Satire and Disaster

We are all appalled at the scale of the natural disaster unfolding in Texas as Hurricane/Tropical Storm/Hurricane Again Harvey pounds the area with rain measured in feet rather than inches. The human and economic cost of this tragedy are almost beyond comprehension.

Such disasters reveal the best and the worst in us. Many persons are heroically coming to the rescue of their neighbors, even as a few take advantage of the situation to engage in looting and price gouging. And such disasters also provide us the opportunity to shine a light on the idiocy of some of our politicians and political views.

Yesterday, I reposted this satirical line from Gin and Tacos on my Facebook page:

"AP: Libertarian Party sends emergency shipment of 1 million bootstraps to Texas disaster areas."

To me, this was a classic, hilarious sendup of a political philosophy that has no place for compassion and sees no legitimate role for government - particularly the federal government - in disaster relief and mitigation. But not everyone saw it that way.

My friend Jeff, a proud and outspoken Texan (is there any other kind?), reacted with great anger. His comment on my Facebook post led off with an upraised middle finger emoji, and went on to say:

"Friends of mine lost their homes. Laugh it up and fuck off. Not a joke, Bill. Not a funny topic. Politics before everything I guess. Not with me along for the ride. You might reexamine your priorities, but that's your call. Bye."

Well, I guess I hit that nerve squarely.

Here's how I responded to Jeff's comment:

"You are right, Jeff. It's not a funny topic. I have friends in Houston that I care about as well. But whether you wish it or not, there's a political side to everything. For my part, I'm waiting to see if your Senator Cruz will be as insistent on offsets for federal disaster aid spending now as he was when Sandy hit New York. Pointing out the stupidity of various political points of view is something we both do, and it has nothing to do with the sympathy we have for those affected by this - or any - natural disaster."

Sympathy and satire are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, the way our leaders respond to human needs in the wake of a natural disaster - whether with compassion and open hands or with attempts to impose political agendas - suggests whether they deserve a standing ovation or satirical barbs. There's nothing wrong with lampooning those who exploit human suffering for political purposes, or political philosophies that are unfeeling and unforgiving.

My heart goes out to those whose lives and communities have been devastated by this terrible disaster. My brain will continue to point to the stupidity of politicians who use them as stalking horses for their concepts of the proper role of government.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

No Pardon

The release of Oliver Stone's new film Snowden has become part of a groundswell of opinion holding that Edward Snowden - the man who stole millions of highly classified documents and released them to the world - should be pardoned and allowed to return to the United States from his refuge in Russia.

I most strongly disagree.

I have many reasons for considering Mr Snowden to be a despicable and hypocritical traitor to his country, and this article by Jack Goldsmith from the Lawfare blog sums them up better than I could: Why President Obama Won't, and Shouldn't, Pardon Snowden. It's a little long, but it's well worth your time to read, especially if you think Mr Snowden deserves to be pardoned for what he did.

One could argue, however weakly, that Mr Snowden performed a public service by exposing a program that could have had questionable legal underpinnings. However, he also exposed many other programs that were fully legal and approved by Congress - programs the loss of which gravely injured the Intelligence Community's ability to track our enemies and keep you and I safe. He would have you believe that he had no other option than to expose programs he believed - in his boundless wisdom - were illegal. In fact, members of the Intelligence Community have a robust and accessible oversight structure in which they can report suspected violations of the law. Anyone who has worked in this arena knows that his contention that he had no other options is ludicrous.

A pardon for Edward Snowden is a slap in the face of all those who toil anonymously in the intelligence world to keep us safe, who take their oaths seriously, and who understand that intelligence programs are kept secret not because they are illegal*, but because they are fragile and their exposure can undo years of work and millions of dollars of expenditure.

And by the way, Mr Snowden has chosen to take refuge in Russia ... and one might well ask whether he would have been pardoned by the government of Mr Putin for the same crimes he committed here at home. If you believe that, I can make you a good deal on a bridge.

