Category: politics/law

No Rights for the Wicked

Maybe you’ve seen this graphic on Facebook?

It’s not a topic that’s getting a lot of coverage, so I wondered, “Are these assertions true? Or is it *technically* correct but missing some piece of truth that would make it less alarming?”

Well…it’s a mixed bag.

Ctrl+F on the 2012 Democratic National Platform fails to find any mention of the words “surveillance”, “warrant”, “wiretapping”, “Patriot Act”, or “habeas corpus”.

What it does include is a paragraph entitled, “Staying True to Our Values at Home,” which says, “Advancing our interests may involve new actions and policies to confront threats like terrorism, but the President and the Democratic Party believe these practices must always be in line with our Constitution, preserve our people’s privacy and civil liberties, and withstand the checks and balances that have served us so well.” This paragraph also says, “That is why we are substantially reducing the population at Guantánamo Bay without adding to it. And we remain committed to working with all branches of government to close the prison altogether because it is inconsistent with our national security interests and our values.”

Okay, great — drop the mentions of specific practices, but instead broadly state that everything needs to be in line with the Constitution. That could be justifiable.

But it kind of falls apart when you consider that we’re talking about an administration that tried to make rules that would prevent Gitmo inmates who don’t have active cases pending against them (ie, those who are being “indefinitely detained”) from meeting with their lawyers. Rules that were overturned by a judge writing, “This very notion offends the separation-of-powers principles and our constitutional scheme.” (NY Times article here, in case you don’t want to read the decision itself.) This is not an administration whose interpretation of what’s constitutional I want to trust.

This is an administration that pledged to close Guantánamo, but, as Glenn Greenwald wrote in July, really just wants to move Gitmo — with all of its secrecy and indefinite detentions — to Illinois. Greenwald points out that the idea that Congress has prevented the closure of Guantánamo is extremely misleading, as much of the Congressional opposition was not to actually closing Gitmo, but to creating precedents of indefinite detention on clearly American soil. Please read the Greenwald article. Here it is again.

What we’re seeing, basically, is that a party that was outraged over Bush’s treatment of potential terrorists and detainees is now willing to look the other way. But no matter how much any of us might like Obama, when a president claims power, that power exists for the next president, too — as pointed out by this somewhat-satirical Gawker video, “Is Romney Ready for the Kill List?”.

Which brings me to my main point — I will never try to convince you that you should not be vehemently opposed to Romney becoming president. I’m not even going to try to convince you not to vote for Obama. But I do implore you to consider that there is no reason to be supportive of everything Obama does. If even the Democrats, who were so outraged and eloquent about abuses of executive power under Bush, are willing to not just tolerate but cheer for a much greater extension of such power under Obama, then I am terrified that any national conversation we could have about the acceptability of assassinating US citizens without due process is just not going to happen. That our fear of electing Romney will allow Obama — or the next president — to perpetrate abuses of executive power that we wouldn’t have even dreamt possible eleven years ago.

It’s a sad truth that we won’t, in the next couple of months, spend any time talking about the ways in which the candidates are the same. This is one of them, and it’s not a happy point of agreement. It may be that we can’t do anything about it in this election. But we can make sure that we don’t begin down our own moral slippery slope; we can remember that even if we support Obama, we don’t have to support all of his policies; and we can make sure that whoever is the next president hears that the people want to continue the conversation about the treatment of both prisoners and our own citizens.

(Oh, and if you want to, you can read this Mother Jones article about the differences between the 2008 and 2012 platforms.)

I hate Joe Biden

I hate Joe Biden.

I really don’t know anything about his politics, and I’ve never followed anything he’s done closely.

All I really know about him I learned from the John Roberts confirmation hearings, which I watched nearly all of. I remember nearly none of it, except that over the course of the blah blah blah and the blah blah blah I finally reached a point where I posed a danger to my TV every time Joe Biden’s face appeared on it. He was less blah blah blah and more BLAH BLAH BLAH. Like all the hot air he used to dry his hair had seeped into his skull and finally replaced his brain entirely.

I’m open to having my mind changed.

libertarianism? not so much.

In their June 9th issue, Newsweek has an article entitled “Is Wal-Mart Too Liberal?“, examining conservative shareholders’ criticisms of Wal-Mart and ilk.

