And justice for all…

I wonder how this will fit into the gun violence debate? (It won’t because it’s socially acceptable violence since it’s being perpetrated by the “approved” shooters)

See all those bullet holes in the back of that truck? The LAPD pulled up behind this car and just started shooting. The victims in the car were two women delivering morning papers. Both have been rushed to the hospital. The police gave no warning and did not identify themselves as police. For all the women knew, assuming they had a second to think when the bullets started ripping through the back of their car and their bodies, this could have well been a gang shooting.

But it wasn’t an underground gang of armed thugs, it was the socially approved kind. The “official” users of violence and guns. These women were not the only victims that day. The LAPD did the same thing to another man driving a similar vehicle. They were hunting people down and opening fire, without warning, without checking first, and endangering neighborhoods. Local news outlets warned people to stay out of blue pickup trucks because the police were shooting first and asking questions later.

Think about that for a moment. People were told to stay off the streets because the police, their “protectors” would summarily execute them on site without notice, cause, or trial.

Before we get to the “why” they did this, I want to make something clear. “Why” is really a secondary issue here. There is no excuse for police to ambush people and start shooting them. It doesn’t matter what the “why” is. The “why” can only be used as an attempt to excuse the inexcusable. Nonetheless, “why” will be used as an excuse by everyone from the police officers to the apologists who can’t comprehend the idea that their police could do anything so horrible. To the apologists, the police will always be given the benefit of the doubt. They are their protectors after all, the “good guys.”

There will be no reasonable consequences for the attempted murders.

When the police officers tried to murder the occupants of this vehicle, and the other one they shot up, they were not acting as police officers. They were acting as vigilante thugs. Despite this, they will not be prosecuted as vigilante thugs. They will be shielded and protected by the powerful institution they belong to.  Their punishment will be administrative leave with pay. Paid vacation.

Why? The law is applied differently to different people.

We are not all equal before the law. That is a naive myth, a comforting lie we like to tell ourselves. People in positions of power and/or fame are treated differently than the average citizen. The worst part? For the most part, people are ok with this. It’s expected that powerful people are treated differently. Bush and Cheney will never be tried for war crimes, lying to the American public, and illegally spying on our own citizens. Obama will never be punished for continuing and expanding upon those exact same crimes. There will be no real punishment for the BP executives responsible for the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf. Not a single wall-street executive or banker will be prosecuted for crashing the economy and destroying the lives of millions. There will be no punishment for the Catholic church that systematically enabled and protected child rapists. Likewise, there will be no punishment for these police officers.

There is no justice for the powerful, only punishment for the powerless.

Sure you might point out this case or that, but that does not change the overwhelming trend of injustice and corruption in American society. Things have always been this way. Things will always be this way. You can’t change it. You can’t ask the powerful to punish themselves; likewise, you can’t appeal to them to police themselves.

This is the only way the powerful experience justice:

Sic semper tyrannis. The only time the powerful experience justice for crimes like murder, extortion, torture, corruption, persecution, destroying the economy, etc., is when their citizens fall upon them and lynch them.

No doubt this is probably unsettling to you, but think about it. What is usually the worst that happens to these people entrusted with so much power and privilege?

They lose their job. Whoopie fuckin do.

Could you imagine committing a crime and the worst thing that happens to you is that you lose your job? To an average person, losing their job is pretty terrible because they lose their income. But we’re not talking about average people, we’re talking about the powerful. How many poor powerful people are there? None. So what punishment, what suffering do they endure as a result of losing their job? Only their ego suffers.

How is that fair? How is that justice?

You know what would be fair? What would be justice? If the punishment fit the crime.

Indeed this is (supposedly) the standard to which we hold all other individuals in society, but the powerful get a fee pass. If society entrusts you with extraordinary power, privilege, authority, and responsibility, you should face extraordinary punishment whenever you misuse and abuse that trust. I’m talking life in prison without parole or the death penalty.

