Tag Archives: First Amendment

Jared Lee Loughner: A Gun Without a Trigger?


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah

Now that Jared Lee Loughner’s bullets have stopped flying, the air is thick with new bullets in the form of accusations and denials, proposed legislative actions, and the pros and cons of the Second Amendment. But most of these rhetorical bullets are far off the mark.

There are many reasons to suspect that  Loughner is severely mentally ill. And I should know, I’ve spent most of my life in close proximity to the severely mentally ill. Both my mother and grandmother were schizophrenic and my sister is severely bipolar. I suffer from bouts of clinical depression myself.

One of the things I’ve learned is that the mentally ill, particularly likely schizophrenics like Loughner, don’t live in the same dimension as you and I. They live in a dark mash-up of reality and hallucination that the initiated often have trouble grasping.

They can seem normal and rational one minute and the next arguing with a disembodied voice. They can lapse in an out of psychotic episodes separated by months or years or they can stay psychotic, as my grandmother did, nearly all their lives.

There are as many different presentations of mental illness as there are people who suffer from it. But, there’s one constant – trying to deal with the irrational through rational means is a long shot at best, and more often than not, doomed to failure.

Triggers Without Guns
The air’s already heavy with accusations that right-wing politicos fanned the flames of insanity. The Palinator says, ‘Gosh oh golly gee, I had no idea people would see that as a gun target. And, how did people jump to the conclusion that my statement about not retreating, but reloading is in any way violent?’

Well Sarah, they said so at the time – loudly – and you didn’t “explain” yourself until people died. Ditto Sharron Angle’s entreaty to take “Second Amendment” solutions if not getting her way. Both of these “explanations” are toilet paper-thin and should be used for exactly the same purpose.

However, claiming violent suggestions trigger violence is as specious as claiming that being gay makes you a pedophile. It’s almost impossible to tell if there is a trigger and what effect it has at all. It’s equally true it might have. In the end, it doesn’t matter. When the evil voices tell you to kill, you do and there is no rational explanation why.

That’s not to say the Palinistas were guiltless to throw “misunderstood” gun sights out there. The First Amendment guarantees that right, but the First Amendment doesn’t say word one about free speech being intelligent speech. At the very least, their actions lowered the national discourse by several notches.

As is often the case, the knee-jerk response to tragedies like this is to become a dynamo cranking out proposed laws guaranteed to stop the violence.

Legislation: Responding Rationally to the Irrational
Increase gun control to keep loony fingers off the trigger? Well, if a person hasn’t been diagnosed there is no way to tell if their finger is competent to grasp the trigger. And if they have, there’s no way to tell if the person’s demons are under control, especially when they can seem completely normal even while in a deep psychotic episode.

Besides, there are many more ways, other than guns, to kill. Some of them are even more efficient. You can bomb, stab, set on fire, or bludgeon your victims with exceptionally large heads of cabbage. If the voices say kill, the mentally ill kill – by any means necessary. Besides, you can’t control the sale of cabbages.

And for the drive all decisions to the state level crowd, no control works if all states have different rules. Otherwise, a gun bought on one side of a lenient state boundary will kill the same on the other.

It’s a uniquely American trait to pay scant attention to violence until the right someone gets killed. If this hadn’t involved a sitting member of Congress, the national anguish wouldn’t be so deep nor last so long.

There are gang shootings that rival this one’s brutality and death toll, yet we don’t get in such a tizzy over them. How is this instance any different from a dangerously disgruntled right-to-lifer picking up a gun or bomb to carry out an assassination? What about Timothy McVey or a Kabul suicide bomber or the Va. Tech shooter? What about someone who carries a gun to a political event to “exercise their Second amendment rights” only to get into a one-sided duel with and overly agitated opponent in the crowd?

If the NRA is right about anything it really is that guns don’t kill people, people kill people…and there are a lot stupid, clumsy, and insane people out there. People I’d prefer not lug their guns everywhere for when they decide to “protect” themselves from an overly righteous Obama socialist.

