And another annoying thing about Thomas Jefferson

Some of you may have read, and a few of you boys and girls may actually remember, Spot's posts about his pique at Thomas Jefferson for allowing the "endowed by their Creator" language to sneak into the Declaration of Independence.

Stephan Pastis, the creator of the cartoon strip Pearls Before Swine, reminded Spot of another annoying part of the language in the Declaration of Independence. His strip on Sunday last:

What do you think Pastis was driving at, boys and girls?

That pursuing happiness is usually a fruitless endeavor?

Very good, grasshopper. Here, the calculating, cynical, and grasping Rat chases happiness, but the good-hearted though somewhat dull Pig is the one who winds up with it. "Pursuing happiness," one of those unalienable rights we got from the Creator, is part of the American ethos; it is a thoroughly Western and utopian idea. And it sets lots of people - dare we call them folks? - up for disappointment.

Remember, boys and girls, lots of things can be pursued, but you can only be happy.

Technorati Tags: Stephan Pastis,Pearls Before Swine,pursuit of happiness,Declaration of Independence,Thomas Jefferson,unalienable rights

Whose birthday was it yesterday, Spotty?

Well that's easy, grasshopper. Yesterday was Pentecost; it was the birthday of the Christian church.

Really?

Yes, but I suspect that isn't the answer you were looking for.

It was also Minnesota's 150th birthday, its sesquicentennial. Nick Coleman notes this about the observance:

The sesquicentennial begins not with a bang. It starts with a dud.

Cannons were fired in celebration when word arrived in St. Paul by riverboat that Minnesota had been accepted into the Union on May 11, 1858. But there will be no cannon fire today, the state's 150th birthday.

Why not? Because the Minnesota Department of Transportation building might collapse.

I kid you not.

The proud North Star State is hitting the Big 1-5-0 in such a condition of decrepitude that we have to make sure the party doesn't get too loud and bring down what remains standing.

It's like when you throw a birthday party for Ancient Aunt Ethel and warn the kids not to pop the balloons because she might keel over.

Minnesota might, too.

Today's muffled statehood observance -- already hampered by funding shortages and forced to share the spotlight with moms and walleyes -- will be even duller than planned. And a lot quieter.

Civil War re-enactors who volunteered months ago to bring artillery to this afternoon's Capitol events have been told by state officials that they cannot fire off their replica cannons.

Apparently, the DOT building is so neglected that its facade might crumble just from the concussion of the Civil War era cannons.

Just think how cool that would be, boys and girls, to be a Civil War re-enactor and bring down a building, without a cannon ball even? It is the stuff from which re-enactor dreams are made.

It is also, as Nick says, emblematic of where Minnesota finds itself today. This out to be like when a dog turns 280, or 350, or even, gulp, 420: a chance for a really good party and some introspection.

Technorati Tags: Minnesota Sesquicentennial,Nick Coleman,Civil War re-enactors,Pentecost

Playing the egghead card

Barack Obama is waaay too smart to be the president of the United States. No lesser a light than Michael Gerson said so this morning in the Strib:

The Obama narrative is intellectual and ideological (not social) elitism. Humble roots have never been a guarantee of intellectual humility, especially when a mind comes to flower at Columbia and Harvard.

When a stunted bush flowers at Yale and Harvard, boys and girls, what do we get? Well, never mind, Spot digresses.

Gerson makes this gem of an observation, too:

The issue of the lapel flag pin is a good illustration. Obama's explanation for its absence -- that it had become a "substitute" for "true patriotism" in the aftermath of 9/11 -- is perfectly rational. For a professor at the University of Chicago.

So, Mike, you're saying that ordinary people can't understand what Obama said? You don't give the American people much credit, do you?

And here's some more pithy insight:

The problem here is not that Obama is unpatriotic -- a foolish, unfair, destructive charge -- but that Obama has declared himself superior to an almost universal form of popular patriotism.

Uh, Mike, if you spent some time away from inside-the-Beltway Republicans, you would know that conspicuous flag waving, lapel pins, and the other hoo haw of pseudo-patriotism have fallen off sharply since the heady days of March 2003.

But it's clear that the egghead meme is one that the Republicans are going to try to pin on Obama. Yesterday in The Bloghouse, collected a right-wing blogger's use of the "egghead and African-American coalition" to identify Obama's core supporters, playing both the egghead and the race cards. If he had just included "Muslim," he would have had a hat trick.

