Monday, June 25, 2007

Supreme Court Clubs Free Speech in "Bong Hits" Case

In recent years, the Supreme Court has been making some interesting decisions. Most of them have been, I feel, correct for the most part, but everyone has been holding their breath over the first boneheaded ruling of the freshly-right-leaning Court. Here it is.

The Supreme Court upheld a school principal's right to confiscate a banner put up by a student solely because it appeared to advocate drug use. The court case out of Juneau, Alaska, upheld the actions of high school principal Deborah Roberts, which included confiscating the banner, which read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus", and suspending the student Joseph Frederick for violating a school policy banning the advocacy of illegal drug use.

According to the Reuters article of the ruling, Frederick claimed the banner's language was meant to be nonsensical and funny, a prank to get on television as the Winter Olympic torch relay passed by the school in January 2002. But school officials say the phrase "bong hits" refers to smoking marijuana, and Morse suspended Frederick for 10 days because she said the banner advocated or promoted illegal drug use in violation of school policy.

I think we all understand that laws and court cases, especially free speech cases, are usually decided at the fringes of generally accepted behavior.  But this ruling appears to run blatantly into the mundane.  Now, any school official can silence a student for any speech concerning drug use.  This is far too broad a ruling to be reasonable.  Could a principal discipline a student for writing a research paper supporting the legalization of drugs?  After this ruling, it appears so.

What bugs me is not just the ruling, which is absurd.  If the Supreme Court had ruled that the Federal government had no jurisdiction in what is really a state case and is leaving well enough alone, that would at least show a bit of thought put into it.  But instead, the War on Drugs rears its ugly head, as the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts actually said a principal may restrict student speech at a school event when it is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use.

The 1st Amendment is one of those concepts in American law where usually it is totally obvious to everyone, in both political parties and on both ends of the political spectrum, that only the most agregious of expression may be restricted.  But this ruling suggests that any Constitutional right may be curtailed if it does not come down on the side of the War on Drugs that the Neo-Cons are on.

This is a scary ruling, boys and girls.

Monday, June 4, 2007

Ron Paul for the Republican nomination for President (for as long as it lasts, anyway)

It's stunning -- bordering on embarassing -- that the 2008 Presidential Campaign is already underway, and it's only June of 2007.  Perhaps this is a reflection of the country's total loss of patience with George W. Bush, though more likely it's a side effect of the presidential primary oneupmanship that could possibly have the first votes cast in December.  Absurd, but I guess that's states' jealousy of New Hampshire more than anything else.  I suppose, though, that this is the closest America gets to an "opposition leader", which most countries seem to have and whose existence they take for granted.

In what looks to be a record-sized candidate field, even more, I think, than the 62 candidates appearing on the ballot in New Hampshire in 1992 -- 25 Republicans, 36 Democrats and one Libertarian -- there are many angles, views, approaches, and proposals for future policy.  Nobody is bulletproof, and nearly everyone has a significant flaw of some type.  The great thing about that is it produces some wonderful political space opera.

One candidate raising far more than their fair share of eyebrows is Ron Paul.  His political career is singularly unique.  Although a 10 term Republican representative, he is not a Party Man.  His nickname amongst his comrades is "Dr. No" -- a reference to his still-active obstetrics practice (he's delivered over 4000 babies) combined with his unflinching willingness to vote against any bill that does not meet his strict standards for constitutionality.  If you call him a Conservative, think less George Bush and more Barry Goldwater.  It would be more accurate to call him a Libertarian (and in 1988, we did -- officially -- in his only previous presidential bid) because his voting record matches that adjective very well.  His own party has no love for him -- in the '90s the party gerrymandered his district to elect a *Democrat* just to get him out of office, but no Democrat would dare face him.

As pure a fiscal conservative as was ever cast, non-interventionist in his foreign policy to the point that his opponents pose him as "isolationist", yet an ardent opponent of the War on Drugs, the PATRIOT Act, and the only Republican to vote against war against Iraq in 2002.  In the 2nd Republican debate, he sent Rudolph Giuliani into an apoplectic fit for stating that the 9/11 attacks were the result of 50 years of interventionist and imperialist foreign policy in the middle east, the Iraq War being only the latest insult.  The statement so incensed the rest of the Republican Party that some aparatchiks actually wanted to ban him from future debates (which in itself is quite telling about the Republicans in general and neo-cons specifically).  They backpedaled after they realized just how bad they were making themselves look.