There are dozens of rational responses we could take to keep this from happening again because most of us are sane and  rational – if not a little overheated. Unfortunately, most would have about as much effect as prostate and colorectal exams for airplane passengers or tapping every phone on the planet to chase down a nut who lives in a cave and makes bad videos. It behooves us to choose wisely because the cure may be worse than the disease.

You can only control those things that are within your control. A person who literally hears the voice of the devil isn’t going to bend to your control. That’s not because they are unwilling or inherently bad people. It’s because they can’t.

And there lies the problem.

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Abhorrent Speech is Still Free Speech


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah

WHIPPIN’ UP FREE SPEECH – The Constitution doesn’t say a word about whether free speech has to be smart speech or inoffensive speech. it just says speech is free, even if some do decide to push the limits.

When it comes to the First Amendment, I’m a fundamentalist. First, I believe all other constitutional rights flow from the First. For example, you can’t have a Second Amendment without the First. Freedom of speech has to be fair and truly free for the gun opposition to debate their points and for the NRA to debate theirs. Without that back and forth, neither side could bring out valid points they each have. Laws without debate come out more flawed.

Second, for speech to be truly free it has to be unencumbered. There’s nothing in the First Amendment about speech not being stupid. People will do and say many things I think are outrageous, but that’s my opinion, not a certifiable fact. There is no easy way to determine what is truly over the top vs. just ignorant or offensive.

A local Tea Party group has a parade float depicting an Obama effigy wielding a whip against a prostrate figure known as “future taxpayer”. Not surprisingly, many have condemned it as hateful, racist speech. As someone who finds almost every stance by the Tea Party abhorrent, I tend to agree. However, I’m not sure my opinion would be different, even if someone else were sponsoring it.

It’s About Accountability?
The head of the group that sponsors the float said, “It’s ridiculous when people say it is racism. It has nothing to do with that. We need accountability.” In fact, the local NAACP agrees, “A lot of people will see it in different ways. I don’t see it as being racist.”

I’m not sure how the float makes anyone accountable, so I’m, perhaps, not as forgiving as the local NAACP. But, it doesn’t really matter whether I think its racist. As the NAACP spokesperson said, viva la difference. Whether it is racist depends on your opinion, not on what I think.

But don’t be surprised if someone attacks you as a racist when you’re on thin ice, which is where the floaters seem to be. It’s their opinion and both sides have free rhetorical reign to swing away.

Or, take the recent apology from the Portland, ME Press Herald for a front page, upbeat story on Muslims celebrating the end of Ramadan – coming this year on 9/11. Tempers flared. One reader commented, “I don’t want to here [sic] how caring the Muslim religion is on 9/11.”

Fair enough, but I’d wager Muslims are pretty sic [sic] of hearing about Muslim mosques supposedly from hell, filled with people who have no value for human life.

Gutless Apology
The paper took a rather gutless approach, I think, by apologizing for not presenting a story showing the opposing view. Not everything requires an opposing view and no one is obliged to offer one. That’s why some people watch Fox and others watch MSNBC. Not only do those “news” outlets not present opposing views, they frequently and vociferously shut them down whenever possible. Besides, I’d wager the Mainiac reader would’ve been just as offended by the Muslim view, even if a Christian view appeared directly alongside.

As for lies, it’s a tough call – that’s why slander and libel suits are notoriously hard to win. Most cases of this type aren’t about truth and falsehood, but the wide band of subjective truthiness that fills the gulf between them. One person’s “fact” is another’s “opinion” and inconclusively determining where a lie came from is damnably hard. Admissibility tends to default to “free” in the truest form of the word. This is as it should be.

Holding a fundamentalist view of the First is sometimes a retching, clothes pin-on-the-nose  job. You find yourself defending people who can and do say the most crapweaselish things, but even the crapweasels deserve their day. They deserve it because if we limit them today, someone will eventually come along to limit us tomorrow. The day we prohibit abhorrent speech is the day we can kiss the rest of our freedoms goodbye.

