The first nugget of fun that made my eyes go buggy and the veins in my temples twitch was the House of Representatives, at the prompting of one Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), holding a moment of silence in remembrance of…wait for it… (Hint: It wasn’t a head of state, religious leader, or a renowned human rights activist) Michael Jackson! Musician, entertainer, and probable pedophile! (Believe me, I’m being generous here with the adjective “probable.” One doesn’t pay $22,000,000 to settle out of court when you’re innocent. Two years later, Jackson admitted to sleeping with children in a televised interview, after which several charges of pedophilia were made. He ended up with an acquittal, but so did OJ – thus illustrating the maxim “Better that ten guilty men escape than one innocent suffer,” postulated by William Blackstone. I had a career in law enforcement, I understand the rules of jurisprudence, and based on the evidence in both the Jackson and Simpson cases, IMNSHO, Blackstone applies.)

The second one was also courtesy of the House. In the midst of voting for what may prove to be the most influential piece of legislation in this decade, a 1200 page climate control bill containing provisions that will affect every person in the country, the Democratic leadership tacked on a 300 page amendment. In the midst of the vote. AT 3 O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING! And when the Minority Leader, John Boehner (R-OH), decided to read the amendment out loud, so that… oh, I don’t know… house members might actually have a CLUE about what a last-second amendment contains, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) (not so co-incidentally a sponsor of the bill) had the gall to question Boehner’s appropriateness.

I acknowledge that the filibuster is a tool of the Senate, not the House, but to introduce legislation without granting the legislators the time to read and review it seems criminal, in my eyes. And to object when a member of the House Leadership finds that so unaccepatble that he is compelled to read the amendment into the record smacks of self serving bullshit. Thank goodness the Speaker Pro Tempore, Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) had the common sense to rule that Boehner was in order. It’s nice to know they’re not ALL criminally negligent on Capitol Hill…

Free speech is bad words, too
By ROBYN E. BLUMNER
Published January 23, 2005

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Nowhere in the Constitution is there a guaranteed freedom from being offended. It is not a right that comes with American citizenship, like the right to vote. Just the opposite. If the Constitution had a warning label, it would read: Caution, your right to freedom of speech means others have a parallel right, which is highly likely to occasionally provoke anger, annoyance, disgust and offense.

This is a very small price to pay for the ability to speak our minds. But apparently it is too high for some. These people are the overly sensitive, easily wounded, walking eggshells among us who equate being offended with being a victim – a status from which they firmly believe the government should protect them. They want the state to determine taste and propriety (as long as it comports perfectly with their own) and enforce those standards in law. Pandering politicians are more than happy to oblige.

The danger is that their demand for the cleansing of public discourse gives the government the power to shut down some speakers and strip the emotive force from others, transforming “freedom of speech” into “speech at the government’s leave.”

Broadcasters, for example, have always served up programming under the threat of government sanctions for disapproval. This fact became more evident recently, when, after Janet Jackson’s breast exposure at last year’s Super Bowl, Congress rushed to hold hearings on broadcast indecency.

The swirl of controversy led to skyrocketing fines for profanity – with the result that 66 television stations refused to air the Oscar-winning war epic Saving Private Ryan on Veterans Day. Now the FCC is investigating the opening ceremonies of the summer Olympics in Greece. Apparently, the camera caught sight of a nude male statue.

Government-approved fare tends toward mush.

In 1978, when the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling said the FCC could police radio broadcasts for indecency despite the First Amendment, the justices emphasized that it was a narrow ruling, not applicable beyond the broadcast medium. But people don’t appreciate this distinction. They say, understandably, that if government is permitted to clean up dirty language on television, then why not wherever it appears?

Which brings us to the brouhaha in Clearwater. In December, at an outdoor concert at Coachman Park billed as the Next Big Thing IV, 12,500 fans of alternative rock enjoyed 10 different bands. But because five people in the surrounding neighborhoods complained to police about the vulgar language and obscenities used by some of the musicians, the city plans on vetting future acts.

Kevin Dunbar, the city’s director of Parks and Recreation, after being pushed to address the “problem” by the mayor and City Council, says that the city will be more particular about who is booked to perform. “(The city will) look to bring in the kind of groups that are more mainstream so we are not offending the people who live in the outlying areas,” Dunbar says.

Maybe the next concert should be called the Next Banal Thing.

This is censorship just as if the city passed an ordinance flatly prohibiting profanity by musicians in the park. Just because it occurs behind the scenes doesn’t make it any more palatable.

