A long history of ignoring and undermining the Constitution

I finished the book Allow Me to Retort, a Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution by Elie Mystal. This is a book I would love to delve into and write about every interesting thing I found, filling pages and pages. But that wouldn’t be fair to Mystal and his book (and its copyright). So I’ll reluctantly stick to summarizing the book rather than each page. In case that wasn’t clear, I highly recommend this book. I’ve encountered Mystal’s writing a few times and I’ve heard others praise his fine logic, his ability to get at the core of an argument, and doing so with wit. He went to Harvard Law School, but being a lawyer didn’t suit him. So he switched to law and justice commentary. He has appeared on CNN and MSNBC and helped the NPR show Radiolab with their series on the Supreme Court titled More Perfect. Yeah, he knows his stuff and he’s quite the justice warrior. The hardcover edition came out in 2022. When the paperback edition (the one I read) came out in 2023 he had to add another chapter as a preface, condemning the “originalism” used to overturn abortion rights. Of course, the Constitution, its amendments, and the commentary of the late 18th century don’t mention abortion! The Constitution was written by people who owned slaves! They were also highly misogynistic and restricted government participation to land owners like themselves. Mystal is okay with the body of the Constitution – well, most of it. It’s the amendments that cause all the problems. It isn’t that the amendments are bad, but that the white supremacists running the country have always been very good at ignoring and undermining the parts they don’t like. And, yes, for a great deal of our national history white supremacists have been in charge. Some examples. The Supreme Court, urged on by the NRA, reinterpreted the Second Amendment to mean a personal right to own and carry a gun (if one is white). Mystal gets into the original intent of the amendment – protection against slave uprisings – and the illogic of those who are fans of this interpretation. Our police brutality would wither away if courts actually enforced the Fourth Amendment. Mystal told his own harrowing story of a police encounter. Courts don’t enforce the Fourth because white people don’t want them to. If the Fifth Amendment says a person cannot be a witness against themselves why do police spend so much time trying to trick a suspect into confessing and why is that confession admitted into court proceedings? Yeah, we’re familiar with the Miranda rights from their use in police shows, but does a frightened teenage black kid facing hostile cop know what it really means? If we really believed the Eighth Amendment on cruel and unusual punishment no criminal would get the death penalty. Mystal was not a fan of the Constitution created by slavers. But then came the Thirteenth (banning slavery), Fourteenth (birthright citizenship, due process, and equal protection), Fifteenth (the right to vote), and Nineteenth (women voting) Amendments. These are great! They make the rest of the Constitution work! Except society and the courts find all sorts of reasons why they don’t apply in particular cases. See Jim Crow. Mystal has only two complaints about the main body of the Constitution. The first is the makeup of the Senate. It was designed to make sure slavers could stay in control. It is now justified by saying the needs of rural states should not be overrun by the needs of urban states. That doesn’t make sense to Illinois where Chicago dominates the rural areas of the same state. The second complaint is the Electoral College. An amendment would need to be passed to get rid of it, which isn’t going to happen. The National Popular Vote Compact is great – until someone is elected using it. That case will go to the Supreme Court, who will pick the president. A big problem in the US, as defined by this Constitution, is the Supreme Court. A body that can limit or overturn every law that comes out of Congress, even limit or ignore the Constitution is a threat to democracy. Perhaps we should prevent the Court from reviewing laws. That review is not in the Constitution. There is one thing worse than a Supreme Court full of conservatives that block progress. That worse thing is conservative politicians who are quicker to wield their supremacy. So to close the book Mystal discusses how to reform the Court. Reform could start by saying that a Justice may be appointed for life, but not necessarily on the Supreme Court. They can be given senior status and sent to lower courts, able to return when a sitting justice recuses themselves. Mystal suggests the right number of justices should be 29. Some circuit courts have this many. Perhaps the Supremes should reorganize to handle cases as a circuit court does with a randomly selected three-judge panel hearing a case and the full court getting involved only when other justices disagree with the original panel. There is a lot more to the book – it is over 250 pages – and all worth reading. Again, I highly recommend it.

