Bong Hits 4 Free Speech

The Seattle Times has an uncharacteristically good editorial on the high school free speech case heard last week before the Supreme Court, Morse v. Frederick. The case, if you've not heard of it, involved an 18 year old Alaskan high school senior unfurling the home-made banner (shown in the picture on the left) as the Olympic Torch was carried by. The kid and the principal apparently had a relationship not unlike Bart Simpson and Principal Skinner. From the SCOTUSblog:

The core facts that the two sides can agree upon are these: when the Olympic torch was being carried along Glacier Avenue in Juneau, Alaska, on January 24, 2002, 18-year-old Joseph Frederick held up a 14-foot banner with the message, “BONG HITS 4 JESUS.” (“Bong hits” is slang for smoking marijuana.) Glacier Avenue runs in front of Juneau-Douglas High School, where Frederick was enrolled as a senior. School Principal Morse crossed the Avenue, and demanded that the sign be taken down; Frederick refused, and the principal grabbed the sign and crumpled it. Later, Morse suspended Frederick for ten days, citing a variety of infractions of school rules. The Ninth Circuit found a violation of Frederick’s First Amendment rights, and found that the law was so clear on this issue in January 2002 that the principal was not entitled to legal immunity to money damages.

The school claims that this was essentially a "field trip," but it wasn't. It was not supervised. It was off school grounds. The event wasn't sponsored by the school. The kid was skipping school anyway, and showed up to the rally on his own, and made the banner in his garage. As the Times put it:

With children under its charge, and particularly on its property, a school needs to have a degree of authority, including over speech. That is why, for example, The Seattle Times opposes the bill sponsored by Rep. Dave Upthegrove, D-Des Moines, to give editorial control of high-school newspapers to the students.

***

But somewhere comes a limit to the school's authority. Outside school grounds, where politics meet the streets, school regulations fade and the rules are the same as applies to citizens generally, including free speech. Within the schools, access to free speech — from gang clothing to graffiti to pronouncements at school ceremonies — is necessarily within the realm of controlled speech.

Well said.

My only beef with the article (and the rest of the media reports surrounding the case) is the worry about "overruling Tinker v. Des Moines", which I don't think this case necessarily could do. Even if the Court sides against the former student, the compromises that would have to be reached in order to get those votes, along with the Chief Justice's desire for narrow rulings, would probably merely follow existing caselaw which permits schools to control obscene speech. Whatever "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" actually means, it seems difficult to call it "political" like the black armbands clearly were in Tinker, which means it's distinguishable.

But I hope the right outcome is achieved - that this twerp's obnoxious action done for no other reason than to antagonize his principal (and make no mistake, this is ALL it was) is found to be protected.

Anarchist Blogger Rightly Spends 200 Days In Jail

This story about a man self described as "an artist, an activist, an anarchist and an archivist" is no doubt going to be used by some to bolster the idea that our free press is under siege, and that we need more "journalist privilege" rules for the very sake of democracy. (Most of those people - coincidentally - will make their living at newspapers, know bloggers and other online media are obliterating their circulation numbers and profits, and merely want to make their club more exclusive.) But it actually says just the opposite - that such rules are absurd, arguably unconstitutional, and certainly unworkable.

Here's what happened:

Josh Wolf, a 24-year-old blogger, has spent more than six months behind bars in California -- the longest contempt-of-court term ever served by someone in the media -- for refusing to turn over a videotape he shot of a violent San Francisco demonstration against a Group of Eight summit meeting. Unless a mediation session today can break the impasse, he will likely remain imprisoned at least until the current grand jury's term expires in July.
***
Wolf taped the anarchists' San Francisco protest, against a G-8 summit meeting in Scotland, in July 2005. One police officer, Peter Shields, had his skull fractured by a hooded assailant with a pipe or baseball bat. Three people were charged in the attack. Police say protesters also put a mattress under Shields's police car and tried to set it on fire.

The First Amendment makes us ALL journalists by birthright, and the Internet gives reality to this great promise. Some journalists are professionals, but enough of us are part-timers (especially now) that any definition that would include this guy would necessarily include more US citizens that it would exclude. The Constitution and subsequent amendments made no provision for an insulated journalist class, nor should it have. Creating standards to define "real" journalists only limits the proliferation of a robust, diverse, and free information distribution system that is accessible to all.

In other words, journalist shield laws passed in the name of a free press would actually abridge that free press, in direct contravention of the clear language of the First Amendment.

We are all citizens with the same rights to see, report, publish, and disseminate information. We are also all citizens with the same responsibilities to our justice system - to report for jury duty when asked, to answer subpoenas when served, and to testify truthfully at a tribunal when properly summoned. No penumbra emanating from anywhere grants an exception just because you happen to own a New York Times press pass - or a blog URL.

I'm just glad the judge in this case has the fortitude to keep him in jail, refusing to let justice take a back seat to big-media pressure groups.

What Flags Are OK To Desecrate?

