Flag Pins

You remember all the hysteria about Obama not wearing a flag pin? How the right wingers gnashed their teeth in anger and said he was a bad American?

This picture is from September 11, in New York, at Ground Zero.

Compare and Contrast

and

Fuck you rest-of-world barbarians

http://www.parl.gc.ca/Infoparl/english/issue.htm?param=189&art=1284

Most notably, the Québec Act allowed the free practice of Catholicism in Québec, and modified the oath of allegiance in order to allow Catholics to hold office in the government. It was another 50 years before Catholics in England would be granted the full freedom provided under the Québec Act.

This pragmatic approach turned out to be effective in Québec, but it was definitely contentious elsewhere. The Québec Act was among the provocations that led to the revolution in the Thirteen Colonies to the south. It was denounced both by the First Continental Congress, and in the text of the Declaration of Independence itself. But the challenges of governing a New World territory such as Québec simply could not be ignored, and the Colonial administration wisely chose the controversial but pragmatic solution that included religious tolerance and minority accommodation. In a sense, this policy was vindicated to the extent that the colonies that would later join the Canadian confederation declined to participate in the revolution that broke out in the American colonies.

Note that the Yankees denounced the Quebec Act--which allowed the free practice of religion in Canada.

Fuck you, Yankee savages, when you talk about American freedom. Whether it was religion in the 1770s or torture now, you're wrong. And you have always been. You aren't more free than we are; you just persuade yourself that you are. And fuck you too, Yankee barbarians, that the idea of religion or creation is even an issue in schools now.

And remember we stopped slavery almost a hundred years before you killed each other to try to save it. Barbarians. You're the only serious country that actually debates abortion and health care. And nominates some idiot to be your VP.

But then, you also re-elected Bush.

Dissing American barbarians aside, this is a more affirmative point:

Somewhere among the examples of France, with its civil law heritage, Britain with its common law and unwritten constitution and the United States, with its melting pot and its near-absolute framework of rights, Canada forged its own unique constitutional settlement. In doing so, it honoured a proud New World tradition of pragmatism and accommodation. Moreover, these initiatives went beyond lofty pronouncements in constitutional documents. Commissions and tribunals were established to ensure that citizens whose constitutional rights had been violated could obtain a meaningful remedy.

And isn't that the point. American law is lofty in sentiment, but the little dude ends up fucked. We actually make it happen. Examples (aside: anyone advocating "this is our national language and all golf players and school kids must only speak it" would be laughed at as a lunatic):

I am thinking of the extent to which our parliamentary institutions have strived to ensure the accommodation of persons with disabilities – both for members of the public and members of the assembly. We see the use of sign language in television broadcasts of parliamentary proceedings, level access to public areas and to the Chamber alike. In the Senate, I recall the example of Senator Gauthier, whose full participation in debate in the Chamber and in committees was accommodated by the provision of real-time transcription, which allowed him to overcome his severe hearing impairment. I think of my colleague in the House of Commons, Steven Fletcher, the first quadriplegic Member of Parliament in our history. He has been elected, and re-elected, in Winnipeg. The House of Commons took steps to ensure that he is able to participate fully as a member in the Commons and in its committees, and as a Parliamentary Secretary to a Minister. Making this possible required pragmatic accommodation on a “micro” level. This included modifying the rule that excludes “strangers” in order to allow an assistant to sit with Mr. Fletcher on the floor of the House. These are specific cases, but they are not merely anecdotes. They are illustrations of the extent to which the impulse to accommodate has entered our collective consciousness – not just on an abstract and theoretical plane, but in every day real-world situations.

Fuck you, rest of the world. You got it wrong. You've slaughtered each other and locked each other out of your schools and courts and water fountains, all because you can't handle someone with a different language or colour or religion or slaves. I'm looking at you, Africa, Yugoslavia, the US, continental Europe. Oh ya and everywhere else too. I'm not saying Canada got it all right. But let no one lecture us about tolerance. And the next time some idiot says "We (speak different languages)(practice different faiths)(are different ethnic groups) (come from different tribes) (etc)" I'll point out that the most advanced, just, kind, progressive country that has ever existed manages all of that. Without killing each other.