Kiss very freely, you understand.

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Dear Marty, The First Amendment is Not Optional


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah
Not a Fixer-Upper

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE? - A Sharia-like movement is afoot to deprive Muslims of everything from the right to build religious centers to their First Amendment protections. Burning Korans is not the answer to violent Muslim extremism.

The Anti-Mosque That Ain’t a Mosque crowd seems to be going all Sharia on America’s ass. You’d think the possibility – not the certainty mind you – of building a Muslim community center amongst the strip clubs and bars of Manhattan is a worse offense than knocking the WTC down to begin with.

We have idiots closing community centers in Kentucky ostensibly for lack of parking because according to the property owner, Muslims can’t be trusted to adhere to no parking signs. Florida’s Dove World Outreach Center, a violation of truth in advertising laws if there ever was one, is reaching out to Muslims by burning Korans. Now, New Republic editor-in-chief Marty Peretz says Muslims are unworthy of First Amendment protection, presumably regardless of whether they are citizens or not.

Marty the Magnificent Sez…
Says Marty the Magnificent, “…frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.”

Gee Marty, my gut – hell, every fiber of my being – tells me you would abuse First Amendment protections too. No, wait! You already have by suggesting the First Amendment is an option like the automatic transmission on your Ford Crown Vic. The same goes for your toxic brethren like the book burning “Doves” and the spreading community of knotheads elsewhere around the country.

Marty, can you not see the irony of exercising your First Amendment rights by saying someone else should be deprived of theirs? Screeching Doves, can you not see the same by the light of your Constitutional bonfire?

Whether Muslims “raise a fuss” is their call, not yours. To speak or not to speak are both protected rights. Besides, my gut also tells me that condemning their “brotherhood” wouldn’t make one iota of difference in your opinion.

The Lonesome Doves and Tim McVey
And Lonesome Doves, would you be burning Bibles if an inbred clan of Timothy McVey wannabes had rammed the WTC? I’m an atheist and I’d be quite happy if someone burned all the holy books, regardless of whatever holier than thou sect dreamt them up.

But wait! No, I wouldn’t! I believe in the First Amendment.

It isn’t optional because I despise you and what you’re saying. It isn’t optional because some lunkhead’s book isn’t as holy as you believe yours is. It isn’t optional because your gut tells you they don’t value human life. It isn’t optional because they are Muslim, Baptist, or Druid nor because some of their members were bat shit crazy and wanted to kill people for things like, gee, I dunno, disrespecting the Koran (see David Petraeus). In this country, people can say what they want and worship or not worship as they see fit – despite cockamamie faux “wars on Christmas” or people being gay in the privacy of their own homes or carbuncles on the ass of humanity who think their shit is infinitely less odoriferous than others are.

THE FIRST AMENDMENT IS NOT OPTIONAL!

…and the day it becomes so is the day we lose the privilege of calling ourselves American.

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You Know You Might Be a Liberal If…


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah
Kiss Me I'm a Liberal

GEORGE SURE HAS CHANGED - To a liberal this is either the worst thing in the world that could happen or testament to the fact that progressive ideals are so powerful they can influence anyone.

Note: Turnabout is fair play, so enjoy this companion post to last week’s You Know You Might Be a Tea Partier If… And moderates, your turn will come soon too.

You know you might be a liberal if you:

  • Make protest signs with perfect grammar and spelling, but that quote Camus…in the original French.
  • You’re willing to fight an uphill election battle, but no one understands your commercials.
  • Think of your party’s Big Tent as a canopy for a reception party after a gay wedding.
  • Refer to George W. Bush as the Anti-Christ, but are incensed when the right calls Obama The Messiah™.
  • Protest horrible work conditions for migrant farm workers, hotel maids, and Chinese prison labor…by throwing a $500 per head cheese and wine tasting.
  • Advocate for homeless rights…provided they don’t live in your neighborhood.
Conservative Babes

CONSERVATIVES ARE HOTTER...

