So,
Before I started in on this accounting stuff, I had a law class for which, as a first assignment, I had to write a paper that dealt with the protection offered by the Constitution. My argument was to dismiss the entire question because the Constitution is just a god damned piece of paper and offers no protection whatsoever. As a DIY litmus test, I suggested holding up a copy of the Constitution the next time a cop was going to violate your "Constitutional Rights" and see if it was actually able to stop the tazer barbs from shocking the shit out of you. Next to the 100% grade for the paper, the instructor added a comment to the effect of "me no-likey". Since I'm in this to get my degree and, at this point, I'm not willing to sacrifice my 4.0 gpa, I toned back all further writings in a way that got my point across but without evoking as much of an emotional response from the instructor.
That was back in August. What has happened since then that I haven't blogged about because ACCOUNTING SUCKS OUT LOUD?
Occupy Wall Street happened and the media blackout ended when the police trapped two women on a public sidewalk with their bright orange kettle netting and then pepper sprayed them for the apparent crime of letting themselves get caught in the bright orange kettle netting on a public sidewalk. Later, 20 or so college students were pepper-hosed (spray is much too kind of a word in this case) for the violent crime of sitting down in a public area.
Bit of the ultra-violence.
Clockwork, it ain't. Or were you talking about the cops?
The Great and Powerful Oz made good on a speech that he made, in a level of irony to match his level of arrogance, in the room that holds the original Constitution. In that speech, he announced that King George (George W. Bush for those of you that aren't long-time readers) was a bastard for violating the Constitution in the way that he had. Obama said that He would never act in such a way because of his Constitutional Law background. Then, without pause and within the exact same damning speech on bastards violating the Constitution, he announced his intention of passing a law allowing the indefinite detention of non-criminals anywhere in the world. "God help you if you get in the way of the 1% because I will make your ass disappear, Constitution-be-damned!" In December, without fanfare or ceremony or media coverage, Oz signed it into law.
At the same time Obama was signing NDAA, I was reading about SOPA while thinking, "I should write on my blog while it can still be found." On the surface, the act is supposed to protect copyright material but I haven't read anyone who believes either: 1. That's what it's supposed to do; or 2. It will work. Some people do believe that the original intention was to protect copyright material but even they don't think it will work. Maybe that's how it started but now it's more of a Trojan Horse to allow the government to make sites disappear.
I'm starting to sense a pattern.
Making stuff disappear or violating rights?
SOPA will act contrary to what many Americans think of when it comes to law enforcement. If a person files a complaint against a web page, the entire web site will be disappeared (even if it contains 1,000 pages with no complaints). The site owner then will have to petition or fight or bribe people to get the action reversed. Guilty until proven you'll comply with what we say you're allowed to put on the Internets innocent will be the rule.
On the other side of the equation, it will be possible to use browsers that don't comply with the government restrictions or visit the sites directly if you know their address. However, it will probably be a felony to circumvent government restrictions on websites. Just like China, you could end up in prison for reading Wikileaks.
"Welcome to Alcatraz. Whatcha in for?"
"Reading the news."
"Hardcore man, hardcore."
On the horizon, I just read that New York City is planning on taking TSA's radioactive nekkid body scanners and making them smaller so they can be installed on police cars and street corners next to surveillance cameras.
Making clothes disappear.
And all semblance of a "Free Country".
To make this post a "They Really Said That?" edition, let me give you this quote from New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly:
"The scanner would only be used in reasonably suspicious circumstances and could cut down on the number of stop-and-frisks on the street."
It might cut down on the stops but it's going to exponentially increase the number of frisks. He talks like he's doing everyone in New York a favor. "We know you're in a hurry and have places to go and how inconvenient it is when the police stop you to give you a quick feel-up. Now you won't have to stop. We'll just look at you naked as you walk down the road. We will, of course, use anything we see to file criminal charges when we find violations of the law, despite the fact that what we found was the product of a warrantless search, Constitution-be-damned."
Text books will have to heavily edit their "Fruit of the Poisonous Vine" chapters.
It'd be easier to just make those chapters disappear.
Law books will start to look like a Jehovah's Witness's bible.
"Professor, why does my text book go from chapter 10 to chapter 12?"
"We didn't like chapter 11. It dealt with archaic right to privacy beliefs."
The bottom line is that as governments continue to lose their relevance and completely trash any claim to being useful, restrictions are going to tighten. Freedoms are going to be reduced. What people are allowed to do, say, read, and think is going to be narrowed in an effort to keep them from choosing freedom. The Constitution can't protect people from this.
Whether W actually said the line or not, it is true that the Constitution is just a piece of paper. It does not grant rights as many people mistakenly believe or accidentally imply when they say things like, "I have the first amendment right to free speech." Bzzzt. Wrong but thank you for playing. Johnny, tell 'em what they've won as a consolation prize.
The rights that people are talking about are human rights. You get them by being human (which rules out many politicians). The Constitution doesn't grant rights. The government doesn't give rights. The government can only violate rights. It does so in the name of protecting rights, which is an obvious self-imploding argument. "We are going to violate your human rights so that we can protect your human rights." Whu-uh?
The Constitution, specifically the Bill of Rights, was written as an agreement to set boundaries on how much the government was going to violate the human rights of Americans. By itself though, it offers no protection. Protection comes from the people. People who stand up for their human rights and the rights of the people around them. The Constitution, while just a piece of paper, was important because it set out the rules of the game and when the rules were broken, people took action to fix it. As governance has moved further from self-governance to a central government and as that government has become incredibly powerful, the incentive for politicians to play by the rules has decreased to the point where it's okay to pepper spray people sitting on a sidewalk or disappear people who haven't committed a crime to secret prisons in Iraq or hide websites that dare speak the truth or expose people to radiation while getting a tax-payer funded peepshow out of the deal.
The Constitution isn't going to stop this escalating trend into a police state. Only the people can stop it.
The Constitution doesn't protect human rights.
Humans protect human rights.