Regrettably, Hillary Clinton has been guilty of piling on in this regard, especially in places like Pennsylvania and Indiana. In fact, the blogger's comment above was a quote from Paul Begala, a Clinton supporter. (You can track down the link if you go to The Bloghouse, boys and girls.)

The next time that somebody disparages Barack Obama as an egghead, Spot wants you to ask that person how well the "drinking buddy preference" presidential selection criterion has really worked out.

Spot believes that the vein of anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism that the Republicans have tapped so long is running out.

Some of you may recall the soaring rhetoric of a couple of Democratic presidents of the last century: Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy. They didn't demean citizens - the people we now call "folks" - by assuming they could only communicate with them by pretending to be goobers.

Why Spot even recalls that FDR urged people to get maps of Europe so they could follow along when he described the campaign in Europe during his fireside radio chats.

You don't really remember that, do you Spot?

No, but it's a true story.

Technorati Tags: Franklin Delanao Roosevelt,John Kennedy,Barack Obama,The Bloghouse,eggheads,anti-intellectualism,anti-rationalism,Michael Gerson

He should have stuck to the rough draft II

With the Declaration of Independence in town, now is a good time for this discussion. In a post a couple of days ago, He should have stuck to the rough draft, Spot assails American icon Thomas Jefferson for permitting a Creator to creep into one of the recitals of why were divorcing George III:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . .

Spotty grumbled that the language was the centerpiece of the conservative Christian argument that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation, and that God was the ultimate source of law - as the Christian conservatives understand it, of course.

Commenter Lee said this about the post:

Spotty:
Advocates of a living constitution believe, as a matter of law, there is a greater and ever-evolving force that controls our laws. Don't they?
Isn't the issue only which god/force the advocates of various positions rely on to make their points?
Best,
Lee

Now, Lee is a crafty fellow, because he knows that Spot is an enemy of constitutional originalism. In one of the greatest over-generalizations that Spot has ever been guilty of, Spot will say that originalism says that the Constitution means exactly what the framers meant at the time. The living Constitution types, of which Spot is one, say, "Oh, come on. The document was adopted in 1787; we have learned a few things since then."

Death penalty? Did we have it in 1787? Okay then; no problem. That's the originalist position.

We know a lot more about human nature, the frailty of any human endeavor, including truth-seeking in court, and standards of basic humanity have evolved (now there's a scary word to conservatives!) to the point where doubts have to be expressed as to whether the death penalty is "cruel and unusual" as proscribed by the Eighth Amendment. That's the living Constitution argument.

What Lee posits is that the religion-Creator-source-of-law types are a branch of the living-Constitution camp.

But they are clearly not. Let Spot ask you this, boys and girls. How much has religion really changed since the Bible and the Koran (each written by human beings, by the way) were written? For the religious fundamentalists, who believe in the inerrancy of their ancient texts, none. The Bible was fixed in stone - again by human beings - some time in the fourth century, C.E. Not a word has been added or subtracted from it since then.

How would you like to see a fourth century physician, boys and girls? Or dentist? Let's zoom forward to the zenith of the Inquisition. Would you like your free speech case heard in front of Tomás de Torquemada? No? Why not?

In each of these cases, their understanding of the world has been eclipsed by all of the advances that humans have made: in philosophy, ethics, science, politics, and even in the pseudo-science of economics (Spot has a degree here, so no wounded bellowing from you economist types). We accept the advances in medicine (for the most part, except for things like stem cell research) readily, but religious conservatives are unwilling to shed the dogma and teaching of primitives.

Religion has been dragged, kicking and screaming, every inch of the way into the modern age. Spot read somewhere recently that Galileo was pardoned for his heresy by the Vatican in 1992. This is only some twenty-odd years after men walked on the moon. Spot also thinks he read somewhere that Pope Benedict recently wrote something about "rejecting modernity." He's infallible, you know.

The people who most want the "endowed by their Creator" language to really mean something are the same people who would cheerfully gut you like a trout for heresy.

There is in fact a huge parallel between constitutional originalism and religious conservatism. Both are profoundly backward looking in their search for information and in their judgments. It is not a coincidence that Justice Scalia, a very conservative Catholic, is also the principal champion of constitutional originalism.

