Although the fate of 'Obamacare' is the most eagerly anticipated Supreme Court decision, the justices have been deliberating other cases, as well, and today announced an 8-0 verdict against the Federal Communications Commission's rules for censoring profanity and nudity on television.
Those rules applied only to certain types of broadcasts (the original fines levied were due to expletives uttered on awards shows by those two beacons of intelligence and good taste--Nicole Richie and Cher--along with the infamous Janet Jackson 'wardrobe malfunction') and a New York appeals court had ruled against the FCC, which prompted the appeal to the Supreme Court.
It's usually a good indication of the soundness of a decision when conservative and liberal justices are in agreement, and their finding that the FCC rules were "unconstitutionally vague" sounds right to me, under the circumstances. That does not translate, however, at least in my mind, to the proposition that 'anything goes,' in terms of profanity, whether it's on TV or in public.
Which brings us to Middleborough, MA, a community that recently made headlines by voting to issue citations for outbursts of profanity in public spaces, like the town park. This was already prohibited by law (no doubt a holdover from the days when communities mistakenly believed there actually was a standard of 'common decency' which they were within their rights to protect) but it was never enforced. Middleborough proposed to decriminalize the offense, allowing officers to write $20 citations, instead, much like parking tickets.
The outcry was immediate, of course, with hysterical cries about the abrogation of our sacred First Amendment right to free speech, and people speculating darkly that cops would be lurking in the bushes, ready to spring out and write a ticket if they heard the 'f-word' spoken into a cell phone during a private conversation.
Puhleeze... No one doesn't know what the problem here really is, because who hasn't gotten caught in a hailstorm of 'f-bombs' in a public place where, theoretically, one has as many rights as the ignoramuses who are polluting the air? I remember once being at a South Carolina beach, settling down for what I thought would be a lovely afternoon but leaving after 30 minutes because some meathead nearby had exactly one adjective/adverb in his vocabulary and it was 'f***ing.' As in, 'f***ing awesome,' 'f***ing lame,' 'he's a f***ing ***hole,' and so on. Since I couldn't ignore it, I counted, and he used some variant of the f-word over FORTY times in that half-hour. He was extremely loud, so tuning him out was not practical. (And if you think I'm overly sensitive, imagine yourself with your present, past, or future toddlers in tow, with them being subjected to this.)
This is what the town of Middleborough wants to stop, and while I think they will doubtless back away from the ordinance because someone with nothing better to do will sue them, why is it that we can agree on a community's right to fine people who allow their dogs to leave steaming piles of crap in a public place, but become paranoid if any attempt is made to limit the 'right' to make public spaces hostile environments in other, equally repugnant, ways?
I know, I know...it's because it's a threat to free speech!!!
I think our founders would be horrified to know that this protection they enshrined so that citizens could criticize their government without fear of reprisal has been subverted so thoroughly that people actually get passionate about their 'rights' to pornography and foul language. Benjamin Franklin's comment that 'only a virtuous people are capable of freedom' becomes more chillingly apt with every passing year.
I am well aware that a certain toleration of this kind of boorishness is the price we pay to 'hold a line' in defense of the right to free speech, but how have we gotten to the point where no method exists to promote a civil society because of the 'right' of crude, inconsiderate people to make public spaces unbearable for anyone but the equally crude? (If you suggest saying something personally to the offender, you are truly out of touch.) How have we gotten to the point where some parents will undoubtedly sue, rather than tell their foul-mouthed little angels to have some respect for themselves and consideration for others?
I think Middleborough should just go back to its Puritan roots and put up a set of stocks, and let the citizenry pelt the pottymouths with rotten produce. I know, I know. I guess I don't really mean it, but I can dream, can't I?
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Friday, June 15, 2012
Sandusky should get all 500 years
The trial of Jerry Sandusky, former assistant football coach at Penn State, on charges of child sexual abuse and molestation, has recessed for the weekend. The prosecution has been presenting its case, and will continue into next week. It will be interesting to see what Joe Amendola, Sandusky's lawyer, comes up with as a defense, since his cross-examination of prosecution witnesses seems to have consisted mainly of challenging minor discrepancies in testimony, and accusing 'alleged' victims of being motivated by the hope of financial gain.