Here’s an excerpt: “…the right-leaning Free Enterprise Action Fund (FEAF), a tiny libertarian mutual fund, filed resolutions with 20 companies this spring, including Wal-Mart. Most of the FEAF resolutions argue that companies should be more skeptical and resistant as environmentalists push them to reduce their carbon footprint.”

It’s been about ten years since then-friend-now-ex-boyfriend Kevin Gaughen first got me thinking critically about politics, and, in doing so, inculcated in me some pretty strong libertarian leanings. I’m no longer a Libertarian (with a big L) in any sense, although I still have some attachment — perhaps mostly sentimental — to the libertarian (little l) ideals. I think actions like what’s reported above are a big part of why I’ve abandoned the big L.

In my mind, one of the foundations of the libertarian philosophy is the belief that individuals and companies can be more effective and efficient than government in addressing a wide range of issues. For me, Libertarianism was appealing because it included room to be voluntarily compassionate and responsible, without, as Rand would put it, the threat of a gun. But organizations like the FEAF, at least as Newsweek casts them, aren’t arguing against government forcing companies to be greener, they’re apparently against the greening itself, and maybe even against Wal-Mart offering better benefits to low-wage workers.

I thought libertarianism was about opposing government mandates, not opposing voluntary social responsibility.

graceful exit

CNN, The New York Times, and others are reporting that Hillary will announce the suspension of her campaign on Saturday.

CNN has a pdf of the letter she sent to her supporters announcing the, erm, announcement.

I’m so glad that she has decided to do this graciously. Watching her speech on Tuesday night, I thought she was about to endorse Obama; I was pretty stunned when she said she wouldn’t make any decisions that night. Now I feel like maybe I’m giving her credit for more grace than she’s actually shown because the threats for continuing the fight were so awful. I suspect just a few days from now, though, I’ll be happy to hear that she’ll be Obama’s running mate.

rules & bylaws

So here’s the thing — it sucks that Florida and Michigan decided to ignore the DNC’s rules and move their primaries up. My understanding is that they knew it would cost them seats at the convention.

I should probably preface this little rant with the disclaimer that I hope to vote for Obama (again) in the fall.

If the DNC had said, “Oh, we’ll seat everyone, regardless of when their primaries were held,” and were now considering taking away states’ delegates, I’d be pretty outraged. On the other hand, since the DNC said, “These primaries are invalid,” and the “playing by the rules” thing to do was to boycott the elections, it now seems…unfair…to then seat the delegates from those states. The counterpoint, of course, is that no one should be denied a vote simply because their state party ignored a fairly arbitrary rule.

But. An election in which one candidate doesn’t even appear on the ballot — not because he didn’t have the support, but because he wasn’t supposed to campaign in the state — doesn’t sound to me like a valid election.

In my mind, the ideal solution would have been for Michigan and Florida to hold do-over primaries later in the season. Oh well.

on bitterness

A piece of business first: I just deleted 5,500 comments that were being held in moderation. The vast majority were clearly offers of hardcore pics of various celebrities, but I didn’t read all of them, so if you left a comment that never appeared, I probably just deleted it. But that’s not the point of this post.

I’m excited that Pennsylvania’s primary is actually going to matter this year, but I haven’t yet made up my mind. In the early days of primary season, I was leaning strongly toward Hillary; now, though, I’m leaning more toward Barack. But that’s not the point of this post.

Obama’s getting a lot of flack for his comments about Pennsylvanians. To recap:

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And it’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Clinton, as everyone knows, responded by saying that Obama is “out of touch”.

I disagree. I know that Obama’s comments don’t paint the most flattering view of Pennsylvanians, and it’s not representative of all Pennsylvanians, but I think they do display a pretty good understanding of the mentality around here. I also think it’s important to note that he made these comments in San Francisco, where people are pretty unlikely to have any understanding of Pennsylvania attitudes and politics. In that context, those comments sound like a defense of the pessimism, bigotry, small-mindedness, and, yes, bitterness, so pervasive in our small towns and even big cities, rather than a condemnation.