No pardon for Edward Snowden. Ever. Let him enjoy his exile in a country that would certainly have imprisoned ... and very likely executed ... him had he done the same thing there.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* There is a widespread belief that anything marked "secret" is classified only because it is illegal, would embarrass the government, or covers up other malfeasance. Nobody seems to want to acknowledge that some things need to be kept secret for very good reasons.

Do Your Job!

The untimely death* of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has had the collateral effect of tremendously enlarging the diameter of the rings of the Congressional three-ring circus. Justice Scalia's body was still warm when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) grandly announced that Congress would refuse to take up any nomination President Obama made to fill the vacancy, citing a supposed policy** that mandates that lame duck presidents are not permitted to make judicial appointments in the last year of their term.***

If we needed any more evidence of the utter bankruptcy of sober statesmanship in Congress, this provided it.

I can understand that Republicans - obsessed with their hatred for President Obama and liberal Democrats - would reflexively oppose giving him the opportunity to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. But announcing up front - before any nomination had even been considered, much less announced - that Congress would take no action on any nomination until after the election is so blatantly unconstitutional that one wonders why Republican heads don't explode from sheer gall overdose. Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, states that "[The President] shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to ... appoint Judges of the supreme Court." It doesn't state that "[The President] shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to ... appoint Judges of the supreme Court, except when he's in his final term of office." For those who loudly rail about "original intent" and "strict constructionism," this is some pretty amazing mental contortionism.

I understand the Republican fear that the President might appoint an "activist" judge who would "legislate from the bench." They argue that important issues of policy must be settled in the legislature and not in the courts^† ... we have, after all, an entire branch of government that is supposed to be devoted to legislating, and it's not the judicial branch. This, however, presupposes that we have a functioning legislature ... which we don't. Legislation from the bench starts to look like a reasonable alternative when lawmakers don't execute their responsibility to legislate from the legislature.

A few years back in my office we had a mantra we were fond of chanting when we were faced with intransigent or lazy behavior on the part of other offices ... drawn out and spoken with a deep growl of disgust, it went,

"Dew yer jaaaaahhhhhbbbbb!!"

I'm saying that a lot lately as I observe the clown show where Congress used to be.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Can a death be timely? Discuss.

** The so-called "Thurmond Rule."

*** This is the same policy to which Senator McConnell was inflexibly opposed when Democrats tried to invoke it.

† As it happens, I agree.

With Justice for Some

If you’ve been following the events in Baltimore over the last few weeks, you know that things are still tense. There has been a tremendous groundswell of calls demanding justice for Freddie Gray, the black man whose death while in police custody touched off an orgy of violence, looting, and arson.

The death of anyone, of any color, is a tragedy, and if that death was caused intentionally, or by ineptitude or malfeasance on the part of the police, those responsible need to be brought to justice.

But what seems to me to be lost in this whole thing is that Freddie Gray isn’t the only person who deserves justice.

Who is demanding justice for the police officers who were injured by rioters?

Who is demanding justice for the merchants whose stores were looted and burned?

Who is demanding justice for the persons whose cars were torched?

And who is looking out for justice for the six Baltimore police officers who have been charged in Mr Gray’s death?

It appears that what many people in Baltimore want is not justice, but vengeance. The six police officers who have been charged in Mr Gray's death will not, and cannot get a fair trial. They have already been tried, convicted, and sentenced in the media and the court of public opinion. It’s pretty clear from listening to the superheated rhetoric coming from Baltimore that if any of them are acquitted or perceived to receive an insufficiently severe punishment, the riots will start again and will likely be worse.

This is not justice. This is extortion by mob rule. It is irresponsible rhetoric spouted by ignorant people and political grandstanders uninterested in justice ... only in individual aggrandizement and the pursuit of personal agendas.

Justice has left the building.

Have a good day. Consider this definition of justice: "the use of power as appointed by law, honor or standards to support fair treatment and due reward*."

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* http://www.yourdictionary.com/justice

In Praise of Offensive Language

Along with all the other rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution* is evidently a new one: the right not to be offended.