  • Want environmental protections for every species on Earth…except those icky bugs and snakes.
  • Drive to a protest about shipping jobs overseas in your BMW.
  • Have a secret desire to be black, but are ashamed that it comes from your mother teaching you they’re terrific dancers.
  • Think Native American lands should be returned to their original owners while forgetting your house stands on what was once a sacred burial site.
  • You don’t own a single American flag pin.
  • Think Keith Olbermann is the only “fair and balanced” newser on TV.
  • Think gun ownership should be forbidden, including all weaponry used by the Armed Forces.
  • Vacation in every foreign nation under the sun, but have never traveled to an adjacent state.
  • Get pissed because Republicans refer to it as the Democrat party instead of the Democratic party.
  • Spell “the” as “teh”.
  • Believe the First Amendment guarantees everyone’s right to free expression, but think “hate speech” a should be illegal.
  • Believe that foreign despots will go away if you ask nicely.
  • Want to declare war on Christmas.
  • Are in favor of building the Ground Zero mosque while arguing with the local planning commission over the amount of traffic the new church being built in your neighborhood will generate.
  • Think of Talking Points Memo as a legitimate news outlet.
  • Don’t grasp why unredacted CIA intelligence isn’t printed in the newspaper every day.
Liberals

...BUT LIBERALS ARE SMARTER

  • Believe you’re an “honorary lesbian” because of that little one-night stand you had while drunk in college.
  • Believe that little one-night stand you had while drunk in college was “fun”, but you’d never do it again in a million years.
  • Want to ban sugar, salt, and fat from foods, but eat bacon-wrapped hors d’ouvers and drink rum and Cokes at your neighbor’s party.
  • Think black-on-black crime is caused entirely by white people.
  • Think everyone in the Midwest is some sort of inbred goob even though you’ve never met anyone outside the Washington, DC metro area.
  • Decry Republicans playing politics while grousing about Obama’s tepid response to criticism.
  • Think Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are qualified to talk about anything having to do with African Americans.
  • Think anyone to the left of Ed Schultz is a crazed wing nut.
  • Really hate it when people don’t refer to liberals as progressives.
  • Think banning all oil drilling by 2011 is the solution to America’s energy problems.
  • Protest human rights violations in Chad without being able to find it on a map.
  • Oppose the death penalty, but also protest the poor conditions in the nation’s prisons.
  • Claim to have lots of gay and black friends, but can’t remember their names when someone asks…not that there’s anything wrong with that.
  • Support awarding huge damage claims to people who’ve smoked 3 packs a day despite the fact they’ve known smoking is a deadly for their entire adult lives.
  • Believe that Republicans lie and Democrats have inconvenient truths.
  • Complain about the condition of America’s educational system while sending your own kids to private school.
  • Think all Republicans are corrupt and hypocritical.
  • Think Bill Clinton was impeached for a BJ instead of lying to a grand jury.
  • Think Michelle Malkin is cute enough to sleep with, but would never tell anyone because of her politics.
  • Feel inferior if you don’t have a master’s degree.
  • Protest the efforts to repeal the 14th Amendment, but are still pissed that the Equal Rights Amendment didn’t pass.
  • Believe that donating an hour per week teaching an inner city kid how to read is intrinsically more valuable than a wealthy person donating $1000 to the literacy program.
  • Hate being called a socialist.
  • Are a vegan, but hate the taste of tofu.
  • Drink soy milk in your $6 cup of coffee.
  • Think DADT is the biggest problem facing the nation today.
  • Believe Nancy Pelosi is the greatest Speaker in the history of the House.
  • Believe that only white people can be racist.
  • Don’t understand why the Ground Zero mosque is a touchy subject for some people.
  • Decry the loss of newspapers and magazines, but own 4 Kindles.
  • You find this post as funny as You Know You Might Be a Tea Partier If…

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At the Tipping Point of Free Speech and Deadly Speech


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah

CULTURE CLASH OR COULTER CLASH? - Students at Ottawa University go nose-to-nose and toe-to-toe over a scheduled speech by Ann Coulter. Is Colter's dog and pony show over the edge of the free expression tipping point?