Rating news on its politics instead of its facts

I finished the book The Great Passion by James Runcie. The story is set in Saxony of 1726. The narrator is thirteen year old Stefan Silbermann. His mother has died and his father sends him to Leipzig to the St. Thomas Church and School where he can study music with the Cantor – Johann Sebastian Bach. I saw Stefan’s last name and wondered... My thought that he was a part of the Silbermann pipe organ building family of that time in Saxony was quickly confirmed. Bach knew and tested organs in the area and would have played Silbermann organs and consulted with the builder. Stefan is the nephew of the master builder, though is actually fictional. Bach, of course, is historical as are many events in the story, though details would not have been recorded. One main purpose of the school was to teach the boys singing so they could sing in the church services. The voices of most of the boys hadn’t changed yet so they could sing the soprano and alto parts. This was necessary because women were banned from singing in the church at the time. Several of the boys knew their usefulness to the school would end when their voice changed. When Stefan gets to the school he is bullied, as many boys new to a situation are. Part of the bullying is because Bach recognizes how well Stefan sings and asks him to sing solos, to the annoyance of the boy who had been getting most of the solos. So Bach invites Stefan to leave the dormitory and move into his family quarters provided by the church. There Stefan gets to know Bach’s seven living children and experiences puppy love with the oldest, seventeen year old Catharina. As part of living in the household Stefan serves as a copyist as Bach must prepare a new cantata nearly every week. Stefan takes organ lessons from Bach and singing lessons from Bach’s second wife Anna Magdalena. Most of the book is scenes of domestic, school, and church life. Not a lot happens. There is a lot of talk of theology and much of it is of the sort that life is hard and miserable but heaven will be glorious. Death is common and you will die too. So don’t be idle. Yeah, gloomy theology. Bach is a strong task master, wanting to be busy and wanting his children to always be productive. The commonness of death is shown in Bach’s own family. The book describes some of it and I consulted a Bach genealogy for more. By the time of the story Bach and first wife Maria Barbara had seven children and only four were still alive. Maria Barbara had also died. Anna Magdalena eventually gave birth to thirteen children, giving Bach a total of twenty – the last when she was 41 and he was 57. Eleven of those twenty died before he did in 1750 at age 65. The last 20% of the book is what gives it its name. At the start of Lent of 1727 Bach has the idea of a big Passion cantata to be given on Good Friday, the day that marks the crucifixion of Jesus. He doesn’t want to just tell the story. He wants the text to comment on the story, to draw the listener in and make them feel they could have been a part of it. The result is The Passion of Christ According to the Evangelist Matthew. So there is a rush to get such a huge piece written. Then get it rehearsed. That includes teaching the soloists (including Stefan), convincing them they are capable of meeting the demands of the music, and telling one that a recent death is all the more appropriate for them to sing this piece about death. If one is really into Bach this is an enjoyable story. Mark Sumner, Daily Kos staff emeritus, discussed the decision of Los Angeles Times billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Schiong to give stories a “bias meter,” a way “to alert readers about the ideological tilt of the paper’s content.” The rankings could be from “far left” to “far right.” What could go wrong? Sumner says plenty. The rankings would be done by AI. There isn’t an existing AI that could provide such ratings. So the first problem is that Soon-Schiong is adapting the medical AI he’s already created. Current AIs can be bad at their tasks and offer no explanation on how they arrive at their outputs. Sumner reviews two problems that appeared in medical AIs. First, one AI determined which skin lesions were cancerous by determining that physicians held rulers next to the cancerous ones. Second, an AI determined which x-rays showed tuberculosis from how out of focus they were. Tuberculosis is thankfully rare these days, so the only x-rays that showed it were older, more out of focus ones. So, how would such an AI rate a story on climate change? Far-right sources don’t use the term and pretend it doesn’t exist. A factual, well-researched story on climate change will be labeled “far-left.” Public Enlightenment wrote about how unhelpful a bias meter would be by showing how some outlets are ranked by various services. Associated Press – “far left,” Fox News – “center right,” Reason Magazine, supported by the Koch Brothers – “center.” Public Enlightenment adds, “Ratings do not reflect accuracy or credibility; they reflect perspective only.” And that gets to the core of the problem. Wrote Sumner.

Only pure ignorance will make it through as unaligned. For large sections of the Times' audience, any stamp that indicates a story is left or right will be tantamount to saying "This is inaccurate, so don't bother to read it." What Patrick Soon-Shiong is creating is a system that tells his readers that the content of the paper he owns can't be relied on for accuracy. It's hard to imagine any way to more quickly delegitimize and decimate journalism. Which may, of course, be the intent. ... Any ranking service that examines articles on a political rather than factual basis is inherently harmful to independent, unbiased journalism. And every one of these bias charts seems to start with a huge bias.