You have probably heard about the brouhaha over the Texas DMV's decision to disallow issue of a commemorative license plate bearing the Confederate battle flag - the "stars and bars" - because the agency's regulations permit it to “refuse to create a new specialty license plate if the design might be offensive to any member of the public” (the emphasis is mine). The case has gone all the way to the Supreme Court** for a decision on where limits may be placed on free speech when that speech might offend someone.

I happen to be a very strong believer in freedom of speech, and I've written about it in this space many times before ... most recently last month. I'm very concerned that we are allowing this most important of our freedoms*** to be chipped away not necessarily by government encroachment, but by a misguided desire to protect our collective feelings.

The best argument about the importance of our First Amendment right to free speech - even when it's offensive - was provided in a friends-of-the-court brief from the Cato Institute, among whose authors was the noted satirist and comedian P.J. O'Rourke. My old friend Ed, an attorney who has argued cases before the Missouri Supreme Court, turned me on to this brief, and now I want to share it with you. You can read the full text here (and you should), but if you have better things to do than thinking about about the importance of free speech, here are several of what I believe are the most important excerpts. I apologize for the lengthy citations of words other than my own, but they're important and I urge you to read them if you don't read the entire brief ...

"If this were simply another instance of governmental hypocrisy, we would not be here. There’s no constitutional provision forbidding hypocrisy, which Americans have come to expect from government officials. But Texas’s actions were more than merely hypocritical. They violated the basic constitutional principle—one that Texas had to reaffirm when it was readmitted to the Union—that a state cannot protect the sensibilities of some by restricting others’ freedom to speak."

"Such is the problem with trying to eradicate offensive speech: everything offends someone ... Texas’s law is not just unconstitutional, it is unwise. In a free society, offensive speech should not just be tolerated, its regular presence should be celebrated as a symbol of democratic health—however odorous the products of a democracy may be."

"... it is axiomatic that the First Amendment exists to protect unpopular, unusual, and controversial expression. Moreover, the protections traditionally offered to offensive speech are being slowly and dangerously eroded. The law challenged here imbues the DMV with stunning discretion, and it exemplifies how our increasing cultural timidity—a personal-political correctness—is turning into a frightening movement to suppress and eliminate “offensive” speech."

"A free society should not walk on eggshells, it should sleep on nails. Freedom produces barbs, points, and rough edges, and any attempt to sand those down will not only result in less freedom, it will create a less interesting, dynamic, and robust society."

"If no one ever offensively says 'the Emperor has no clothes' then a society may be condemned to dynasties of naked emperors, and that would be truly offensive."

"A society that protects its most sacred objects and beliefs from offense is one that will soon be ruled by naked emperors."

"We use barbed speech to undermine not just political dictators but the petty oppressors of everyday life: the tyrannical boss, the sanctimonious preacher, the blowhard at the bar, the neighborhood enforcer of stifling norms."

"Even more than 'mainstream' speech, offensive speech helps define us. Our commonalities do less to define our personalities than our eccentricities, offensive or otherwise. If speech is squelched by the government because it 'might be offensive to any member of the public,' then the government has closed off an important avenue for self-expression."

"Letting people define themselves through offensive expression also benefits others. It’s good to know who the offensive people are and, thus, who you’d like to avoid. Lukianoff, Unlearning Liberty, at 29 ('Prohibitions on hateful speech do nothing to stop hate, but they let resentment simmer, and they also prevent you from knowing who the hateful people even are.'). Exposed Nazis are better than hidden ones because most people would like to avoid associating with them. Similarly, if someone is offended by gun-rights supporters, pro-choice advocates, University of Texas fans, or, yes, Confederate sympathizers, allowing offensive people to speak can enhance the freedom of association."

"Attacks on free speech on college campuses, in particular the freedom to offend, have risen to the level of an epidemic. Students are being taught that 'real' freedom of speech necessitates censorship ... These speech-repressive campus regimes are not just harming students while on campus. Those students will become censorious voters, and 'offensive' speech’s days might be numbered. As Greg Lukianoff, the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has written: 'Administrators have been able to convince well-meaning students to accept outright censorship by creating the impression that freedom of speech is somehow the enemy of social progress. When students began leaving college with that lesson under their belts, it was only a matter of time before the cultivation of bad intellectual habits on campus started harming the dialogue of our entire country. The tactics and attitudes that shut down speech on campus are bleeding into larger society and wreaking havoc on the way we talk among ourselves.'"