As contemptible as that is, Amendola probably doesn't have much else, which is why I say it will be interesting to see how he defends his client, and whether Sandusky will take the stand. Amendola is probably no fool, and I suspect he did his best to convince Sandusky to take the best plea bargain he could get. The fact that Sandusky wanted to go to trial--knowing all the sordid and despicable things he did were going to be exposed to the public in graphic detail--speaks to the level of denial that must be operating in his psyche. That he even entertained the idea of being found innocent indicates how little conception he has of the damage he's done.
But even if he's in denial about how much, he knows he was wrong, and that's what matters. His own statements over the years--a letter to a mother saying he knew she would never forgive him, a statement to another mother that he 'wished I were dead'--make it very clear he knew he was doing harm. Compulsion is a terrible thing and a powerful master, and I've no doubt Sandusky was compelled by his impulses and, probably, a victim of the same kind of abuse, himself.
But that only explains him; it does nothing to excuse or absolve him. He was not an opportunistic abuser. He had a preferred type of victim and he deliberately put himself in a position to find them, then patiently groomed them for what in many cases was extended abuse. (I can only hope Amendola's suggestions to the victims, many of them fatherless pre-teens at the time, that they were somehow complicit by continuing to accept Sandusky's attention and gifts, keeps him awake at night.) Anyone who could plan to that extent could also have made the choice to seek help.
Any sex-related crime wreaks havoc on the victim, but there is a special heinousness to cultivating the trust of an emotionally needy child so you can use him for your own gratification. There are many, many people related to Sandusky's long history of child-victimization who will never be put on trial, but whose consciences should forever trouble them--Mike McQueary, law enforcement and university personnel alerted to trouble as far back as 1998, those mothers who failed to vigilantly protect their offspring and, I believe, Sandusky's wife.
But Sandusky, at least, can pay. Never enough, but such a thing isn't possible. As a practical matter, 40 years in prison would accomplish what's needed--that Jerry Sandusky spend the rest of his life behind bars--but conviction on all counts with a maximum sentence does something very important.
It validates the claims of every single victim.
As contemptible as that is, Amendola probably doesn't have much else, which is why I say it will be interesting to see how he defends his client, and whether Sandusky will take the stand. Amendola is probably no fool, and I suspect he did his best to convince Sandusky to take the best plea bargain he could get. The fact that Sandusky wanted to go to trial--knowing all the sordid and despicable things he did were going to be exposed to the public in graphic detail--speaks to the level of denial that must be operating in his psyche. That he even entertained the idea of being found innocent indicates how little conception he has of the damage he's done.
But even if he's in denial about how much, he knows he was wrong, and that's what matters. His own statements over the years--a letter to a mother saying he knew she would never forgive him, a statement to another mother that he 'wished I were dead'--make it very clear he knew he was doing harm. Compulsion is a terrible thing and a powerful master, and I've no doubt Sandusky was compelled by his impulses and, probably, a victim of the same kind of abuse, himself.
But that only explains him; it does nothing to excuse or absolve him. He was not an opportunistic abuser. He had a preferred type of victim and he deliberately put himself in a position to find them, then patiently groomed them for what in many cases was extended abuse. (I can only hope Amendola's suggestions to the victims, many of them fatherless pre-teens at the time, that they were somehow complicit by continuing to accept Sandusky's attention and gifts, keeps him awake at night.) Anyone who could plan to that extent could also have made the choice to seek help.
Any sex-related crime wreaks havoc on the victim, but there is a special heinousness to cultivating the trust of an emotionally needy child so you can use him for your own gratification. There are many, many people related to Sandusky's long history of child-victimization who will never be put on trial, but whose consciences should forever trouble them--Mike McQueary, law enforcement and university personnel alerted to trouble as far back as 1998, those mothers who failed to vigilantly protect their offspring and, I believe, Sandusky's wife.
But Sandusky, at least, can pay. Never enough, but such a thing isn't possible. As a practical matter, 40 years in prison would accomplish what's needed--that Jerry Sandusky spend the rest of his life behind bars--but conviction on all counts with a maximum sentence does something very important.
It validates the claims of every single victim.
Friday, June 8, 2012
What are the limits on "reproductive rights"?
I’m not asking the question because I think I know the answer. I don’t and, frankly, I don’t think anyone does. But those who say there are _no_ limits, are, I believe, simply wrong.