Oliver Willis of Kos wrote:

“There is talk about the Postal Service being taken private, you do know that—not the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” Trump said at a press conference on Monday. “It’s an idea that a lot of people have liked for a long time. We’re looking at that.”

My thought in reading that paragraph is who are those “a lot of people”? They certainly aren’t the vast majority of Americans. But we know the nasty guy doesn’t listen to us common folks that make up the vast majority of Americans. He listens to billionaires who either want to get richer off the USPS or don’t want it as competition. Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union said privatization would “end universal service.” People in hard to reach locations would lose service. Many people, especially us in the ’burbs, don’t know that many of the big package delivery companies use the USPS for those hard to reach locations, the places the USPS must go by law, but for-profit companies would see as too expensive.

“Universal service is especially important to rural America. Privatization also would lead to price-gouging by private companies,” Dimondstein added.

Put another way, the nasty guy and his cronies would not see any change in service. Their political base would. A reminder: Louis DeStroy is still in charge of the USPS. Biden didn’t accomplish his removal. Alex Samuels of Kos wrote that American voters can be quite messy in their opinion on big issues. This assertion is based on a Civiqs poll for Kos done December 7-10. It shows views don’t align with the goals of either party. Some of the messiness: 94% of Republicans believe the nasty guy will act on his promise to deport millions of immigrants. But only 50% of Republicans believe he’ll end the Affordable Care Act. Voter preference? A belief that the federal government has a responsibility in health care coverage? In 2024 Missouri voters approved abortion rights, raise the minimum wage, and paid sick leave while voting in Republicans, who oppose these policies. The messiness could be perpetual dissatisfaction with both parties. Or liking Democratic policies and not their candidates this year. Or trying to compress incoherent views into a binary choice. Two weeks ago Samuels reported that based on the election results many pundits are making the claim America has shifted to the right. But based on actual policies America is still quite liberal. One example is that 71% of Americans want the government to lower drug costs and prevent price gouging. Also two weeks ago Samuels reported:

In fact, according to a survey from YouGov, which was fielded in late November, the majority of Americans surveyed said that they view allegations of sexual assault (62%), domestic violence (61%), and a history of substance abuse (51%) as disqualifying to serve in a presidential Cabinet position. American adults also suggested that they didn’t want Cabinet picks who had links to extremist groups (70%), allegations of links to hostile foreign governments (66%), and past criminal convictions (61%). These numbers might not dissuade Trump, however, who is actively rolling out new names for those who he wants to fill out his administration. Several of Trump’s picks are embroiled in controversy. And it’s possible that Trump is hoping that Americans will turn a blind eye to these lower-level Cabinet members.

Samuels then reviewed all the cabinet nominations a majority of Americans view as disqualifying. Again, two weeks ago (yeah, I didn’t do much writing early this month) Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, wrote that the SPLC is closely monitoring the cabinet nominations and why the choice matters.

A strong federal government is essential to ensuring that the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are both protected and applied equally to all Americans and to providing vital resources and services to the most vulnerable populations. In arenas such as housing, education, criminal justice, health care, and more, civil rights laws protect against discrimination and ensure equal opportunity. However, we are concerned that the incoming administration will seek to shift power to individual states and abandon the federal government’s responsibilities to protect everyone’s rights.

Lisa Needham of Kos reported that last week “Texas sued New York physician Margaret Daley Carpenter for providing abortion pills via telehealth to a Texas resident.” This is an attempt to crack New York’s shield law that protects abortion providers from prosecutions in other states. So, yeah, ditch the idea that anti-choice advocates simply wanted to return abortion to the states.

Red states are going to astonishing lengths to try to stop their own citizens from obtaining abortions elsewhere and to demand that blue states honor red states’ laws. ... Generally, states do not get to dictate what happens in other states, nor do they get to try to reach into another state and impose their own laws.

There was one shameful exception, the Fugitive Slave Act. That empowered anyone to capture the enslaved, even in states that banned slavery, and return them to their owners. The anti-abortion efforts are similar in that Texas set up a bounty hunter system. Texas could get an injunction against Carpenter, but the New York shield law means New York can’t order Carpenter to comply. The next step is for Texas to sue New York to force compliance with Texas law. That will immediately go to the Supreme Court. With a supermajority that hates abortion, New York would likely lose. And that would overturn shield laws in 18 other states and Washington, DC. And states could impose their abortion bans on states where it is legal.

