Politics is a Dirty Language

Victim-blaming and Politics

2007-05-08T09:05:00.000-07:00

Watch that PSA.

Innocuous enough message, right?

Wrong.

Victim-blaming is common everywhere, but it is only in our sophisticated, first-world country that we have raised it to an art form. This simple message which seems to advocate concern and responsbility really says: "If you post information publicly, you implicitly authorize people to act on that information, even in ways that are fundamentally inappropriate."

If somebody posts compromising information regarding themselves online, and people use that information in a way that is criminal, it's still a crime. If I paste my credit card number all over the internet and people use it fraudulently, they've still committed fraud. If a woman posts pictures of herself publicly, and people use those pictures as means to harass her or stalk her, they're still harassing or stalking her. The impact isn't lessened because the information is readily available, it's still wrong.

How, may you ask, does an issue of law and justice (or, in some cases, of simple personal respect) end up on a blog that is ostensibly about politics?

Well, for one thing, I'm pre-occupied with law and justice, and my concern with politics is almost entirely entangled with the practice of sane law and justice. The Social Order as self-enforced by people on themselves is not a concern of mine in politics.

But the other is that these issues of law and justice demonstrate a systemic bias in the political system and in the social consciousness of the population.

We, as a culture, have developed this idea that there is some set of actions which justifies a breach of personal integrity; that "they deserved it" is acceptable. This is not an acceptable way to live. This is not a culture I can be proud of. Any sentence which starts with: "This could have been avoided if the victim had..." is a sentence not worth starting, a sentence not even worth thinking.

I hate to be a religious pundit. I really do. I haven't much choice here. It apalls me that in a country where so many people claim to see the light of a savior, one barely has a choice but to wonder how those same people have fallen so far. How one can say that anybody who has suffered violence or indignity; who has been demeaned and victimized deserved what they got is beyond me.

Dear America,

I have been avoiding your phone calls because you have confused your priorities. Do not call back until you have gotten them straightened out, and can treat all of your citizens with respect.

The Only Sensible Man Alive

Who needs two billion dollars to build a damn fence?

2006-10-26T09:02:00.000-07:00

Border Security Improvement Act (Introduced in House)

HR 4083 IH
109th CONGRESS
1st Session

H. R. 4083

To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to construct a fence along the southern border of the United States.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
October 19, 2005

Mr. GOODE (for himself, Mr. HUNTER, Mr. GINGREY, Mr. HAYWORTH, Mr. ROGERS of Alabama, Ms. FOXX, Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina, Mr. JONES of North Carolina, Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey, Mr. TANCREDO, Mr. NORWOOD, Mr. DEAL of Georgia, Mr. DAVIS of Kentucky, Mr. SULLIVAN, Mr. BROWN of South Carolina, Mr. WILSON of South Carolina, Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas, Mr. CULBERSON, Mr. POE, Mr. CARTER, Mr. ROHRABACHER, Mr. RADANOVICH, Mr. HOSTETTLER, Mr. SESSIONS, and Mr. KING of Iowa) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Homeland Security

A BILL

To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to construct a fence along the southern border of the United States.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Border Security Improvement Act'.

SEC. 2. CONSTRUCTION OF FENCE ON SOUTHERN BORDER .

Section 102 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1103 note) is amended--

(1) by striking `Attorney General' each place such term appears and inserting `Secretary of Homeland Security';

(2) by redesignating subsections (c) and (d) as subsections (d) and (e), respectively;

(3) in subsection (b), by striking `subsection (d)),' and inserting `subsection (e)),'; and

(4) by inserting after subsection (b) the following:

`(c) Construction of Fence on Southern Border -

`(1) IN GENERAL- In carrying out subsection (a), the Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide for the construction of a fence along the entire southern border of the United States.

`(2) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS- There are authorized to be appropriated $2,000,000,000 to carry out paragraph (1).'.

And let's not forget the $1.2 billion that were already appropriated for it in the Fiscal Year 2007 Homeland Security Appropriations bill.

Quick cost analysis:

5280 ft. * 700 mi = 3,696,000 ft. of fence.

Your diligent blogger went to http://www.fenceonline.com/ and acquired an estimate of what a 3969 ft. stretch of industrial strength, top of the line security fence would cost, with a driving gate. Note that one gate per less than a mile stretch is very generous to the government, such a thing would be ridiculous on average at the border.

Their estimate on the cost of this stretch of fence?

$511,342.

Extrapolate a bit. How much would a thousand of those stretches cost you to build?

Why yes, that would be $511,342,000.

What's that, you say? Five hundred eleven million dollars?

That's correct.

Isn't that less than a quarter of the three point two billion dollars that Congress has authorized for this fence project?

In fact, it's about a sixth of it.

Couldn't we be spending that three point two billion dollars somewhere that it would be more useful?

Of course we could.

So why are we building a fence?

Because we have elected spend-happy morons who want to implement simple solutions to difficult problems and grease the pockets of corporate friends.

Illegal immigration is a challenge that needs to be overcome, and this is not the way to do it.

We could spend three point two billion dollars on helping encourage Mexicans who want to come into the US to immigrate legally and on improving the immigration process, not greasing people's pockets. But God forbid we use our money sensibly. No, that would be asking too much of the 109th Congress, which may soon enough be remembered as The Worst Congress Ever.

CRC - Citizens for the Reading of the Constitution

2006-09-05T12:45:00.000-07:00

We are a group of like-minded citizens who believe that our judiciary, legislators and executives have a profound responsibility to read and faithfully uphold the Constitution of the United States of America; to respect the boundaries of each branch which the Constitution sets forth clearly; and to enact the rule of law and judge the validity of the laws based upon the principles and authority laid out therein.

