Injustice For All

Most of the pundits are expressing optimism in the ability of the U. S. Supreme Court to render a fair and impartial decision in the Affordable Health Care case. Optimism is an attractive trait when it does not ignore reality. In this instance the optimism is misplaced. We now have the most politicized and unethical Supreme Court in modern history. Regardless of the outcome of this case there will always be a very understandable suspicion as to the motives of the Justices hearing it. The rules of judicial ethics require all judges to avoid even the appearance of partiality or conflicts of interest. Justices Scalia and Thomas appear to have a conflict of interest that should cause them to recuse themselves form hearing this case. I will go even further and say that the activities of both Justice Thomas and his wife create a conflict that goes beyond mere appearance. The fact that both of those injustices are hearing and helping to decide this case is a travesty. Justice Thomas should be removed from the court and Justice Scalia should be investigated. When the highest court in the land does not adhere to the most fundamental rules of ethics there can be no justice! We must remedy this situation by restoring the integrity of the court and its reputation.

Killing Trayvon Martin

The fact that this young man was killed and the circumstances of that homicide should be disturbing to all of us. I do not doubt for a moment that race was involved, but this is not strictly a racial issue. This homicide strikes at the very heart and soul of our society, our sense of justice, fairness, and basic decency. When you have the NRA and the Republican Party preying on paranoia they are inviting violence. Do we really want a society in which the fastest gun rules the streets? Do we really want laws that allow killers to escape justice by merely claiming they were defending themselves without having to offer any evidence that they were threatened? We cannot have a society in which a police officer or a private individual can act as the judge, jury, and executioner. We are either a society of just laws that protect all of us or we are not!

He Is Not Kidding

Rick Santorum does not believe the separation of church and state should be absolute. He also thinks the only legitimate form of birth control is celibacy. Now he says he would crack down on pornography. One can only imagine what he would consider pornographic. My guess is that it would be nearly everything. He wants children to be home schooled in order to protect them from sex education and science. Thinking and questioning are dangerous, don't you know? If I called him a dinosaur turd he would probably think I am admitting that dinosaurs and people wondered the earth at the same time. He is living proof that some people did not evolve.

Does Original Intent Justify Malintent?

“In order to form a more perfect union…” The union formed by the Constitution was better than the loose confederation of states under the Articles of Confederation, but it was still a union brought about by many painful compromises, some of which perpetuated egregious injustices. The original intent of the framers of our constitution is still argued and is still considered by our courts, but it is not and should not be the deciding factor. If it were the deciding factor we would still have slavery, women would still be deprived of the rights granted to male citizens, some states would still have state sanctioned churches, and many states would still restrict the right to vote to citizens who own a substantial amount of property. Our founding fathers were well aware of the fact that the union they created was imperfect and that they could not predict what future circumstances might require in regard to making the union better. They tried to remedy some of the flaws by passing the first ten amendments, but those amendments only protected citizens from the federal government. What it took to prevent the states from violating the rights guaranteed by the first ten amendments was the Civil War. When President Lincoln used the phrase “a new birth of freedom” in his Gettysburg address he was referring to the abolition of slavery, but the diminution of what many people considered state’s rights brought about a new birth of freedom that went beyond freeing the slaves. The intent of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to our constitution was to forbid the individual states from depriving citizens of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United States.

It is little wonder then that they who would deprive their fellow citizens of their civil rights frequently talk about states rights as though the individual states are still sovereign entities who have merely entered into an agreement of mutual cooperation under limited circumstances. This archaic view of the union has not been true since the Civil War. Yet there are still gray areas of jurisdiction that the unscrupulous are now using to deprive people of one of the most fundamental rights of any democracy. What I am talking about here is the right to vote. Each state can set, within limits, the requirements that must be met in order to register to vote. Since the Republicans have angered senior citizens by attacking Medicare with the Ryan plan and by favoring the privatization of Social Security the Republicans want to discourage senior citizens from voting. Since the Republicans have angered the less fortunate by attacking safety nets such as unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and food stamps they also want to discourage the less fortunate from voting. Finally, because of their attacks on public education the Republicans want to discourage college students from voting. The Republicans would like to keep ethnic and racial minorities from voting as well but the amendments passed during the reconstruction era will not let them do that directly. In the states where the Republicans control the government, however, have found a way to prevent a large number of people from all of those groups from voting.

The means the Republicans are using to deprive lawful citizens of the right to vote is the new requirement to show state sanctioned, picture identification in order to register to vote. In many states the only state sanctioned identification is a driver’s license. “What do you mean you’re too old to drive? Blind, you say? So sorry, but because of budget constraints the Department of Motor Vehicles is only open on certain days and only for limited hours. Many states are also requiring a birth certificate and proof of residence over a specific time period in order to meet the residency requirements to register to vote. Forty years ago I saw documents saying the federal government would accept a notation of your birth in the family bible or church records noting your birth in lieu of a birth certificate, because it was that common for people not to have a birth certificate. A person may not have a birth certificate because birth certificates were not issued for home births, or because the place in which a person was born did not issue them for certain races, or because the place in which the certificate was stored burned down. The older and/or poorer you are the less likely it is that you will have a birth certificate or a driver’s license. What is obviously happening is that the Republicans are using state jurisdiction to suppress the vote in a manner we have not seen since the days when Jim Crow laws were in effect.

