I came across this post at a blog I accassionally visit. Though my own personal feelings may not run as deep as this gentleman, I do carry a sense of trepidation with regard to the direction our country seems to be headed.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
I’M FRIGHTENED
by Richard Johnson
My concept of fear has evolved over the years. I used to be afraid of dark rooms and, as a little boy, I asked my mother to come in and look under the bed, in the closet and verify that there was nothing to fear in these locations Gradually I became confident that I could go to bed by myself, confident that nothing yucky was going to come out of the darker places and do me harm. (Though I still tried to sleep without arms or feet hanging out over the edge of the mattress, just in case something was under the bed that might find those parts appetizing.
Gradually I developed a clear understanding that though things might make me nervous (going on stage, first night (I did a stint in Long Beach, California where I found that one of the world’s great actresses routinely had someone standing off state holding a bucket incase she had to throw up before her first entrance); asking for a date, taking an exam in Hymena Hoffman’s history class, (one of the worlds all time great teachers, but a giver of exams that might curl your hair) driving a car solo for the first time, working up nerve to kiss your first girl, etc. Fright was reserved for things that might create permanent damage. There are things in my life that seriously frightened me: Driving a truck full of blocks down a steep curvy hill and putting my foot on the brake only to have the brake pedal go down to the floor; standing in the jump door of a Ford tri-motor airplane wearing a forest service parachute not much bigger (in my opinion) than an umbrella, then, on cue, jumping out that door, knowing it to be the last voluntary act of my life; prowling the city dump with friends in search of (I don’t remember what we were looking for) and having a brown bear rise up out of the refuse about ten feet away, looking like he was sixteen feet tall and shaking his head angrily; climbing my first forty plus foot pole with belt and hooks to instal the cross bars, braces and insulators to help install the Union Pacific Railroad CTC (central train control system), then feeling my arms, without my volition, reach out and clutch the pole (“freezing” on the pole, they call it), necessitating that at least two other climbers, (seemed like twenty) climbing the pole, attaching a pulley to my back, and literally prying my arms loose so they could get me back on the ground. (Actually the most frightening thing was when the foreman told me I had to immediately climb a pole again, and finish the job, or be laid off – with a wife and three children, one of them newborn, all, needing my salary to survive), that second pole was as bad as the jump door of the airplane).
These have always been the kinds of things that I felt were frightening, but they are immediate things, and you either survive them or not (obviously I did). When I say I am frightened, I don’t fear an immediate strike of lightening, but my fear is as vivid, just not as immediate and my fear is not of personal death, but for the death of the type of nation I have come to love.
A number of things which have happened since the election of President Obama which have made me nervous and distrustful, but I never felt an emotion that approached real fear until the administration launched its attack on the Fox news network (The Fox Network such as it is, holds no special place in my heart) an act, which, if upheld, essentially vitiates any hope we have for freedom of expression, a central focus of our Constitution and our way of life. Political correctness forces have been picking at this freedom for some time, but this is a frontal assault on the core of Bill of Rights. Almost at the same time it was revealed that our country (as one of a group) has endorsed a United Nations resolution that could become law in our country if some have their way, making public speech or criticism of an faith or religious group an international crime (the article I read implies that it identified this form of criticism as a form of terrorism.
The implications are mind boggling and hold more threat to our existence as it is than could be completely imagined.
I was calming down on this subject, but as I sat in our Cardiologist’s office, the President was shown being interview by some lady newsperson and his answers to her softball questions were so self convicting of Obama’s feeling that any organized criticism of his programs deserve stifling that my feeling rose again. Thus, this post!!!
Showing posts with label Constitution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Constitution. Show all posts
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
11 year old gives speech to Tea Party crowd
Sara Warmack is just 11 years old. On the 4th of July she stood before a Tea Party crowd in Tallahassee Florida and gave a well thought out, heart stirring, freedom ringing speech.
I know it has been over two months since she gave this speech, but it was just brought to my attention this week.
Keep in mind, there was no teleprompter for this young patriot.
I know it has been over two months since she gave this speech, but it was just brought to my attention this week.
Keep in mind, there was no teleprompter for this young patriot.
If I find the text to this speech I will post a link to it.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Fourth Amendment Damaged?
It is not often that I find myself agreeing with Ruth Bader Ginsberg, but I have to think that this is a case worthy of further discussion. An article from USA Today highlights a recent decision of the Supreme Court that allows evidence against a person, obtained via an unlawful arrest, to be used against that person.
The case in point centers around a person that is, arguably, an idiot that probably did deserve what he got:
A warrant clerk in Coffee County, Ala., mistakenly told a police investigator that a warrant from a nearby county was out for Bennie Dean Herring, who had driven to the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department to get something from his impounded truck. The Dale County computer error was quickly discovered. But by the time the warrant clerk alerted the police investigator, Herring had been arrested and found with an illegal pistol and with methamphetamine in his pocket.