Some of you backwards foreigners could bomb our cities to the stone age. You could never rebuild them.

You think you win on the strength of your arms; we will win with the strength of our ideas, the breadth of our minds, and the size of our hearts.

And one day Canadians will wake up and realize we are the most privileged and blessed 33 million people that have ever existed, and the only people that will have it better are our children.

Amen

Honestly. Republicans are such lying swine.

She didn’t say “no thanks” to the “Bridge to Nowhere” until after Congress had already abandoned it but given Alaska a blank check for $223 million in taxpayers’ money anyway. Far from rejecting federal pork, she hired lobbyists to secure her town a disproportionate share of earmarks ($1,000 per resident in 2002, 20 times the per capita average in other states). Though McCain claimed “she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities,” she has never issued a single command as head of the Alaska National Guard. As for her “executive experience” as mayor, she told her hometown paper in Wasilla, Alaska, in 1996, the year of her election: “It’s not rocket science. It’s $6 million and 53 employees.” Her much-advertised crusade against officials abusing their office is now compromised by a bipartisan ethics investigation into charges that she did the same.

Now we're in silly season

This, reported on Americablog:

Rudy, who built his career on being Mayor of NYC during 9/11, thinks the Mayor of Wasilla is equal to the task:

In an interview Wednesday on ABC's "Good Morning America," Giuliani was asked, "If she were the president on 9/11, you would have been confident?"

Giuliani responded: "I'd be confident that she'd be able to handle it. She's been a governor of a state, she's been mayor of a city."

Inside, it must make Rudy seethe to compare himself to the Mayor of Wasilla. NYC has neighbhorhoods and housing complexes with more people than Wasilla.

She's good on defence because Alaska is close to Russia. She'll be a good commander in chief because she commanded the national guard of Alaska (which has been refuted--she never made a single decision). And now, because she was mayor of a town of what, 20 people? she could handle a major terrorist attack on the biggest city in the country.

The worst part is people buy this shit.

Republicans divorced from reality

Listening to the speeches last night, you would think Democrats and Republicans inhabited different planets.

First, for Fred Thompson to call out Barak Obama for being inexperienced is a touch ironic.

But more importantly, for him to talk about deficits, about America's standing in the world is nonsense. Who was President when there was a surplus?

And to call out the Congress for being dysfunctional was funny too, since Republicans have basically made it clear that they'll filibuster anything they don't like. It's like Tories in Canada complaining that Parliament doesn't work when they are the ones with a 200 page book on how to disrupt committees.

The problem is Americans and Republicans believe this nonsense.

Fuck all this shit

After all the speeches, I'm done with American triumphalism. What-fucking-goddamn ever.

Greatest country in the world? Land of promise?

We raise our country out of the cold wasteland. We created the gentlest, kindest, most tolerant society that has ever existed. We have universal healthcare. We care for our poor. We allow gay marriage.

I grant that the US ain't bad. I live here, after all.

But the idea that somehow it's so amazingly more exceptional than we are is ridiculous.

We didn't build our greatness--our little, tiny, small country's greatness--on slavery.

We didn't spend years slaughtering each other.

We were cruel to our aboriginals, but we didn't engage in wholesale slaughter.

Our minorities could vote earlier.

And so, out of the cold, the misery, the snow, the darkness, and faced for almost our entire civilization's existence by the terror of the invasion of the most powerful state in the world, we survived. We threw them back. Our society is the rebuke to the planet that two languages and at least two religions must hate each other.

The only metric the beat us in is their ability to bomb us into the stone age.

They will never beat us on justice, they will never beat us in tolerance, they will never beat us in class mobility, and they will never beat us in caring for our people.