Most of the amendments and case law regarding voter suppression deal with racial or gender discrimination. Such discrimination is unconscionable but so is discrimination based on the partisan interests of a political party. If any state government is going to pass voter registration requirements that make it unduly burdensome for some of its citizens to vote that state should present irrefutable evidence that the voter fraud taking place there is so rampant it requires extreme measures to combat the fraud. No state has presented such evidence because the evidence does not exist. In fact, the history of voter suppression in this country indicates that it is a far greater problem than voter fraud. The Justice Department is now trying to combat this outrageous effort by the Republicans to suppress the voting rights of lawful citizens. Unfortunately, the Republicans have also given us the worst and most partisan Supreme Court in modern history. It is unlikely that the five injustices the Republicans appointed to the court will render the correct decision. Instead of supporting this fundamental right of all citizens those injustices will strictly interpret the case law to insist that voiding such unconscionable registration requirements requires proof of an intent to suppress the votes of Afro-Americans.

What this means is that we have to raise hell. We have to let those injustices know that such a narrow decision will mean the ruin of the Republican Party because we will vote the Republicans out of office on both the state and federal level! We must make it very clear that we will not allow the Republicans to steal elections by means of voter suppression. This attempt at voter suppression is a very real threat to our democracy. Senior citizens who have been voting for most of their adult lives had no reason to believe they would be deprived of this right, nor did the poor, nor did the college students who came from out of state but have been residing for two or three years in the state where the college they attend is located. If you doubt for one moment that voter suppression is a threat to everyone, you are fooling yourself!

Demagoguery Or Ignorance?

I do not know if Mitt Romney is simply trying to lure the wild dumb asses to his side or whether he is really this ignorant, but he has been excoriating Rick Santorum for voting to raise the debt ceiling. Hey, Nit-Mitt! Raising the debt ceiling does not increase the debt it authorizes payment of the debt that already exists. Have you now become the advocate for deadbeat nations? Would it surprise you to hear that no one wants to do business with a deadbeat nation?

Misogynistic Hypocrisy!

Leave it to Rush Limbaugh. The most cogent argument for providing affordable birth control is that some of the forms of birth control are used as a treatment for health problems. That is in fact what Sandra Fluke described so well. In ignoring her argument and launching his crude attack on her Mr. Limbaugh was not merely playing the part of a vulgar entertainer. Instead, he was trying to redefine the issue. He was saying in the crudest possible way that women should not have control over their own reproductive systems. Does this mean he thinks that sanctimonious men like Rick Santorum should be able to inflict on all of us an extreme moral code we rejected long ago? Does Mr. Limbaugh think women should be kept barefoot and pregnant? Does he expect couples to have nine kids when providing for two or three children is so difficult? It is Rush Limbaugh’s inability to see or admit the consequences of what he is advocating that makes him so dangerous. He is perfectly happy to apply the double standard by saying that single women should put an aspirin between their knees, the implication being that women who have premarital sex deserve whatever happens to them. He does not give a damn about the damage caused by such an attitude. Stirring up the right wing idiots that listen to his show is good for his ratings, and he is all about the ratings.

The problem is that Mr. Limbaugh’s listeners comprise such a large part of the Republican base that he is considered the unofficial spokesman for the Republican Party. His comments would be disturbing under any circumstances, but they are downright frightening when placed in the context of the radical social agenda the Republicans are pursuing. In states where the Republicans control the government they are passing punitive laws that punish women who seek abortions regardless of the reason for the abortion. They are doing this by requiring unnecessary ultrasounds. In some states, such as Virginia, they are trying to make the ultrasound as invasive and demeaning as possible by requiring the kind that involves a vaginal probe. In many states the Republicans are also proposing personhood laws that would outlaw the very birth control methods most frequently used to treat health problems. On the federal level the Republican controlled House of Representatives de-funded Planned Parenthood, which provides the only health care available to a large number of women. The Republicans have also joined with some Catholic Bishops to oppose the birth control provisions in what the GOP calls Obama care. The Republicans argue that an employer should be able to deny insurance coverage for anything he or she finds morally objectionable. The Republicans claim they are defending religious freedom, but Rush Limbaugh showed what this is really about when he threw that argument into the gutter. By calling Ms. Fluke a slut and a prostitute he ripped the mask off the sanctimony to reveal the misogynistic hypocrisy behind the Republican Party’s attacks on women’s rights.

This is not an issue of religious freedom. This is about the separation of church and state, the availability of health care and contraception, and the freedom to plan families and careers. This is about the Republicans trying to create a government that is far more intrusive than the big government they say they are trying to keep out of our lives. Women are as moral and smart as men are. They do not need the government or an employer to protect them from themselves. They do not need a state government forcing them to undergo unnecessary ultrasounds in order to make informed decisions about something as traumatic as an abortion. They do not need an employer depriving them of affordable birth control. I know the argument I am presenting here is not the strongest political argument, but I am not going to play the game of saying that health care is the only reason to provide affordable birth control coverage. Freedom is far too important to restrict the argument in such a manner. Religious conservatives can preach and moralize as much as they want; that is their right, and I will defend it. Like most men, I will also fight to prevent those, so called, conservatives from depriving women of the rights they have struggled so hard to obtain. This is not strictly a gender issue. This is a quality of life issue for all people. Both women and men have a lot to lose if the Republicans get their way. I am confident that the people of this nation will reject the big, intrusive government the Republicans are trying to impose upon us. Most of us thought this issue had been decided thirty or forty years ago. That we should have to fight this battle again shows just how extreme and dangerous the Republican Party has become.