It is also a sadly predictable response. Last summer, the Mandeville City Council in Louisiana warned that any profanity used by musicians at the Mandeville Trailhead outdoor amphitheater would lead to their arrest. The facilities manager now has all musicians sign an agreement to self-censor before they go on.

Elected officials generally stand with clamoring constituents against the free speech rights of the profane or unpopular. Only the First Amendment acts as a bulwark against this censorious reflex, and courts must be counted on to man the ramparts.

In the past, they have.

The seminal case is the 1971 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Cohen vs. California. The facts involve a young Paul Robert Cohen who, in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War, walked into the Los Angeles County Courthouse wearing a jacket with the words “F– the Draft” emblazoned on the back. For wearing a profane jacket, Cohen was charged and convicted of disturbing the peace. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail.

The Supreme Court threw out his conviction on free-speech grounds. Justice John Harlan wrote in ringing eloquence of why society must tolerate bad language: “(W)hile the particular four-letter word being litigated here is perhaps more distasteful than most others of its genre, it is nevertheless often true that one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” (Could he have known that Eminem was coming?)

Harlan also noted that the use of curse words serves a “dual communicative function,” not only as the expression of an idea but as an emotional vehicle. “Words,” Harlan said, “are often chosen as much for their emotive as their cognitive force.”

Harlan is saying that in protecting the crassest amongst us, we uphold the highest values of a free society. So the next time you’re deeply offended, whether it is by a musician cursing at a neighboring outdoor concert or, as I am, by the inane rantings of Ann Coulter, smile – that just means you live in freedom.

Nice to know common sense ain’t quite dead, yet, folks…

It’s time we stopped pointing fingers at each other. So long as people continue to bicker like a couple in the midst of a Hollywood divorce (I mean really. Who gives a damn who gets the Tupperware?) nothing will improve. That’s the trap, don’t you see? If the pundits and politicos can make us bicker, they know we’ll be too busy getting pissed at each other to get pissed at THEM. Divided, we are weak. UNITED, we are STRONG.

I understand what Vice President Biden meant when he suggested for weather Americans that “…It’s time to be patriotic … time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.”  And to an extent, I agree.  As citizens, we have a responsibility to fund those programs which keep us safe and secure.

But our elected officials have a responsibility as well, one that they have been sorely neglecting.  If paying one’s taxes is an act of patriotisim, then proper stewardship of said revenues becomes a sacred trust, and it then follows that gross mismanagement of the peoples money borders on treason.

I know what patriotisim is. Sometimes, it’s serving your country in uniform, be it for 2 years or 20. Sometimes, it’s standing up for what you believe in, like, say, Freedom of Speech. Sometimes, it’s standing up for what somebody else believes in – like, say, respecting someone else’s Freedom of Speech. (As a twenty-year veteran of the military, I get mighty pissed off when I see somebody disrespecting our flag. Burn a flag in front of me, and I’ll try very, very, hard not to wrap you in it. But at the same time, I will defend to the death your right to burn it. As much as it means, the flag is just a symbol. A symbol of a set of principles which were espoused in 1776, and codified in 1790. And amongst those principles is freedom of expression. Burning the symbol of your country is perhaps not in the best taste, but it most definately is an expression. The Supreme Court even says so.)

I’ll tell you what patriotisim is not: It is not accepting the partisan bickering that we, the people, have had to put up with for so long. It is not hollow claims that it’s our “patriotic duty” to pay our taxes, and be happy about it while we’re at it. And Most Esteemed and Honorable Senators and Congressmen, most of all, it is not advocating increased taxes to fund your pet projects when you have the spending decipline of a five-year-old. Do not, I repeat, do NOT ask me to pay more taxes until you people learn how to use what you already have, responsibly and with regard to the (fiscal) welfare of the national interest. It’s time our elected officials and our media pundits behaved like statesmen and professionals, rather than the petulant spoiled children they currently emulate.

And the solution is simple.  Vote them gone.  All of them.  Every single incumbent in the upcoming national election.

What do you imagine the reaction would be amongst the 67 United States Senators who aren’t up for re-election in 2010, if on the morning of November 3rd they woke to discover that not one single incumbent in either chamber of Congress would be returning in January?  That 468 brand-new freshman Senators and Representitives would be arriving on Capitol Hill, with a mandate to return Government to its rightful master – the people?  Do you think we would have their attention? 

You bet we would.