And so when some idiot Yankee politician says the US is the most free and the greatest and with the greatest potential, let us show them our shining, just, safe, gun-free, tolerant and radiant cities are the irrefutable proof that they aren't the only ones who got it right.

We just did it better.

Happy Canada Day

One-hundred forty one years ago today our little experiment in North America started. And somehow, 141 years later, our bumble-bee land, that everyone thinks should have fallen apart, and which, if it followed the path of every other country in the world, with their inability to have different races and languages and religions live together in peace, would have--our improbably country stretches across a continent, is one of the world's oldest and most stable democracy, and is a beacon of justice and kindness.

So, Happy Canada Day! And God save the Queen.

The HORROR

The Ambassador-designate from North Korea puts his arm around the GG!1!1!!!


Of course, it't quite as bad as this, but still . . .

Amen

From my favourite lawyer, Dahlia Lithwick. She is so right.

If we manage to erase one hideously bad idea from our collective memories of the law in the war on terror, please, please let it be this one: Legal questions are neither "hard," nor "novel," nor "open" merely because someone at the White House didn't like the legal answer that followed them. Easy questions don't morph into tough ones just because you can find some guy willing to argue the other side. And if—as both Sands and Lederman have observed—Haynes and his colleagues shut down efforts by Jane Dalton, the legal adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to review the techniques, then we truly are witnessing something astonishing: Haynes turned an easy legal question into a hard one by avoiding it altogether.

Let them tell us

That this is not right and not real:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1407952648/bctid1614766169

If we could broadcast these videos across the state, and people could see that it isn't just a 'lifestyle' and we're not aberrations and that love is love is love is love, I hope I have enough faith in the goodness of people that we would crush this attempt to amend our constitution.

Marriage in West Hollywood

This video made me all teary.



It speaks for itself, and I'll say nothing more, save to contrast it to the negative message of all those idiot protesters out there.

Help make Christians broke

Gay marriage has been legal for just over an hour. The Family Resource Council has an ad out, the typical scare people with non facts kinda ad. And they have a "Marriage Protection Kit" that you can send for, for free.

So I say let's all order them and burn them. Their web site says that resources are "limited," and each one they send to us is one bite in those resources (they're free). So order them here.

And, of course, I used a porn star name to sign up.

Pioneer of Full Equality, II

Following up on yesterday's post re Sullivan's stupid statement, June 10 was the 5 year anniversary of Halpern v. Ontario, which affirmed the 2001 trial court ruling permitting gay marriage. That legalized gay marriage in Canada, and effectively led to the federal government passing the same sex marriage bill. And given it was in Ontario, it opened up gay marriage to a far greater percentage of the population than California did.

And, for all Sullivan's "pioneer of equality" horseshit, Halpern came almost a year before the Massachusetts decision.

"Pioneer of Liberty"

Andrew Sullivan is truly on crack.

In commenting on Norway becoming the sixth country to legalize gay marriage (Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, South Africa, Spain being the others), he makes this stupid statement:

Next week, California - only marginally smaller in population than Spain and South Africa - will join the list. Added to Massachusetts, more gay people will be able to marry in the US than in any other country in the world. In the end, America still came through as the pioneer of full equality.

Whaaaaaat? In what way is that statement even marginally correct?

First, the absolute numbers don't matter. What matters is the percentage of the population. Ever last gay person in The Six can get married. In the US, it's a tiny fraction of the population.

Second, "pioneer of full equality"? Such nonsense. For every state that has legalized gay marriage, there are 11 with constitutional bans (23 total) and 8 that ban it by statute (17 total).

It might well get banned in California. And it's not getting better any time soon.

The US holds itself out as a role model for freedom but it's a johnny-come-lately most of the time. Think slavery, interracial marriage, women's suffrage, and letting black people vote.

Black President--but never us

I'm happy that Obama won the nomination; I do think it is a good thing.

But we are decades from where we 'mos have a chance at anything.