Technorati Tags: Declaration of Independence,constitutional originalism,living constitution,Justice Scalia,Tomas de Torquemada,religion,Thomas Jefferson

DL reminder

Aswin Madia, the DFL candidate for Congress in the Third District, will be at Drinking Liberally tonight. Six to nine at the 331 Club in northeast Minneapolis.

Madia is apparently going to get some big time help from the DCCC, including some next week. You can come and hear the candidate talk about that.

Technorati Tags: Ashwin Madia,Drinking Liberally,Third Congressional District,DCCC

He should have stuck to the rough draft

Spotty, are you going to go and see the Declaration of Independence in St. Paul?

Nah. Spot's still kind of annoyed at Thomas Jefferson.

What?

Well, you see there was a compromise made in the language, at the behest of some fundamentalist nuts, probably the Puritans from Massachusetts, that has caused us no end of problems.

Here's the language that Jefferson, child of the Enlightenment, wrote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal and independent; that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these ends, governments are instituted among men . . .

Notice that nowhere mentioned is a creator; the draft is silent on how men got created. But in the debates, piety snuck in:

As a result, we got this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . .

At some point, Jefferson must have thought, "What the hell, it's only a rhetorical flourish. What could it hurt? We're writing to a guy who believes in the divine right of kings anyway."

Jefferson's capitulation on this point has caused unending grief ever since. It is the capstone of the fundamentalist argument that the United States was founded as a religious, and specifically, Christian nation.

It is also fundamental, so to speak, to the notion that U.S. citizens hold their rights as a grant from God, i.e., "natural law." Of course, what God giveth, God can take away. We have an ample supply of preachers who are more than happy to be spokesmen for God on what God wants in this regard.

The fundies insist on calling the Declaration of Independence a "founding document." It is no such thing. It's a Bill of Divorce.

The Constitution is our nation's founding document. The words "God" or "Creator" cannot be found in the Constitution. There are only two references to religion in the Constitution.

The first, in Article Six as Spot recalls, prohibits any religious test or oath for a federal or state office holder.

The other reference is in the First Amendment: the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses.

The Christian nation crowd likes to point to all the acts of reverence and piety undertake in the early years after the Revolution. Did Madison and the other framers just overlook God?

No, of course not. They obviously intended that the Constitution be an entirely positive - as opposed to natural - law document. The alternative would have been to turn every preacher into a law giver. Not very democratic.

It must also be remembered that the framers didn't have to look that far back in their own history and that of Europe to recall the tyranny of the clergy: burning heretics, hanging witches, and slaughter in religious wars.

You get kind of worked up about this, don't you Spot?

Yes, grasshopper, Spot does.

Well, we're going to go see the Declaration of Independence anyway.

It's a free country, grasshopper.

Technorati Tags: Declaration of Independence,U.S. Constitution,First Amendment,Establishment Clause,Free Exercise Clause,Thomas Jefferson,James Madison,religious oaths

What kind of a magnet?

Yesterday, Paul Krugman breathed a small sigh of relief and said a little prayer of thanks for Ben Bernanke:

I believe we’ve been lucky to have Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chairman during these trying times. He may lack Mr. Greenspan’s talent for impersonating the Wizard of Oz, but he’s an economist who has thought long and hard about both the Great Depression and Japan’s lost decade in the 1990s, and he understands what’s at stake.

Mr. Bernanke recognized, more quickly than others might have, that we were in a situation bearing a family resemblance to the great banking crisis of 1930-31. His first priority, overriding every other concern, had to be preventing a cascade of financial failures that would cripple the economy.

The Fed’s efforts these past nine months remind me of the old TV series “MacGyver,” whose ingenious hero would always get out of difficult situations by assembling clever devices out of household objects and duct tape.

Because the institutions in trouble weren’t called banks, the Fed’s usual tools for dealing with financial trouble, designed for a system centered on traditional banks, were largely useless. So the Fed has cobbled together makeshift arrangements to save the day. There was the TAF and the TSLF (don’t ask), there were credit lines to investment banks, and the whole thing culminated in March’s unprecedented, barely legal Bear Stearns rescue — a rescue not of Bear itself, but of its “counterparties,” those who were on the other side of its financial bets.