Bennie’s attorney naturally argued that because the arrest had arisen from bad information, and the arrest was therefore illegal, that evidence seized could not be used against him in a court. The lower courts upheld the decision to use the evidence and the Supreme Court verified that decision in a split of five to four.
I have to say that this decision bothers me, and I find myself in the rather odd position of agreeing with the more left-oriented members of the Supreme Court. Ginsberg points out errors in government computers are not at all rare, and, just because the police did not set out to intentionally infringe on his constitutional rights, that did not give them the power to do so. In other words, for the long arm of the Law, it can be negligent and there are no consequences.
Again, to be fair, it is harder to think ill of the Coffee County, AL police, because, seriously, what kind of idiot brings a gun and a pocketful of meth to the police station? Further, he was there to get items from an already impounded truck, so methinks that the police had a right to be suspicious in the first place. But rule of law is not designed to protect only upstanding citizens with more than one operating brain cell; it is designed to protect us all. If Law Enforcement in general has no incentive to keep its data clean and thus protect us from undue harassment, then you can bet that it will not.
Recently, the Dallas Police Dept. came under serious scrutiny because they had gone so far as to purposely plant evidence on people, and they arrested, prosecuted and jailed these poor unfortunates. The victims of that abuse have been finally exonerated, but what is to stop a law agency from planting bad information on citizens in their computers since they can use that for searches that they could not otherwise do? Should the police then find anything on one’s person or property that could cause charges to be brought, then it would be up to the defendant to prove that the police were deliberately trying to deprive them of their rights. How would a defendant go about that process? In the case of the Dallas PD, once the evidence was shown to be powdered drywall and not cocaine, the results were obvious. How do you do that for bad data?
I make a living working in databases, and have for better than 20 years now, and I can tell you that that scares me. Even the best data bases have errors, and that is why audits are so necessary. In my case, having bad data affects the bottom line, and so we have a powerful incentive to clean our data. Not only that, we are responsible for our data and “negligence” is not an excuse that would work at all. In fact, it would likely get us into trouble and fired. Not so for law enforcement, now that the SCOTUS has delivered its wisdom to the masses.
I open this item up for discussion as a way to see where my reasoning could be so far off from the likes of Antonin Scalia.
The case in point centers around a person that is, arguably, an idiot that probably did deserve what he got:
A warrant clerk in Coffee County, Ala., mistakenly told a police investigator that a warrant from a nearby county was out for Bennie Dean Herring, who had driven to the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department to get something from his impounded truck. The Dale County computer error was quickly discovered. But by the time the warrant clerk alerted the police investigator, Herring had been arrested and found with an illegal pistol and with methamphetamine in his pocket.
Bennie’s attorney naturally argued that because the arrest had arisen from bad information, and the arrest was therefore illegal, that evidence seized could not be used against him in a court. The lower courts upheld the decision to use the evidence and the Supreme Court verified that decision in a split of five to four.
I have to say that this decision bothers me, and I find myself in the rather odd position of agreeing with the more left-oriented members of the Supreme Court. Ginsberg points out errors in government computers are not at all rare, and, just because the police did not set out to intentionally infringe on his constitutional rights, that did not give them the power to do so. In other words, for the long arm of the Law, it can be negligent and there are no consequences.
Again, to be fair, it is harder to think ill of the Coffee County, AL police, because, seriously, what kind of idiot brings a gun and a pocketful of meth to the police station? Further, he was there to get items from an already impounded truck, so methinks that the police had a right to be suspicious in the first place. But rule of law is not designed to protect only upstanding citizens with more than one operating brain cell; it is designed to protect us all. If Law Enforcement in general has no incentive to keep its data clean and thus protect us from undue harassment, then you can bet that it will not.
Recently, the Dallas Police Dept. came under serious scrutiny because they had gone so far as to purposely plant evidence on people, and they arrested, prosecuted and jailed these poor unfortunates. The victims of that abuse have been finally exonerated, but what is to stop a law agency from planting bad information on citizens in their computers since they can use that for searches that they could not otherwise do? Should the police then find anything on one’s person or property that could cause charges to be brought, then it would be up to the defendant to prove that the police were deliberately trying to deprive them of their rights. How would a defendant go about that process? In the case of the Dallas PD, once the evidence was shown to be powdered drywall and not cocaine, the results were obvious. How do you do that for bad data?
I make a living working in databases, and have for better than 20 years now, and I can tell you that that scares me. Even the best data bases have errors, and that is why audits are so necessary. In my case, having bad data affects the bottom line, and so we have a powerful incentive to clean our data. Not only that, we are responsible for our data and “negligence” is not an excuse that would work at all. In fact, it would likely get us into trouble and fired. Not so for law enforcement, now that the SCOTUS has delivered its wisdom to the masses.
I open this item up for discussion as a way to see where my reasoning could be so far off from the likes of Antonin Scalia.
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