Update Even Crapweasels Get First Amendment Protection

At the outset, let me make something clear. I’ve never heard a statement from Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, or John Yoo that I didn’t think was the planet’s biggest bucket of elephant slop. But at the convergence of this Triumvirate of Twits is an example of how our nation is close to the tipping point between deadly expression and free expression.

Ann Coulter is the doyen of the teabagger set and the most outrageous of the three. Her diatribes are an uninterrupted string of vitriol and hate specifically designed to provoke. It’s a winning situation too. She can turn out books like the Keebler elves turn out cookies and clean up.

Recently, protesters turned up to prevent her from speaking at the University of Ottawa. That should be no surprise. Mixed in amongst her usual racist, homophobic, liberal paranoia she took time to call out the entire nation of Canada a few years back. Canada has “become trouble,” in her words. “They better hope the United States doesn’t roll over one night and crush them. They’re lucky they’re allowed to be on the same continent as the United States.”

Canada?! I mean, WTF.

To the Left of Atilla the Hun Divorce Lawyer
On the other hand, Jon Yoo is professorial in comparison. He’s generally quiet, but defends actions and interprets laws in maddening ways that baffle any lawyer to the left of Attila the Hun’s divorce attorney. But, his mild-mannered appearance didn’t stop hecklers from shouting during a speech at the University of Virginia. He finished the speech, but not before several people we’re fired up enough to be carried away by the local constabulary.

Then, there’s sexy schoolmarm, Sarah. She’s leaping aboard the obstructionism bandwagon, saying, “Commonsense Conservatives and lovers of America: Don’t retreat, instead – RELOAD!”

These three are cardboard cutouts of real people. I’m confident Coulter would “hate” anyone she could make a buck from – hate being an emotion far outside her grapes to raisins repertoire.

Yoo is a mere lackey who follows orders without much thought or emotion. “John, I need a legal reason to invade Canada because Annie hates the place,” Dick Cheney might have asked. “Yessir Mr. Vice Emperor. I’ll have it by Tuesday.”

Sarah is a bubblehead. I’m sure she doesn’t mean for people to actually take guns and shoot people because that would mean fewer people on the street to pay attention to her preening – regardless of whether the attention is good or bad.

I’m a fervent believer in the First Amendment. I believe everyone – even the asshats, crapweasels, and miscreant among us – has the right to say what they want, even if I think it’s a load of hogswallop. In fact, precisely BECAUSE they have an unpopular message. The measure of a democracy is how it treats it least desirable citizens. To do less would be to invite the fringe to take become the majority.

‘Reload’ and Hand Out the Ammo
However, unrestricted freedom of expression assumes the speaker has some modicum of self-control – for example, not saying “reload” and then handing out the bullets. It assumes messages will stay generic enough to avoid overly inciting the daft to unwanted shenanigans.

I don’t think you could make an argument that any of these people’s statements is specific in of itself, but you could make a valid argument they amp up the vitriol to the point where the violently-inclined begin to think it’s safe to act out the throwaway lines off unthinking, self-aggrandizing blowhards. But, where is the line? Which statement is the tipping point between absurdist trifle and calls to action received via tin-foil hat?

I’ve still not given up on unrestricted free speech. It’s too important. However, I know that unless people try to dampen their, um, “enthusiasm”, the protests of the 60s and 70s will look like a gaggle of stoners too high to do anything other than stick daisies in gun barrels. There will be real violence, destruction, and death.

It’s a times like these that freedom becomes more than a 200-year old theory and it’s a damn shame everyone can’t be at least a little responsible for their actions.

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