Well, that's one way to look at it. Here's another by Spot's favorite prophet of doom, James Kunstler:

The Fed has, in effect, made itself the world's largest financial shit-magnet. It has already taken in a few hundred billion in securities based on non-performing real estate loans, and has now opened the window to securities based on non-performing credit card debt, car loans, and other miscellaneous IOUs still drifting un-hedged in the banking ether. [italics are Spot's]

That's an arresting image isn't it, boys and girls? Kunstler continues:

It's a mark of our collective desperation to avoid the consequences of so much reckless behavior that no credible authorities have stepped up to denounce this racket -- no Fed governor, no politician of standing (including the candidates for president), no newspaper-of-record. The Attorney-general of New York, Andrew Cuomo, may be quietly cooking up some cases in the deep background, but the SEC and the federal banking regulators hung up their "out-to-lunch" signs on this long ago.

Meanwhile, the basic situation is this: the world is awash with bad investment paper. The standard of living in the US can't be supported on debt anymore. The people of the US don't produce enough real value to service their debts. Institutions can no longer be supported on debt gone bad. Something's got to give -- meaning something has to bring the US standard of living down to a level consistent with our declining actual wealth.

Everything else going on right now is a dodge. The Fed maneuvers, the "coordinated actions" of the western central banks, the postponements of default, the non-disclosure of contents in bank portfolios, the pretense that risk alone is a kind of fungible resource that can be endlessly traded to generate fees -- all this fucking nonsense will only make the eventual unwinding much worse.

Spotty, we had better hope that Krugman is right!

Indeed, grasshopper.

Technorati Tags: Paul Krugman,James Kunstler,Ben Bernanke,federal reserve discount window

Hillary hauls the goal posts around

Keith Olbermann summarizes Hillary Clinton's strategy for the Democratic nomination.

A thump of the tail to Buzzflash.

Technorati Tags: Keith Olbermann,Hillary Clinton,Bill Clinton,Democratic nomination,campaign strategy

Mikey's a journalist?

Patrick Condon of the Associated Press repeats the canard of Doug Tice of the Strib (although Spot can't find the link to the Big Question post at the moment) when he writes that a Minnesota court found that Michael Brodkorb was a journalist:

Brodkorb started Minnesota Democrats Exposed anonymously in 2004, when he was still a paid employee of the state Republican Party. He outed himself in 2006 only after a Democratic public relations consultant sued him for defamation for an item Brodkorb posted. A judge dismissed the lawsuit last year, saying Brodkorb deserved the same legal protections as newspapers and traditional broadcasters against lawsuits by public figures.

Actually, Patrick, he didn't exactly out himself, but never mind that for now.

The implication is that Michael Brodkorb is entitled to some kind of protection as a news source. Condon has it backwards: Brodkorb was sued by a public figure, and because the plaintiff was a public figure, the plaintiff had to show malice to recover for libel. Brodkorb's status really had nothing to do with the outcome.

A careful reading of N.Y. Times v. Sullivan makes it clear that, at its base, it was a free speech case, not a press case. The media are the principal beneficiaries of the decision, but its protections are for everyone: media outlets and ordinary citizens alike, including Michael Brodkorb. But that doesn't put Mikey in a category with "newspapers and traditional broadcasters."

In Times v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court considered the Alabama libel law that permitted a judgment against the Times by a public official to be the equivalent of the Sedition Act of 1798:

That statute made it a crime, punishable by a $5,000 fine and five years in prison,

"if any person shall write, print, utter or publish . . . any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress . . . or the President . . . with intent to defame . . . or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States."

The Sedition Act, along with the Alien Act, were blots on the presidency of John Adams.

A number of people were convicted under the Sedition Act, and certainly not just newspapers. The act provided for the defense of truth, but often the utterances of the defendants were incorrect in some trivial detail, just as was the case in Times v. Sullivan.

The Sedition Act was allowed to expire - it did have a "sunset" provision in it - and President Thomas Jefferson pardoned every person convicted under it. Congress also voted to return any fines paid.

The Court said that "the court of history" had condemned the Sedition Act for its effect on free speech and the airing of comment on the performance of public officials in particular.

The Supreme Court may have saved Michael Brodkorb's bacon, but it didn't make that poisonous scrub a journalist.

Technorati Tags: Michael Brodkorb,Associated Press,Patrick Condon,Times v. Sullivan,libel,public figures,malice

Ashwin Madia returns to DL!

Mark your calendars for Thursday, May 8th for a return visit by Ashwin Madia. Ash is the DFL-endorsed candidate for Congress in the Third Congressional District. He's a terrific speaker that you'll all enjoy hearing. Six to nine at the 331 Club in northeast Minneapolis.