We oppose the broad readings of the Constitution that prompt judicial activism in the form of nonsensical rulings and the vast and unchecked extensions of power and waste taken by the federal government, both in legislation and execution.

We are a people who believe that the government does not have the right to expel us from our private property in order to make room for office buildings.

We are a people who believe that the president does not have the Constitutional authority to sidestep acts of Congress, or to produce legislature by means of executive orders.

We are a people who believe that it is the duty of Congress to enact laws which are strictly wtihin the bounds of Congress's Constitutionally-provided powers; that they not overstep their bounds and take on powers given solely to the states, or indeed any power prohibited to them, expressly or implicitly, by the Constitution.

"[t]he United States is entirely a creature of the Constitution. Its power and authority have no other source."
-Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black (1957, Reid v. Covert)

Constitutional

2006-06-06T15:31:00.000-07:00

It's been said before, but I may as well say it again.

Lawmakers put their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution. They do not place their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.

--A. J. Libertarian

Is it so hard to stay in your own corner?

2006-06-05T15:48:00.000-07:00

Right now I'm pissed at almost everybody in the god damned government because they can't lay the fuck off. Seriously.

Here's the deal. There are activist judges out there, people who are legislating from the bench. Even if their decisions are morally right and even in line with things I stand for; free speech, smaller government, a morally proper form of equal rights, etc.; they're still doing it the wrong way. Government doesn't work when parts of the government assume authority they do not have.

Further, we have sort of a standoff with respect to the courts versus the executive and legislative branches. When the courts make a ruling, there is the first recourse of appeal, but appeals may be denied arbitrarily, leaving legislators with no choices other than constitutional amendments or relegislation; the former being notoriously difficult in the federal legislative branch, while further legislation can always be struck down again.

However, all of the screaming and crying in the world about "activist judges" does not justify irresponsible legislature and political penis-waving with respect to amendments and legislature. Take in particular the Federal Marriage Amendment. Even its supporters know they are sending it to die. It is not likely to even pass the House, who has reliably passed the flag burning amendment (another irresponsible amendment to the Constitution; or must I remind you that there is only one amendment on the books which abridges the rights of the people, and that it has been repealed?) Why then would our president and several of our congressmen--who are so pressed with bigger issues, like reigning in excessive spending or "winning" the war on terror (which at this point we have already lost, reigned in by a government responding to fear and putting us deeper and deeper into debt over it)--be so intent on sending this amendment to die?

I cannot fathom any reason other than campaign rallying. They are using it as a beacon to unite neo-cons under the Republican Voting Banner. If we take a step back though, we see that neo-cons traditionally stand for things which were not part of the Republican party's credo. Republicans traditionally stood for smaller government--less industrial regulation, lighter gun restrictions, and less government interference in general.

Neo-cons, however, are more concerned with pressing their religious agenda into the home and into the rest of the nation, in the form of Concerned Parenting Organizations who seek to introduce legislature to regulate what mass media can and cannot publish, in the form of federal marriage amendments which seek to restrict the ability of the individual states to choose who they will and will not recognize marriage between, in the form of a crusade against the ability of women to govern their own body, in the form of a war on drugs which costs more lives and money than it saves, and in the form of a great crusade in the Middle East.

We have a lot of convenient targets in this country. Plenty of people poorly-represented enough to make good scapegoats, and well-represented enough to make a ruckus when targeted. Consider that gay rights groups are some of the most vocal minority representation groups in America. They play right into a perfect political trap; if they don't speak up, the government can walk all over them. If they do, though, they form an ideal distraction for an administration fraught with failures and a rallying point to pull the bigot vote.

Do not misread me. Not all Republicans are neo-cons, and not even all neo-cons are closed-minded bigots, but the fact is that the agenda that the administration and those actively supporting it are playing to is one which seeks to encroach upon the ability of the people to live as they see fit, and introduce restrictions onto activities which are not violent, which are not threatening to the American way of life, and which produce no viable reason for imposing these measures.

Further, it is undeniable that the reasoning behind this is to distract attention from their other power-grabs. The NSA scandal was tearing, but outrage can only focus so many ways. People can only attend so many protests and make so much noise, and if the noise is split in enough directions, it becomes confused and garbled and conflicting, even as all the voices are screaming for relief from the same agent.

It is within the rights of the federal government to introduce a federal marriage amendment. It is blatantly irresponsible to do so though, especially for the reasons the government has. Since 2001, there has been an ongoing movement by almost every single man and woman in Congress, and in the White House, to put more and more power in the hands of the federal government, be it a carte blanche to spy on our own citizens or the ability to stop people from saying 'fuck' on TV.

Much of this has been a response to moronic judges who have overstepped their authority in ruling things to be void, has played right into the Republican party's hands in generating issues with which to distract the American people. That gay marriage and straight marriage should be equally acceptable in the eyes of the law is unquestionable, but the manner in which it was provided for in some states was utterly reprehensible, and the unconscionable conduct in flagrant violation of the due process of the law committed by judges acting outside of their authority has provoked a grand rebellion amongst the people, an equally irresponsible act of outrage, even as the outrage itself is understandable and even cause for celebration.

There's a lot of material here. I had a good rant about wanting to hit Antonin Scalia for being a smarmy bastard to the press and undermining the value to the people of his decisions by being a shit in his public face, but I'll save it for later.

For right now, chew on this. The judiciary is taking a morally upstanding position in an uncondonable way against an Executive and a Legislature who are taking uncondonable positions in a procedurally upstanding way.

How did it happen that our government is populated with well-intentioned devils and ill-intentioned angels?

--A. J. Libertarian

2006-06-05T09:25:00.000-07:00

This is my public politics journal for spewing my own personal opinionated, arrogant brand of naive small-government political bullshit. Take it or leave it at your leisure.

--A. J. Libertarian