I imagine some people might object to having an equal standard for both the powerful and the powerless. I imagine the knee-jerk reaction to the thought of life in prison or the death penalty for our leaders, protectors, priests, and executives might be “no, that’s not fair. That’s not how things work.” Yet if you think about it, it is fair and it is how things should work. I believe this immediate gut instinct against equality and justice is the result of societal conditioning. Things don’t currently work like this and so to consider the opposite is alien and strange.

All I am asking for is equality under the law. If you commit murder, you go to jail. If you rob a bank, you go to jail. If cause the death of thousands, you should go to jail. If you rob a country, you should go to jail.

“But GP! what if doing these things are part of their jobs?” I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about doing illegal things. If a police officer pulls over a car and the occupant starts shooting and the cop shoots back in self defense, that’s one thing. These cops ambush two women in a truck and shot them up. If you believe someone is a terrorist and plans to kill innocent people, so you gather evidence, go through due process, have a trial, and convict them based on that strong evidence, then you kill them, that’s one thing. If you just decide, with little or no evidence, no due process, no trial, and no transparency that you’re just going to drone strike someone, that’s another.

These police officers should be tried for attempted murder, but they won’t. They should get the same sentence you or I would get if we shot up two people in a truck, but they won’t.  Equality and justice for the powerful and those protected by the powerful are myths. Punishment and consequences are for us peasants.

PS. I never got to the irrelevant reason “why” the police attempted to murder the people in that car. It’s because they’re on a manhunt for an ex-military, ex-cop who’s hunting them down after being fired for fighting, of all things, police violence and corruption.

UK justice system terrified of Muslim minority.

Here we go again. A man, Adil Rashid, from an insulated Muslim community in England raped a 13-year old girl and was exonerated by a UK judge for “not knowing it was wrong to rape.” Judge Michael Stokes set Rashid free saying “you are very naive and immature when it comes to sexual matters.”

Rashid’s defense was that he was from an insulated community and “educated” in a madrassa where he was taught that “women are no more worthy than a lollipop that has been dropped on the ground.”

Assuming this guy honestly didn’t know it was wrong to rape a child (and let’s not bullshit ourselves, he knew), since when has ignorance of the law been a valid excuse? Oh I’m sorry officer, I’m from an insulated community and didn’t know it was wrong to speed. Yeah, that should get me out of a ticket. But this isn’t something minor like a speeding ticket. This man raped a child.

The UK justice system, just like so many other politicians, media outlets, and universities are terrified of enraging the Muslim communities that refuse to integrate into society at large. They are afraid that if they piss them off they will become violent and begin rioting and killing like they’ve done in the past over cartoons and low budget bullshit films on youtube.

Fear and cowardice disguised as a misguided sense of cultural relativism is at the heart of this matter. It’s not about race or immigration, as some might claim. No, immigrants and race have nothing to do with this. That’s a smoke screen put up by people who are terrified at the notion of calling someone else’s culture wrong.

Well guess what. Their culture is wrong. It’s fucked up. It’s backwards. Ours is fucked up too, but it’s a whole hell of a lot less fucked up than theirs. We don’t hold that half the population is worth the same as a “lollipop that has fallen on the ground.”

Laws don’t determine what’s right and wrong.

This November 5th some members of anonymous are planning on marching on Washington DC, possibly armed, to arrest the government. As noble as this idea is, in reality they’re going to be arrested the moment they put their hands on any members of the government. If they bring guns, people will be shot because all government authority ultimately rests on the shoulders of someone with a gun. What they’re attempting to do, overthrow the government, is illegal but it isn’t inherently wrong.

However, I feel that if you asked the common Joe/Jane on the street, anything illegal is wrong. I imagine their reasoning would be something as terse as “Well of course it’s wrong! It’s illegal. Things that are illegal are bad!”