Why is Mr. Madia coming back to DL, Spotty?

Well, grasshopper, Spot invited him to come and take a victory lap and tell us a little about plans for the upcoming campaign against Erik the Bland.

The word is that Chris Truscott, the Media Director for the Madia campaign, may also put in an appearance.

Technorati Tags: Ashwin Madia,Third Congressional District,Erik Paulsen,Drinking Liberally

Andy Aplikowski: an American metaphor

Boys and girls, Spot has been making fun of Andy and his run in with the law over the past few days. But the denouement, at least in Andy's fevered imagination, deserves special mention.

By way of background, Andy's loveable mutt, Lugnut, apparently jumped Andy's fence and picked a fight with the neighbor dog. Andy is offended that he received a citation for a loose dog. And he decided that he needed a better fence, apparently to protect Lugnut and his kennel mates, but it is not altogether clear from what.

Well, good news, boys and girls; the new fence is up:

Mission accomplished! The doggies are now safe and secure. 

I’m fracking exhausted! Too bad now I have to deal with a huge pile of hedge brush, spread some dirt, and lay some sod back there. 

But the doggies are safe and we have some privacy.

This is truly a relief, Andy! No longer can the occasional yip of the Chihuahua next door provoke the slavering Lugnut into engaging in an act of preventive aggression! We will all sleep so much better now.

Well, okay, Spotty, Andy's being a moron, but how is he a metaphor?

It's pretty obvious, grasshopper. Andy is the aggressor, or at least Lugnut is, and yet Andy believes that he is the aggrieved party and the one in need of protection. This is the work of a genuine sociopath.

Andy's thinking mirrors perfectly the thinking of the Bush administration on foreign policy. We act like thugs, and then moan with self-pity when there is blowback. But we're so good! We only want to help! It is so ungracious of the Iraqi people not to be more grateful for our help! We merely want to help the Iraqis be free to sell us their oil at low prices! How selfless is that?

No only the Iraqis, but the Saudis. And think how much better off the Iranians would be if they could sell us oil cheap, too! It really is astonishing and saddening that so many people misunderstand the United States and its intentions.

Andy, and Dave and Joe will just write this off as another rant by the "blame America first" crowd. Spot would expect nothing less from the vacuous cheerleaders of a morally bankrupt foreign policy.

Until we figure it out, though, and decide that we should treat other countries as colleagues rather than the conquered, we will not know peace.

Technorati Tags: Andy Aplikowski,Bush administration,preventive war

Dept. of Irony

So a church founded on the teachings of a man who was eventually tortured and killed finds itself compelled to prohibit a talk by a man who has spent his career condemning torturing and killing.

Here's where Loyalty Day will get you

From the LA Times:

When Wendy Gonaver was offered a job teaching American studies at Cal State Fullerton this academic year, she was pleased to be headed back to the classroom to talk about one of her favorite themes: protecting constitutional freedoms.

But the day before class was scheduled to begin, her appointment as a lecturer abruptly ended over just the kind of issue that might have figured in her course. She lost the job because she did not sign a loyalty oath swearing to "defend" the U.S. and California constitutions "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

You see, Wendy is a Quaker and a pacifist. Wendy was willing to sign the oath as long as should could append an addendum, stating that she could not take up arms. That wasn't satisfactory to Cal State Fullerton.

Technorati Tags: loyalty oaths,Quakers,pacifist

JNP on Almanac!

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer will be on the public television's Almanac tonight (Friday). That's 7 PM on KTCA, channel 2 in the Twin Cities. Check your local listings.

Technorati Tags: Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer,Almanac,US Senate,DFL endorsement

Andy confronts Lugnut

This is Spot's contribution for Law Day.

MNO said it wasn't called Law Day anymore, Spotty.

As far as Spot is concerned, it's still Law Day. Loyalty Day sounds too much like Richard Nixon and Roy Cohn.

When we left the courtroom where Andy Aplikowski is being tried for the crime of having a loose dog, your humble correspondent Spot had been cross examined by Andy. Andy's dog, Lugnut, was then called as a witness by the prosecution; Lugnut testified that he has escaped from the yard a number of times before. Now it is time for Andy's cross.