Anti-choice state politicians have no intention of leaving pro-choice states alone when it comes to abortion. They’re not going to stop until they make it impossible to get abortions in blue states. This is not how federalism is supposed to work, but it’s what we’re headed toward now.

Stop listening to conservatives telling you that masculinity is in crisis

In an episode of The New York Times’ “Matter of Opinion” podcast Ross Douthat discussed the crisis of masculinity in America. Hunter of Daily Kos wrote his response a week ago.

There is no "crisis of masculinity" in America. It does not exist. It is made up, just as it has been made up at every other point in history including 1.) when women were allowed to vote, 2.) when women began to enter the "workforce" in slightly larger numbers than in the decade before that, or 3.) when women were able to open bank accounts without their husbands' permissions. There are wonderful old-timey comics featuring sad-sack men in dresses crying about their fate when those other historical trends poked at their fragile emotions. ... The problem is that conservative men are big gigantic whining babies about everything, whimpering to themselves whenever any event happens in the world that does not revolve around them and their own personal desires. The "crisis" is that liberal men have taken all the masculinity for themselves while conservative men work themselves up into crying, flag-waving tantrums whenever cartoon candy mascots show up with less sexy footwear than they had been hoping for. ... When a liberal man learns that his wife has gotten a raise and now makes more money than he does, he's happy about her success and the extra money. He doesn't go off and whine in a corner about well, the real problem nowadays is that nobody hires based on upper body strength.

Then Paul Waldman of the Washington Post added his voice, here quoted by Chitown Kev in a pundit roundup for Kos. Waldman referred to the book Manhood by Sen. Josh Hawley, which was released recently and roundly panned.

Like most of the crisis-of-masculinity-mongers, Hawley has little in the way of practical recommendations to fix this supposed problem. But if American men are really overcome by such anxiety, here’s a solution: Stop listening to conservatives telling you that masculinity is in crisis. The manliest thing one can do might be to stop caring about masculinity altogether. That’s not to deny that men face some genuine problems, especially when it comes to educational achievement — even as they still dominate almost every facet of public life, from politics to religion to business.

Waldman added that conservative pundits are preying on men feeling anxious about a rapidly changing world. Waldman says the issue is centuries old. Kev corrects him – the issue is at least two millennia old. Sophocles has an example of it in Antigone and it is a central theme in Lysistrata by Aristophanes. Signe Wilkinson tweeted a cartoon showing a female pharmacist in front of a wall of condoms with the description

Man up, Republicans and take personal responsibility! Instead of passing nanny state laws banning abortion, make it unnecessary. A Prophylactic Solution.

Michael Harriot tweeted a thread taking on the claim that insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting different results. Some of Harriot’s replies: Do you really want to take your heart medication only once? If you go to the gym and lift weights you don’t get stronger ... unless you do it every day. Civil rights protesters didn’t make it across the Edmund Pettus Bridge until the third try. The Montgomery Bus Boycott would have failed if it lasted only one day. Part of Harriot’s thread is in response to Ice Cube posting a Contract with Black America. Good stuff. But none of the ideas are new – some have been around for 90 years – and they haven’t been implemented because they weren’t explained to black people adequately. They haven’t been implemented because there has always been a racist party, though that has switched a few times in history. It’s amazing that racist white people always know which party that is. Mary McLeod Bethune was part of Franklin Roosevelt’s Black Cabinet. She got things done because she was able to organize persistent protests, to the point FDR became scared not to implement her goals. One of those was an executive order banning discrimination in the defense industry. Millions of blacks got jobs. And that’s the reason why black people started supporting Democrats in 1944. The Civil Rights bills didn’t get passed because of one protest. It took many over many years. So when a person says we need to just vote harder, they’re missing a great deal. Yes, vote. And also protest in as many ways possible, repeated for as long as it takes. The debit limit bill passed the Senate 63-36. That drama is over for a couple years. By then let’s hope we can elect enough same people they can eliminate this threat – though there was a chance in 2021 and they didn’t take it. Joan McCarter of Kos wrote about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the bill to raise the debt limit. The good: It diluted the power of the Freedom Caucus. McCarthy owes them nothing. McCarthy does owe Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats for getting the bill over the finish line. The bad: Even though loud voices proclaimed hostage taking is not regular order, it now is. The debt limit will be reached on January 1, 2025, which means it isn’t in play for the election, but the lame duck Congress will have to do something – unless Biden is able to challenge the constitutionality of the law before then. Some destructive Republican talking points were given fresh wind. These are that work requirements for food benefits are good, the IRS is the enemy, and the deficit is more important than policy and can be addressed only through cuts. The ugly: Sen. Joe Manchin’s pet project of an oil pipeline from West Virginia to the Virginia coast was included with provisions preventing court challenges and over the objections of Virginia members of Congress. It was included at a time when nobody nowhere should be building oil infrastructure.

