Short Memories and the Ignorance of History

A couple years ago I found that an old friend had become dyed in the wool Republican. I guess it took me back a little, considering we’ve been pretty close since meeting in 1969. We were both street freaks in those early days… if you know what that means you get a gold star. The “man” called us hippies, and the man hated the way we lived. So yeah… it kinda shook me to learn that he’d gone GOPer. There were gaps in there, and I just don’t know what happened to turn him this way. Then just a few days ago I found that he was not only Republican, but also in Trump’s corner. I don’t think a poke in the eye with a hot iron would have hurt me as bad as learning that. All the old memories keep dancing in my head. And all the history of the man makes it all the more difficult. I didn’t react too well.

JFK was murdered when I was a freshman in high school. The world seemed so full of hate right about then. Reminds me so much of this election season. Living in Texas I knew well the effects of hate and racism, but I couldn’t figure out why JFK had to die. Even though I’d gotten started politicking at the ripe old age of 10, I didn’t know much about Kennedy other than what I could read in our little paper and the speechifying I heard on radio and TV. I liked him… impressionable I guess… didn’t like Tricky Dick, so I picked up some flyers and bumper stickers and went around offering them to folks. LBJ needed help too, so I did it again.

What I didn’t know was that Kennedy or Johnson had a hand in what would eventually happen at Kent State. Every president from Woodrow Wilson to Obama has had a part in it, but the deed that changed me happened on Nixon’s watch. But we can’t pin it on him any more than we could LBJ or JFK before him. No, this got started in 1919 with a group called the GID, some very controversial operations identified as the Palmer Raids, and a man called Marcus Garvey. This snip from the Biography website identifies the roots of the surveillance culture with which we still suffer today.

“… In 1919, [J. Edgar] Hoover targeted Pan-African leader Marcus Garvey, naming him a "notorious negro agitator," and began searching for any evidence that would allow Garvey to be charged with a crime. In December of 1919, afraid of Garvey's growing influence, Hoover hired the first black agent in the Bureau's history: James Wormley Jones. Jones was sent to gather intelligence on Garvey, and the resulting information led Hoover and his group to sabotage Garvey's Black Star Line, a series of ships meant to transport goods between the black communities of North America, the Caribbean and Africa. Hoover [ … ] spent much of his career gathering intelligence on radical groups and individuals and "subversives," Martin Luther King Jr. being one of his favorite targets. Hoover's methods included infiltration, burglaries, illegal wiretaps and planted evidence, and his legacy is tainted because of it. He died in Washington, D.C., on May 2, 1972…”

Two years and a day before his death, the culture this man begat killed four kids for nothing more than exercising that which is guaranteed to every citizen and is enshrined in the First Amendment to our Constitution… and now I find that someone I believed to understand the reasons why we cannot go back to that history… is actively working to perpetuate it. I wonder if he can even conceive of the pain this causes.

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The classic slippery slope argument

In logical argument the slippery slope is a device used primarily in the fallacious form, where a person makes a claim that one action will inevitably lead to another. The slippery slope is classified as logical fallacy because it generally ignores alternate outcomes and hones in on the worst possible. 

A slippery slope argument states that a small first step leads to a significant and unwanted outcome. It is an argument rooted in fear and is often used synonymously with another logical mistake, the continuum fallacy. It ignores any possibility of middle ground. Rational individuals avoid this fallacy by acknowledging the possibility of this middle ground.

Take the same-sex marriage argument (please). Almost all opponents to freedom of choice in marriage pose some slippery slope argument or another. Those in opposition commonly offer polygamy or interspecies relations as the only possible outcomes should we begin down the slippery slope that leads away from “traditional marriage.” Anti-miscegenation activists used similarly fallacious arguments in the last century, and they were just as wrong then as now.

Humanity, it seems, has built a little box in which we shelter ourselves from our fears. Every now and then some small group of rugged individualists start pushing on the walls of that box, trying to expand humanity’s comfort zone. These efforts almost invariably set the naysayers abuzz and unleash another slew of the same old warnings. Historically these conservatives have had their arguments proven wrong; yet they are forever there.

