Month: May 2009

Amazingly, some of my friends and acquaintences appear shocked about the outcome of the Prop 8 appeal to the California Supreme Court. Seriously? Unhappy, I understand. But anyone expecting to win the battle on appeal after the state Constitution has been amended is misinterpreting the issues at stake.

California is among the few states in which the Constitution can be amended quickly and easily, by a simple majority on a referendum.
canadian online pharmacy canadian pharmacy online over the counter

And putting initiatives on the ballot is relatively easy as well, requiring either a vote of the state legislature or an initiative – basically a petition requiring a few thousand signatures. Unlike the earlier Proposition 22, which involved a statutory definition of marriage, Prop 8 involved an amendment. If you see the amendment as one that writes discrimination into the Constitution, you're not wrong. Regardless of how distasteful or discriminatory the amendment in question may be, the appeal asked the California Supreme Court to declare part of the Constitution unconstitutional. If that sounds possible, it isn't.

The fundamental job of the judiciary being to interpret the law in accordance with the Constitution, their hands are tied here. Hypothetically, let's say California voters voted for Prop 666, amending the Constitution to make it illegal for black people to ride public transit. Your liberal outrage aside there's absolutely nothing the Court could do about it. Once the Constitution is properly amended, it ceases to be possible for the Court to find it unconstitutional to discriminate on the basis of race on public transit in this example. The parts of the Constitution that contradict it (equal protection, etc.) don't matter anymore. They've been amended. The California Constitution is the basis of all law in California and once it is amended to allow explicit discrimination, that type of discrimination cannot by definition be unconstitutional. Unless the appellants can argue that the amendment was not properly enacted (it was) they are wasting their time in court.

Of course Prop 666 would be appealed to the Federal courts and found unconstitutional for violating the protections afforded in the United States Constitution, which is legally superior to any state constitution. Does that seem like a promising option with Prop 8? Anyone think the US Supreme Court is going to give a gay-friendly ruling on this one? Me neither.

Face it, the anti-gay marriage movement played this one perfectly. They picked the right venue (a state with a virtual drive-thru amendment process) and the right time – an era in which the pro-gay marriage side won't want to press its luck by appealing this to the Roberts-Scalia-Alito-Thomas court. They came up with a successful plan and enacted it. The take-home lessons here are two:

Over the weekend I had the misfortune of being a fringe participant in a conversation about Michael Vick, and in it I heard a viewpoint which also has appeared in the more militantly animal-conscious corners of the internets. Namely, Mr. Vick should be banned from returning to the NFL where he stands to make a seven-figure salary when a team decides to roll the dice on a talented player with public relations and "character" issues. I see this viewpoint as an example of just how deeply-rooted conservative frames of criminal justice issues have become in this society.

To briefly review the facts, Vick committed some fairly heinous crimes for which he was indicted, convicted, and punished. He served 20 months in Federal prison. One could easily argue that he would have served more if not for his wealth and celebrity, but he also wouldn't have been prosecuted without his wealth and celebrity (as his high profile encourage prosecutors to make an example of him, which is fine with me). He also lost his $120 million contract, lost millions more in endorsements, had several million dollars worth of property seized, had to repay his former employer a substantial portion of the millions he had been paid, and was forced into bankruptcy. All of this sounds fair to me. He has been punished with good cause. But he has been punished.

In pre-1970s America, and in most of the industrialized world today, the purpose of incarceration and punishment is rehabilitation. Vick's words, his actions, and the fact that he hasn't smiled for 2 years indicate to me that he's a person who realizes "Wow.
buy stendra online royalcitydrugs.com/stendra.html no prescription

I fucked up. Bad." Without defending or excusing his actions, I can buy the argument that he knew that he was breaking the law but didn't think it was a big deal. Among poor communities, especially in the South, animal fighting and abuse are cultural institutions. He had probably been around it all of his life and, conversely, rarely around people who told him it was vile and unacceptable. He knew it was illegal the same way you know speeding is illegal. After going to Leavenworth, losing millions of dollars, and becoming a social outcast, I am willing to bet that he now understands that he was quite wrong.

Isn't that what a justice system is supposed to be about? We punish people for violating the law – violations for which ignorance is no excuse – and we rehabilitate them. But in post-1980, War on Drugs America, that isn't enough. We want to find some way to punish the guilty for life.

We want assurances not only that they were incarcerated but that they were incarcerated in a roach-infested, windowless cell with no lights for 23.

5 hours per day, released briefly to be tied to a post and whipped. We think it's neat that people convicted of drug-related offenses are ineligible to receive student loans (thus less likely to go to college, thus far more likely to return to one of the few high-paying careers that require no education: selling drugs). And that leads some of us to think it's not only desirable, not only acceptable, but right that Michael Vick should somehow be punished in perpetuity for his crime.

I could understand a long-term punishment specific to his crime. For instance, it would make sense if the judge forbade him to own dogs or required him to submit to a weekly visit from animal welfare officers if he did so. That would make sense in the same way that habitual drunk drivers are forbidden to drive or pedophiles are not allowed to be around children. However, I fail to see the benefit or logic to denying him the right to be employed in a field unrelated to his crime. The sense that it is Unfair for such a Bad Person to make a high salary doesn't have much of a place in the law. I doubt that Scooter Libby is working for minimum wage right now.