Why do we need to know the gender of another person?

My Sunday movie was Dear Ex on Netflix. From the start the Chinese characters show it is set in Asia, though it took a while to confirm it is Taipei. The names are hard for me to spell, so I’ll use relationships. The story opens with Mother and Son at Lover’s apartment complaining that Lover has stolen the life insurance money that was to pay for Son’s college (preferably in Canada, a long way from Mother). It’s all complicated because this is the gay Lover. Mother is quite the shrew and quite manipulative so Son leaves home and, lacking anywhere else to go, wants to stay with Lover. But isn’t he supposed to be the enemy? Son keeps saying that to himself but doesn’t quite believe it. Along the way we see how Father and Mother met and how Father and Lover met. Father declares he must have a wife and child, then realizes being gay means that won’t work. We see Lover taking care of Father during the final illness. And we understand why Father made Lover his life insurance beneficiary. The story is told quite well, with fine acting all around. I enjoyed it. I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data, updated yesterday. The peaks in new cases per day for the last few weeks are 681, 852, 807, 717. The low plateau continues. The low level of deaths per day also continues. D’Anne Witkowski wrote for Between the Lines about the web comic Assigned Male (and I think also book or book series) and talked to the author Sophie Labelle. She is trans and the book is a series of comic panels about being trans and the situations they have to deal with. Labelle describes the book as “the adventures of a bunch of sarcastic trans and queer teenagers.” Which sounds like fun. The article describes a recent comic (which I found online):

A recent comic depicts an adult and two kids in a park, an older kid babysitting a younger kid. The adult asks if the younger child is a boy or a girl. The sitter responds, “We don’t know yet, they haven’t told us.” The adult, distressed, responds that this will surely confuse the child. The sitter responds, “The most confusing part of it is actually the amount of strangers who feel entitled to ask what’s in that kid’s pants.” This shuts the adult right up.

I add: Why do we need to know the gender of another person? It shouldn’t make any difference in how we treat them. Alas, since we live in a society soaked in patriarchy the gender of the other person matters a great deal in how we treat them. Here’s the text of the comic she posted after the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs:

No matter how isolated a perpetrator of violence against our community is, they are never acting alone. They are emboldened by a society that allows our existence to be debated and questioned and by fanatics who see sexual and gender diversity as perverse and dangerous. Today we mourn. Tomorrow we shine the brightest and loudest we can.

Laura Clawson of Daily Kos reported that the House Oversight and Accountability Committee has abolished the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. This subcommittee used to focus on the stuff in its name, plus voting rights and criminal justice reform. Oversight committee chair Rep. James Comer insists that the parent group is still able to address all those issues. But they appear much more interested in Hunter Biden. Rebekah Sager of Kos that several House Republicans were seen wearing new lapel pins. The American flag has been replaced with a tiny AR-15 gun profile. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida is one of those seen with the pin. When asked a spokesperson for Luna says it “is about sponsoring a gun bill” though noticeably absent from that phrase is what kind of gun bill. Will it be one to add to or subtract from those already on the street? Strange that the only ones actually sponsoring gun bills are Democrats. We can tell what kind of bill they want to sponsor because the pins are being handed out by Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, who owns a gun store. These pins are a way to own the libs. Annoyingly, these pins are showing up during National Gun Violence Survivor’s Week. Back in 2014 Justice John Paul Stevens proposed a new version of the Second Amendment. His version would say:

A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.