Tory tyranny (and closeted ministers aside, that's you John Baird) aside, at least in civilization have we had gay cabinet ministers (yes, Scott, we knew you were staring at my and Mike's shirtless asses) and candidates for premierships that were on our team.

The simple fact is it's not okay to be racist but homophobia--under many guises (family values, tradition, etc)--is still okay.

We are still not safe. I said to a friend tonight that I lack understanding because urban people are on our side, rural hicks NSM, but at home we are far more urbanized than here.

Liberation came in California, on one front, but we are not safe, and we are not free, yet.

Stupid, briefly-suspended felony-convict lawyer screws it up on Bill O'Reilly

So this morning, Bill O'Reilly showed a rather astonishing bit of intellectual honesty. He challenged some family law attorney, a Donald P. Schweitzer, to come up with a non-religious reason to oppose gay marriage. And the guy bombed.



But the best part is, above and beyond the fact he doesn't answer the question (the "it's different, just like summer and winter are different" is teh awesome), is the fact that the best attorney Fox could dig up is a guy who has a felony conviction for beating up his ex-wife's boyfriend!

Anyway, I wrote to him. A bit bitchy, but what the hell. And his record of suspension comes afterwards. Onwards:

Hey Don,

Good job on the Bill O'Reilly show. "It's different" sure is a compelling argument for restricting same sex marriage, isn't it? Or course, convicted felons are different, too, which seems to me to be a compelling reason to keep you from voting or getting married.

Oh yeah, and what part of constitutional law didn't you pay attention to? There's no federal question in the opinion, at all. Did you read the opinion? None if it is based on federal law, at all. But then, spouting out nonsense legal mumbo-jumbo is a lot easier than reading a dense opinion and actually understanding such lofty issues as constitutional law and questions of state versus federal law.

And the justices didn't insert "gay marriage" into the California Constitution. They ruled that gay people are entitled to equal protection under the constitution. Maybe down in the 4th tier they don't teach that little distinction, but the justices expressly didn't find a right to same sex marriage, only that gay people are entitled to the same rights as straight people to marry. A subtle difference, but hey, isn't that what our profession is all about?

And also, "same sex marriages are a suspect class"? No, that wasn't the decision either. A "thing" can't be a suspect class, but rather a specific, recognizable characteristic, like, oh, say, gender, and race. But same sex marriages?

It sort of amuses me that you have a family law practice and can't even get that one right. (Oh and that you beat your wife's boyfriend.)

And the people have determined they don't want it? Um, how about the legislature--which represents the people--more recently passing gay marriage.

Anyway, you did our profession a lot of credibility with your utter inability to even make a credible argument other than "it's just different." And to have Bill O'Reilly actually tell you you have to have a "cogent reason," given Fox is pretty good at finding "cogent reasons" for the usual nonsense they spout.

But that aside, glad to see you're back allowed to practice law. Hopefully I'll run into you in court one day--or rather, hopefully for my clients. Because while the religious set usually can handle "it's just different," I suspect as a legal argument that just isn't going to cut it.

Cheers,

Dean P

January 10, 2003

DONALD PHILIP SCHWEITZER [#166412], 43, of Pasadena was suspended for one year, stayed, placed on 36 months of probation with a 60-day actual suspension and was ordered to take the MPRE within one year. Credit toward the actual suspension will be given for an interim suspension which began July 14, 2002. The order took effect Jan. 10, 2003.

Schweitzer pleaded guilty to felony assault, a charge later reduced to a misdemeanor. He had an ongoing custody battle with his estranged wife and one evening entered her apartment and beat her boyfriend. Schweitzer broke his hand in the assault and the victim suffered jaw pain and significant bleeding.

The criminal conduct did not involve moral turpitude.

In mitigation, he has no record of discipline in nine years, was having severe family problems at the time that affected his emotional state, and reports involvement in community activities. His actions cost him his job as an Orange County deputy district attorney.