A well-known Oliver Wendell Holmes remark goes like this: “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” It’s a simple, colorful statement illustrating that our rights are not unlimited, and that those limits exist because other people have rights, too. Defining the limits, of course, is the hard part.
Abortion provides probably the best example of how complicated it can be. One side frames the debate as solely about a woman’s rights, while the other believes the fetus has rights, as well, but is in the difficult position of being unable to speak up for them. I don’t believe a legal resolution to this issue will _ever_ be reached that satisfies everyone, and I understand, entirely, that interfering in a woman’s decisions in this arena—even for unimpeachable reasons—involves depriving her of a basic freedom. But would those who say it can’t be done, then, and who reject the idea that a fetus has any rights, pause when the other person’s ‘nose’ belongs to a living child?
Consider the case of a young couple in Ohio—Felicia and Cody Beemer. Mr. Beemer, 23, just pleaded guilty to raping his own 13-month-old daughter—while on a supposedly supervised visit at a child protective services facility, no less. The abuse was in the presence of—and apparently participated in by—the child’s mother, Felicia, who is 21. They recorded the assault on a cell phone, and a relative who saw it reported the abuse. The cell phone also revealed hundreds of images of child porn, many involving bestiality, and evidence that Mr. Beemer had also raped an 18-month-old nephew.
It gets worse. Beemer was a registered sex offender, having raped a 3-year-old child when he was a teenager. Mrs. Beemer, only 21, has already had four children, and every one of them was taken away from her immediately after birth. One of those children has already been murdered in foster care. I have been unable to find any details on the Beemers but, clearly, there must have been ample evidence of her unfitness for motherhood. No one has to point out to me that Mr. Beemer was very likely a victim of child sexual abuse himself, or that something has to be deeply, profoundly, wrong with a woman who would not only sexually abuse her own child, but preserve the evidence for later enjoyment. Who knows what kind of screwed up parents she was probably subjected to, or what happened to her to turn her into a monster.
But does any of that change what they’ve done? The death, destruction, physical and psychological trauma and blighted futures of three children? (As mentioned, one is already dead.) And yet, she has the reproductive “right” to continue to get pregnant, and continue to bear children.
Why?
A well-known Oliver Wendell Holmes remark goes like this: “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” It’s a simple, colorful statement illustrating that our rights are not unlimited, and that those limits exist because other people have rights, too. Defining the limits, of course, is the hard part.
Abortion provides probably the best example of how complicated it can be. One side frames the debate as solely about a woman’s rights, while the other believes the fetus has rights, as well, but is in the difficult position of being unable to speak up for them. I don’t believe a legal resolution to this issue will _ever_ be reached that satisfies everyone, and I understand, entirely, that interfering in a woman’s decisions in this arena—even for unimpeachable reasons—involves depriving her of a basic freedom. But would those who say it can’t be done, then, and who reject the idea that a fetus has any rights, pause when the other person’s ‘nose’ belongs to a living child?
Consider the case of a young couple in Ohio—Felicia and Cody Beemer. Mr. Beemer, 23, just pleaded guilty to raping his own 13-month-old daughter—while on a supposedly supervised visit at a child protective services facility, no less. The abuse was in the presence of—and apparently participated in by—the child’s mother, Felicia, who is 21. They recorded the assault on a cell phone, and a relative who saw it reported the abuse. The cell phone also revealed hundreds of images of child porn, many involving bestiality, and evidence that Mr. Beemer had also raped an 18-month-old nephew.
It gets worse. Beemer was a registered sex offender, having raped a 3-year-old child when he was a teenager. Mrs. Beemer, only 21, has already had four children, and every one of them was taken away from her immediately after birth. One of those children has already been murdered in foster care. I have been unable to find any details on the Beemers but, clearly, there must have been ample evidence of her unfitness for motherhood. No one has to point out to me that Mr. Beemer was very likely a victim of child sexual abuse himself, or that something has to be deeply, profoundly, wrong with a woman who would not only sexually abuse her own child, but preserve the evidence for later enjoyment. Who knows what kind of screwed up parents she was probably subjected to, or what happened to her to turn her into a monster.
But does any of that change what they’ve done? The death, destruction, physical and psychological trauma and blighted futures of three children? (As mentioned, one is already dead.) And yet, she has the reproductive “right” to continue to get pregnant, and continue to bear children.
Why?
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