"Unfortunately, speech codes are popping up in colleges and universities, the very places where speech should be 'uninhibited, robust, and wide open.' New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964). And 'uninhibited, robust, and wide open' debate 'may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks' on orthodoxies and received wisdoms."

The brief concludes with these words:

"It would be offensive to the First Amendment for this Court allow Texas to tell us what is offensive. After all, one man’s offensive speech is another’s exercise of social commentary or personal expression. This Court should affirm the judgment below and let putative offenders be judged in the court of public opinion."

As it happens, I am grievously offended by much of the stupid language coming out of the mouths of our political "leadership" lately. It may not contain individual offensive words**** per se, but it's profoundly offensive to me because it lacks evidence of such concepts as intelligence, forethought, compassion, and common sense.

Does this mean it should be outlawed? Using the formula of the Texas DMV, it should. And that's scary ... because if I can't hear our politicians being stupid, how do I know how to cast my vote?

Have a good day. Offend someone, even if it's me.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* And there are other ones besides the right to be armed to the teeth, believe it or not.

** Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, docket #14-144.

*** Sorry, Second Amendment fans.

**** Such as those in the famous George Carlin routine "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television." Of course, nowadays not only can you actually say those words on television (at least on HBO and Showtime), but you can even hear them in places like preschools. Times change.

The First Ass Clown Award of 2015

You will recall, Dear Readers, that I decided last year to go from naming a single Ass Clown of the Month to naming an awardee every other week. The number of potential awardees in the running, and the need to keep the award as topical and current as possible led me to this decision. The problem, of course, is what to call the award. "Ass Clown of the Month" or "Ass Clown of the Week" has a nice symmetry to it, but what do I call an award presented every two weeks? "Ass Clown of the Alternate Weeks" doesn't sound very well, nor does "Biweekly Ass Clown." As a result, I've decided to simply refer to the dishonoree as the "Ass Clown." If nothing else, it'll keep things simple so we don't confuse Mike.

And so it is that I announce, with appropriate fanfare, the first Ass Clown for 2015 ...

Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell*

Senator McConnell exceeded even his own extraordinarily high standards of hypocrisy in an Op-Ed article he wrote for CNN this past Wednesday, in which he declared that under the new Republican majority in Congress "... A lot can be achieved if President Obama and his party work with us to advance common-sense jobs ideas for the middle class." This is pretty entertaining rhetoric, coming as it does from the individual who once said that the Republican party's top political priority was ensuring that President Obama would be a one-term president ... not common-sense jobs for the middle class, not health care for the middle class, not national security, but undermining the sitting President.

Here are a few other choice quotes from his article:

"... bipartisan progress can only be achieved if President Obama is interested in it." It wasn't possible over the last two years because Senator McConnell himself said and his party demonstrated that they weren't interested in it themselves.

"The president's supporters are pressing for militancy, not compromise. But they need to understand that democracy isn't about what you can get away with, it's about what you can achieve together." Mr McConnell clearly understands the concept of political militancy, given that the Republican Party has a loud, unruly, and very militant extreme right wing that appears to have no interest in compromise of any sort, and I must have missed all the times that the Republicans worked with President Obama to "achieve (something ... anything) together."

In his first speech to the new Congress, Mr McConnell said that, "... obstruction by the Democratic majority is against the traditions of this body and it needs to end. Because if Democrats truly want to get anything done this year, they're going to have to learn how to work with us." Perhaps the Democrats will learn this lesson, but they surely won't learn it from the example set by the Republicans.

While there is certainly a good deal of blame to share for the dismal record compiled by our elected reprehensives over the last few years, Senator McConnell's astounding ability to blame his opponents for exactly the type of behavior he and his party have carried out for the last two years indicates a remarkable command of creative hypocrisy and ludicrous historical revisionism. He has richly earned his title as our first Ass Clown of 2015.