What do you call it when a group selectively uses the mechanisms of the State to suppress expression of a point of view they find politically objectionable?

If you're the San Francisco State University administration, the SFSU student council, Students Against War, the International Socialist Organization, or the General Union of Palestinian Students, you call it "protecting diversity," "preventing violence," or "promoting tolerance."

This story starts with an "anti-terrorism rally" held last October on campus by the College Republicans. To emphasize their point, students stomped on Hezbollah and Hamas flags. According to the college paper, the Golden Gate (X)Press, members of Students Against War and the International Socialist Organization showed up to call the Republicans "racists," while the president of the General Union of Palestinian Students accused the Repubs of spreading false information about Muslims.

In November, the Associated Students board passed a unanimous resolution, which the (X)Press reported, denounced the California Republicans for "hateful religious intolerance" and criticized those who "pre-meditated the stomping of the flags knowing it would offend some people and possibly incite violence."

Now you know that there are students who are opposed to desecrating flags on campus -- that is, if the flags represent terrorist organizations.

But wait -- there's more. A student filed a complaint with the Office of Student Programs and Leadership Development. OSPLD Director Joey Greenwell wrote to the College Republicans informing them that his office had completed an investigation of the complaint and forwarded the report to the Student Organization Hearing Panel, which will adjudicate the charge. At issue is the charge that College Republicans had walked on "a banner with the world 'Allah' written in Arabic script" -- it turns out Allah's name is incorporated into Hamas and Hezbollah flags -- and "allegations of attempts to incite violence and create a hostile environment," as well as "actions of incivility."

At an unnamed date, the student panel could decide to issue a warning to, suspend or expel the GOP club from campus.

***

The university's response? [SFSU] Spokesperson Ellen Griffin [said], "The university stands behind this process. [...] I don't believe the complaint is about the desecration of the flag. I believe that the complaint is the desecration of Allah."

So what if it is? If a student put a crucifix in a jar of urine, they probably would have gotten a scholarship from the art department. And if people will be uncontrollably driven to violence because someone expresses disgust with a terror organization who acts in the name of Allah, maybe they aren't ready to be Americans. At the very least, they should have had to re-take high school civics.

I oppose American flag burning legislation, because, as much as I'm offended by such action, real Americans respond to expression with either expression of their own, or by walking away. That's what it means to live in freedom. I imagine the SFSU folks also oppose laws against American flag burning, but considering the flag-selectivity of the administration and the complaining student organizations, I have to wonder if their reasons for that opposition have more to do with an approval of the message than any free speech principles.

Alas, this isn't limited to the rarefied atmosphere of San Francisco. At our own institution, the College Republicans had their "Affirmative Action" bake sale shut down by the University. Minute Men and their supporters were shouted down last October and ousted from their speaking event at Columbia. And speakers who violate the campus orthodoxy often face pies, disruption, and threats. At some law schools, new students are publicly warned away from the Federalist Society, and no faculty member will serve as their advisor.

None of this is new or surprising. But this kind of thuggery deserves to be exposed and mocked again and again and again. As often as it takes.

"Censorship," Public Arts Funding, and Media Bias

I am acutely aware of media bias, and have been trained to read between the lines of newspaper stories since my first debate class my sophomore year of high school. I consider myself a discerning consumer of news, and not easily fooled. But it's amazing how a headline can still inflame. Consider the following story, with the headlines I saw, accompanied by my thought processes:

(From Drudge) "Politician Wants Government to Review Movie Scripts -- Before Cameras Start Rolling..." Me: What the hell? This must be about that Dakota Fanning movie. Imagine - the federal government reviewing every movie script - what is this, North Korea? Outrageous! I wonder if it's a Democrat like Al Gore, who's music censorship insanity now gets a free pass, or if it's some nanny state "conservative." It'll never fly, but the fact that it even is up for debate is shameful! I need to check this out... Click.

The headline from the Wilmington Star, a North Carolina paper: "Republican: Scripts Need Reviewing" Me: Great. Even though I know the headline would read differently if a Democrat had proposed this, way to fulfill every negative stereotype about conservatives. I need to blog about this offensive and unconstitutional attack on free speech. Not only is it outrageous, but it'll be good to show those who think the FedSoc is just a GOP shill that principles trump party politics here. Government pre-screening of movie scripts - Outrageous!

And then I actually read it. In my head was the sound of the abrupt record scratch as the jukebox stops playing and everyone in the bar looks up.

That system, said state Sen. Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, would apply only to films seeking the state's lucrative filmmaker incentive, which refunds as much as 15 percent of what productions spend in North Carolina from the state treasury.

Me: Well I'll be darned. I just got punk'd by two headlines in a row. Not only is it entirely reasonable for a 15% stakeholder to want to review a script before committing to it, it has nothing to do with the First Amendment or government censorship of private art (however disgusting) at all. It doesn't have anything to do with the federal government, either.

I think it's a dangerous road to start down, to offer this kind of incentive package. I understand the state's desire to incentivize filmmakers to come to their state and show it off (hopefully in a positive light). But then comes the murky world of deciding what's "objectionable," allegations of "arbitrary and capricious" decision making, etc.

