of justice as we would for our airlines... It is a central pillar of our criminal justice system that it is better that many guilty people go free than that one innocent should suffer... Let us reflect to ensure that we are being just. Let us pause to be certain we do not kill a single innocent person. This is really not too much to ask for a civilized society." 

Russ Feingold, JD US Senator (D-WI)introducing the "National Death Penalty Moratorium Act of 2000"April 26, 2000

Since the year 2000, dozens more people have been released from death row across the United States due to improved DNA analysis - and this is ONLY for cases where there is DNA available for analysis, AND where judges or prosecutors have allowed that evidence to be re-examined.

It is obvious from these results that among cases where DNA isn't available, innocent people are very probably being executed for crimes they did not commit.

And it is likely that a majority of those cases are probably minorities.

So, what has this shown us?  What has changed?

The nation has gone through some very rough and profound changes in the last hundred years, especially those having to do with race.  Today, the general society is more concerned with how minorities are treated, and there is a growing trend to focus on the justice system and how it is biased against minorities, especially since a majority of Americans now carry smartphones with cameras.  This has resulted in a swarm of videos illustrating the horrific rate at which police departments are killing minorities for offenses which are often simply made up to cover the killing.  The overwhelming number of these videos depict minority killings, not whites.

Today, capital punishment is legal in 32 U.S. states.

Connecticut and New Mexico have abolished the death penalty, but it is not retroactive. Prisoners on death row in those states will still be executed.

As of October 2014 there were 3,035 inmates awaiting execution.

Since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court, 1,394 people have been executed. (as of December 2014)

Japan is the only industrial democracy besides the United States that has the death penalty. In Japan, the 2013 per capita execution rate was 1 execution per 15,809,458 persons.

Since 1973, over 140 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence.

My own opinion of the death penalty has changed.  Just ten years ago, I was solidly in favor of it.

Today, as a result of these and other facts, I oppose the imposition of the death penalty because of the racial and economic biases inherent in its imposition.  Due to the horrific misconduct of justice system officials, from the cop on the beat to the prosecutors to the District Attorneys across the country, I feel that an immediate halt to our use of the death penalty is needed, and indeed, is the only moral path open to a modern industrial society.  That includes everything from charging people with capital crimes to the actual imposition of the executions themselves.

Certainly until we fix our broken system.  Then, perhaps we can discuss and debate the moralities of the State taking the lives of its citizens.

So, it must be fixed, and all evidence of racial and economic bias eliminated.  This is necessary, not only for fixing the death penalty, but for the fair administration of justice everywhere.

The evidence of a growing movement for this is endemic in the radical changes in our society in recent decades.  The rate of acceptance of LBGTQ people along with marriage equality across the country in just the last ten years alone is astonishing.  The percentages of people calling themselves out and out atheists has more than doubled, and the numbers of people no longer associated with organized religion has reached astonishing percentages and numbers.  A growing and changing feminist movement has gained ground, evidenced by the front and center fight for women's rights from equal pay to reproductive rights and the right to health care - all of which are faced with a huge backlash from conservative circles due to the success of past generations of that movement.

So, you ask, why did I tack the Constitution onto the title of this article?

Because all of this illustrates why the idea of Original Intent is defunct and devoid of meaning.

More than once, the Founders noted in numerous writings and articles at the time of its creation and ratification that their hope and intent for the Constitution and its future was that each succeeding generation would examine that document in light of their new and changed views of the world and the country and make what changes they thought necessary.  The Constitution was not engraved in stone with no method of amendment.  It was written on parchment and included a clear and important manner of changing that document as future generations wished.

That has been done 27 times, with three proposed amendments still pending.  Obviously, the idea that the Constitution was intended to be limited to eighteenth century thinking is wrong and completely the opposite of what those people intended.

It should be noted that most of our Founders were NOT conservatives, as such were seen in their time.  They were radicals, and would have been treated as such if the British Crown could have caught them before the Revolution was successful.  Benjamin Franklin had a nice clear picture of what that meant when he chided his contemporaries that if they "did not hang together" they would definitely "hang separately"!

Given the spoken desires of the more radical conservatives (in California of all places) to ensure the deaths of those opposed to them, I would remind my fellow Liberals that Franklin's statement is as true today as it was over three hundred years ago!

On Police Brutality

More and more lately, the subject of police brutality and killings is becoming something the bought and paid for media cannot ignore.  Millions of people around the country are constantly marching in protest over the almost constant din of what are often out and out murder cases in which police are almost universally absolved of criminal liability.

Mostly against blacks, but let's be clear - there are others being killed who are not black as well.

It would also be good to note that the issue of police brutality isn't just about killings, although those are the most egregious.  Remember the lady in California whose beating by a CHP officer went viral?  There are whole websites devoted to documenting these incidents.

And that isn't the most alarming thing about this whole thing.

What is the most alarming is the strengthening of the "thin blue line".  The police have tended, even in the past to have this "us vs. them" kind of attitude, that exists to protect each other from what they consider unfair punishment.