Andy approaches the witness stand where Lugnut is seated. Lugnut is a large medium-haired rough-coated dog; he is black and white, and brown, and when you get a good look at him, some tan, too. Lugnut is what they call at the pound, charitably, a "mix."

AA: [somewhat menacingly] Hello, Lugnut.

L: [whining] Hellp, Boss. Aren't you supposed to call me "Mr. Lugnut?"

AA: Just wait 'til we get home and see what I call--

J: [banging his gavel] That's enough Mr. Aplikowski! I won't have you badgering witnesses in my courtroom. And your dog is right: it is "Mr. Lugnut" in here.

AA: [rolling his eyes] Okay, okay. Mr. Lugnut, you say that you have escaped the yard several times. But it's a chain link fence; how is that possible?

L: As you know, Boss, the fence is what? A four footer? I can practically see over the fence! It's an easy jump; you know that.

AA: What I know or don't know is hardly an issue here.

P: Objection. Mr. Aplikowski is trying to testify, I think, and he's not under oath. And what he knows or doesn't know is obviously the issue here.

J: [smiling tiredly] I'm afraid he's right, Mr. Aplikowski. If you want to be a witness, you'll have to call yourself as a defense witness, be sworn in, and be subject to cross examination by the prosecutor. For now, confine yourself to asking Mr. Lugnut questions about what he did.

AA: Okay. Mr. Lugnut, haven't I told you not to jump over the fence?

L: You tell me to fetch your slippers, too. How often have I done that? Yeah, you have said, "Lugnut, don't jump over that damn fence."

AA: How often have I told you that?

L: Pretty much every time you have had to haul me back into the yard after I jumped the fence. I'd say often.

AA: Well, never mind that. So you knew that you weren't supposed to jump the fence, but on that fateful Sunday night you did so anyway. Why?

L: Well, Boss, you raised me right, to be a good Republican dog. The neighbor dog that I attacked? He's a really small dog, but I didn't like the cut of his jib. I thought that sometime, maybe sometime, he would come over and piddle on the fence. I wanted to take him out first. It was an act of preventive deterrence.

AA: Who taught you that idea?

L: George Bush.

AA: [sighing] I have no more questions for this witness.

Technorati Tags: Andy Aplikowski,preventive war,loose dogs,cross examination

Mr. Beale goes to Sandstone

No, it's not the title of a Jimmy Stewart movie, it's the end result of the downfall of Robert Beale, whose sorry state we've considered here, here, and here.

A trial that at times seemed to exist in parallel universes, with accepted law in one dimension and Robert Beale in the other, came back firmly to earth Wednesday.

Ignoring Beale's indignation, religious beliefs and obscure interpretations of the U.S. Constitution and philosophy, a federal jury in Minneapolis took only two hours to find him guilty of all seven counts brought against him for tax evasion, conspiracy and fleeing authorities.

That's a pretty quick guilty verdict. It's deserved, but what about the employees of the company he founded and built? The family?* The brilliance that the man clearly displayed in the past? What happens to turn someone so smart and successful into such a nutjob? Heck if I know.

*Notable exception being young Theodore, for reasons that should be obvious.

Because Laws are for losers

Happy Loyalty Day!

Actually, May 1 is traditionally known as Law Day, but our Glorious Leader long ago decided that loyalty trumps law so here we are with some creepy Soviet-sounding holiday complete with its own poorly written and mostly incomprehensible declaration.

The actual trashing of Law Day in favor of Loyalty Day did not become official policy until 2006.

Drinking Liberally tomorrow (Thursday)

The question for tomorrow evening is: "What would you ask of or say to a delegate at the Republican National Convention?"

Not that you are likely to get within a hundred yards of one, but never mind that.

Alternatively, as Anon I Moose mentions, this is the fifth anniversary of the "Mission Accomplished" speech by George Bush on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. You could tell Bush for the camera what you think of the speech.

Same time, six to nine, same place, the 331 Club in northeast Minneapolis.

Technorati Tags: 331 Club,Drinking Liberally,Republican National Convention

Freedom for the speech we hate

A lot of people aren't gonna like this one, Spotty.

Nevertheless, grasshopper.

From the Topeka Capital-Journal:

A federal judge in Maryland on Thursday ordered liens on the Westboro Baptist Church building and the Phelps-Chartered Law office.

