Blog 2.1

I don’t know how many people have been following the Morse v. Frederick Supreme Court case (aka “Bong Hits 4 Jesus”) but I want to make sure it’s known what Clarence Thomas thought of the case. Remember, as a Supreme Court Justice he is one of the most powerful people in our government.

The court ruled 5-4 that Frederick’s banner was not speech protected by the First Amendment. “Because schools may take steps to safeguard those entrusted to their care from speech that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use, the school officials in this case did not violate the First Amendment by confiscating the pro-drug banner and suspending Frederick.”

I have many problems with this ruling, not the least of which is the suggesting that a banner reading “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” is a sufficiently persuasive statement to “encourage illegal drug use.” I can only imagine all the young impressionable minds in the audience of that Olympic torch relay, confused about how to best express their love and devotion to Jesus until suddenly, on the horizon, they see the answer to their question in the form of a shoddy, hand-made banner bearing the prophetic phrase “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.”

Reading the holding of the court only served to increase my disbelief of this ruling. How did the majority reach this conclusion? And, perhaps more importantly, how long before a clip of a Supreme Court justice uttering the phrase “Bong Hits for Jesus” appears on YouTube? Time will yield an answer to the latter, but the amazing opinion paper submitted by Clarence Thomas sheds some light on the former.

For those of you interested, you can read Justice Thomas’ complete opinion here.

I’ll give you some highlights.

Translation: Tinker provided students limited protection of free speech (in that case, three Des Moines students wore black armbands to school in protest of the Vietnam War). Thomas disagrees, and believes it should be thrown out - that students are not protected by the First Amendment in any way, shape or form. Furthermore, this statement suggests that anything the Constitution does not explicitly protect can be prohibited at will.

By his own logic, Thomas shouldn’t even be allowed to be a justice of the court. After all, if blacks were originally understood to have the rights and privileges of citizens, then the courts of our founders would have enforced them. By this same logic, Justice Ginsburg should not be allowed to vote.

The general theme of Thomas’ opinion is that everything would be fine if our schools returned to 19th-century practices. In that light, this statement implies that present-day schools are also not places for the “debate of competing ideas.” The lunacy of this statement leaves me as a loss for words.

Thomas continues on celebrating the strict discipline handed out by 19th-century schoolmasters to their students, and closes his opinion with this statement:

That’s right. If it were up to Thomas, students wouldn’t even have the right to protest an unpopular war by merely wearing an armband to school. At 17, a young man can fight and die for his country, but he is not allowed to silently and peacefully express his opinion at his school. In fact, it would be prudent for him to be beaten for doing so. This is the opinion of one of the most influential people in our government.

Keep in mind, this is all going on while we have a Vice President who claims he is not compelled to make disclosures demanded of the entire executive branch because the post of VP is “not a part of the executive branch” and a President who thinks it’s permissible to suspend the writ of habeas corpus despite the fact that such an act is clearly forbidden by Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution (apparently civics wasn’t their strongest subject in high school). Where is the Congress in all of this? Don’t worry, they’re busy with important matters like deciding how to handle the pensions of professional football players.

God Bless America, land of the free.

Article 1, Section 9, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution of the United States of America:

“The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

The “War on Terror” involves neither a rebellion within nor an invasion of the United States, and to suspend Habeas Corpus is unconstitutional. While terrorism is certainly not a matter to be taken lightly, it does not threaten to overthrow our government.

As long as the Bush administration chooses to suspend Habeas Corpus it is violating the Constitution. How much clearer does it need to be?

Today on CNN’s website: continuing coverage of the flooding in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma. Here’s an excerpt:

“The rain-swollen rivers and streams that make up the Missouri River system are cresting at different times as the water makes its way westward toward St. Louis, where the Missouri River meets the Mississippi…” (emphasis mine)

I’m sure there’s a story elsewhere on the site regarding continued under-achievement of American students when it comes to geography. I wonder if those reporters are somewhere near Denver at the moment. “Hey Bob, are we close to St. Louis yet?”

This is almost as good as the story about China launching space program to reach the moon. The image accompanying the story was an illustration of a Japanese flag on the surface of the moon.

Today CNN has posted what I’m going to call the “Misleading Headline of the Day” and it involves (shock of shocks!) sensationalizing the involvement of video games in gun violence.

Today’s headline reads: “Video game behind off-campus shooting”

Let’s examine the story: Guy allegedly steals a Playstation, owners confront him, he shoots at them, killing one person and injuring two others.

Now, I’m no journalist, but it seems to me that CNN is being sensational and irresponsible in their wording. If I had to guess, I’d say that an editor is trying very hard to combine the words “video game” and “behind shooting.” And, since the people involved were college students, CNN goes ahead and throws in the word “campus” just to spice it up a bit and get the attention of concerned parents. Omit just four characters of that headline and it reads “Video game behind campus shooting.” Hmm… could they be trying to use events at Virginia Tech to get more traffic to this story?

Furthermore, I doubt the conflict would have happened if we were just talking about a video game (as in, the relatively inexpensive software one plays on a game console). The fact of the matter is that a Playstation console was stolen, probably a $500 Playstation 3. But read the headline again, doesn’t it conjure up images of bleary eyed teenagers playing a Jack Thompson “murder simulator” while plotting a twisted spree of violence?

The headline should have read “Alleged theft of video game console leads to shooting.” The key word here is “theft.” A video game did not insight this violence, theft did.

Shame on CNN for distorting the facts and demonizing the wrong party in an effort to sell the news. No media bias? Sure, tell that to Sony.

Maybe France and the US aren’t so different after all. After President Bush barely scraped by in his campaign for re-election, winning the title of Commander in Chief by the slimmest of majorities, he boasted of having earned “political capital” which allowed him to pursue his agenda while ignoring the half of the country that does not agree with his policies.

After an election in France that brought out 85% of the voting population (okay… maybe our two countries aren’t as similar as I thought…) Nicolas Sarkozy, like President Bush, was elected by the slimmest of majorities: 53% of the vote in a two-horse race. The BBC is already reporting the election as a “resounding win” and Sarkozy’s PR people are, like the Bush administration in 2004 and the Democrats in 2006, calling the election a “political mandate.”

I understand that both administrations want to make the most of the win, and that it is easier to affect change when you’ve got a good momentum going. What these two officials, and majority of our own Congress, seem to forget is that nearly half of voters do not agree with them. And furthermore, the desires of half of the population should not be brushed aside or ignored. 53% is not a mandate. Nine out of ten is a mandate.

Is it any wonder that we find ourselves in a country that is viciously split over seemingly every shred of legislation? This idea that a slim majority gives elected officials a “mandate” to pursue one-sided policy and ignore half of their constituency is outrageous. People need to extract themselves from the media-fed concept of red states versus blue states and realize that we’ll all be better off if we give at least some consideration to the ideas and desires of those with whom we disagree. As the Republicans learned last November, a few votes can turn the tables… and nine out of ten farmers agree that you reap what you sow.