Regardless, nothing in the actual facts being reported has anything to do with the implications of the headline, which is that "Republicans hate free speech and want to censor Hollywood." It is a dishonest way to support an entitlement mentality - "I have the right to make a movie, therefore, the I have a right to government money that may help me do that."

One of the truisms behind the principles of limited government that most of us here share is that if government pays for it, they can control it. We generally therefore seek to limit government control and intrusion by cutting the purse strings. It is one of the logical absurdities of liberalism we here tend to reject - that one is entitled to the government's (other people's) money for our own benefit without any strings attached, and that the Constitution requires it.

Who Will Protect Free Speech?

The New York Sun is declaring that Sen. McCain has finally seen the light on free speech:

Mr. McCain's epiphany came during debate on the new "ethics" bill the Senate passed earlier this month. Mr. McCain and the Republicans,— joined by seven Democrats for free speech, voted down a provision that would have redefined the word "lobbyist" to include groups like politically active churches, direct mail companies, small nonprofit organizations, and even bloggers.

Under the provision, known as Section 220 of the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007, these "paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying" would have been considered lobbying, meaning that organizations that asked the public to contact their elected representatives would have been regulated like multimillion dollar K Street firms.

As much as I do like John McCain, his poor understanding of the First Amendment is troublesome to me. And I'm not going to hold my breath that he's suddenly become a free speech libertarian. But what's far worse is the fact that the party in power - the one supposedly swept in by people indignant over Bush's imperial and fascist presidency - overwhelmingly voted for the measure.

And it gets worse. Led by Dennis Kucinich, the head of the newly created "Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee" (which is apparently more interested in ferreting out subversives than in addressing out-and-out corruption), the Democrats are once again pursuing a return to the ironically named FCC "Fairness Doctrine." This intrusive balancing requirement would kill an entire medium of overt (and usually conservative) political speech - talk radio - but would leave in tact left leaning but putatively un-political "news" like NPR (where you can't even call in to challenge the speaker). Serious attempts have even been made by Congress to expand this concept to the internet - the ultimate expression of a free press surpassing the wildest dreams of by the Founding Fathers.

Meanwhile, one of those Senators who voted for the measure is, of course, rejecting any public funds for support of her Presidential campaign (as ar most of the candidates) , in order to avoid government control of that money. Good for her, but she ironically argues that her choice to opt out of government control is actually proof of why we need even MORE government control of free speech. Government control of speech is good for you, but not for her.

Political contributions, which fund both political speech and are necessary to petition the government for redress of our variougrievanceses through the political process, are at the heart of what should be protected by the First Amendment. Attempts at "reform" through additional regulation only serve (consciously or not) to suppress and control political speech.

The rich always have had an access advantage to political power, and they always will. Nothing will ever change that. In this country, that's not even always a bad thing - it usually takes hard work, vision, ambition, and leadership to become wealthy. But another big part of that advantage comes from their ability to use their wealth to bypass government control by hiring better lawyers, or even creating a completely independent media outlet (think George Soros).

Logically, then, the more regulation that exists, the harder it will be for the non-wealthy to get their views out, run for office, oachieveve their political ends.

So why are liberals (and too many conservatives) so intent on pushing such regulation? The simple answer is that they don't trust us little people to sift through all that speech out there, and make decisions based on it. That's it. And that attitude is flatly un-democratic and un-American.

The only regulation we should see on political speech is transparency and reporting. Let's keep the marketplace of ideas free. I believe deeply in the wisdom of the American people when we get together and determine the direction of our destiny, more than I have faith in politicians to give me the right answers. Our leaders need to harness this wisdom by opening the floodgates - not trying to restrict and control the information flow. That - far more than Jesus in a jar of urine - is what the First Amendment is really all about.

Newt - Destroying the 1st Amendment, or Restoring it For the Sake of Survival?

Last week, Newt Gingrich made headlines by suggesting we needed to rethink our current thinking about what the 1st Amendment does and does not allow in terms of free speech in order to protect ourselves. The expected wailing an gnashing of teeth followed about sacred protections, dissent being patriotic, etc. As usual, Ben Franklin's quote about essential liberties vs. "a little temporary safety" was misquoted and/or used out of context.

But the problem is that while Gingrich's general thrust is correct, the way he posited it was very wrong. Here's what he said:

"Either before we lose a city, or, if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up [terrorists'] capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech [protections] and to go after people who want to kill us -- to stop them from recruiting people before they get to reach out and convince young people to destroy their lives while destroying us."

Gingrich spoke in his piece in terms of "limiting free speech." That's not the argument, in my mind. Worse, putting it in those terms instantly raises the specter of censorship, 1984, etc., making it far less politically viable. Instead, the debate must be what defines "speech" within the meaning of the First Amendment - and what crosses the line into action. It may sound like semantics, but our very lives rest on the distinction.

When a Minneapolis Imam preaches that all good Muslims should rise up and destroy America by force, that is protected. When an American Communist urges college students to violent revolution, that is protected. When an Army officer urges fellow soldiers to ignore lawful orders from their elected civilian leaders, liberals argue it should be protected. What madness or self loathing requires us to suicidally accept such threats to our freedom and indeed, to our very existence?

Such advocacy is not merely speech - it is action. It is no more speech and no less action than Tony Soprano ordering his goon to kill someone, and deserves no more protection.

The kicker is that allowing these verbal threats against our very survival is far from the immutable American tradition. We have recognized throughout the majority of our history that advocating the violent overthrow of the US government - especially in times of war - is outside the bounds of speech, and can and should be proscribed. Where exactly the line is may be fuzzy, but common sense makes clear that an Imam declaring jihad is on the wrong side of that line. As late as 1951 in United States v. Dennis, 341 U.S. 494 (1951), the Supreme Court correctly recognized that the Communist Party was a real threat to this country, and that organizing a party and using its mechanisms to advocate subversion was not and should not be protected. The thought that we were not a free country prior to 1951 is simply absurd. But then, that was back before we chose to lose wars...

(Andrew McCarthy has a fantastic historical breakdown of free speech protections and their nexuses with our various conflicts - and brilliantly points out the current risk we face for our indulgence of terrorists. It's also a good review for next week's Free Expression final...)

I don't want a Sedition Act. I don't want people jailed for being critical of the President. The effort to conflate a return to Dennis with American Fascism is intellectually and historically bankrupt. What I do want is to simply return to our senses. Let's RE-recognize that the Constitution is and never was a suicide pact, and that it need not tolerate advocates for its violent destruction in the name of its protection.

Camera Shy?

So it looks like Darcy Burner isn’t so hot for free speech or transparency in government after all.

Contrast this with how Mike McGavick handled the camera stalker from the Democratic Party. I wonder where Darcy’s outrage was back then?

It has to be really irritating to be under that kind of constant scrutiny – I don’t blame her for not loving it. I think it’s a lame and rude tactic, frankly. But she chose to thrust herself in the public sphere for our consideration – no one twisted her arm. And voters have the right to access and parse her public statements, irrespective of her desire to tightly control the “message” and the means by which it's distributed.

And she should have stayed in law school a little longer. Her argument that RCW 9.73.030(1)(b) prevents a citizen from recording a public political event is absurd. But even if she had some remote legal standing, if her ideas are strong enough, she should welcome any forum that will give them time. McGavick’s not afraid. What is Darcy afraid of?

This is just one more indication that she’s not ready for prime time. This reeks of petulance and elitism, without even a whiff of commitment to open and transparent access to government officials. How sad to see two days after her strong words in the debate about needing a free and open marketplace of ideas.

Free Speech, "Fighting Words," and What Gets Left Out in Class

Yeah, I did it. This is why.

In my Free Expression class yesterday, we were discussing "fighting words" and incitement. At issue in one of the cases was a "gentleman" who indicated his distaste for conscription by having in large letters "Fuck the Draft" on the back of his jacket, which he wore in a court room. (His jacket was found to be protected speech.) The class discussion, of course, included liberal use of the F word by the professor, both verbally and on the power point slides, presumably to make clear what the issues at hand really were.

Now, I don't have any problem with swearing. I'm a former sailor, after all. In fact, I really quite enjoy it in appropriate settings. But I don't think it's appropriate in public in most cases, if nothing else as a matter of decorum and of just plain being grownups. I like that the FCC bans certain words as a condition of broadcast licenses over airways owned by the public. Swearing on a picket sign or hippy jacket may be hip, but it doesn't exactly impress upon me that I should take you or your position seriously, since it's more about juvenile "rebellion" than anything else.

But then the discussion turned to inciting riots, and whipping up a crowd. And the the Danish Cartoon Riots throughout the Middle East earlier this year came up - should we have allowed censor of these pictures for the sake of public safety? But at no time did the "speech" involved ever make it to the screen. We weren't getting an idea of the causal relationship supposedly at play.

Worse, it followed the Conventional Narrative: The pictures from a tiny, locally circulated Danish paper that had been published six months before "just happened" to find themselves circulating around every Muslim nation, without the benefit of a free press, simultaneously. And then, just as spontaneously, people became outraged, leapt from their homes and businesses and kite flying, and started destroying everything and killing fellow Muslims in a state of rage they didn't have the mental capacity to control. We were told earnestly that depicting an image of Mohammed is blasphemous, and always has been. And the discussion in the Western liberal press was how much fault should we lay at the feet of the alleged provocateur. How dare these insensitive, racist, white, male, non-culturally sensitive, and probably not even capitalist cartoonists!!!

Rubbish.