Kimberly Mata-Rubio lost her daughter Lexi in the Uvalde shooting. She said, “Why we would choose guns over children is not something I can comprehend.” In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

But that’s the point, isn’t it? The lapel pins — like those Christmas cards of their adorable blond kids armed to the teeth with high-powered weaponry or the right’s new love affair with the toxic fumes of gas stoves — are meant to “trigger the libs” and sustain a career arc that generates prime-time hits on Fox News and fund-raising emails without ever having to get anything done. Yes, you could argue this column, then, is a perfect example of what these cons want. But what a choice: playing along, or remaining silent while America sheds the skin of humanity.

Laura Clawson of Kos reported on a case of a man who had stalked and assaulted his ex-girlfriend and their child. In February 2020 she got a protective order against him and he was banned from owning a gun. Less than a year later he was involved in five shootings. He was indicted for violating his gun ban. The case went before the Fifth Circuit Court (the most conservative of the circuit courts) who said the law used to ban the man from owning a gun was unconstitutional. Huh? Wrote Clawson:

Following the logic of Justice Clarence Thomas’ 2022 opinion in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a federal law banning the sale of guns to people subject to restraining orders in domestic violence cases. In striking down a New York law requiring proper cause for concealed handgun permits, Thomas explained that the law was illegitimate because it was not “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” In other words, if there was no such law in 1791, it’s unconstitutional now.

Of course, in 1791 there was no law against wife-beating. The first laws banning it were in Alabama and Massachusetts in 1871. There were no bans in 1791 because women were considered the property of their husbands. This case of banning guns of wife-beaters will likely go before the Supremes. What they will do with it no one is guessing. I had written that several participants in the Capitol attack had expressed regret for that participation when the judge was ready for sentencing. I wrote, as others noted, that they were acting like spoiled children and their only regret was they got caught. An Associates Press story posted on Kos, confirms that by noting several of these defendants, now safely outside the courtroom, have declared themselves to be a “J6 Patriot” and making statements “inconsistent with contrition.” That might make judges less likely to believe statements of remorse for those attackers whose trials are still ongoing. Kerry Eleveld of Kos looked at some of the recent Civiqs polling. Some of the things they looked at in the early part of this year was opinions on pro-science, pro-democracy, and pro-reality issues. It doesn’t look so good. Here are some of the poll results. Only 51% agree the vaccine actually worked. 45%, a plurality, believe Dr. Fauci lied to Congress about the origins of the pandemic. 45%, a plurality, believe the US might be corruptly funding Ukraine and should be audited. 47%, plurality, believe the Biden Justice Department has not been unfairly targeting conservatives. 51% believe Congress should investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop. Eleveld concluded:

If this poll accurately reflects voters' basic mindset on matters of science, sovereignty, and justice, then Democrats have a lot of truth-telling to do over the next year in preparation for the ‘24 presidential contest.

The Marketplace Morning Report for today discussed the book The Capital Order by Clara Mattei. The book is about how austerity is designed as a way to silence the working class because workers become too focused on simply living. Mussolini was at first praised because he used austerity to silence workers. Politicians can get away with enforcing austerity because it is seen as an economic issue, not a political one. From a report a few weeks ago Clawson told the story of Butch Marion, age 82, was able to retire from Walmart after TikTok donations raised over $108,000. Yeah, that sentence should make you think there are several kinds of wrong. These sorts of “inspirational” stories have been around for a while. Marion is just one of several who retired from Walmart this way. There have been stories of people walking long distances to work and being given a car, of kids paying off school lunch debt, and many more. Yes, it is great friends and colleagues, even strangers, are coming to their aid.

But celebrating those isolated events misses the point that 82-year-olds shouldn’t be on their feet eight hours a day working at Walmart because it’s their only financial option. People shouldn’t be walking more than 10 miles to then work all day and walk back home because they can’t afford a car and there’s no reliable public transit. These are signs of a broken system and reminders of how many people are not getting that successful crowdfunding campaign, not joyous occasions to be celebrated. ... Our seniors should be able to retire with dignity. Our workers should have access to reliable public transit or the money to live within actual walking distance of their jobs or buy a reliable car. Our children should be fed. The moments when these things happen shouldn’t be headlines and hashtags.

Civil rights cases

I got to one movie in the Cinetopia Film Festival. I seriously considered a second, but decided my schedule was too full. There were a couple other films that looked interesting but conflicted with more important events in my schedule.

The film I saw was Of Love and Law. It is a documentary about a gay couple in Japan, both of whom are lawyers. We see a bit of their life and love. The mother of one of them was originally reluctant and now embraces their relationship and works at their law firm.

