The John Adams Project

The ACLU is working hard to provide good legal counsel to the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay: The John Adams Project. At the very least, read the overview, the goals, and the background. If you can, please consider joining or donating to the ACLU. This is an important project.

No doubt many of the anti-ACLU crowd considers this an anti-American project. This position only reveals their ignorance of history and the principles this country was founded on. If you doubt this, read the title again. John Adams made a stand for 8 British soldiers accused of killing civilians. He took the job on the principle that all defendants have the right to a fair trial and to face their accusers. That right has subsequently been denied to hundreds of prisoners under the Bush administration. As a country, we have betrayed what John Adams risked his career, livelihood, and his personal safety to establish in this country's infancy.

Please, support this project. Pass the word.

“One of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country.” -- John Adams on his defense of the British soldiers

Let's Protect Marriage

An article on CNN details how heterosexual marriages are being protected. Ha, ha, just kidding. The article's really about how some people in this country are still deprived of rights and benefits so many of us take for granted. The background is this: Ralph Martinelli works for Konica Minolta and is married to Robert Ryan. They previously lived in New Jersey, which does acknowledge gay marriage, and the company extended health benefits to Ryan. Now they've moved to Idaho, which doesn't acknowledge gay marriage. The company has since seen fit to retract Ryan's benefits because they can.

Now, there are several things wrong with this story. First, these two should have done their research and figured out what might happen when they moved. I hope that they moved to serve as a testcase, though. If so, kudos -- not enough people in this country are willing to do things like that to challenge unjust laws. But I find their surprise at this situation very odd.

Second, Konica Minolta didn't need to retract Ryan's benefits -- it's up to them, but since the state (Idaho) doesn't require them to like New Jersey did, they've retracted this. The company is well within its rights to offer whatever benefits they want to employees, but this is still surprising that a company could be so oblivious to an employee relations trap. I'll reiterate: Konica is within their rights as a private entity to do whatever they want in terms of employee benefits, but why is Martinelli still loyal to a company that hasn't shown him any loyalty?

As the spokeswoman for the Idaho Dept. of Insurance said: "[Domestic partner benefits are] legal in the state, but we don't keep track of which companies offer [them]." I would think that maintaining equivalent benefit level would be a part of any company moving package.

Then we get to protecting "normal" marriages. Idaho has a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The Idaho Values Alliance, who helped draft this amendment said: "The amendment was meant to protect the institution of marriage". I've always been trying to figure out how laws such as these protect marriage. Are heterosexual people going to get a divorce if they see a gay couple on the street? Seems like these laws are really just designed to punish gays. Which they probably are.

Warrantless Search and Seizure

If only the government didn't need warrants to search people's houses, we'd all be safer. I, for one, would welcome our new jack-booted overlords. If the police didn't need probable cause, or a judge to sign off on a search, they could go into anyone's home and search for anything questionable. How many murders could we stop this way? School shootings? Indecent acts carried on behind closed doors? How dare people! Government agencies and police cannot be slowed down by always needing a judge to authorize their actions and having to present hard evidence. It would dampen their effectiveness too much. Won't someone please think of the children?

If the above paragraph made sense to you, what the hell is wrong with you? If it didn't make sense, how is the above "logic" any different than the "logic" of this piece about Mukasey and warrantless wiretapping? This paragraph is particularly absent of logic:

As reported by the New York Sun, he also offered a perspective, partly personal as a former Manhattanite, on the necessity of warrantless antiterror surveillance. Before 9/11, Mr. Mukasey said, "We knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went. We've got" – here the Attorney General paused with emotion – "we've got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn't come home, to show for that."

non sequitur much? He's jumped from arguing that we need better surveillance (which is probably true, as long as it's legal), to "we need unlimited authority to conduct any antiterror operation we deem necessary". And the author continues and says this is not "fear-mongering". Riiiight.

You can't trust Bush with anything...

Not even to be a champion of Second Amendment rights. The case before the Supreme Court right now, District of Columbia v. Heller, on the constitutionality of D.C.'s ban on handguns, has the administration asking that the Court send it back to a lower court:

... brief filed by U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, who represents the government and the Bush administration before the Supreme Court. Clement said that the court should recognize the individual right but that the lower court's ruling was so broad it could endanger federal gun-control measures, such as a ban on possession of new machine guns. Clement urged the court to send the D.C. law, the strictest in the nation, back to lower courts for further review.

If the Clinton administration had argued the same thing, the Republican party and the NRA would have leapt all over it and shouted about how the liberals want to take our guns away. What is it with people wearing blinders when it comes to the policies of people that supposedly belong to the same party? While this is clearly not the first infringement (understatement?) of civil liberties this administration has helped perpetuate, it is one I would expect the Right to be, well, up in arms about.

D.C. Gun Ban

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments on the D.C. gun ban today. I'll probably post something about the decision.

Active Euthanasia

From Time: A woman who has a terminal and excruciatingly painful disease wishes to commit physician-assisted suicide, and she is awaiting a court ruling on whether this should be permitted. I ask: Why should any government care if an individual wants to commit suicide? What is the benefit to society in prolonging an unwanted life? Why don't articles such as this ask such an obvious question as: "What business is it of the governments?" The questions asked are "Do individuals have the right to end their own life?" instead of "Does the government have the right to restrict what an individual freely chooses?". The distinction is in the form of whether rights belong to individuals or are they granted by the government. I thought one of the main points of the Enlightenment is to establish the fact that individuals do have rights, and government's job is to protect them. So, whose rights are being protected here?