Unfortunately, I feel a lot of people in our society have this mentality when it comes to laws. It extends from a view of morality instilled in us from childhood:

Mother and father say something is wrong, therefore it is wrong. Mother and father say it is wrong to break the law, therefore anything illegal is wrong.

The problem is that the law is not some perfect measure of good and bad. It’s written by other human beings, human beings who often have ulterior motives. Governments are living organisms, hive minds, composed of a plethora of smaller beings. All living organisms have a survival instinct. As such, one of the first things made illegal by any government is the overthrowing of that government.

There was a legal academy where I went to high school. Basically, it was some extra-curricular courses students could enroll in if they were interested in going to law school after high school. The idea was to give them foundational knowledge of the American legal system to help better prepare them for law school. The types of people who joined this legal academy were the type of people who loved to watch crime dramas on television, to read about crime mysteries in books, and enjoyed crime fighter comics like Batman and Judge Dredd.

I’ve noticed that later in life these type of people tend to be more conservative and had an obsession with crime and punishment. Their black and white view of right and wrong and over eagerness to punish perceived rule breakers always irritated me. They’re like some annoying self-righteous asshole kid on the school playground that always has to run and taddle on you, desperate for praise and recognition from the authority figure.

The big problem then becomes: What if the people writing the laws write unjust and wrong laws to protect their own misdeeds? What if the right thing is made illegal? Of course this happens all the time in real life. Coercive governments the world over write laws that protect their own interests and attempt to sanction their own crimes. Businesses with enough means bribe governments to write laws to manipulate the market and protect their own interests. It’s common practice.

So how do these crime and punishment types deal with this reality? They don’t. The compartmentalize it, ignore it, or rationalize it away with the just world hypothesis. Such complexities are not within their limited and comfortable range of comprehension.

And so this coming Monday those members of anonymous that march on Washington will experience the government’s monopoly on violence and will be branded criminals by the very people they’re trying to help. Never mind that their crime was trying to do the right thing.

Karma smarma

Good afternoon boys and girls! Today I want to talk about Karma! Every once in a while I run into someone who proudly touts the fact that they’re a “big believer in karma!” This they usually do with a smile on their lips, a twinkle in their eye, and a bounce in their step! Yes sur-ree! They firmly believe in that warm and fuzzy notion that every good action done will be payed back in return!

And that’s about as far as their thinking goes.

But let’s follow this notion through to its logical conclusion, shall we? Now karma is originally from the Hindu faith, a main tenant of which is reincarnation. You see, karma has two parts to it:

A do good and good things will happen to you.

Do bad and bad things will happen to you.

“What goes around comes around” is a simple summation. With reincarnation, karma acts as a sort of moral equalizer, an assurance of justice in this life or the next. If you do bad things now, sooner or later bad things will happen to you; which brings us to kids with cancer:

Aw, don’t feel bad for this little guy! He’s getting what he deserves! He must have been a horrible person in a past life! So too were his parents! Wow, can you imagine how bad they must have been to deserve to watch their otherwise innocent child slowly die before their eyes? Payback’s a bitch ain’t it? Oh well, you know what they say, “what goes around comes around!”

Whenever someone says they’re a big believer in karma, they most always mean they only believe in half of it, the feel good half.

People who don’t believe in reincarnation, yet who still want to hold onto karma, often try to rationalize this conclusion away. In my personal experience, the majority of these types of people are the warm and fuzzy, liberal “spiritual but not religious” types. The problem is, without the cycle of rebirth, karma loses a lot of its ability to be a moral equalizer. Karma without reincarnation has no good explanation for why bad shit happens to otherwise good people early on in their lives. (Like kids with cancer). These people simply haven’t been around long enough to accumulate enough bad karma to deserve something so horrible.

You could argue that it is a result of the child’s parents’ bad karma, but that is beyond not fair to the child; and karma’s supposed to be all about fairness!