If the case presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett is upheld by an appeals court, the church, at 3701 S.W. 12th, and the office building, at 1414 S.W. Topeka Blvd., could be obtained by the court and sold, with the proceeds being applied toward $5 million in damages Bennett imposed on church members for picketing a military funeral.

You all remember Fred Phelps and his merry band, don't you? The people who brought gay-bashing to a new low by picketing military funerals on the theory - which quite eludes Spot, frankly - that the tolerant attitude toward gays in the United States is getting our soldiers killed in Iraq. Pat Robertson says that gays attract hurricanes, which makes so much more sense. You can read more about the man in the white hat here.

Phelps and his church came to national attention when they picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming who was killed by a couple of homophobes that he met in a bar.

If you read the comments to the Capital-Journal article linked above, you will see that the commenters almost uniformly expressed satisfaction, perhaps even glee, that Phelps & Co. may take it in the shorts. There is certainly a part of Spot that feels that way.

However. Banning hate speech is a dubious proposition, and a dangerous one for the civil libertarian.

The leading case in this area is still Brandenburg v. Ohio, decided by the Supreme Court in 1969. In that case, a unanimous court reversed the conviction of a Ku Klux Klan member who was tried and convicted for saying:

I believe the nigger should be returned to Africa, and the Jew returned to Israel.

But Spotty, that was a criminal case. Here, the father of a dead soldier got a judgment for the intentional inflection of mental distress, no conviction was involved!

Good observation, grasshopper, but the First Amendment will protect the speech either way. Do you remember discussing N.Y. Times v. Sullivan with Spot before?

Isn't that the case where a city official in Alabama sued the New York Times for libel and won a judgment because some of the things in an ad taken out by civil rights groups had some factual errors in them? And the official claimed that it damaged his reputation?

Yes, and?

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Alabama libel law unconstitutionally infringed freedom of speech because the prospect of a large award by a Southern jury against a newspaper would chill the newspaper's discussion of the conduct of public officials?

That's right. The Court held that a libel plaintiff, if he was a public official, would have to show that the newspaper acted maliciously. Parenthetically, boys and girls, Times against Sullivan is one of the very important reasons why Martin Luther King's non-violent civil disobedience could be so effective. Northern media could show Southern blacks being attacked with fire hoses, dogs, and clubs without fear of reprisal. The Civil Rights of 1964 and the Voting Right Act of 1965 are part of the legacy of the courageous reporting of the New York Times and Times against Sullivan.

But Spot digresses. What did the Supreme Court do in the Times case?

It placed limits on the reach of state tort law in order to protect free speech.

You are so smart sometimes, grasshopper, that it just takes Spot's breath away. A similar result might be expected here, saving Fred Phelps' unworthy bacon. It certainly isn't clear to Spot that Phelps & Co. were trespassing or otherwise disturbing the peace in the sense of creating an immediate incitement to violence, other than maybe by the counter-protesters, which doesn't really count.

We have to put up with a lot in the name of free speech in this country. In a lot of places, being a Holocaust denier can land you in prison. But we tolerate that, and, so far, we also protect the burning of Old Glory as symbolic protest speech.

What do you think, boys and girls? Should mangy ol' Fred have to disgorge everything because he says stupid and unpopular things?

Technorati Tags: Fred Phelps,picketing funerals,Mathew Shephard,First Amendment,flag burning,Times v. Sullivan

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Seems to us here at the Cucking Stool that if a political organization has the wherewithal and resources to take on board any number off auditor/accountant sleuths to comb through the financial dealings of its opponents and scream bloody murder at what it finds, it might want to consider turning those same inquisitive minds on its own financial dealings.

But this is the Minnesota Republican Party we're talking about. You know, the one that is under investigation by the FEC for years of financial mismanagement. The same organization who retaliated against their own Finance Director who wrote a letter to the party's Executive Committee complaining about the party's accounting practices, including questions about whether employee retirement money was misappropriated and whether the party was - gasp! - guilty of tax evasion. The same organization that continues to file - over and over and over again - statements that it hasn't been able to sort through their own finances enough to figure out where all the money went. The same organization that has racked up legal fees as high as $17,000 in a single month trying to stay out of trouble. The same organization that has been the recipient of a whole series of FEC letters asking about why they can't keep track of their money. The same organization that has some pretty suspicious looking connections with the National Republican Party's favorite accused thief, Christopher Ward.

But once again, we're talking about the Republican Party of Minnesota.