As a final observation, I expect that I will attract some negative feedback for selecting Senator McConnell rather than Cherif and Said Kouachi, the savage religious bigots who murdered twelve people in France they believed had insulted their religion. The reason is simple: as I wrote yesterday, it's a matter of perspective ... the Kouachi brothers are religious fanatics who believe their faith permits - indeed, encourages - them to murder those who give offense. They are, like so many of their extreme co-religionists, beyond reason and humanity, and naming them as ass clowns serves no purpose. Senator McConnell, however, methodically uses his political power not to serve the American people, but to impede the work of Congress for his own political agenda. His blatant hypocrisy and cynicism exemplify the very worst of ugly ass clownery.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* This is the third award for Senator McConnell ... he won monthly awards twice before, on June 25, 2012 and on April 11, 2013. At least he's accomplished something. 

A Question of Perspective

You may recall, Dear Readers, that former Vice President Dick Cheney was selected as our Ass Clown of the Year for 2014, largely on the basis of his strident defense of the torture of terrorism suspects. Second place, you may also recall, went to the Republican Congressional Leadership for its lack of … well … leadership, as well as compassion, statesmanship, and evidence of ability to govern. Third and fifth places went to ISIS/”The Islamic State” and the Taliban respectively, for reasons that probably need no elaboration, while Texas senator Ted Cruz handily took fourth.

As I always do, I linked to the blog post from my Facebook page, where I received several comments, one of which was this one from my friend Bob: “Very disappointing that both ISIS and the Taliban finished behind anyone. I think we may lack some perspective.”

Now, Bob and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on things, but I respect his opinions. In this case, though, I have to say I think he’s dead wrong.

It’s very easy and satisfying to point out that the crazies of ISIS and the Taliban - and the lunatics who murdered a dozen cartoonists in Paris yesterday - deserve condemnation for their religious bigotry, senseless violence, and generally disgusting outlook on things like decent treatment of women, and living in the modern world. We know that they’re ass clowns, whether they won the vote or not.

But sometimes, we're ass clowns, too.

We recoil in horror when ISIS rapes, tortures, and murders innocents with terrifying glee. We are horrified when al Qaeda sympathizers behead American hostages. We shake our heads in disgust at the savage murder of editorial cartoonists. We value the sanctity of life and the dignity of the individual, and you may recall from your history lessons that we conducted major war crimes trials after World War II in which German and Japanese defendants were prosecuted for - among other things - torturing prisoners.

And yet we have done it ourselves. As I noted in the award citation,

While many argue that the torture of individuals responsible for the despicable murder of innocents simply shows that they are reaping what they've sown, America has always stood for the rule of law and justice - even when it's hard, and even when such rules have been mocked and ignored by other nations and groups. By resorting to the terrible actions for which we have so often condemned other regimes, we have lowered ourselves to their level and have forfeited the moral high ground.

Not everyone sees it that way, of course. In an OpEd essay in the Washington Post last Monday titled “Democrats Lose the ‘Torture’ Debate,” conservative commentator Marc Thiessen gloats (and I use the term deliberately) that "six sordid years of Democratic demagoguery and investigations" into the use of torture on terror suspects “show that the opponents of the CIA interrogation program were completely and utterly defeated.” He goes on to write that

"… a (Washington) Post poll revealed the American people’s final verdict. The vast majority agree with the CIA that these techniques were necessary and justified ... And - most importantly - 76 percent said they would do it again to protect the country."

But does that make it right? As I have noted in this space before, we teach our children that “he/she did it first!” is not an excuse for bad behavior. And in this particular case, that bad behavior will come home to roost with an awful vengeance the next time a YouTube video shows an American being tortured by those we no longer have a moral right to condemn.

In the future, thanks to Mr Cheney and Mr Thiessen and people like them … people who lack perspective … we have lost the moral right to condemn the use of torture by our enemies. We pride ourselves on being a country where the rule of law is supreme, but nowadays the law seems sometimes to be treated like a helpless prisoner - tortured until it tells us what we want it to say.

Because, you see, our values and our principles lack perspective.

Have a good day.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo