Equity

Stained Glass Design by Nancy Bauer

crime doesn’t pay
so they say
nor the criminal
given a minimal
slap of a sentence
empty of penance
beating her scales
into coffin nails
fit for the corpse
of a system that warps
what justice implied
before equity died

(originally posted December 2013)

Voir Dire

 

“Courtroom” by Tracy Henham

 

 

step right up
sit right down
the blind lady
calls you to duty

but first

we read minds
we judge hearts
finger scars
probe your bias

and then

yea or nay
presto jingo
we guess at
your worth

spin the wheel

it’s all good
if you swallow
what lies
we will tell

legal lottery

 

 

From my book Onionskin

Judge Judy

Judge Judy
Photo from retiredindelaware.blogspot.com

acerbic grande dame
martinet with a gavel
fifty million a year

Affluenza

Judge Jean Boyd
Photo from yourhonor.com

WTF????!!!! I simply cannot contain my outrage.

Drunken teen, with three times the legal blood-alcohol limit, driving more than twice the legal speed limit, kills four people and cripples two more.

His defense is that he was too coddled by an overly-insular, affluent upbringing to have properly learned right from wrong, to have learned that actions have consequences.

And the idiotic judge actually bought into this bullshit. Texas State District Judge Jean Boyd gave him ten years of probation and a six-month stint undergoing “therapy” in a five-star facility, replete with fine resort amenities, where the so-called therapy includes things such as horseback riding and tennis.

This judge is an execrable disgrace and needs to be summarily removed by whatever means is available in Texas.

And if one of the victims had been my loved one, I wouldn’t hesitate to take the now brazenly nullified law into my own two hands, and mete out directly this snot-nosed little bastard’s due measure of justice. And I’d do so with a full understanding of the consequences I would have to face. Without justice, there can be no civilization worth standing.

Thoughts on SCOTUS and Gay Marriage

The two court rulings this week relating to the whelming social issue of gay rights provoke fiery passions and deep conflicts. I wish it were not so, but it is, and I think I understand it. But I believe it’s best for everyone to take a few steps back and try to view the larger frame. Regardless the technical strengths and weaknesses of constitutional jurisprudence, and there are both, in the arguments made before the court as well as in the decisions and dissents of the justices, the core issue grinding these judicial proceedings is simply one of human decency and social equity.
 
My citizenship credentials are conservative; philosophically, politically, economically and ethically. I am Roman Catholic by birth and by informed adult choice. So I understand much of what motivates protest against gay rights. But the good Lord blessed me with a free will and a soul I have a responsibility to nurture with thoughts and deeds that my free will makes manifest. I follow no dictates except those of my conscience. This is only one issue on which I disagree with my church.
 
To assert that gay couples are somehow less capable than heterosexuals, or worse, less deserving, of sustained loving spousal relationships is prima facie wrong, not to mention mean. So, too, I think, are assertions that homosexuality is not a biological/psychological imperative. And biology incurs no dimension of morality.
 
I don’t pretend any expertise or special insight. My views develop from an unremarkable life of experience and observation. I fully admit I don’t understand homosexual attraction, and the thought of it can make me squeamish, but my sensibilities should have no impact on the issue. Even if I’m wrong, and instead of an organic compulsion homosexuality is a consciously chosen lifestyle, then I’m entitled to make a moral judgment, but my judgment, or yours, has no legal standing under our system of laws.
 
Getting back to decency and equity, marriage is an exquisitely personal contract between two people. The state has no business meddling with such a relationship, and certainly not by either requiring or forbidding marriage by anyone. But because marriage has become so complexly interfaced with bureaucracy, the state does have a role, a very simple one, and that is to accept it. All marriages, regardless the sex of the partners, should be treated by the state in exactly the same ways. That is all that decency and equity requires.
 
Moreover, the escalating war of belligerent rhetoric badly needs a truce. There are no categorical demons in this. Supporters and opponents of gay marriage are neither good nor bad people because of their positions. Both sides sorely need to find a way to respect the opposing view, because without that respect there can be no tolerance, and without tolerance there can be no healthy civil society. Disagreement within a pluralist society is a given, and it often serves as the engine of improvement. But demagoguery, no matter its ilk, will only destroy us. The state, on the other hand, should remain neutral and administer its marriage related functions fairly, without the prejudice to which individual citizens may be entitled.
 
Marriage is a vital societal lynchpin. But our American institution of marriage is in sad shape. Instead of warring, we should be joining forces to do everything possible to encourage its pursuit. And that applies most assuredly to gay couples as to anyone else.
 

The Sweet Tingling in Bloomberg’s Ear

Just who in hell does Mike Bloomberg think he is, anyway?

Let me tell who I think he is: the most dangerous possible type of politician. His particularly acute paternalism is dangerous. His strident arrogance is dangerous. His adamantly authoritarian behavior is dangerous. His penchant to rule by proclamation is dangerous. His willingness, no, his eagerness to impose his own codes of personal behavior on others is dangerous. His trenchant conviction that people are too stupid, too lazy and too irresponsible to make their own choices is dangerous.

Mike Bloomberg was never elected to be New York City’s father, or doctor, or nutritionist, or social engineer, or dictator, or god. Voters did not crave for either his moral or bio-medical compass to supplant their own. Yet, he acts brazenly and consistently in all of these roles, stomping individual rights and freedoms with each step he takes. His affronts to and infringement of constitutional rights have been many. It’s positively nauseating, and he should scare the shit out of every defender of liberty. Hello, ACLU, are you still out there?

I’d like to also knock him for being an unabashed opportunist. His timely recurring shifts of political party, from Democrat to Republican to Independent, were transparent efforts to improve his chances of election victories. But being opportunistic just means that he’s no better than any other politician.

Finally, someone is doing something about him. New York Supreme Court Judge Milton Tingling has nullified Bloomberg’s ban on large-sized soda servings. While the mayor vows to appeal, Judge Tingling’s decision is fairly sweeping and won’t be easy to overturn. The judge “enjoined and permanently restrained from implementing or enforcing the new regulations.” He cited the ban as “arbitrary and capricious” and concluded that Mayor Bloomberg overstepped his powers.

The 10th richest American, with personal wealth in excess of $27 billion, Bloomberg is an exquisite example of why we should never allow anyone to buy themselves into public office. Hey Mike, I’d bet a lot of New Yorkers think $27 billion is an excessively large amount of wealth for any one person. Maybe they can lobby for a new regulation to cap you off at, say, $1 billion or so. I’m guessing Napoleon would never have stood for that, but how about you, little man?