To an extent, that is understandable.  They exist in an ordered and very structured environment.  They are trained in discipline, the better for their bosses to control them.  After all, they are, each and every one, out in the community for eight or more hours a day, exposed to the possibility of having to confront the very worst elements of society.  People who are often armed and prepared to use those weapons at any time they feel threatened.

And police officers around the country die every year because of that exposure.  Such an environment tends to bond people together.  I understand that.

But in recent years, there is a sickness that has invaded that environment.

Militarization.  Arming and training our police with the arms and the attitudes of soldiers.

There is a meme that is making the rounds occasionally on Facebook.  It says, basically, that a country's military exists to defend it from enemies of the State.  And when the police and the military begin to blend together, the people tend to start looking like enemies of the State.

That sounds kinda familiar.

We need to remind ourselves, and our police, of the ways in which our government was designed and empowered by the Constitution to provide (as the constitution says) for the General Welfare.

First, the military is an arm of the Federal government, and is authorized by the Constitution under the authority of the President.  It is for the protection of the country from enemies of the State, generally protection from invasion.

Our police departments, of whatever level, are authorized under both the General Welfare clause for the Federal government and the "reserved powers' clause for the States.

Separately, all levels of the government are authorized a judiciary.  It is considered a separate branch of government at the Federal level.  Most States are generally designed the same way, so that judges and courts are their own authority and not under the executive power of the President or a Governor.

This is important, because the Constitution makes it fairly clear (and subsequent SCOTUS rulings further clarify this) that the Court system is supposed to be a defender and a protectorate of the people.

Police are, too, since their authority is generally under the authority of the General Welfare clause.

And when the police act against their authority and hurt members of the public, the courts are supposed to protect us, not side with the police.

Our Constitution is a document that sets forth the powers of the Federal government and allows for those powers not explicitly given to the Federal level to be reserved for the States or "the people".  This pretty clearly shows that the powers so delineated are delegated directly from the people.

WE, the people of this country, delegate those powers for OUR benefit.  Those powers are not there for the benefit of the officials so empowered.  They are there to provide for US.  For the general welfare - for everybody.

In spite of the original version having clauses respecting slavery, none of those clauses noted color of skin nor ethnicity as a condition of that status, and most certainly did not separate "the people" into differing classes based on ethnicity, skin color, sex, sexual orientation, social classes, or economic status.  It merely uses the term "We, the people".

In short, if a person works for a government entity at any level from city to State to Federal, they work for US.  They have their jobs for the purpose of providing for the General Welfare of the people of these United States.  Their jobs are there for OUR benefit, not theirs.

The police are not there to protect the government.  They are there to protect us from threats to society.  They are not there to force us into submission, they are there to protect us.

Not to shoot us, nor beat us nor subjugate us.  Their paychecks come from the taxes we pay.  WE are their bosses, ultimately.  All of us, regardless of economic status, color of our skin or ethnicity.

They should not be thinking of "us vs. them".  They should be thinking about policing their own, about getting rid of officers who make them look bad, who are not worthy of wearing the uniform.

Their "us" should include "we" the people.

Unlike in many totalitarian countries, our police do not live in guarded compounds.  They live among us, they ARE us, they are part of "the people".  They live next door to us, they marry our daughters and our sons, they eat at our backyard barbecues.  They shop at the same stores we do, they vote in the same elections we do.

It is time they rejoined us.  It is time they stop thinking of us as the problem, and realize that it is their attitude that is the problem.

They work for us, and it is time they started acting, again, like they do.

They should be our defenders, not our oppressors.

First Amendment, redux.

I suppose most of you have heard by now about the lady in Indiana who got pulled over by a State Trooper for a traffic violation and got proselytized and handed pamphlets instead, when she "admitted" to going to church, right?

That's bad enough, but listen to what the American Family Association of Indiana has to say in the officer's defense:

“Micah Clark, executive director of the American Family Asso-ciation of Indiana, said that although the traffic stop might not have been the best time to quiz someone about faith, he questioned whether a police officer should lose his right to free speech because he is wearing a badge. 

“‘I have people pass out religious material all the time. Mormons come to my door all the time, and it doesn’t offend me,’ Clark said. ‘(This case) might not be the most persuasive time to talk to someone about their faith, but I don’t think that a police officer is prohibited from doing something like that.’ ”

Take another look at the part I emphasized.

That's the part that burns me up.  I hear this shit all the time.  Every time a public servant pulls out the religion card some right wing moron pulls this crap out of his hat in defense.

It is well established in past SCOTUS rulings throughout the 20th century that when a person is acting as an agent of the government (of whatever level) he/she is not acting in his/her capacity as an individual.  That person is acting in the "person" of the State, and has the authority of the State.

That's why, when a police officer confronts you for a violation of the law, that officer has the authority to summon you to court.  That isn't the cop telling you to go to court, it's THE COURT summoning you.

And he's doing it with a gun on his hip that he is authorized to use to kill you if you endanger him or a member of the public while he is performing his job.

Read this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,...