The "riots" were carefully orchestrated and planned by Islamofascists who wanted to test the depths of western capitulation and spinelessness. The actual cartoons weren't bad enough, so they manufactured their own. They likely knocked on doors and "suggested" that people muster at the previously scheduled spontaneous riot at a given place and time. They told lies about where the cartoons came from. They made no distinction between governments and independent publishers, because they are allowed no such distinction or freedom in their country. They ignored that pious Muslims had been respectfully drawing and painting Mohammed for centuries. Had anyone chosen not to "spontaneously" riot, they most likely would have gotten another knock on their door the next day. This is how actual fascism - as opposed to liberal fantasy Bushitler AmeriKKKan fascism - actually works.

In other words, there was only the most distant causal connection between the speech at issue and the societal harm. The real causal agent were the imams who set up and executed the well orchestrated events. At one point, the professor asked me (while I was pointing out the above facts), "But you would agree that this wouldn't have happened without those cartoons." My answer, of course, was "no." If not those, then it would have been something else. An episode of South Park. A kind word from anyone about Israel. And even if our capitulation was complete, they would have just made some more stuff up.

What context is more important? Why discuss the foreign riots as they relate to speech and "incitement" without the even remotely correct background or factual details of that incitement?

The professor has been very strong so far, acknowledging, for example, that Communists really were a real threat to the United States during the Cold War - something I think it takes real courage to say out loud in a group that thinks McCarthy was the 20th Century's greatest villain. He also has few kind words for the WWI Socialists who would have brought untold violence and harm to the war effort, businesses, and the nation in general; or for civil rights groups who resort to violent extortion and threats to strengthen a boycott. The approach has been blessedly balanced.

But this was a major disappointment. I can't say for sure he didn't show the cartoons because of political correctness. But given the free use of attention-getting images and offensive words in nearly every other context, and the time he spent getting other images of the riots the cartoons supposedly "caused," I have a hard time coming to any other conclusion.

And honestly, I can't imagine our law school's mindlessly politically correct administration being very supportive of a professor if someone complained about a possible offense against the Religion of Peace. And so as an employee, it's hard to say I blame him.

How sad that an important lesson in Free Speech concepts in a First Amendment class would fall victim to censorship by foreign fascist intimidation.

And now the cops

Religious scruple at the forefront again. First it was Christian pharmacists in Washington refusing to dispense the morning after pill, then it was Muslim taxi drivers in Minneapolis refusing to take passengers who were carrying alcohol, and now a Muslim police officer in London refuses to guard the Israeli embassy on moral grounds.

I'd be interested to see Orrin's and Publius' defense of this latest efflorescence of piety :-)

Speechless in Seattle

George Will on the death of free speech in our state.

First pharmacists, now taxi drivers

We had a spirited discussion on the blog a couple of months ago on the issue of whether pharmacists should be allowed to indulge their personal prejudices and refuse to dispense the morning after pill.

Now taxi-drivers in Minneapolis are getting in on the act, and refusing to accept passengers who are carrying alcohol with them.

Where will this end? We're becoming an increasingly self-indulgent and intolerant society where we think the strength of our personal beliefs entitles us to impose the costs of our observance of those beliefs on others.

More on Being Pro-Pharmacist-Choice

Our very own Professor Jay weighs in today against the freedom of pharmacists to not dispense medications they find morally objectionable.

We've had this one out on this blog before. And I like Professor Jay, who's been good enough to participate in our events in the past. But at the risk of my grade next quarter in Free Expression (kidding), I think a rebuttal is in order.

Professor Jay argues that the administrative board responsible for such things didn't have the authority to issue that kind of regulation because of I-120, an initiative that had little or nothing to do with contraception - it was an abortion bill. Frankly, I think the characterization of I-120 in the article is misleading. The only mention of contraception in I-120 is a policy statement saying people should be allowed to have access to it, which, of course, they still do. Here's the actual initiative as enacted. It's codified in RCW Chapter 9.02.

Interestingly enough, I-120 specifically envisioned the freedom of people to not engage in what they feel as immoral actions:

No person or private medical facility may be required by law or contract in any circumstances to participate in the performance of an abortion if such person or private medical facility objects to so doing. No person may be discriminated against in employment or professional privileges because of the person's participation or refusal to participate in the termination of a pregnancy.

RCW 9.02.150. If "monopoly" is defined as the entire group of private businesses that fall under medical regulations, private medical facilities could be considered at least as much of a "monopoly" as Professor Jay considers pharmacies in his article. But they are still allowed to listen to their conscience and limit their services accordingly under the law, which is as it should be.

His argument is this:

Discrimination occurs when a neutral regulation is adopted with the intent of singling out a specific practice for adverse consequences. The proposed rule, which has grown out of a desire to deny women access to Plan B, clearly discriminates against women under I-120.

This is a completely unfair characterization. There are certainly some people who would like to ban Plan B. But the desire of the Board was to find a balance between allowing businessmen to act according to their principles while allowing those who wish to use Plan B the ability to get it. The desire is to allow pharmacists to operate their business with freedom and conscience. Plan B is still widely available, and there is nothing to suggest that a woman who wants it can't get it within 24 hours. Despite this lack of evidence or support, Professor Jay says:

The Legislature certainly could enact such a misconceived privilege but it will first have to listen to the growing number of women turned away by pharmacists who think they are laws unto themselves.