Most of the film is about some of their legal cases. We don’t see gay rights cases, instead we see some civil rights cases. There is the teacher who refused to stand during the national anthem. At the end of the movie her case is not resolved and she has moved to Ireland with a new husband. There is the woman who makes plush toys, not of dogs or bears but of vaginas. She was charged with public obscenity. Her position is a part of her body should not be declared obscene. The final ruling was that her toys differed sufficiently from the real thing that they were not obscene. Alas, a part of her body still is.

There were also two cases of unregistered people. In Japan, an infant isn’t registered (isn’t given a birth certificate) if the parents don’t apply as a couple. This mostly affects children whose parents divorce during the pregnancy. As in the US, unregistered people have a much harder time going to college and getting a job. By the end of the film one of the cases is resolved – the father was tracked down and, faced with a bit of pressure, decided it was wise to admit paternity.

In the US, 80% of the children without parents are in foster families. In Japan, 80% of these children are in orphanages. When an orphanage closed these two young lawyers invite a young man (probably 17 years old) to live with them until he can be on his own. Towards the end of the film this young man tells of a time with a girlfriend. He said he had been staying with a gay couple. The girl was surprised, and perhaps a bit shocked. He responded by saying it’s no big deal, you shouldn’t be shocked.

The two lawyers decide they should go through the process of being foster parents. At the end of the film we are told they were the first gay couple in Osaka to be licensed as foster parents.

Triple punch

Last Friday I wrote:

[FCC Chair Ajit] Pai is going to ignore what the American people want, and give the internet away to a few players like Comcast and Verizon.

After reading an article by Sarah Kendzior I think Comcast and Verizon are being used as a cover. Sure, Comcast and Verizon are quite willing participants in this effort and will certainly enjoy squeezing more money out of their customers (especially the ones who have no alternative internet provider). But it is much deeper than these internet companies.

Kendzior studies authoritarian regimes and how they operate. In an article for The Globe and Mail she writes about a triple punch that would likely kill democracy in America.

Over the past year we have been exercising our First Amendment rights in response to everything the nasty guy does.

We debunked lies, catalogued crimes, demanded justice and created a vast, informal movement dedicated to the pursuit of truth over alternative facts.

But without an open internet, also known as net neutrality…

The threat to net neutrality highlights the reliance on social media and an independent press for political organizing in the digital age. Should net neutrality be eliminated, those avenues will likely become curtailed for much of the public or driven out of business due to loss of revenue. Without the means to freely communicate online, citizens will be far less able to challenge the administration. It doesn't matter what cause someone prioritizes: The elimination of net neutrality will impede the ability to understand the cause, discuss it and organize around it.

Dictators don’t like free speech. But in the modern world free speech can be shut down without touching the constitution. Let the technology do the censorship. As for those pesky news sites, they can be shut down from a lack of business or litigated into compliance (from my perspective many are already compliant, not offering much informed resistance). With a subtle gesture of repealing net neutrality (we in the government aren’t going to censor you – blame the corporations!) the constitution will remain burnished but eliminated in practice.

That was the first punch.

Devin Coldewey of TechCrunch says the FCC is basing their actions on a bogus description of the internet, one that has failed in court already. Those challenging the FCC actions have a case to take to court.

At least for a while.

Which brings us to Kendzior’s second punch.

The GOP was diligent during the Obama administration in preventing his judicial picks from taking seats in federal courts. Merritt Garland, nominated for the Supremes, is the famous example. But there were well over 100 (maybe 175?) vacant seats when Obama left office. The nasty guy and his cronies in the Senate have been just as diligent filling those seats with conservative extremists. These judges could ignore constitutional rights and civil liberties. Since such appointments are for life they could be there for more than a generation.

I’ve been working, doing what I can, to prevent the third punch, though my actions may come to late. The GOP has been active…

with gerrymandering, restrictive voter ID laws, a bogus "voter fraud" commission, insecure voting machines, and foreign interference that is not only unchallenged but is sometimes encouraged by Republicans all adding up to the likelihood that the 2018 midterm elections will not be free or fair. Voter suppression will likely be rampant, with non-white and immigrant Americans the primary targets of disenfranchisement.