A friend of Vick's, one Clinton Portis, commented when he was first charged, "I don't know if he was fighting dogs or not, but it's his property, it's his dog. If that's what he wants to do, do it. I think people should mind their business.
buy intagra online royalcitydrugs.com/intagra.html no prescription

" This was widely reported. Another portion of the interview wasn't: "I know a lot of back roads that have the dog fighting if you want to go see it." Among poor, rural, Southern communities (and, according to law enforcement, increasingly among poor, urban, black communities) animal fighting is so pervasive that it simply isn't seen as a serious offense by people who are exposed to it regularly. So when Portis later stated, "At that time I had no idea the love people have for animals, and I didn't consider it when I made those comments" he probably wasn't lying. Hopefully the point that animal abuse is immoral and illegal has been made abundantly clear to Vick, Portis, and the many people who follow their careers – and the last group are the intended audience when a high-profile person is prosecuted for a crime. Now we move on. Guilt has been admitted and punishment has been administered. It serves no constructive purpose to channel the spirit of Reagan and adopt the attitude toward (non-white collar) criminals favored by his worshippers in Orange Counties across America.

For some reason CNN has seen fit to provide an upbeat take on the economy by front-paging this video (via their iReport feature) by a recent graduate of Syracuse University who has had little trouble getting a job. Why? Because he has skills. More likely skillz. Mad skillz.

What Broseph McFratdog has to say, in case you're at work and can't partake of the video, is that he has several job offers because he, unlike you, was smart enough to get the Right Skills to succeed in the job market. That is how the free market works, after all. People who succeed do so because they are better than people who don't. They are smart enough to get the Right Skills whereas your unemployed ass was not.

The best part, if you made it all the way to the end of the Marquis de Frat's monologue, is that the skills in question are only vaguely described – something dealing with "web design" or "system administration." A commenter on the CNN site helpfully notes "Type in 'Design Engineer' on Indeed (ed: a Monster-like job site) and you'll get more IT and Systems Engineer positions than you'll be able to read. You can pretty much write your own ticket in those occupations at this point."

"At this point." And what about a few years from now when an Indonesian is doing the job for six bucks an hour? Fratilla the Hun hasn't thought that far ahead.

Some people simply lack the will and psychological ability to fight the forces that work against them; they know only how to appease. They approach everything with the attitude of Neville Chamberlain and the Vichy French. This person thinks that if he kisses the market's ass enough and bends to its whims he will be treated well and rewarded. And thus he propagates the great myth that the key to succeeding in our current system is to gain "skills" – skills which the market will soon declare irrelevant, at which point one's experience and intellectual capital become worthless and working people are expected to uncomplainingly start over from scratch. This recent graduate's strategy is as smart (and likely to be as effective) as trying to appease a mosquito. Say or promise whatever you want; it's still going to bite you.

The myth that one succeeds by chasing the Next Big Thing, the latest hot field or must-have skill that the market values highly, is nothing but a game of whack-a-mole as people like this student (and those who came before him) chase one economic fad after another. All they have as job security is the assumption, rooted heavily in either explicit or subconscious racism, that "My job is too important / too complex / etc" for some uneducated savage in the Third World to do. The past thirty years of economic history are littered with the empty shells of people who relied on such a strategy.

So congratulations on appeasing the market, Broseph. It's still going to devour you.

Contining an annual tradition here at ginandtacos…

To the extent that anyone in this country actually observes Memorial Day it is to express the kind of "patriotism" that more closely resembles sitting in the end zone seats at college football games than love or respect for one's country. You know the type. They wave their plastic flags from Wal-Mart, loudly holding court about the Honor and Bravery of the military (which they totally would have joined if not for their flat feet and bad back) while piss drunk and badly straining the structural integrity of a lawn chair. Perhaps later they will retire to the den and watch a Wings marathon on the Military Channel. Their gravy-stained t-shirt is almost certain to bear the image of an eagle. This is the American Patroit, a creature which resembles actual patriotic citizenship as closely as the drunken, combative fratboy at a sports bar represents actual masculinity.

Memorial Day is about remembering people who died. Not "for our freedom" or "to protect our way of life" or any other slogan that flies off the lips of talk radio hosts and adorns Hallmark cards. It is about remembering the people who died in service of their country and what we gained as a nation by their lives, deaths, and service. The American Patriot can only learn one lesson from these deaths.

The rest of us can learn many. Some deaths remind us of the tremendous sacrifices made by those with the courage to oppose inhumanity. Others remind us of the human costs of political misadventures. Their names and faces force us to remember that war is terrible and decisions made in the voting booth or halls of government put real people in harm's way.

This is Pfc. Samantha W. Huff of Tucson, Arizona. On April 17, 2005 a makeshift bomb detonated as she performed routine patrol duty in Baghdad.

The explosion tore off her left leg and she bled to death before her fellow soldiers could get her to a medical facility. She was 18 years old. She intended to go to college and become an FBI agent after serving in the Army.

That won't happen now.

We owe it to the dead we claim to honor to ask why and how they were asked to put their lives in jeopardy and what we gained as a nation in return for their ultimate sacrifices.

There will always be Americans brave enough to serve when asked to do so. But their willingness to do a dangerous task does not mean they are expendable or that they should be asked to risk their lives lightly. The decisions we make in the political world and as a society affect real people – our friends, neighbors, classmates, children, parents, and strangers on the bus.

Memorial Day is about more than simply remembering that some of them die – it's about remembering that you and I both bear responsibility for the fact that Samantha W.

Huff isn't going to college. We bear responsibility for the 4,618 coalition soldiers – 4,300 American – and 100,000-150,000 Iraqi civilians who have died as the end result of the workings of our political and electoral process.

Anyone unprepared to look at each picture and ask "Was this death worth it? Did we gain something valuable in exchange for taking a child away from parents, a husband away from a wife, a mother away from her kids?" has an incomplete and somewhat immature notion of patriotism and honoring those who served.