Now, then, think about that for a moment.  It is known as the Establishment Clause.  It means that Congress (and by virtue of the 14th amendment, that goes for State and local governments, too) cannot pass laws (or regulations) that favor a religion.  In other words, establishing an official relationship between the government and a religion.

Now, read that again:

               Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,...

Is it becoming any clearer?  A cop, or any public servant, in the course of performing his/her official duties, while acting thus as an agent of the State, cannot act in a manner consistent with the establishment of an official relationship with a religion.  Favoring a religion gives the impression of such an official relationship.

Giving out pamphlets gives the impression of such an official relationship.

Asking if someone has accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior gives the impression of such an official relationship.

Every cop is familiar with the principle of time, place and manner.  Some things are only appropriate at a certain time, or in a certain place, or in a certain manner.  That is how it is with religion.

If that cop had approached the woman on the street, in civilian clothes, and engaged her in conversation and handed her that pamphlet, she would have been free to disengage and refuse the material.  His approach would have been proper, and legal, and nobody would have any grounds to complain.

But by approaching her with those words and that material in uniform, with a traffic citation book in hand, she was NOT free to disengage.  She could not leave, and she was well advised to be in fear that had she demurred his offer of that material, she would have been awarded with a traffic citation.

No.  The officer had no right to put an innocent (or even a guilty) civilian in such a position.  Yes, his First Amendment rights get checked at the door when he puts on the uniform.

You see, there's another aspect of the First Amendment that needs to be understood here.

It applies to what is called Prior Restraint by the government on your right to speak, or to the prohibition of the government's ability to punish for past speech.

The government.  In this case, yes, his employer is the government, but because he is in an employee/employer relationship with the government agency in question, that agreement governs the relationship.  Part of the implied (and often implicit) governing rules of that relationship is the employer's right to restrict your speech while acting in its behalf.  It has the right to make you say things that are in accordance with its views and policies, and to NOT say things that are not in accordance with those views or policies.

That goes with ANY employer, private, public or government.  That's because in entering in that agreement, you do so voluntarily, by exercising your free will.  So, you are voluntarily giving up your right to speech while acting as your employer's agent.  This not a new or controversial rule.

Apparently, to the Indiana AFA, it is.

First they came for the Socialists...

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist. 

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 

Because I was not a Trade Unionist. 

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 

Because I was not a Jew. 

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. 

Martin Niemöller

The original intent of this remark, given in speeches around Germany, was to point out that Germans—in particular leaders of German Protestant churches—had been complicit through their silence in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people.

Today, in the United States, the Republican Party is responsible for the intensification of racial animosity against minorities - blacks and hispanics in particular - and are the cause of much of the violence against blacks now being acted out on the public stage by the growing militaristic police presence in this country.  White militia groups, openly carrying loaded weapons, now patrol the US-Mexico border against the "incursion" of hispanic children!

Recent stories in the press, such as the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and several additional instances of such violence have resulted in a growing unease in social media about not just official violence against blacks, but the increasing trend of police violence against any public dissent against that violence, regardless of the race or ethnicity of the protestors.

Additionally, numerous Stand Your Ground laws in various States have resulted in civilian violence against minorities which have allowed the perpetrators to walk away without fear of prosecution.  These laws have been promulgated by Republican legislatures over the loud and vociferous protests of Democratic and pro-gun control groups.

I am greatly troubled by these various developments.

While law enforcement violence against blacks and hispanics is nothing new, especially in the South, to see such violence pop into the public eye in places like Missouri and California is troubling, to say the least.  And to see the situation in Missouri escalate into such a state that the police turn the town into an armed camp, arresting both members of the press and a State Senator, is beginning to border on the absurd and the alarming.

I add here the recent execution of Troy Anthony Davis (October 9, 1968 – September 21, 2011), an American man convicted of and executed for the August 19, 1989, murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia.  In spite of the recantation of numerous prosecution witnesses and the admission of guilt by another inmate, the State of Georgia went ahead with the execution.

I can add several more, indeed, four out of the top 5 wrongful executions in the US were of black men.  It is well documented that the US justice system, nationwide, is stacked against minorities.

It is an interesting phenomenon that the only groups of pro gun demonstrators "exercising" their open carry rights are white.  There are no documented cases of groups of black men so demonstrating their "right" to open carry anywhere in the United States.

I wonder why that is?

I think the situation is getting out of control.

I think the fact that it is out of control is deliberate.

Republicans have been running on a platform which asserts that the "government" doesn't work and is a burden on the American people.  They have worked very hard, using every opportunity to ensure that their assertions work out to be true, sabotaging good government at every possible turn.

They have ensured that American police departments, under the aegis of the "War on Drugs", have loaded up with as much militaristic weaponry and equipment as possible using Federal money to finance that buildup.

Their campaigns of fear and uncertainty aimed at the poorest elements of white America have stoked the fires of racial animosity and hatred in order to ensure the re-election of Republican leaders at every level of government, using State and local powers to subvert Federal laws and regulations wherever possible to foil the increasingly liberal march of American social beliefs and morals and any influence that may have on US law.