I would like to hear from one single woman forced to have a baby because she could not get Plan B in time because of this new regulation. Anywhere. Even Professor Jay doesn't go that far - he only says they are being turned away. He doesn't say whether they go to the next pharmacy a block away that still does offer the emergency contraception, an omission that I think matters greatly.

Right now, pro-choice people can get all the Plan B they want in a timely fashion. Pharmacies are on practically every block and in almost every grocery store. There are 816 in the Seattle area alone. Pharmacists who don't think it's morally right can sleep at night without having to choose between their job and their conscience. Ones who don't have a problem with it get more business. Everyone wins.

The only reason to oppose this common sense compromise is to force people to conform with the pro-choice agenda - an irony if there ever was one.

McGavick Knows How To Handle Dem Stooges

Believe it or not, I'm still undecided on my vote on this Senate race. More on that later. But this video of Mr. McGavick dealing with Democratic kids following him everywhere and trying to needle him into doing something stupid impressed the hell out of me.

It demonstrates clearly who the grownups are. And when it comes to running the country, voters want grownups in charge. Sen. Cantwell would do well to back these guys off a bit.

Flag Burning Amendment Thankfully Fails

The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.

So reads the flag burning amendment the Senate rejected today by one vote today, deservedly killing the measure.

I hate flag burners. I hate the dirty, snot-nosed hippies who so hate our country, but can afford to be professional protesters leaching off of society and accomplishing nothing at all because of what our country is. I hate the childishness of it, and the utter inanity of the gesture. Who are they trying to impress or emulate - Jihadists? Nazis? (They liked to burn all kinds of things.) North Koreans? Iranian theocracy-sponsored demonstrators? Short of Jimmy Carter, has there ever been any American in power who would be moved by such an act?

But despite my strong feeling towards those who do it, there is simply no other reason in the world to burn a flag other than as a political statement. None. And political speech was what the Founders had in mind most when they limited the government from abridging free speech. There is no good reason to restrict such expression - no safety concerns, no national security issues, nothing. The only reason people want to make this particular form of expression illegal is because the content offends them. And that's not a good enough reason to suppress free expression, even in a small way, in a free society. After all, we are conservatives - we understand that we don't have a right not to be offended! Don't we?

And what is a "flag," anyway? A design on a shirt? A drawing? A painting? A cap? A mural? A bumper sticker? And what does it mean to "desecrate" the flag? Carelessly letting it trail in the mud? Sewing a peace sign over the star field? Getting into a fender-bender with someone with a flag bumper sticker?

I am deeply, deeply offended by flag burning, but I am not harmed by it. The physical flag is only a piece of cloth - it is precisely because you can burn it without being thrown in jail by the government that makes it so special and so unique. Because of that, this amendment would have diminished our flag that I hold so dear, and in doing so, would have been the ultimate desecration of Old Glory.

Blogging and Professional Responsibility

One of the "guest diarists" at the Daily Kos quit in a huff yesterday after he claimed to have had his secret identity "outed" by National Review in a typical Right Wing Conspiracy plot. Of course, his identity wasn't that secret, and his real reason for quitting might have more to do with the Kossack Crowd being unimpressed with his ties to something that rhymes with "Bal*Mart":

Apparently, [Daily]Kos diarist Armando Lloréns-Sar isn't comfortable with too many people knowing about his day job as an attorney at McConnell Valdés (it's clearly the same guy):

...Lloréns-Sar might be uncomfortable with too many people knowing about his professional activities (he threatened to ban one commenter for getting too close to his "personal circumstances"):

During his time filling in for Kos as the "front page diarist" he wrote a number of pro-corporate articles, of course without disclosing that he is a corporate attorney promoting these same issues for his clients. For example, in this post he takes the pro-corporate position that modern anti-trust law is based on activist judges' rulings and not as the law as written. He fails to mention that he recently represented Wal-Mart in an anti-trust capacity in Puerto Rico.

H/T WuzzaDem, whose emphases those are.

As much fun as it is to gloat at the silliness of the Kos types, the story really made me think in broader terms of what's acceptable for an attorney who, say, might want to blog about legal issues. What obligations do you have to your clients? To your firm? What duties of disclosure do you have towards your blogging audience? What does the crusty old judge at the ethics board of inquiry who's never heard of a blog think? Does it matter that you do it on your own time? Or anonymously?

I did some research earlier this year on "Doocing," the firing of an employee for un-careful blogging. It's amazing how easy it is for someone to find your real identity, either by doing a little digging, or by simply getting a subpoena for the ISP. A corporate client who happens to run across something unflattering on a hugely popular website (or unpopular, but still public) would seem to me to be a danger, and something to think about.