June 14, 2002

DONALD PHILIP SCHWEITZER [#166412], 43, of Norwalk was placed on interim suspension June 14, 2002, following a conviction for. The suspension ended Sept. 12 and he returned to active status. He was ordered to comply with rule 955.

VICTORY!

Today, the Supreme Court of California ruled on gay marriage--and said it is required. The opinion is wonderful, and as Greenwald says, anyone who criticizes it without reading it and the precedent behind it is clueless. Opinion here.

The opinion starts with a lot of throat clearing, and it's not till about the tenth page that it becomes clear what way the court is going. I was frantically skimming it, and I literally burst into tears when I finally saw this glorious phrase:

We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.

At the end, the Court summaries its points, and they are good ones:

Although the understanding of marriage as limited to a union of a man and a woman is undeniably the predominant one, if we have learned anything from the significant evolution in the prevailing societal views and official policies toward members of minority races and toward women over the past half-century, it is that even the most familiar and generally accepted of social practices and traditions often mask an unfairness and inequality that frequently is not recognized or appreciated by those not directly harmed by those practices or traditions. It is instructive to recall in this regard that the traditional, well-established legal rules and practices of our not-so-distant past (1) barred interracial marriage,[1] (2) upheld the routine exclusion of women from many occupations and official duties, and (3) considered the relegation of racial minorities to separate and assertedly equivalent public facilities and institutions as constitutionally equal treatment. As the United States Supreme Court observed in its decision in Lawrence v. Texas, supra, 539 U.S. 558, 579, the expansive and protective provisions of our constitutions, such as the due process clause, were drafted with the knowledge that "times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress." For this reason, the interest in retaining a tradition that excludes an historically disfavored minority group from a status that is extended to all others — even when the tradition is long-standing and widely shared — does not necessarily represent a compelling state interest for purposes of equal protection analysis.

After carefully evaluating the pertinent considerations in the present case, we conclude that the state interest in limiting the designation of marriage exclusively to opposite-sex couples, and in excluding same-sex couples from access to that designation, cannot properly be considered a compelling state interest for equal protection purposes. To begin with, the limitation clearly is not necessary to preserve the rights and benefits of marriage currently enjoyed by opposite-sex couples. Extending access to the designation of marriage to same-sex couples will not deprive any opposite-sex couple or their children of any of the rights and benefits conferred by the marriage statutes, but simply will make the benefit of the marriage designation available to same-sex couples and their children. As Chief Judge Kaye of the New York Court of Appeals succinctly observed in her dissenting opinion in Hernandez v. Robles, supra, 855 N.E.2d 1, 30 (dis. opn. of Kaye, C.J.): "There are enough marriage licenses to go around for everyone." Further, permitting same-sex couples access to the designation of marriage will not alter the substantive nature of the legal institution of marriage; same-sex couples who choose to enter into the relationship with that designation will be subject to the same duties and obligations to each other, to their children, and to third parties that the law currently imposes upon opposite-sex couples who marry. Finally, affording same-sex couples the opportunity to obtain the designation of marriage will not impinge upon the religious freedom of any religious organization, official, or any other person; no religion will be required to change its religious policies or practices with regard to same-sex couples, and no religious officiant will be required to solemnize a marriage in contravention of his or her religious beliefs. (Cal. Const., art. I, § 4.)[2]

While retention of the limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples is not needed to preserve the rights and benefits of opposite-sex couples, the exclusion of same-sex couples from the designation of marriage works a real and appreciable harm upon same-sex couples and their children. As discussed above, because of the long and celebrated history of the term "marriage" and the widespread understanding that this word describes a family relationship unreservedly sanctioned by the community, the statutory provisions that continue to limit access to this designation exclusively to opposite-sex couples — while providing only a novel, alternative institution for same-sex couples — likely will be viewed as an official statement that the family relationship of same-sex couples is not of comparable stature or equal dignity to the family relationship of opposite-sex couples. Furthermore, because of the historic disparagement of gay persons, the retention of a distinction in nomenclature by which the term "marriage" is withheld only from the family relationship of same-sex couples is all the more likely to cause the new parallel institution that has been established for same-sex couples to be considered a mark of second-class citizenship. Finally, in addition to the potential harm flowing from the lesser stature that is likely to be afforded to the family relationships of same-sex couples by designating them domestic partnerships, there exists a substantial risk that a judicial decision upholding the differential treatment of opposite-sex and same-sex couples would be understood as validating a more general proposition that our state by now has repudiated: that it is permissible, under the law, for society to treat gay individuals and same-sex couples differently from, and less favorably than, heterosexual individuals and opposite-sex couples.