The trust and confidence of the American people in our police, in the courts, and in the prosecutors who administer our system of justice is eroding daily.  When police concentrate on blacks and hispanics, ignoring whites, and prosecutors apply different standards of justice to minorities, public trust in these institutions begins to erode.

When the courts begin to allow these other groups to violate the rights of minorities without consequence, the erosion of public trust accelerates.

Sooner or later, the people of this country will decide that they've had enough, and Republicans hope that they can cash in on that decision.

Don't let them.  Speak out!  The best way to do that is to vote.  DON'T STAY AT HOME!

This November, get out and vote.  Vote Democratic!  Toss out the Republican Party and force them to go into exile, where they can hopefully restructure their party and relearn what it is to be an American.

I think they've forgotten completely.

Justice Dis-served.

Yeah, I know, that's not a word.  But it oughta be, doggone it.

Today, for the second time, Amanda Knox got convicted of murder.  The first was the result of the original highly celebrated trial, which was overturned on appeal.

In the US, that would have been the end of it.  American prosecutors have one bite at the apple, if the accused is acquitted, they lose, and that's it, they have no appeal.  But, in Italy, that apparently is NOT the end of it, and prosecutors can appeal an acquittal they disagree with.

Which they did, and the Italian Supreme Court directed another Appeals Court to retry the poor girl.

That court today returned a guilty verdict.

Due to the Constitutional protections against Double Jeopardy, it is unlikely that Amanda Knox will ever be extradited back to Italy to serve that time.  But, she is thereby restricted to the United States for the rest of her natural life - if she sets foot in another country Italy has an extradition treaty with, it's back to the hoosegow.  For over 28 years.   That means the entire European Union, you know.  And who knows how many others.

Given the absolute carnival her first trial apparently was, and the cavalier manner in which the Italians apparently investigated the crime in the first place, this entire ordeal has the obvious trappings of a corrupt and disabled justice system.  This second trial has the appearance of being just a sop to the prosecutors, as the justices themselves have to know that she'll never serve a day of her sentence, due to that double jeopardy thing.  Which is a complete travesty of justice all by itself.

Oh, I know, the American system of justice doesn't have anything to crow about, given the number of innocents we imprison every year.  Or out and out kill, like that poor fellow in Mississippi - or was it Alabama?  Everybody knew that man was innocent, yet they killed the poor bastard anyway.  Just cause he was black, and they could.

Which brings me to why I am writing this tonight.

The thread that connects these thoughts is that any human justice system is imperfect.  We do end up jailing innocent folks, sometimes for decades.  Fortunately, there are numerous groups in the US who work tirelessly to get new trials for people they investigate cases for and determine that an injustice has been done.  Sometimes, they even succeed.

But then what?  Oh, yeah, sometimes these guys get some kind of renumeration.  As if any money amount can reimburse you for decades of your life wasted behind bars.  But at least, they sometimes get that.

But what about the victim?  Our entire justice system is supposedly predicated on the ideal that the government speaks for the dead.  That in cases of murder, where the dead cannot speak and tell their tale, the government steps in to see that justice is done on their behalf.

Unless of course, they get the wrong perpetrator.  In that case, the real murderer walks, free and clear.  Even if some years later, the guy in prison is shown to be wrongly accused and convicted, the American justice system is not at all interested in going back to that cold case and finding out who really did it.  True, if the wrongly convicted man is freed based on the confession of the real murderer who is now in prison for life, they might go ahead and try the real perpetrator just to get the conviction on record - especially if that will prevent any kind of future parole issues.

But at no time is any case ever reinvestigated based on the desire to see real justice done.  No prosecutor's office wants to stand up in front of a judge and explain why they are prosecuting THIS guy after having wrongly convicted THAT guy 30 years ago.  Or 20, or 10.  Kinda hard to prove to the judge that, "Yeah, trust me, we might have gotten that one wrong, but we're really convinced THIS time we've got the right guy!"

So, all day, every day, murderers go free.  Walking among us.  They could be your coworker, your neighbor, your friend.  Your boss, your mailman, your car mechanic.  Or the guy that comes into your home to fix the leaky faucet or your computer.

You may be comfortable with that.

I'm not.

Human Trafficking - Just Plain Slavery

::sigh::

Back to the real world.

Tonight I am going to introduce you to a subject that get very poor reception in the United States:  slavery.  Most people when they hear that word, think of black slaves bending under the lash of white slave masters, being sold on a slave block, families being separated, etc.

Welcome to the 21st century!  Slavery, modern style, is quite a bit different.  Often, it is sex slavery.  There was a post on Facebook tonight that highlighted a story in which the various States of the US have been ranked according to their efforts to stop what is today euphemistically known as Human Trafficking.  (I guess the term slavery is a bit ... uncouth ... for American tastes.)  The site is Take Part, and the story is entitled, "The 7 Worst States in the Fight Against Human Trafficking - 2013 Edition".

The number of people trafficked in the United States is difficult to estimate, but the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children says that there are approximately 100,000 children in the U.S. forced into sex trafficking every year. And many more thousands of adults are enslaved, as well.