But what if it's just a more general legal issue, one that you were inspired to muse about because a case you were working on dealt with that issue? Is that allowed? Should it be? How general does the issue have to be? Does it impact your ability to represent your client? Can a client trust a blogging attorney not to tell their story on line with a, "for example, I had a client once..."? How much detail can you go into about your work day on a blog without violating the PR rules? Does a pseudonym protect you?

This is actually one of the reasons I post here under my real name - I don't want to lull myself into a false sense of anonymity. And it makes clear that what I write I have to answer for, which (usually and hopefully) makes me a little more cautious about what and how I write. That's not to say a nomme de plume doesn't have a time or place - the Federalist Papers weren't written by 1800 year old Romans, after all.

The Kossack writer was a fool, though. He was indiscreet, apparently bitterly acerbic and rude (even to his fellow travelers), used his real first name, and littered the internet with personal details that made him easy to find, including his E-mail address when he tried to edit some Wikipedia entries about the Daily Kos. I don't know the answers to all of this, but one things for certain - Armando is a great example of what a lawyer should NOT do on line.

Olympia Protesters Earn Richly Deserved Pepper-Spraying

Hundreds of protesters in Olympia demanded to be taken seriously this week by breaking in to the port of Olympia, disrupting traffic, destroying gates and fences (public property), tresspassing, and assaulting 60 - 70 police officers by throwing bottles and rocks at them. 22 were arrested, and many were pepper-sprayed for their efforts. Having been pepper-sprayed myself, I can attest to its painful effects, and I can think of no group of people who deserve this treatment so richly.

For what noble cause were these people acting so violently? Peace, of course. You see, the port was being used to onload equipment to ship to the deploying Ft. Lewis Stryker Brigade. They had to stop the baby-killers from murdering the Iraqi Minute Men, after all.

It's interesting that two of the criticisms on the left against President Bush's handling of the war on terror has been that he (a) hasn't gotten troops necessary equipment, and (b) that port security is inadequate. And yet these protesters are (a) trying to disrupt supply flow to the troops of their necessary equipment, and (b) are making the port less secure and criticizing the police who are trying to keep it safe. Oh, well - no one has ever accused violent protesters of being smart, consistent, or logical. I can't wait for the loud denunciations from the pro-troop Democrats about this. (Cue the crickets chirping.)

And really - is there any possible way to have a less effective protest? Really? I mean, do they seriously think the longshoremen are going to look at them acting like imbeciles, get out of their cranes, and say, "Gosh, those guys are right." Do they think the master of the ship is going to look at them and say, "Man - why didn't I think about this before? I'm helping the imperial fascist Bush sell blood for oil. That's it - shut down the engines. We're not going anywhere."

One of good folks who felt the cyan pepper burn was Olympia City Councilman T.J. Johnson (no relation, thank God). Mr. Johnson was the troop-supporter who drafted a resolution in 2004 to block the USS Olympia, a fast attack submarine named for our capital city, from docking in the Port of Olympia for a port visit. The resolution was successful, not through any force of law, but because the Captain of the boat canceled his request for the visit. Nice. But don't you dare question his patriotism...

The protesters, including Councilman Johnson, say they're just trying to stop the war as soon as possible. Well, then, how about let's all push for victory together? What these red-faced fools don't understand is that every one of these demonstrations gives hope to the enemy that our government will capitulate and leave, and allow the rape-room aficionados back into power. The fascists we fight have continually told their people, devastated by our military might, that if they just hold on a little bit longer, the protesters will win, the weak Americans will get bored, and they can go back to oppressing women and reversing the tide of freedom in the Middle East. So the reality is that their protest activities will actually prolong the war and cause more deaths.

But dissent is the highest form of patriotism. And they're committed to peace and freedom. Got it.

Heroes of Free Speech

Yesterday the far left-leaning Seattle Post-Intelligencer published this column which echoed many liberal bloggers in proclaiming Stephen Colbert "my hero" for speaking "truth to power" to Bush at the Correspondent's Dinner last week. I just can't stand it any more.

Yes. Such undaunted courage! To take cracks at a man knowing there will be absolutely zero consequences, that your life or family is in no way in danger, and that the object of your sarcasm will just sit there and smile and take it, and because he is a man of class and decorum, won't even stand up and walk out in disgust. Think of how many minds he must have changed! Think of how many red state hicks woke up to the TRUE man they voted for, and will now vote for Democrats this November! What juevos! What moxie!

What a joke.

In the worker's paradise of Venezuela, that stunt would have earned Colbert a year or two in the joint (if he was lucky). Go find me a Cuban newspaper with an anti-Fidel editorial staff. A modicum of real courage would be showing the Danish Muhammad Cartoons on the Colbert Report. Or picking civility over liberal cred for ratings. Or doing that bit in Iran. (Warning - that last link is funny as hell, and may cause snickering in class.)

I'll save my free speech "hero" worship for Atwar Bahjat, an al Arabia TV journalist who had been risking her life to bring truth to the thuggery and evil of Michael Moore's "Minute Men" in Iraq, and was murdered in the most brutal possible way by opponents of a free press. She reminded us that this type of murder and censorship used to be public policy in her country, but that now good people are risking their lives by speaking out publicly against them.

