Tag: law

Uh, We Did Elect Him

jeffmiller:

“First, in addressing global terror and violent extremism, we need the kind of comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy I called for last August. We need to strengthen security partnerships to take out terrorist networks, while investing in education and opportunity. We need to give our national security agencies the tools they need, while restoring the adherence to rule of law that helps us win the battle for hearts and minds. This means closing Guantanamo, restoring habeas corpus, and respecting civil liberties.”

— Candidate Obama, 2008 (eBooks, Databases, and other searchable on-line content from askSam)

I wish we had elected this man.

Perhaps you are forgetting that Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, put the kibosh on any movement towards even beginning to wind down Guantanamo. Obama did exactly as he said he would and got the ball rolling on the Executive side; he is not a dictator (reports on FOXnews to the contrary). The onus is on all of us, the citizens in various districts, for not pressuring our individual representatives to drop their wrong-headed opposition to a return to rule of law. As FDR said (and Obama frequently quoted on the campaign trail) “You’ve convinced me… Now go out and make me do it.” Precisely. The Presidency is not a political-suicide pact. Underestimating the limitless potential for utterly craven demagoguery around this issue doesn’t in any way change the fact that he walked (partway) into a political chipper shredder trying to restore sensibility in this domain. There was never a broad based, citizen uprising in support of making this entirely sensible return to normalcy, so it died on the vine. Period.

We are getting precisely the government we deserve. We vote these tools into Congress and then blame all the rest of those tools in DC because our tool brought in some needless and destructive water management dollars to the district.

Without an educated and engaged electorate, nothing will change. Inventing supposed lies, “flipflops,” or failures on the part of Obama doesn’t educate anyone.

Behold: Totally Awesome Criticism

Excellent analysis from Dave von Ebers of the Obama administration’s continuation of the wrongheaded indefinite detention policies that concludes thusly:

Obama is wrong to continue the Bush policy of indefinite detention of Guantánamo detainees, and the Executive Order we’re about to see will exacerbate, not solve, that problem. I disagree – vehemently, even – with what the President’s doing here.

Behold: Totally Awesome Criticism

While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version of Section 701 that you forwarded to us.

Mike Godwin, general counsel to Wikimedia, in response (NB: PDF link) to an FBI request to take down an image of the FBI seal that accompanies a Wikipedia entry.
When, and only when, this sort of push-back becomes the norm (and not some delightful instance-of) will we get anywhere.

Put Kagan in the Buck

Kagan in 1989: [2 Live Crew’s album, As Nasty As They Wanna Be, banned by a federal judge because of its sexual content, isn’t obscene, because] Nasty does not physically excite anyone who hears it, much less arouse a shameful and morbid sexual response.
Luther Campbell in 2010: She is not going to let any person or group tell her what is right or wrong. Kagan will judge each case based on the law of the land. She has demonstrated she can protect the Constitution by doing the fine work she did to protect 2 Live Crew’s freedom of speech.

Neo-Prohibitionism

Somehow these sorts of observations never come up when, constant as the North Star, MADD is yet again pushing to get the limit down to 0.002  for anyone deigning to utilize a public sidewalk or somesuch:

Detective Spellman, who was given a blood test five and a half hours after the crash, had a blood alcohol level of 0.21 percent, according to the law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to be identified discussing material related to a continuing investigation.

FIVE HOURS! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. How was he able to reach his fucking car!?! But, by all means, let’s have the policy set to jail the soccer mom who had an utterly harmless glass of wine with her dinner.

I have no a priori sympathy for drunk driving/drunk drivers. Far from it. But it is beyond me why we can’t talk about the actual, observed BAC in accidents (and, for that matter, in drivers pulled over for substantive violations and not just the ever-popular “suspicion” canard) vs. where we are setting the standard. Just like with arguments over speed limits, no rationality is allowed in that debate, ever. In fact, it’s the anti-rational arguments that are ceaselessly rewarded and turned into the law of the land. We must solely THINK OF THE CHILDREN! and accept our marching orders; debate ended. Just why is that, and what sort of country does that governance structure create? I’d say California is currently a fairly obvious indication. Just how many Jordin’s Laws can we have before we get back to calling them “Sensible Limitations on Repeat Offenders Act of 2010"  (SLO-ROAd!) and such? Just after we’ve regained our collective sanity, I’d say.