Law

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GOP urges young people to break the law

There are some ridiculous commercials out now urging young people to “opt out” of Obamacare.

The commercials feature a huge Uncle Sam puppet about to give a woman a gynecological exam.

Because, you know, if there’s one thing Republicans are against, it’s having the government force women to have unnecessary gynecological examinations, am I right, ladies?

Uncle sam

But more importantly, it’s the message here: Please, they say, break the law. Don’t buy insurance.

Really?

Can you imagine what they’d say if there was an ad saying “Please don’t allow the evil government to force you to buy car insurance!”?

Apparently they have run out of options, because the law is here and it’s staying. So the only thing left to do is tell people to ignore it.

Yeah, use that as an excuse when you’re paying the fine for disobeying it. “But your honor, my Senator told me to disobey this law!” See how well that works, and then get back to me. I could use the work.

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Distracted by irrelevancy

Bradley Manning wishes to become a woman.

Some commentators have already decided this is the most important issue concerning the case.

Not one of them can explain why, and that’s probably because it isn’t. It’s completely irrelevant.

That’s not stopping them. The loonies are calling Manning “a nut” and saying that this proves she was incompetent all along, because, you know, you’d have to be crazy to want to be transgender, right? The lack of psychological evidence to support such a thought be damned!

This is important in one sense — Manning faces many years in a men’s prison where she doesn’t belong.

Or maybe, you know, she should be pardoned since she was found not guilty of aiding the enemy.

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World’s easiest law school exam question

You don’t even have to go to law school to get this one right:

Is it Constitutional for the police to randomly stop people on the street and search them?

I mean, duh, you’d have to be really stupid to get that one wrong, wouldn’t you?

Well, I suppose you could be the Mayor of New York. Or a bunch of people who apparently have never taken the time to read the Constitution.

But a court recently ruled in a “No, duh” decision, that New York city’s policy of randomly stopping young black men and searching them for no reason was not allowed.

Sadly, I wish they’d go farther. The 4th Amendment says “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”police car

Requires a warrant. Clear and plain as day. No exceptions listed.

The courts, of course, have found exceptions to this all over the place, the most obvious one being that police can search if they have “reasonable suspicion” that a crime is being committed or that the suspect is armed and so on. The general idea of “reasonable suspicion” is not bad — I don’t mind letting police search someone for their own safety after an arrest — don’t want to waste time getting a warrant in every single instance. But that has been defined in such a way lately that they can search in almost every instance. The next logical step was, of course, a policy like New York city’s, which, for quite some time, was perfectly legal.

Mayor Bloomberg, meanwhile, said he’d appeal, so this isn’t over. Your tax dollars at work.

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He’s not the Messiah!

Some people just name their kids really stupid things that can haunt them for lives.

But when someone in Tennessee named their kid “Messiah,” that was too much for a judge. “The word Messiah is a title and it’s a title that has only been earned by one person and that one person is Jesus Christ,” she said.

Good thing that judge wasn’t around in 1958 when Madonna’s parents were deciding on a name.

So the judge, over the parent’s objection, changed the child’s name, like a magical fairy.

I mean, while I certainly don’t want parents naming their kids “Hitler” or “Asshole,” I also don’t like the idea of the government coming in and deciding for the parents what the child’s name should be.

And it’s especially true here, where the reason for the name change was religion. That judge just didn’t want her personal religion made fun of, apparently.

Hey, wait, wasn’t there a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting this sort of thing? Like, the very first one?

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Smoke and Mirrors

Smoking is fast becoming as unacceptable in proper society as spittoons were at the turn of the previous century. And that’s a good thing — peer pressure will do more to curb smoking than all the laws a government could write.

Some smokers complain, however, that their rights are being violated. Well, no. There’s no “right to smoke” in the Constitution. The government could make tobacco completely illegal, like they have done for other drugs and substances that give you cancer. After all, that worked with marijuana, right? They made it illegal and no one smokes that!

Anyway, sarcasm aside, while I support laws prohibiting smoking in public places, there are still some gray areas with which I am uncomfortable.

For instance, when I was hiring a new secretary, I said “no smokers need apply.” Smokers smell up the office, need more sick days, and cause health care insurance rates to rise. It seemed like a reasonable request to me, and one many businesses now do (especially jobs where being healthy and in shape are important, like for police officers).

But there is a worrisome slippery slope there. After all, if the worry is about health care and sick days, should an employer also be allowed to say “No one who is overweight will be hired” or “only vegetarians need apply” or “no soda drinkers”? How much of our personal decisions should an employer be able to use when deciding whether to hire us?

I don’t really have an answer to that one.

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Zimmerman got away with murder

That’s what one the jurors said (the only non-white juror, too — an amazing coincidence, no?)

“I was the juror that was going to give them the hung jury. I fought to the end,” she said. “That’s where I felt confused, where if a person kills someone, then you get charged for it. But as the law was read to me, if you have no proof that he killed him intentionally, you can’t say he’s guilty.”

She apparently felt that after it was all said and done, she was constrained by the limitations of the “Stand Your Ground” law (which, I understand, was originally called the “You’re Allowed To Kill Anyone You Subjectively Feel Threatened By Even If You’re In No Real Danger Law”).

Editorial cartoon of the day

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The real discrimination

Fox News knows. That’s why they are always fighting for those who are discriminated against: Men. Christians. Heterosexuals. Non-minorities. The wealthy.

Those poor downtrodden members of society. How they’ve been mistreated over the years.

(Here’s the latest example, wherein we should all be decrying the terrible discrimination that men have suffered under.)

Thank God (and I mean “God” literally, you heathens trying to take away God-given rights to mention God as many times in a sentence as God demands. God god god) that someone is fighting these battles for us.

Because clearly, allowing others to be equal only makes everyone else second-class.

And if there’s one thing these people don’t want, it’s to be treated as second-class. That’s a big worry. Soon, for instance, whites will be the minority in America and that’s a terrible thing — do you realize how terribly minorities are treated in this country?

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A guaranteed win

I just got a new case. Tell me what you think.

A white teenager wearing a Confederate flag t-shirt was walking through a black neighborhood. My client, a black man, confronted him and said “Hey, you asshole punk, what are you doing here?” My client had a gun which he legally was allowed to carry. The kid tried to fight off my client but eventually my client shot the kid to death.

Simple, right? I mean, why is the DA even wasting his time on this case when my client is obviously not guilty?

Editorial cartoon of the day