The other problem with the idea of karma sans reincarnation is (ignoring childhood diseases) the notion that you will eventually get what you deserve later in life. All you have to do is take one look around the world to see that that is blatantly untrue! Bad people get away with everything all the time! Just look at politicians, bankers, and child molesting priests! Stalin killed between 20 and 80 million people and lived a life of luxury and power till his last dying gasp. Evil wins every single day while the downtrodden and oppressed are distracted with movies and TV dramas where good always wins out in the end.

No, for these “spiritual but not religious” types their karma is a special karma, one tailor made for what they wish were true: To them, karma mainly focuses on paying back good deeds. In the rare times when it deals with paying back bad deeds, the farthest it will ever go is in giving a speeding ticket to that jerk who cut you off at the stop light. That’s it. No worse “punishment” for simple things that offend the believer in karma.

At best it’s very self-serving. At worst it’s an excuse to be apathetic about achieving justice.

 

Discrimination and the goal for tomorrow

I’m at a loss for words as to why some people don’t understand that discrimination = bad. It’s so basic, like  a = a, that I’m paralyzed by the sheer stupidity of it all. Discrimination = injustice, injustice is wrong by definition. If you do discriminate it really speaks a lot about your character and your cause. That type of hate and injustice automatically makes you the bad guy. If you discriminate because your god tells you to, then that makes you delusional and your god evil. (Isn’t it funny how a person’s god always hates the same people they do? *Hint* It’s because they made up their god and are projecting their hate onto him) These concepts are so basic, I feel like a kindergartener typing them out, but apparently lots of people didn’t learn this concept in kindergarten.

I see history as a slow but steady march towards the goal of pure equality under the law. What is pure equality? Simple: pure equality under the law means that characteristics of a person, such as race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability, etc should not affect how the law treats a person. All that matters is that the person is a person, and Justice is blind to everything else. It shouldn’t matter if you’re a christian, muslim, jew, hindu, or atheist. It shouldn’t matter if you’re black, white, mixed, hispanic, etc. It shouldn’t matter if you’re gay, straight, or bi. It shouldn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman. It shouldn’t matter if you’re blind, deaf, or can’t walk. None of those things should matter when treating people equally under the law. This is the goal, to make everyone truly equal under the law. As I said, history is a slow march forward.

Originally in our society only white christian males were protected under the law. (Being rich helped too) Then came the fight to grant the same protection to women at the turn of the 20th century. Half a century later the blacks stepped forward to fight for their rights, just as the women did. Then the homosexual community stepped up and they’re still fighting today. Just 20 years ago the disabled community won a victory in the fight for equality with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The dream of pure equality is there in the constitution, it’s just a matter of fighting for it against those who would put themselves up by putting others down.

I would like to point out that there is a difference between equality under the law (the government) and private equality. For example: legally the law must be blind (pure equality concept), but private individuals and organizations that don’t serve the public at large (like a theater, stadium, or hospital) can discriminate. I view these people as immoral bastards and try to avoid them, but they have the right to be bastards on their private property. Here’s the catch: you can be a discriminating asshole on your own turf all you want, but if you’re going to reach into the public (government) piggy bank and take tax payer dollars, then you lose that right to be a discriminatory asshole. It’s one or the other. You can’t take everybody’s money, then turn around and discriminate against some of those people you just took money from.

Unfortunately private organizations do this every day. Some of them get sued (rightly so) and some don’t. The Boy Scouts are a perfect example. They discriminate against gays and atheists, yet they take tax payer money from those gays and atheists. The worst groups for doing things like this are religious groups. Religious charities often take tax payer money and then discriminate when it comes to who they hire and who gets the “charity”. Earlier this year the University of California was sued by the Christian Legal Society (a club there at the publicly funded school) because the school would not let the club discriminate against other students. (The club gets tax payer money from the school which is also tax payer funded) If discrimination and hate is part of your religion, fine, I think it’s sick and wrong, but you can practice that as long as you don’t take tax payer money. Why is that so hard to understand?