Put the three punches together and we get a horror:

Consider this scenario for 2018: The repeal of net neutrality will stem the flow of information, making voter suppression harder to document. The packing of the courts will make the voter suppression that is documented harder to challenge. And the long-standing solution to purveyors of unpopular policies – vote them out – will be, by definition, impossible, since the election is rigged and the rigging uncontestable. This carefully constructed web of repression is how democracy dies.

Evidence? The GOP is working hard to pass a trillion dollar giveaway to the rich disguised as a middle class tax cut that has a 25% approval rating. They no longer care about public opinion. Kendzior concludes:

What can we Americans do? Talk about it – while we still can. Call our representatives, organize in our community, and have a plan for what we'll do should these repressive initiatives pass. Over the past year, citizens have had success exerting public pressure on officials and raising consciousness over social issues. The internet was key to these endeavours, which is precisely why the administration wants to eliminate equal access to it. If we, as Americans, want to retain our voice, we must speak up now, or forever, involuntarily, hold our peace.

Civil rights? What’s that?

Back in March when the outline of the nasty guy’s budget called for gutting most of the federal government I wrote a post that catalogs what the gov’t does. Here are a couple of paragraphs from that post:

Department of Labor. Except perhaps for the Bureau of Labor Statistics this entire department is about defending the worker against the abuse of the corporation. This is entirely about standing up to ranking.
…
Look again at my descriptions through the lens of ranking at the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Education, Interior, Agriculture, FEMA, and State. All, or a large portion, of these departments have the purpose of standing up to those obsessed with ranking. Will a president obsessed with ranking allow them to continue to exist?

We’re getting a partial answer to that question. From the Washington Post:

The Trump administration is planning to disband the Labor Department division that has policed discrimination among federal contractors for four decades, according to the White House’s newly proposed budget, part of wider efforts to rein in government programs that promote civil rights.

Seventeen Solutions – restore civil liberties

I left off this series two months ago. Writing about the election got in the way. Since I don’t want to write about the latest nasty person nominated to the nasty guy’s administration it is appropriate I get back to this series. That’s especially true since this series discusses an antidote to the nasty guy’s agenda, even if the GOP controlling the government is less likely to go along with it. This is a continuation of my overview of Ralph Nader's book, The Seventeen Solutions. Click here to get the rest of the series.

8. Restore civil liberties

Erich Fromm says there are two basic freedoms, from which we get the Bill of Rights. The first is freedom from dictatorial authority. The second is a freedom to shape our community’s and country’s present and future. This second one is spelled out in freedom to speak and to petition government. Democracy depends on both.

A big threat to these two core freedoms: the politics of fear. Trump wielded fear effectively in this election as did Bush II 15 years ago, but Nader says Obama also effectively used this fear. Associated with fear is panic which, after the 9/11 attacks, we had plenty of. Wrote Nader:

This kind of atmosphere is poisonous to healthy social discourse, it can destroy any democratic society’s capacity to respond wisely and resourcefully.

A president promoting fear can usually drown out dissenting voices.

But there is no cost-benefit analysis. Is the amount of money spent combating terror appropriate to the size of the threat? Usually not. Part of that is there is no analysis of how much of a threat there actually is. But a president can shout “Terrorism!” and the money flows, as does the power.

All that money spent against a comparatively small threat means money not spent on things that are desperately needed, such as education, healthcare, and infrastructure. In addition, that money usually gets spent to enrich cronies (see: Halliburton). And all that power flowing to a president means the loss of civil rights.

Throughout our national history wars and threats of wars usually mean the rule of law is weakened as the president claims more powers. The powerful president usually can find reasons why it is necessary to curtail civil liberties.

The big recent example is the Patriot Act, which needlessly authorized snooping on citizens. Nader lists other similar acts and what both Bush II and Obama have done with them.

Nader’s solution in this chapter leaves me dissatisfied. Congress, says Nader, should assert its control over the president and threaten impeachment if the president uses war or terrorism to grab more power. Nader describes an incident in which he believes Obama should have been impeached.

My complaint of Nader’s solution has a couple parts. First, Congress has, in many cases, specifically given up its check on the president because Congress doesn’t want to take the political heat (or wants to put that heat on the president). They’re unlikely to demand the return of that power.

Second, my calculations change with the recent election. It now looks like Congress and the president will work together to curtail civil liberties. They won’t be a check on each other. And they’ll soon reinforce the courts to approve those lost liberties.

Restoring civil rights is necessary. But this isn’t the solution.