I urge all of you to get educated about this horrible crime.  It is unconscionable that any human being should be enslaved and forced to work against their will.

I mean, come on, this is the 21st century.  This kind of thing is insane, and to think that AMERICANS are responsible for some of this is even worse.

Go check out that web site and find out how YOUR State ranks in the fight against slavery.

Let's Talk Racism.

First, a caveat:  I am a white, Anglo-Saxon male, although I am not religious, so I guess the WASP thing is out.  But I say this to state unequivocally that I am well aware that I am not experienced in being on the receiving end of racial bigotry.  So, I am not trying to tell anyone that I know the true state of racism from the standpoint or perspective of a minority who does.

Ok?  Good.

I do think that I've got a pretty fair idea of how racism works, though, because I grew up in Texas in the 1950s and 60s, and am VERY familiar with how whites in the South view blacks and hispanics.  So, while I can't exactly talk about the receiving end, I CAN talk about the folks that dish it out.  Been there, actually did that at one time.

And am very ashamed of myself for it.

After having lived in Maryland for the last 26 years, my experience has been enough to turn my views on people of ethnic backgrounds other than whites completely around.  I have worked alongside them, lived next door to them, shopped among them, stood in line at the bank behind and in front of them, sat at the DMV next to them while we all waited the same exorbitantly long periods of time for our driver's licenses and paid the same high fees for the same pieces of plastic.  Long enough to be uncomfortable using the word "them" in the last sentence, wishing there was a better way to express it without using a word that sets us apart.

I've witnessed young people grow up alongside each other from a very young age who were surprised and shocked to learn that their friends were somehow different - in a way they'd never even imagined.  So I know that racism is taught, and somehow, growing up as human beings without the divisions of skin color is natural and can be perfectly normal.

So, what is all this about?

How I view modern racism as having changed, morphing into something that is very different - but no less nasty, perverted and bigoted, while being totally ignored.  In spite of being so in your face, you have to be blind not to see it.

You see, whites eventually noted that the blatant, ugly racism of the 50s was pretty bad.  Stressful, if you will.  It gave us a bad name, and for many, made us feel a bit dirty.  So, we went along with the program and did away with the personal racism, at least in person and face to face.  We passed laws that made the blatant personal racism much harder to pursue and in many cases, illegal.  In short, we made "some" progress.  Federal programs of one kind or another made things seem to be just humming along, equalizing the numbers a bit.

At least, that's what the media would have you believe.

But, if I am to believe the minorities I've known, under the surface, it is still there.  A thousand little ways, it is still there.

But, the really BIG ways are even worse.  I am talking about the institutional racism, the built-in racism that pervades the justice system even worse than it used to.  The institutional racism that pervades the media, the Corporate world and even worse, the voting system.

A very interesting article the other day noted that in the District of Columbia, they graduate over 2800 high school students a year.

They also arrest twice that number for minor drug possession!  Over 80% of that number are black.  It is well documented that drug use across racial lines is about equal, so there are a lot of whites not being arrested.  The incarceration levels between the races are equally (!!!) bad.

Note too, the efforts in State after State to limit the ability of minorities to vote.  While in the Corporate world, hiring practices have made the raw numbers of minorities look better, as one get higher in the pay grades, the numbers of minorities (including women) get lower and lower.

In education, schools in minority black areas still don't get the public funding that those in white areas do, although in some States, there have been efforts to level the playing field.

Look at the Trayvon Martin case.  A teenager gets killed, walking unarmed, by a man who is carrying a gun (against the rules of the Watch group he is "working for") and who gets blamed for his death?   He does, not the adult who pulled the trigger after ignoring the directions of 911 authorities to stay in his car.  In case after case, blacks get the shaft, in State after State, the percentages of blacks is higher in raw numbers of those incarcerated, of those serving longer sentences and of those on death row.

In at least one State, the Governor did recognize this as an issue and used it as an excuse to suspend the death penalty pending corrective measures.  We'll see how long it takes for those "corrective measures" to be made!  I suspect that the reasons for the suspension are less over racial disparity in sentencing than on simple opposition to the death penalty.  In the meantime, a higher number of blacks in that State now are in prison for life, lengthening the average length of sentences for blacks in that State.

My point is that in spite of our efforts to reduce racism and the apparent successes we have made in many areas, much of those efforts have done little but direct the expression of that bigotry into other areas, many of which are difficult to legislate away.

Take the justice system, for instance.  All along the chain of officials from the cop on the beat to the supervising officers and the Public Prosecutor's Office, we have people fulfilling functions that to most of us are esoteric, enforcing laws according to rules that have become so complicated that it is impossible to legislate any kind of equality between races.  Each position is responsible for making decisions about cases where they must take into account individual situations, circumstances and differing laws where they can, even must, use their individual discretion and experience in making those decisions.  Discretion which allows them to express their individual racism without blame, without oversight, allowing them to blame it on "the system".

This attitude is pervasive throughout American life, and all public institutions, whether private or governmental.