Most of Pennsylvania is alienated from what’s happening in California and New York and even D.C., and the issues that are relevant in those places are not always the issues that are relevant here. And it’s awfully hard to untangle and understand the web of reasons that life here is so different than it is in the places time hasn’t forgotten, so it becomes awfully easy to blame the lack of good jobs on globalization and immigrants. And when people in Washington start talking about “taking away my guns” or ensuring that I have healthcare when all I really want is a job, well, one can see how it might be baffling.

There is a divide in America — there are many divides in America — and denying the differences in perspectives is not likely to help bridge those divides. Pennsylvanians are, as Clinton said, resilient, but we do, for the most part, have a very different worldview than New Yorkers or — especially — San Franciscans. Neither perspective is more “right” than the other(s), but if the people in power occupy one world and the people in rural Pennsylvania occupy another, recognizing those differences can look like elitism. It’s not, at least not necessarily. It’s realism.

boring

“H” is right, this blog has been boring lately. Sorry about that.

Sometimes I set my alarm for 5am in the hopes that when it goes off I will be willing to get out of bed, maybe do some yoga, and then take my coffee and my freshly renewed brain to a desk and write for a while before it’s time to rush out the door. Normally when my alarm goes off at 5am, though, I set it to 6:15 and go back to sleep. But last night I went to bed an hour earlier than usual, and when it woke me up at 5am I was in the middle of a slightly disturbing dream (don’t remember, sorry), and I woke up gratefully and easily. So now it’s 5:55am, and I am sitting on the couch in my yoga attire, a glass of iced espresso beside me, and I thought I’d try to do something about the boringness of this blog.

No promises on that, though, as I’m not sure I have anything particularly interesting to write about. My life has been very narrowly focused lately, on myself, my home, and my job. Also on The Sims. When I have been writing recently, it’s been for work, writing the letter for our Annual Campaign. That’s been finished, returned miraculously quickly by the printer, and now all that remains is 1,600 envelopes to be stuffed, addressed, stamped, and sealed. That’ll take up most of today and tomorrow. Please make your gift (to The Circle School) by December 31st. Remember, it’s 100% tax-deductible!

I should probably weigh in on this whole presidential campaign thing at some point. So far, though, I’m mostly sans opinion. Like every other liberal-leaning person in the world I think Clinton, Obama, and Edwards are all decent options, but none of them have me really excited. In fairness to them, I haven’t been active enough about seeking out information to have anything to base excitement on, so that may not be their fault. I’m also thinking I should look into the Republican candidates, especially in light of the Romney revelation that they’re all pro-choice. At this point all I’m really sure of is that I won’t be voting for Chris Dodd, or anyone else who’s willing to say out loud that national security is more important than human rights. I’m pretty sure Ben Franklin predicted that moment.

At this moment, 6:15 is rapidly approaching, and that means it’s time for me to go upstairs and begin the rush to get out the door.

wanna bump feet?

I like nothing more than weighing in on issues where there is no absolute “right” or “wrong”, and even more when no one will ever really know “what happened”. So I have to weigh in on this Larry Craig thing. My points are as follows:

A) Worst case scenario, this guy tapped his foot against another guy’s foot in an airport restroom stall. Is it a crime every time a guy propositions me for sex? Or is this worse because he allegedly propositioned another man?

B) That transcript they released today sounds to me more like a scared guy wanting to catch a flight than it does like someone who knowingly did something wrong. The officer is, in Law & Order speak, “leading the witness”, and is obviously trying to convince the guy that the easiest way to make this go away is to plead guilty.

I think Larry Craig could be convicted for stupidity in pleading guilty (although given his high-profile position, who’s to say avoiding the spotlight isn’t a better way to go?), but soliciting gay sex? Not enough here to demand his resignation.

Unless, of course, the officer was underage.

bong hits 4 jesus

You all hear about this? High school kid unfurled a banner reading, “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” as the Olympic Torch passed by. His principal tore down the banner, then suspended the student for 10 days. Now Supreme Court is hearing the case. Ken Starr (yep, that Ken Starr) is representing the government.

Wonkette’s amusing write up is here, and the Wall Street Journal Online has some uptight readers.

Update: okay, minutes after I wrote the above, I found more recent information from the WSJ, saying that Alito had expressed doubt about Starr’s argument that the school should be able to limit speech that it believes is promoting drug use.

I’m not sure you have to go so far as to believe schools should allow speech promoting drug use. I think you just have to have a sense of humor.