That's courage. But then, the P-I has never really been threatened with real threats of censorship, save the threat of bankruptcy because their readership has continued to fall. And I doubt any of their columnists seriously thinks they are writing under threat of torture. The fact that they openly write about how they can't openly express their views is a self defeating statement that points to the total lack of insight, logic, thought, perspective, or any other indicia of reason that pervades their narrow world view.

But They Support the Troops...

Just ask the ROTC guys at UNC-Chapel Hill who had their building vandalized. Do these idiots not understand that no one is making them "Fight Your Wars"? They ought to just be grateful those fine volunteers are, in fact, volunteering so there isn't a draft.

As a former ROTC Midshipmen, I hope they find these guys and choke them. In the Vietnam era, there were a lot of arson attempts on ROTC buildings. Someone will get hurt if this isn't stopped.

But they're all about peace and free speech. And oh, yeah - they support the troops, just not Bush and the war.

H/T Michelle Malkin.

Men's Law Caucus - How DARE They!?!?!

Earlier this year, a small group of friends jokingly created the "UW Men's Law Caucus" over lunch. The joke spread, and the idea caught on. The chief instigator had T-shirts made, and sold quite a few of them to men (and women) throughout the law school. Part of the proceeds went to a testicular cancer research charity, and yet more of the profits went to send care packages to soldiers in Iraq, as one of the MLC Founders has a brother there now. I proudly own one of the shirts myself.

But there have been rumblings about this insidious organizations. Is it dedicated to the chauvinist belief that women should stay barefoot and pregnant in the home, and have no business in the courtroom? Is it a sexist group? Have men in today's society NOT yet learned that they have no rights to assemble? Have they not heard women have a right not to be offended?

Even worse - is there an unsaid implication that it's the WHITE Men's Law Caucus? Are they all racists, too?!?

This culminated in a complaint to the Student Bar Association. From the agenda for today's meeting:

Some women at UWLS were offended by the idea of a Law Men's Caucus, and reported their concerns to an SBA board member. Should the students themselves fail to raise their concerns direct at the SBA meeting, the SBA board member will do so on their behalf.

So - the implication is that someone is asking us to disband our loose little group, and to ban a form of expression at the school by not allowing the T-shirts as a form of hate speech against women. They'll probably demand an apology, too. They won't get it from me. If it comes to that, I'll wear my shirt every stinkin' day.

There is, of course, a UW Law Women's Caucus, and good for them. My wife is an attorney, and I understand that there are unique issues that women face in this profession. I don't think the LWC is involved - in fact, I just talked to a fellow student who's on the LWC board, and she thought the MLC shirts were "hilarious."

So what's the problem? Is being 60% of the student body not enough for today's women? Are a bunch of guys getting together and grunting and scratching and talking about issues that concern them such a terrible thing? Are there no unique issues that impact men? How many more women do we need as Deans before we're not discriminating against women any more? Is Dean Knight a raging sexist? Is the Seattle legal community REALLY a bastion of "old boys" who don't want to hire women? Seriously?

When I see a Che Guevara T-shirt, I'm offended. I hate seeing the thoughtlessly anti-conservative, "Republicans are baby killers and war mongers" fliers, shirts, and posters littering the campus. Snarky anti-Bush and anti-conservative comments by professors, ubiquitous in this most liberal of law schools in this most liberal of cities, is an irritation you just learn to live with. But as obnoxious as all those things can be, it would never occur to me to complain to the Student Bar Association about it, or demand they be censored or forced to apologize. I guess free speech at this school only extends to transients looking at porn in our law library.

The T-shirts were, in part, a tongue-in-cheek ribbing of some students who are perceived as taking themselves a little too seriously. This outrage seems to prove that perception was correct.

UPDATE: The SBA complaint went no where, but the MLC spokesman got in a T-shirt plug in. A victory for sanity. Awesome.

Journalist Shield Laws and Community Responsibility

The Minnesota Daily, the independent campus newspaper of my alma mater, the University of Minnesota, recently wrote an editorial griping that the campus police weren't doing more to prevent bike theft or catch bike thieves. The response by the Chief of UMPD is classic:

Lastly, we definitely rely on student collaboration. An example would be last year when a Daily photographer captured a bicycle thief in the act behind Coffman Union, voluntarily offered to turn the photos over to officers only to be overruled by Daily editors under their mistaken impression the event was protected by the "“shield law."” It is disingenuous in the extreme that the Daily editorial staff would pontificate about a lack of UMPD commitment to protecting student property while abdicating your own duty as citizens.

I love it. Full disclosure, though, when I was a student at Minnesota I worked for the UMPD, and often made fun of the Daily for sucking.

This is a great illustration of why such "shield laws" are so dumb. And as I've written before, because the First Amendment makes us all journalists by birthright, it takes a hard core elitist to think that just because you have press pass that you're somehow above the duties and responsibilities that come with being a citizen.