Unless you are white, you are behind the eight ball from the git-go, as we say down South.

Well, I've got news for all you folks out there who are instrumental in supporting these racist attitudes and institutions:

By the 2050's, you won't be part of the majority any longer.  Whites will be just one of many minority groups, and there just won't be a "majority" race.  Are you willing to bet on how long it will take a coalition of other ethnic groups to end your segregationist ways?  Or whether they will decide to treat you better or worse than you have treated them?

This country has a long way to go before we meet the Supreme Court's rather cavalier proclamation that racism is over.

Really, Texas? Really? Are you people that insane?

When I grew up, Texas had a reputation of a State with a finely honed sense of justice.  We even had the Texas Rangers to prove it.  Still do, supposedly.

But what insanity has gripped the people of San Antonio that they would allow a man who would open fire on a woman, unarmed, who wasn't even looking at him to get off scott free?  When I grew up, shooting a women, even one who may have deserved it, was as close to a hanging offense as one could get in modern day Texas.

The defendant said that he paid for sex, and she refused to give it to him, so he was justified in shooting her under a Texas law that allows deadly force to retrieve stolen property.

So now, it isn't just that property is more important than a human life, but now we know just exactly how much Texans think your life is worth - if you are a woman.

$150.

I could buy a toaster for more than that.  Heck, my iPhone cost way more than that!

For shame.  For shame, I say.  Hang your heads in shame, people.

In hard times, we've already got a ready made revenue source, but today, it's illegal!

There was a time when talking about legalizing pot was guaranteed to mark you as a hippy and a counterculturist.

Today, it is becoming almost mainstream - there are even Republicans suggesting legalizing it to raise taxes!

And why not?  The Drug War has turned into a major and dismal failure.  It is so bad, we should stop calling it a war, so we don't have to admit to losing one!  It has forced millions of Americans into prison, cost the entire economy billions in lost revenue enforcing laws that a vast majority of Americans have at one time or another broken flagrantly.  It has turned our police forces into corrupt criminal organizations, forcing them into the position of sometimes trumping up charges simply for the purpose of confiscating property that by Federal law, comes back to them as additional funding.

The second house my dear cyber-wife and I bought, we bought at a considerable savings - because the owner was afraid her daughter, who was dealing drugs, would get raided, and the police would have been able to confiscate the house as supporting that drug trade.  The loan she had, of course, would have been called in immediately by the bank, for which she would have had no way to pay.

We spend billions as a nation enforcing our drug laws at the borders, and any competent drug cop will tell you that we barely catch a fraction of what gets through.

So, why not legalize it?  Legalize drugs, too, and establish a system of outlets to provide a subsidized distribution network that would so undercut the street price of drugs that the market would collapse overnight.  Control it like alcohol, tax it like alcohol.  Retroactively declare an amnesty for all individual drug crimes (possession of amounts too small to be considered a distribution business, and so forth) and release all drug prisoners who have no history of violence.  Wipe their records clean of any convictions.

It is time to clean up the insanity we created when we started this ill-advised, ill fated mess.

More importantly, it is time to reap the monetary rewards that heretofore have gone to the violent, lawless drug lords.  I think the Mexicans would thank us profusely.

Ok, Serious thoughts on guns and America.

It is a popular meme on the right that America is not only the greatest nation on earth, but is the envy of all and a coveted destination for the downtrodden the world over.

I am not going to get into an argument as to the merit of the first or second clauses up there, but what I have to say is about the third.  A meme popped up on Facebook a while ago.  Here it is:

I agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly!

If one takes the position that America has always been a coveted destination, there is one overwhelming reason why, and it is that we are a nation of laws.  We are one of the few nations in the world today which can boast, from the beginning of our existence, that every single exchange of power from one Party to another took place peacefully.  No matter how hostile the feelings between them, no matter how high the emotions would get, we've always done it right - with hands on a book, and not on guns.

Our country has taken seriously the one overriding task one can ask of a government - the keeping of the peace.  Without peace, business cannot operate, citizens cannot raise families, kids cannot go to school.  Chaos reigns.  If you have any questions about what this country would look like without a strong central government, look at Somalia and multiply that by about a thousand.  Our population would plummet, our standard of living would drop like a rock, the dollar would be worth, if we were extremely lucky, a plug nickel, if it were worth anything at all.

But, thanks to the rule of law, that is a bad dream.

Notice I said, the rule of law.  I didn't say by the rule of the gun.  We've done it by the rule of law.

Yeah, somebody is going to pop up and claim that the gun was critical to the law being able to stand up and be strong.  That's true.  Nothing is perfect, and nothing is easy.  But in the end, when the men with the guns put them in their holsters and hit that saloon, it's the lawyers and the judges who take over and make it all work.

It is the willingness of the vast majority of Americans, from every walk of life, from every ethnic group on the planet, from just about every other country on the planet, who stand together and simply obey the law, no guns needed.  It is why the thin blue line that protects us from the criminals and the lawless is just that, a thin line.  We don't need cops on every corner, shouldering machine guns.  We just need that thin line of brave men and women being willing to lay their lives on the line to keep it sane.