Stupid people should not be allowed to vote

This woman has clearly not read the Bible or any sort of mainstream media, in her life. From Sullivan:

A reader writes:

I live in SD and I am a candidate for the State House. I was out walking my district last month and spoke to a woman about the primary. She has a statue of the Virgin Mary in her front yard and was wearing several crosses around her neck. Here is our conversation:

Woman: "I don't know about that Obama guy."

Me: "I'm an Obama supporter, do you mind if I ask what you're unsure about."

Woman: "He's a muslim and there is a biblical prophecy that a muslim will take over our country and destroy the world."

Me: "You're aware he is not a Muslim."

Woman: "He can say anything he wants."

Idiot polls, idiot answers

From the latest CPAC-Nanos poll on Canadian political leadership:

Question: As you may know, Stephane Dion is the leader of the federal Liberal Party, Stephen Harper is the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Jack Layton is the leader of the federal NDP, Gilles Duceppe is the leader of the Bloc Quebecois and Elizabeth May is the leader of the federal Green Party. Which of the federal leaders would you best describe as:

(The numbers in parenthesis denotes the change from the previous Nanos Research survey completed in February 2008 (90 day change).)

The most trustworthy leader
Stephen Harper 31 (+1)
Stephane Dion 14 (NC)
Jack Layton 14 (-7)
Elizabeth May 5 (-3)
Gilles Duceppe 4 (-2)
None of them/Undecided 32 (+12)

The most competent leader
Stephen Harper 39 (NC)
Stephane Dion 12 (-4)
Jack Layton 11 (-4)
Gilles Duceppe 5 (-1)
Elizabeth May 1 (-2)
None of them/Undecided 32 (+10)

The leader with the best vision for Canada's future
Stephen Harper 31 (-1)
Stephane Dion 14 (-3)
Jack Layton 14 (-4)
Elizabeth May 4 (-2)
Gilles Duceppe 3 (NC)
None of them/Undecided 35 (+11)

This illustrates why I hate polls. Three completely different questions have been asked about the leaders, and yet, the answers essentially breakdown the same way for each! On the question of trustworthiness, did the person answering the question really think about their answer? What is trustworthiness? Trust in what? That they tell the truth? Recent polls on the Cadman affair and In-N-Out scandal have shown that a majority of Canadians don't believe Harper's version of events. But he's the most trustworthy. On competence, the Prime Minister, regardless of party, usually scores highest. We've never seen Layton or Dion or Duceppe in a position to run the country. Gilles Duceppe should obviously score low for his vision of Canada's future. But Elizabeth May only has 1 point higher? Do the people being polled even know what her vision is? I'd say it is just as clear to the public's as is Harper's vision (or lack thereof). What is most striking is that there is little to no variation in the answers, regardless of the question. Aside from Dion's score, the numbers appear to track national party standings.

It would seem that all this poll is asking is which leader Canadians like most. It doesn't matter what the question is, its just a popularity contest. Stupid politically unsophisticated media-illiterate Canadians apparently aren't capable of separating their dislike of a candidate from performing an objective appraisal of each leader's qualities.

And yet, these polls come out, time and time again, their value dubious at most, except as fodder for lazy journalists to do hit-and-run jobs on various politicians.

Idiot polling, idiot answers. It is any wonder that Canadian politics now tends towards pandering to the lowest common denominator in a policy-free race to the bottom?