Now as I pointed out earlier, there is a difference between equality under the law, and private equality. We can enforce equality under the law, but we can’t force private individuals and organizations not to be bigots. In order to change individuals we must first enforce that law. As the law is enforced over the years, new generations are born and grow up living under the equal protection. The older, more bigoted generations eventually die off, and the younger, more tolerant ones take their place. This is how you slowly phase out individual bigotry through the enforcement of equal protection under the law. Eventually we will achieve the goal of pure equality. We will do this despite the best efforts of conservative politicians and religious groups. They will slowly be phased out and become irrelevant; just as the conservatives who protested womens’ right to vote, or the ones that protested fair and equal treatment for blacks, or the people who fought against making the government and businesses accessible to the disable, or the people who are currently fighting to deny gays equal protection. We will grind them out as we have in the past because they’re fighting for hate and prejudice, whereas we’re fighting for tolerance and justice.

Atheists have killed millions!

One of the most often used attacks against Atheists is to try and associate them with the French revolution and Communism. The “argument” goes something like this:

“The French revolution and Communism were run by Atheists and they killed millions of people! Therefore Atheism is evil and morally bankrupt.”

This claim is ridiculous on so many levels, yet this does not stop people from hurling it at Atheists. So, where many leaders of the French revolution Atheists? Yes. Were some leaders of communism Atheist? Yes. So that’s checkmate for the Atheists right? No.

There is a very important point that people repeatable fail to recognize: Killing is one thing, killing in the name of something else is another.

This is very important because although the French revolution and communism killed a lot of people, they did not do it in the name of Atheism. Religious fanatics on the other hand have been killing people for thousands of years in the name of their religion, because of their religion.

This is not to say that the killing done by the French revolution and communism should be dismissed, but that you’re comparing apples to oranges. People who killed other people and happened to be Atheists vs people who killed other people because of their religion. In fact, this is an extremely slippery slope for religious people to go down. If they want to claim that Atheism is bad because some people who happened to be Atheists committed crimes, then they are completely damning themselves for this simple reason:

There has always been more religious people than Atheists. Because of Atheism’s smaller population, inevitably more people have been killed throughout history by those who happened to be religious. This includes all murders done by religious people for religious AND non-religious motives. Comparatively murders committed by Atheists are fewer in number, and murders done by Atheists for religious reasons fewer still.

“Well, ok, so there are more theists than Atheists, I bet proportionally the numbers are still equal.” Wrong. When you average out the data to see the ratio of murders done by Atheists per population of Atheists to murders done by theists per population of theists, Atheists commit fewer crimes than theists.

If you defends terrorists, you are one.

So recently Liz Cheney has come out with a group “Keep America Safe” which ran this ad:

They want to know the identities of the other defense attorneys assigned to defend accused terrorists. Why don’t they just look? It’s not like the government is hiding it.

Whose values do they share? Seriously? Well aparently they have American values because they are defending people they most likely have a loathing for because the constitution says they must!

The sixth amendment to the constitution states:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

The defense attorneys are assigned cases. Just because they defend a client because the constitution requires it does not mean they agree with the client’s alleged actions.

“Oh, but the terrorists don’t get the protection guaranteed by the constitution because they are not Americans!”

Wrong!

First off, until they are convicted in a trial by jury they are “alleged” terrorists. Sorry, but “innocent until proven guilty” still applies, even when you don’t want it to.

Secondly, the constitution applies to all people, not just citizens.

The fifth amendment to the constitution:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The idea of “citizens” doesn’t even enter the constitution until the 14th amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Notice how after the amendment defines citizen, it switches back to using “person” instead of citizen. The constitution applies to all people when they are interacting with the government.