He ardently supports limited government, privacy, free speech, free association, free trade, property rights, and gun rights.  He opposes eminent domain, warrantless searches, the anti-flag burning amendment, the national ID card, and secret wiretapping of Americans.  He supports a defensive military, preferring to conquer the world with trade and ideas instead of building an empire, but opposes the UN and the WTO.  He opposes centralization of government power, for whatever reason.  On all of these things, I'm solidly with him.

He's not huge on the separation of church and state, but not because he's a Christian zealot, but rather because he views suppressing all religious expression in public life to be contrary to free speech, expression, and religion. 

His pro-life stance is based on his career as an obstetrician, and although he personally opposes abortion, he has voted against many anti-abortion bills that would curtail other liberties, such as interstate travel of minors to states that permit abortions, and he opposes the death penalty (unusual among Republicans and downright rare among Protestants).  He may oppose federal funds for embryonic stem cell research, but he also opposes the Federal government's attempts to stop states from legalizing assisted suicide.  He opposes Roe v. Wade on the basis that it's bad constitutional politics, and that it's a states' rights issue, not because he seeks to ban abortions nationwide on a religious basis.  He has written, in fact, that "while Roe v Wade is invalid, a Federal law banning abortion across all 50 states would be equally invalid."  He writes frequently and eloquently from the pro-life perspective, but never proposes to use Federal power to impose it on the country.  While I would prefer a pro-choice presidential candidate, at least he doesn't seem bent on forcing his beliefs on the country.

Every election cycle, I vote Libertarian, because that is where my political beliefs dwell.  I don't see it as throwing away my vote, but as voting my conscience.  Ron Paul gives me, for perhaps one brief flicker of a moment, a chance to cast a ballot for someone with a chance of winning, however remote.  I don't think he could possibly get the Republican nomination, because the neo-con imperialist hawks and the lunatic fringe fundamentalist Christians have a shared stranglehold on the party, but I'll enjoy the Ron Paul spectacle while it lasts.

Friday, June 1, 2007

Warriors for Ignorance

It's very interesting to see the drama playing out over LiveJournal's hamfisted handling of their mass deletion of blogs and communities this week. It's always curious when usually well-meaning Internet companies get played by extremist elements. The one "activist group" that is cited in C|Net's coverage of the debacle, is Warriors for Innocence. You would think, as I did, that this group is a watchdog group by concerned people about the real scourge of pedophilia, a condition that truly mentally disturbed people of our society are afflicted with.

But if you look more closely, you find that this organization is, in fact, not an organization at all, and by the writings of their principals, isn't really even all that concerned about pedophilia. What really gets their ire up, apparently, is homosexuality. You would think that a company as savvy as Six Apart (LiveJournal's parent company) would have done its due diligence before taking an action that was totally unnecessary from a legal standpoint and had huge potential to harm their company under the best circumstances. But C|Net had no trouble turning up this tidbit:

"A representative from the group (Warriors for Innocence), who gave her name only as "Sues," said in an e-mail Thursday that "we did not knowingly report any 'fandom' communities or role-playing journals." In posts to her personal blog, Sues describes herself as an ardent conservative who views homosexuality as "sick" and a "twisted agenda" and lumps gays and lesbians into the same category as pedophiles and rapists.

That last part is particularly telling, since many of the purged communities had little, if anything, to do with pedophilia, though did contain references to homosexual practices.  If "Sues" equates homosexuality with pedophilia, it's not surprising they would not shed many tears over missing their supposed target.   "Sues"'s first statement is also disingenuous: One need not lodge complaints about specific blogs, they simply must structure their complaint in such a manner as to ensure they were caught up in the purge.  It also appears that, far from being "a representative of the groups", "Sues" is in fact the principal of the organization, which is made up of no more than a few individuals who apparently share this extreme bigotry against people whose sexual orientation differs from the norm.  There is also apparently evidence linking Warriors for Innocence to the Dominionist movement.

This whole event seems to reinforce my view of extremist Christians, who consider sexual orientation to be equivalent with violence against children and women, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.  That view is that these people, who call themselves Christians but are in fact truly evil, will lie to people, and harm bystanders, in their headlong rush to power over us.  I would propose that companies such as Six Apart take greater care before heeding the advice of seemingly well-meaning "activists".