It is why this nation is shocked to the core when a guy walks into an elementary school and kills 27 people, including twenty kids.  Were we a nation of guns, nobody would be shocked at the shooting.  We'd be shocked that the guards failed to stop the shooting!

The difference is what makes this country great.

More Batpoop crazy? Really? Can it possibly get worse?

I've tried and tried to divine what could possibly be wrong with the right wing in this country.  What their motives could be, what could be driving them to be pushing the most insane, barbaric, outdated, out and out crazy policies since, well, I don't know when, and just when I've almost convinced myself that no, they just have to be a little human, The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer comes out with this batshit crazy stuff.

In two separate tweets last night, he called for an “Underground Railroad to deliver innocent children from same-sex households.” In one tweet  he was referring to the sad story of Lisa Miller, who, after declaring herself ex-gay, kidnapped her daughter away to Central America to prevent her former partner from having any custody. (She is still being tracked by federal agents as a fugitive of the law.)
In the other tweet, Fischer referred to the testimony of a individual named Robert Oscar Lopez, who blames all of his social problems on being raised by his mom and her lesbian partner. 

I've seen these people advocate some crazy stuff, and try to change the laws to make those things get forced on the rest of us, but for the first time, one is seriously advocating breaking the law!

Seriously, Fischer, kidnapping is not only a felony, but taking them out of the State is a Federal violation.  You should be prosecuted for that advocacy if ANY child is kidnapped for this reason at any time in the future in this country.

For once the English language doesn't have the words.

Ok, I've always been a guy that's always had something to say about just about any subject that pops up.  Ask my family & others who have known me.  I just don't shut up.

Hey, I blog, don't I?

But occasionally, there arises a news story that defies the English language.  I know that sounds trite, but this time, well, see for yourself:

In Largo, Florida, a man, Ronald Brown, employed by a Christian TV network, has been arrested in a plot to kill and eat a child from his Sunday school class.

Ok, take a deep breath, stop, and go back to re-read that sentence.

The main theme here: a plot to kill and eat a child.  Yes, you read that right.  No, it wasn't an article from The Onion, or any look-alike site.

The Tampa Bay Times has an incredible account on this developing story.

Now, please, let's not go off half cocked.   Neither I, nor any other atheist blogger I know, is going to suggest that his religion had anything to do with his fantasy plot.  People like that are just sick.  Truly, really, actually mentally ill.  Either that, or the human race is more screwed up than I have ever dreamed.

I cannot possibly discern the words that are sufficient to describe the sickness, the utter barbarity of the kind of thinking that had to go into this plot and the things this man and his friend had in store for one particular young boy.  Words, for once, escape me.  Even the thesaurus on my Mac is insufficient for the task.

There is, however, a further bit of madness to this story.  As the above noted, Ronald is employed by the Christian Television Network.  As of this writing, that network has refused any comment, and their scheduling still shows the puppet show he aired to be scheduled for future shows.

I know, we are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but you'd think a statement perhaps suspending the shows until more information becomes available would be appropriate.

Apparently not.

Come on, folks, he plotted to kill children, and if that's not enough, then understand, (no matter how twisted and sick this is) he also plotted to eat this child for Easter!

Now, I know mental illness is an excuse if one is unable to tell right from wrong.  But for the management of that network to refuse to react as just about any other sane individual would is not excused by mental illness.

So, can we drop the idea that Christians are at some higher moral plane than other mortals?  Just this once?  Not because of Ronald, but because of the morons at the Network...

We'll draw our conclusions about Ronald when we have more information.

Now, as for those of you who live in the Tampa Bay Area, here are some organizations he was affiliated with:

Brown had ties to a wide array of children's programs in the Tampa Bay area. In addition to the Gulf Coast Church, officials for the Tampa Bay Rays, the Pinellas County School District, the Christian Television Network, the city of Largo and Gulf Coast Jewish Family & Community Services, among others, all said he had been hired or volunteered as a performer, instructor or mentor.

If you know anyone with kids who may have been associated with those organizations, they need to be aware of this and look at where or if their kids may have come in contact with this predator - he had child porn and may have molested kids at some time in the past.

I shouldn't rejoice, but I do.

My mother, bless her heart, tried to teach me better.  She tried to teach me never to be happy at the misfortunes of another.  I've tried, FSM knows I've tried.

But there comes a time when the actions of that other, and everything he represents, are so despicable, so very evil, that I just can't prevent myself from cracking a smile when I hear that a Catholic official, a Monsignor, charged with aiding and abetting the child molestation activities of a priest under his supervision, has been sentenced to serve actual, real time in prison!

Now, I'm not going to pretend to be happy at the length of time.  It should be longer, much longer.  Because of this man, at least one priest continued his activities for years, exposing multiple victims to the kind of depredation no child should endure.  There may have been more, but I suppose we should be satisfied with the one we got, given the way the justice system works.

