no third solution

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Category Archives: Legalese

San Diego County: No Place For Free Speech, Assembly

May 30th, 2009

There’s been a lot made about a San Diego couple who’ve been ordered to stop holding Bible study group sessions in their home. I was reminded again of the incident, about which I wasn’t prepared to give a second thought (what with the state of the world these days) until a friend of mine on Facebook objected to the report thusly:

I thought the United States was a country based on the principals (sic) of freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. This makes me sick!

Background: The couple, Pastor David Jones and his wife Mary, indicate that an average of about 15 people attend their weekly bible study. Which according to San Diego County officials, they can not continue to hold  without obtaining a “major use” permit, which could cost tens of thousands of dollars. Now it certainly appears that the Joneses have been targeted because of the religious aspect of their Bible study (and not for any other reason), which stands in direct contradiction to the spirit and the letter of the first amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

My take: The Joneses and their friends are exercising their guaranteed right to practice a religion of their choosing, and they are assembling peaceably. It will be a damn shame, therefore, if the Joneses have to escalate this matter to a Federal court (at their own, non-reimbursable expense) in order to go about their own damn businesses.

The couple’s attorney asks, rhetorically:

If the county thinks they can shut down groups of 10 or 15 Christians meeting in a home, what about people who meet regularly at home for poker night? What about people who meet for Tupperware parties? What about people who are meeting to watch baseball games on a regular basis and support the Chargers?

Unless you happen to live on an Indian Reservation and your house is really a tribal casino, “poker night” is probably illegal. Same with the Tupperware party, unless you license your business and report 100% of the income for taxation/confiscation. If you’re serving booze to friends during the baseball game, you might be guilty of hosting a nuisance party. For larger occasions where your guests might chip in $5 or $10 to defray the cost of a keg (like the SuperBowl or the Final Four), you could be busted for operating a “blind pig” if the authorities come knocking.

…And because it’s that time of year, in some locales you can’t host a High School graduation party without a special event parking permit!

I know religion is a hot-button issue for a lot of people, but if we could tease out this sort of reaction (This makes me sick!), each and every time the government (Federal, State, or Local) demands some sort of tribute or “license”, from good people trying to do right by themselves, imagine the uproar!

Above, I attempted to give a very short list of activities in which a great number of people regularly engage, and which are also outlawed or severely restricted by the State. In reality the government wants a cut of everything you do.  The list is endless, fortuntately so are the opportunities for objection and resistance.

What’s difficult, though, is convincing people that their struggles are our struggles.

Smoking: Still Healthier Than Fascism

May 27th, 2009

Michigan has been on the tobacco-offensive lately, raising the per-pack tax from a slapping a stupendously regressive 2500% tax on roll-your-own tobacco, and they’d like to be the next in a growing line of States to ban smoking in bars and restaurants.

The policy debate about “workplace smoking bans” in Michigan has been on the radar here at No Third Solution for the last few years (see my posts from 5/08, 12/07, 8/06). So far, it’s gone nowhere, but the Demopublicans in Lansing are inching closer to a compromise that would (fortunately) exempt most tobacco/specialty shops, but would apply to all bars and restaurants, but would exempt the Detroit casinos.

Some House Democrats won’t support a smoking ban unless Detroit casinos are exempt, fearing that tribal casinos not subject to the state law could gain a competitive advantage.

It is so absurdly short-sighted to suggest that the tribal casinos would gain a competitive advantage, all-the-while ignoring the fact that right now some restaurants (the management/ownership of which have chosen to go smokefree) will lose that competitive advantage the moment a ban is enacted.

There is no shortage of smokefree places to eat, drink or play. The casinos already have non-smoking Poker rooms (and probably other game rooms, too.) Ninety-nine percent of franchise fast-food restaurants are smoke free and have been for years (voluntarily). Nearly every independent deli is smoke free. Plenty of diners and upscale restaurants have also made the move, and smoking is not permitted inside any of the major sport venues.

With that in mind, you’d think the “small-government” Republicans might be opposed to the ban. And you’d be wrong. Spokesmen for the Senate Republicans argue that since “consumer demand [is] already…creating smokefree options” that,

[I]f there is a ban, it should be a complete ban… “A level playing field for everyone is the only fair course to chart.”

Right now, any restaurant or bar owner can choose whether to make his or her restaurant smokefree, or smokefull. The playing field is level. What makes (or would make) the playing field less-than-level is government intervention. Rather than recognizing this objective and painfully obvious fact, ending once-and-for-all the “discussion” about whether government has any business regulating the affairs of individuals, in their individual and voluntary capacities, government decides to stay the course, and as a result, more government intervention should apply in order to rectify the injustices brought about by government intervention. Epic. Fucking. Fail.

This is fairness and equality of the Harrison Bergeron strain: it’s not unfair if we cripple everyone.

Police Can Now Interrogate You Without Counsel

May 26th, 2009

For the past 23 years at least, any information gleaned from police interrogations after a suspect has requested counsel and without counsel’s presence has been generally inadmissible. This all changes, now.

Thanks to a recent SCOTUS ruling, however, the information/evidence from interrogations where a suspect has asked for counsel, but has not yet received counsel, will no longer be deemed inadmissible in court. Solicitor general, Elena Kagan said the 1986 Michigan v. Jackson decision “serves no real purpose” and offers only “meagre benefits”, and Justice Antonin Scalia, reading the majority opinion (overturning Michigan) said,

Because of the protections created by this court in Miranda and related cases, there is little if any chance that a defendant will be badgered into waiving his right to have counsel present during interrogation.

Awfully presumptuous, I’d say. Many people “voluntarily” relinquish their right to be free from unlawful searches and seizures, too, at the request of an armed police officer who has been trained to know just what to say in order to convince the suspect to relinquish his/her rights. Many people in these circumstances would behave differently, if they had access to counsel (or even that guy from the Don’t Talk to Cops videos). And in police custody, so would just about anyone, suspected of just about anything.

This has absolutely nothing to do with whether the suspect is guilty.

If the police badger a suspect by interrogation—especially after suspect requests counsel and before suspect receives same—it stands to reason that suspect’s request was not honored, which is to say that the continued interrogation is a violation of certain constitutional guarantees. Therefore, any information/evidence obtained as a result of this interrogatory chicanery, a thinly-veiled attempt to circumvent those basic protections, was typically deemed inadmissible.

Not anymore.

The essence of such protections as Miranda, Michigan, etc., is that they create an incentive to respect the guarantees of the Fifth and Sixth amendments, without which police officers and other state agents are effectively empowered to run roughshod over the “rights” they are supposed to protect.

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