In an era where we have seen mankind break his earthly bounds and make the first tenuous steps toward the stars one must wonder why it is that so many of our kind are still willing prisoners in that box. Why is it that when faced with concepts outside the comfortable that so many retreat into ignorance rather than seek the wider universe of knowledge? 

Perhaps it is anecdotal that these retreats into the safety of ignorance so often coincide with a resurgence in superstition… but perhaps, in some cases, correlation truly does indeed imply causation. Religion not only does not want to escape the box, it wants to drag others back into the darkness as well. 

So now, 350 words into this thesis, we finally arrive at the point where the muse initially led. Let us discuss the recent manifestation of religious arrogance and authoritarianism as represented by Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in this case that challenges the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate. Hobby Lobby claimed that providing health insurance covering certain forms of birth control violated the owner’s religious beliefs and, therefore, the company should be exempt from the requirement.

The Hobby Lobby mouthpiece raised the slippery slope argument early, which is that pharmaceutical contraception does or could lead to abortion. Abortion is neither at issue in this case nor in the owners’ actions. The argument is that contraception is part of the same spectrum of reproductive health care that includes abortion.

But the real issue in this case isn’t abortion or even contraception. This is a case about freedom of choice: should the healthcare choices available to an employee be dictated by the religious beliefs of his or her employer? Hobby Lobby owners, in their efforts to be offended, utilize yet another logical fallacy; the straw man of religious persecution.

What the supporters of Hobby Lobby want is the ability to legislate the private lives and choices of others, forcibly implying religious beliefs on the unwilling, while  ignoring the reality that giving women and men greater control over their reproductive health is good public health policy. A 2011 study from the Guttmacher Institute found that more than 50% of women using oral contraceptives did so for reasons other than preventing pregnancy. Doctors have prescribed hormonal contraceptives as remedy for myriad health issues for decades: a point totally ignored by Hobby Lobby’s owners and attorneys.

A brief examination of the Hobby Lobby website reveals the company’s religious views. This is fine and dandy. The Green’s have every right to their beliefs, regardless of how bizarre. However, the website does not imply that only people that agree with the Greens should work for the company. One of the “commitments” listed on the website is to provide both employees and their families with company policies that “strengthen individuals and nurture families.”

Hobby Lobby is a business, a corporation. Even if the Greens have this religious commitment they do not imply or pretend that Hobby Lobby is itself a religion. That any business should think that it should have power over the health decisions of its employees is a stretch that should not be allowed. First Amendment protections are individual protections and should not extend to corporations.

Furthermore, the Greens do not seem to mind who walks in their doors to purchase the items they have for sale. So long as the company is willing to accept money from saints and sinners alike, it forfeits any right to be concerned about what goes on between an employee and a doctor.

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In the news

A Kentucky man is in hot water after displaying a racist display of President Obama on his front lawn.

According to a local NBC affiliate, Dan Hafley of Casey County has displayed a mannequin of President Obama holding a piece of watermelon in front of his home. While interviewed by the local news, Hafley says that the mannequin was meant to be a "joke" and that it was simply free speech.

"The way I look at it, it's freedom of speech...I don't know how other people will take it."

Hafley continued to joke about the display, noting that many people even stop to take pictures.

"That's my buddy. He don't talk. Don't make no smart comments. If I had a dollar for everyone who stopped and took a picture of it I'd be a millionaire."

While Hafley laughs at his racist attempt at humor, not everyone thinks that the display is so humorous. A local neighbor voiced his displeasure, noting that African-Americans could be offended by viewing the display.

"We don't have black people in this community but I'm sure they travel this road like everybody else does. They could be offended. I don't agree with it."

This isn't the first time someone has put up a racist anti-Obama display. Earlier this year in New Jersey, the owner of a men's clothing store depicted President Obama as a witch doctor on his store window.