But no, Liz Cheney, ever as raving mad and paranoid as her father, wants to just skip the constitution and execute anyone they deem a terrorist. Don’t give them a trial. If you do and someone defends them, their defender is a terrorist themselves. Why not just shoot them in the head and save time? Glenn Beck advocates doing that. So ideally, Liz and Beck would skip trials and shoot suspected terrorists right then and there. But I thought conservatives believed the government can never do anything right. And now they want to trust the government to execute people without a trial just because they suspect them of being terrorists?

He’s not white and he has a beard! Kill him!!!!

I cannot convey the utter disgust I have for Liz Cheney and Glenn Beck on this. Their views are the very definition of anti-American. They run directly counter to what is explicitly stated in the U.S. Constitution.

Cheney’s “Keep America Safe” group is also pro-torture, which is not only horrendously illegal, but morally bankrupt. Oh yes, let us throw away any moral high ground we have, and ignore all the laws that make us a civilized society, so we can cater to your rabid paranoia. HELL NO!

Dick Cheney and torture

Ah good ol’ Dick. I’d been thinking about writing this post for some time now, but after yesterday’s “dueling speeches” by the president and former VP I can no longer resist.

“Enhanced interrogation” is one of the most bullshit phrases I’ve ever heard. I mean, it’s so blatantly a new-speak euphemism it’s beyond me how some people can swallow it.

I find it very interesting that the one fall back position Bush republicans seem to have is “we kept the country safe! After 9/11 there were no successful attacks!!!” Yeah, well what about 9/11? Oh that doesn’t count? Let me guess, it was all somehow Clinton’s fault? What about all the time Bush spent playing golf and not reading the intelligence briefings before 9/11? The attacks did happen under republican watch.

Torture is illegal and wrong no matter what the Bush law team tries to come up with, no matter what they decided to name it. We executed Japanese war criminals after WWII for waterboarding. The really interesting thing that came out just recently is the story of how Alberto Gonzales was okaying torture months before the “torture memos” came out. He was doing this at a time when he was not attorney general, just Bush’s lawyer!

Check out this segment about it on the Rachel Maddow show.

Ali Soufan, the guy who first found uncovered the link between the 9/11 attacks and Al Qaeda was interrogating Zubaida and actually getting somewhere when he was pushed aside by a contractor, James Mitchell, working for the CIA. Mitchell, who had absolutely zero interrogation experience or training, developed a torture program that Gonzales signed off on.

Even if you accept the bullshit idea that just because a team of lawyers writes a magic piece of paper saying torture is ok, and that the US doesn’t need to abide by the Geneva conventions, the torture was going on before those lawyers wrote up that magical piece of paper.

I think a lot of republicans are very scared people. Dick Cheney, and the republican leaders know this and exploit it. I think he brought up 9/11 in his speech 24 times. He even opened by recounting the terror of that day. Am I scared? No. Yes there are people out there who want to kill us, but if we live in fear of them, they win. What Dick Cheney advocates is nothing short of destroying all the values we stand for in a misguided attempt to make us safer.

If we compromise on our values, then what do we have left? What have we then become? The terrorists will have succeeded in destroying America. Do I dispute that the people like Zubaida are bad people? No, but republicans like Cheney are so swept up in a blind, fear fueled rage that they think they are justified in stooping this low. They are so sure of their own righteousness that they can’t fathom anything they do as wrong. They see themselves as patriotic heroes, willing to do the dirty work to protect their country.

For this reason I don’t call them evil, but they are sorely mistaken. Their attempts at making us safer only give the terrorists a rallying point. It tarnishes our image in the world as “the good guys”. In a war of idea, this is crucial. The only way we can try to regain some of our lost image is to prosecute those responsible just like we prosecuted the Japanese war criminals.

Yeah, it may be hard to swallow, but if we don’t, then we have absolutely no right to claim that we are a nation of laws. By not prosecuting we will be saying that our laws don’t mean anything as long as you are sure enough of you’re own righteousness, and have a group of lawyers write up a magical piece of paper. What kind of foundation is that for justice?