Monsignor William Lynn was his name, and may it live in infamy for the rest of his life.  May he hang his head in shame, not only for the terrible things he allowed another man to do to innocent children, but for the way he continued the evil activities his church has visited upon the innocent for, literally, centuries, for the manner in which he not only condoned those activities, but for the way in which he participated in them and perpetuated them.

Do not try to come here and explain away his "sins" by telling me this was the action of one man, or that his activities were not condoned by his superiors.  They were - they were not only condoned by those superiors, but were mandated by them, in writing, in the latin those superiors have used for centuries to hide their crimes and their perfidy from prying eyes.  Mandated, in fact, by the very man who sits in Rome in his spotless white robes, pretending to know the mind of his sky fairy god and calls himself Pope, and pretends to be a moral example and counselor for the world's Catholic faithful.

These actions were the policy - the written policy - of the Catholic hierarchy, by choice, to avoid scandal from touching the church rather than protecting the innocents who depended on them for protection.  Protection which was never extended or provided.

I am sorry if my words offend, or if they anger.

But your offense and anger should be directed towards those who molest children, and toward those who enable that molestation by hiding and covering that molestation from the eyes of the world.  Not toward those who would expose that coverup, or those like me, who would spread the news.

Today, another man is on trial, who is accused of molesting children, for decades, at Penn State, under cover of his employment as an athletic official at that school.

May this conviction and sentencing be a warning to those at Penn State who enabled Sandusky's activities by failing to stop him, whose guilt is separated from Monsignor William Lynn's (and that of his superiors) only by dint of scale.

May it be a warning to those who supervise other people who have access to children, those who have the power to stop these kinds of crimes from happening, or who can stop further crimes by reporting them to the proper authorities.

Be warned - society will no longer just nod and wink at your perfidy, at your crimes.

George Zimmerman, pious idiot

George Zimmerman, the wing nut who is accused of killing Travon Martin, has done it again.

Yesterday, he was interviewed by Hannity, and boy howdy, did he step in it as far as I'm concerned.  Not only did he not express any remorse for killing the 17 year old, but he isn't sorry he got out of his truck, and he's not sorry he was packing heat.

But he does think that what happened that day was "god's will".  (Personally, I think that statement is god swill, but then, who am I, right?)

This why his lawyers should be disbarred, or should at least quit over having an out of control client.  No person accused of a felony should ever be allowed anywhere near a camera before the trial, otherwise, they'll say stupid things that would hang them if they answered that way in court.  That's because those stupid things will hang him in court, because the subpoena for that footage is on the DA's desk right now awaiting his signature so it can be served on Hannity's network.

To top it off, he managed to just royally piss off Barbara Walters, by refusing to do an interview with her, after his lawyers promised her an interview if she flew down to Florida with a camera team.  Apparently, he set some condition (which Barbara refused to name) which her network has a policy of refusing to meet, so he refused to do her interview.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Then again, he did get out of that truck, against the dispatcher's advice, didn't he?

Ok, call me a conspiracy nut, go ahead.

You know, I followed the JFK assassination closely, in spite of being just ten years old.  I remember that more clearly than I remember my Dad in that same period.  Strange, how some things stick with you and others slip away.

When RFK was killed, some six years later, I was involved in high school at Allen Military Academy, and TV wasn't really available to us there.  So, I saw little of it and never really let it bother me too much.

But I always wondered if the two were, somehow, linked.  The idea that two brothers, one a President and one his Attorney general, were to end up assassinated, each by a lone, crazy gunman, just seemed a bit too much of a stretch.  I'd always doubted the Warren Commission findings.  Too many witness accounts of shadowy figures, shots from the grassy knoll, law enforcement figures at that location much quicker than one would imagine, acting oddly.  The Oswald assassination closely following the initial crime, so obviously intended to shut the man up, and the fact that his killer was so closely linked to the Mob, all just seemed a bit too obvious to me, a ten year old kid, for law enforcement to have ignored!

And now, a long quiet witness to the RFK crime has spoken up, alleging that the FBI altered her statement, that the number of shots fired were at least twelve to fourteen, instead of the eight that the authorities claimed Sirhan Sirhan fired.  She also notes that there were numerous other changes, including the directions of the shots, directly opposite of where the lone convicted gunman was supposed to have fired.

Once again, CNN has the story.

Her account is clear, and she claims to remember it as if it were yesterday.  Further, an acoustics expert says the lone recording shows, with modern computer analysis, as many as thirteen shots, many coming too close together to be able to have been fired from the 22 revolver introduced into evidence, which, in any case, only held eight rounds.

Yes, it is odd that the law enforcement authorities investigated these two cases, six years apart, determined that two lone gunmen each killed their targets independently of one another, and never even tried to investigate the possibility that the two may have been linked.

But both cases involve shadowy figures linked to the mob, and both RFK and JFK campaigned relentlessly against the mob, and eventually the FBI broke it, at least in New York.  Yet, strangely, nobody seems to have thought that the killings may have been payback.  I wonder why not, when the mob is the one organization in this country at the time which almost always answered such threats with violence, often against law enforcement officers, judges and prosecutors!

As Lewis Carroll would say, curiouser and curiouser.