Constitution

The Land of the Free

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Ken MacLeod did not want to risk his freedom:

Recently, on being asked if I intended to visit the United States some time soon, I indulged in the admittedly cheap crack that ‘I’m staying in the free world until America rejoins it.’ Trivial and theoretical though the risk may be, I just didn’t fancy being in a country where you can in theory be disappeared, interrogated and executed without any trial other than by a military tribunal. It wasn’t something I said lightly, because I really enjoyed all my past visits to America.

But now says:

On the bright side, however, I have no reason for not going to America.

Go read why he changed his mind.

Felons Voting

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Once their debt has been paid, once they have spent their time in jail x-felons must be allowed to vote. Talkleft suggests this and an issue that democrats should take up and Raise Your Hands asks:

where are the African American and Hispanic leaders on this issue, considering the skewed disenfranchisment of the poor and minorities.

And I propose going one step more and support no denial of voting rights for any citizen under any circumstances.

Evil Canadian, Bad Soldiers

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Jeffrey Kofman wrote this story and on Wednesday Drudge revisited old news identifying Kofman as both gay and canadian which to some, including Kofman, appeared to be new news:

Reached in Baghdad, the Toronto-born Mr. Kofman expressed surprise at being singled out because of his passport.
“I guess my secret is out now,” he said.

As they again use ad hominem arguments to protect themselves the bushies steamroll ahead squashing those who spoke out:

“It was the end of the world,” said one officer Thursday. “It went all the way up to President Bush and back down again on top of us. At least six of us here will lose our careers.”
First lesson for the troops, it seemed: Don’t ever talk to the media “on the record” — that is, with your name attached — unless you’re giving the sort of chin-forward, everything’s-great message the Pentagon loves to hear.

This appears pretty consistent with the bushie view that freedom of speech is ok as long as it speaks the bushie line.

Frist in Your Home

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Bill Frist, our exemplary senate majority leader, has this to say about Lawrence v Texas:

“I have this fear that this zone of privacy that we all want protected in our own homes is gradually � or I’m concerned about the potential for it gradually being encroached upon, where criminal activity within the home would in some way be condoned,” Frist told ABC’s This Week.
“And I’m thinking of � whether it’s prostitution or illegal commercial drug activity in the home … to have the courts come in, in this zone of privacy, and begin to define it gives me some concern.”

This, from MaxSpeak is the best response to Frist that I’ve so far seen:

Lacking any principled criticism of homosexuality that they are willing to make public, our own domestic Taliban has to segue to shit-for-brains analogies to criminal behavior.**

Being a congress critter Frist probably thinks he and his ilk are in congress to tell us who we can kiss and probably would probably like to prescribe our reading list as well :

Frist said Sunday he respects the Supreme Court decision but feels the justices overstepped their bounds.
“Generally, I think matters such as sodomy should be addressed by the state legislatures,” Frist said. “That’s where those decisions � with the local norms, the local mores � are being able to have their input in reflected.
“And that’s where it should be decided, and not in the courts.”

I think the court has just explained to Frist and all those state legislatures that the area of consensual adult behavior is not a subject for legislation, that the tyranny of local norms and mores is coming to an end, that even a majority of congess critters shall not infringe our human rights. The battles are far from over but Lawrence is a big step.

**Bilmon, in the MaxSpeak comment thread, asks: “Aren’t you being a little unfair to shit?”

Update: Mike Silverman has a graphic depiction of how to deal with Frist, et al.

Affirmative Action

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Brad Delong writes an excellent piece on affirmative action in response to Andrew Sullivan that begins:

Andrew Sullivan doesn’t see what is so wrong with an elite university with no black people in it:

But why is a racially un-diverse but intellectually multi-faceted campus such a bad thing? Why is a world without… [affirmative action] so “intolerable”?

I think that the politest possible response is that this demonstrates, more than anything else, that Andrew Sullivan is simply and totally clueless about what America is.

Read the rest of the post and the comment thread. There are some challenging ideas that you may not agree with. I know I am going to have to give quite a bit of thought to a couple of questions he raises: 1) how long the marks of historical experience can be considered to last and 2) the concept of collective responsibility.