HT via www.lex18.com

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Censorship, blasphemy and hate speech

Lately my time has been spent far more in reading blogs than writing for this one. There is a piece I've been working on that is a rewrite of a four-part series I did a couple years ago, but that work has been slow. Recently the work was put aside altogether as I started following the news on the Muslim front reporting the insanity transpiring over a really poorly produced movie trailer. This is a pot and kettle scenario illustrating well the stupidity of religious fanaticism. 

It prompted me to get started writing a tirade condemning the overreaction and the resulting call to ban speech that is "hurtful" to one religion or another. They call it blasphemy, or hate speech... whatever... I just call it stupid and was going to write a piece on the futility of such laws... but then something else caught my attention... a brewing First Amendment separation controversy in my own home state. 

In the small East Texas town of Kountze they love them some high-school football... and they love them some Jesus too. All of this is well and fine, at least until you start mixing those two up, which in Kountze they've been doing for a very long time. Nothing really unusual in this. Similar stuff happens daily in small towns across the South. For the most part the Christians get away with it simply due to strength in numbers. 

But even in the heavily religious South every now and then someone takes offense at having Jesus served up on the taxpayer's tab... but only recently has anyone done anything about it. Non-Christians in areas where they are outnumbered 12 or 15 to one historically have held their tongue. Saying anything inevitably led to shunning by family and friends alike. But in this day, there are organizations offering to step in and keep the complainant anonymous. The Freedom From Religion Foundation is making their presence known in Texas.

This past Christmas a couple of local non-believers decided they wanted to not have their county government endorse Christianity by allowing only Christian displays on the courthouse lawn. That fight continues today with the FFRF in one corner and the Liberty Institute in the other. 

In Kountze the fight got started when an anonymous young atheist wrote a letter to the Freedom From Religion Foundation. One thing led to another and now the Texas Attorney General is sticking his nose into it... vowing to vacate the Separation Clause by any means possible. So now we have not just the Christians flailing their arms in the air claiming that their freedom to cram their beliefs down throats is being violated, but we have every taxpayer in the state being forced to foot the bill for an elected official to tilt at the same windmill.

I was going to write about all of this, but the muse, it seems, is out to lunch... and everyone else has beaten me to it anyway... so instead I've been reading what everyone else is writing. 

All of the above babbling is leading up to something... I promise. This post has a purpose... it is an endorsement of one of my favorite law blogs... Popehat... and for a fellow by the name of Ken White. Ken writes some really fine prose, but on Popehat he is relatively anonymous. He got outed some time back so I'm not actually revealing a big secret, and I was happy to learn something about the real person who has authored some really fine ass-chappings. 

Where my muse has been on strike, Ken's most certainly has not. Today he pens a doozy that eloquently and succinctly surmises the state of affairs when we attempt to use the power of government to outlaw speech. Ken accomplishes this by using such poignant, technical legalese and jargon as "censorious twatwafflery" and some other fine zingers.

Please read Ken's piece. You won't regret it.

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Fighting SLAPP lawsuits

Although specifically about SLAPP threats and their onerous effects on First Amendment protections, this article illustrates some other interesting topics. Notably that the State of Maine, by licensing naturopathy, recognizes the quackery as a medical profession.

They succeed because most defendants don’t understand their First Amendment rights. They succeed because most defendants don’t know a First Amendment lawyer. They succeed because most defendants don’t have the money to fund a lawsuit. They succeed because many jurisdictions don’t have an effective anti-SLAPP statute. They succeed because many lawyers who care about the First Amendment aren’t in the position to do pro bono work, or worry that they don’t know the issues well enough or that it will take too much time. They succeed because the American legal system is, for the most part, set up to make it easy for plaintiffs to extort defendants without significant risk.

As the author notes, there are organized efforts afoot to reform the law and put into place some individual protections for SLAPP victims, and others offering direct aid to the victims. 

Read the full article here... and get involved. The next target of an unfair lawsuit could be you.

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