Christopher Hitchens: Where is Bernard Law?

In this lecture, Christopher Hitchens asks about the whereabouts of Cardinal Bernard Law, who is guilty of crimes "too hideous to describe." The undeniable fact is that Law is currently a powerful member of the Catholic clergy in Rome--he is one of the people held in high enough esteem that he has the power and privilege of voting to choose Popes. Any organization whose leaders have basic moral decency would have put such a man into handcuffs and delivered him to the police. Hitchens has many more questions for the Catholic Church too, and not an unfair attack among them, in my opinion. Examples include forbidding condom usage in Africa, where AIDs is an epidemic. This is not an academic issue--it is killing thousands of people. I also know many thinking Catholics who are driven to distraction by the official church teachings in regard to gays and birth control. Here's what Hitchens has to say about the need for the Catholic Church to apologize: I do not post this video to condemn lay Catholics, many of whom are good-hearted people who do inspiring works of kindness in the name of the church. Instead, I've posted this video because I have become weary of seeing the Church automatically and publicly presented as a font of moral judgment just because it is a church (or, in some circles, The Church). I am wondering if we will ever see a day when the Catholic Church (and every other church) is not judged favorably merely because it is a church. I'm wondering whether we will ever see the day when, in response to a claim that we should follow rule because "It is a rule of a church," people will generally ask: "What kind of church?" or "What is the track record of that church?" In any regard, we should never assume that a church is wise or moral just because it is a church. The current job title of Bernard Law compels this. Bottom line: No more free passes for churches. Or for any entity or any person, for that matter.

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Welcome to our store! . . . sort of . . .

Customers of this Dollar Tree store in St. Louis are greeted with the following signs located on the main entry door: img_0210 Here's how I interpret the above: Welcome, honored guests, but it you rip us off, we'll throw your ass in the slammer before you can even utter "Merry Christmas."

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Gagging the experts when discussing the war on drugs

Jim Webb introduced a bill to "create a blue-ribbon commission to look at every aspect of our criminal justice system with an eye toward reshaping the process from top to bottom." How shall we proceed? A recent amendment to Webb's bill by Republican Senator Charles Grassley would bar the commission from "considering" "legalization" of presently controlled substances. See also, this post by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Rolling Stone reports in more detail:

Enter unreconstructed drug warrior Sen. Chuck Grassley, who has released the text of an amendment that would ensure the commission not reach any conclusions that threaten 40 years of failure. The commission would be prohibited, thanks to Grassley, from examining any “policies that favor decriminalization of violations of the Controlled Substances Act or the legalization of any controlled substances.”

Here's the text of Grassley's proposed gag rule:

SEC. ll. RESTRICTIONS ON AUTHORITY. The Commission shall have no authority to make findings related to current Federal, State, and local criminal justice policies and practices or reform recommendations that involve, support, or otherwise discuss the decriminalization of any offense under the Controlled Substances Act or the legalization of any controlled substance listed under the Controlled Substances Act. Therefore . . . let's figure out how to revamp our criminal justice system but let's not discuss the elephant in the room: the fact that the "war on drugs" that has ruined more lives than drugs ever could have ruined. It's important to keep in mind that some conservatives see the light on the "drug war."

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Conservative judge once again advocates decriminalization

Retired Judge James Gray has impeccable conservative credentials. I've posted about him previously. In a recent article in the Daily Pilot, he most reasonably suggests that most Americans would share most of the following goals:

1. Reduce the exposure of drugs to and usage of drugs by children;

2. Stop or materially reduce the violence that accompanies the manufacture and distribution of drugs, especially to police officers and innocent by-standers;

3. Stop or materially reduce the corruption of public officials, individual people and companies, and especially children that accompanies the manufacture and distribution of drugs;

4. Stop or materially reduce crime both by people trying to get money to purchase drugs and by those under the influence of drugs;

5. Stop or materially reduce the flow of drugs into our country;

6. Reduce health risks to people who use drugs;

7. Maintain and reaffirm our civil liberties;

8. Reduce the number of people we must put into our jails and prisons;

9. Stop or materially reduce the flow of guns out of our country and into countries south of our border;

10. Increase respect for our laws and institutions.

What is a good way to simultaneously further all of these goals? All we need to do is to treat the manufacture and sale of drugs "just like we treat alcohol." Consider #2 in more detail--attempting to curtail violence on the streets. Judge Gray offers a hypothetical:

Today if Budweiser has distribution problems with Coors, they don’t take guns to the streets to resolve them. Instead they file a complaint in court, and have it peacefully adjudicated by judges like me.

Consider also, common sense economics: if drugs were not punished with criminal sanctions, the price of drugs would fall and "drug addicted people would only need to steal half as much to get their drugs." The case for decriminialization is utterly compelling to anyone who takes the time to consider the sceop of the current problem. For instance, it's time to stop throwing 700,000 people into jail every year just because they use marijuana. Many of these people are (other than the marijuana offenses) peace-loving tax-paying citizens with families. It's time to stop the insanity.

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Too Many Rooms, Too Few Doors

That poor guy who got tied to a tree in Kentucky was on my mind last week. Census takers have, in certain parts of the country, been lumped in with so-called "revenooers" (to use Snuffy Smith jargon) and generally threatened, shot at, occasionally killed by folks exercising their right to be separate. So they assume. Appalachia, the Ozarks, parts of Tennessee and Kentucky, Texas...a lot of pockets, populated by people who have, for many reasons, acquired a sense of identity apart from the mainstream, and who feel imposed upon if the gov'ment so much as notices their existence. They'd have a point if they truly did maintain a separate existence, but they don't, and hypocrisy is the least amendable vice to reason. At one time it was bootlegging, today it's drugs, either marijuana or meth. They don't seem to get it that if they contribute to the erosion of the public weal then they forfeit the "right" to be left alone. I really believe they don't understand this simple equation. Nor, in fact, do they care. But do I believe that poor man was killed over some disagreement over political hegemony? No. He knocked on the wrong door at the wrong time and asked the wrong question and some good ol' boys killed him. Scrawling "Fed" on his chest was probably an afterthought, and means about as much as had they written "Cop" or "Fag" or "Stranger." Whoever did it probably thought he was being cute. [more . . .]

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