District of Columbia v. Heller

We've dealt with the ambiguity of the Second Ammendment before. But today's Supreme Court ruling of District of Columbia v. Heller settles the matter, at least for now.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2–53.
(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2–22.
(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved.Pp. 22–28.
(c) The Court’s interpretation is confirmed by analogous armsbearing rights in state constitutions that preceded and immediately followed the Second Amendment. Pp. 28–30.
(d) The Second Amendment’s drafting history, while of dubious interpretive worth, reveals three state Second Amendment proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms. Pp. 30–32.
(e) Interpretation of the Second Amendment by scholars, courts and legislators, from immediately after its ratification through the late 19th century also supports the Court’s conclusion. Pp. 32–47.

Zero Punctuation: Metal Gear Solid 4

Supreme Court: Child Rape

Today the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against a Louisiana law allowing the death penalty to be utilized in child rape cases, the majority saying that invoking the death penalty violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Simply stated:

"The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child."
- Justice Anthony Kennedy

Think about that.

You don't have to be dragged into a discussion of the legalese; you don't have to explore constitutional history or judicial precedents. You don't even have to get into a discussion on the justification for the death penalty. The conversation begins and ends with "proportional punishment for the rape of a child".

I fucking dare you to fathom that.

Just attempt to enter the mindset in which "proportion" is the mechanism at which one grasps to assess child rape. Pretend your way through the thought process which begins with "What is the approximate quantification of harm which rape imposes on a child?" Locate the point of estrangement at which one must stand in order to apply "cruel and unusual" to the punishment before the act.

What is the "proportional punishment", Anthony Kennedy? What legal, judicial, bullshit fabrication can you shoddily concoct which would place upon a 43 year old man the same, proportional, harm he inflicted in an eight year old girl when he raped her. An eight year old girl sorting Girl Scout cookies in her garage, Anthony Kennedy. A child.

It is beyond unfathomable, beyond wretched, beyond deplorable. It is beyond death, beyond murder, Anthony Kennedy. To be an eight year old girl sorting cookies in your garage one moment and in the next moment to be a sexual object for your stepfather? QUANTIFY THAT, Anthony Kennedy! Articulate a proportional scenario to which we can subject that 43 year old man! Identify the particular legal qualities manifest in child rape and apply them to your delusional equation which provides a neat little package of punishment tied up with a fucking bow!!

You can't do it, Anthony Kennedy; no one can. You can't articulate rape, can't explain it, can't understand it. There is no proportion to be created or assessment to be made. You just kill him.

You kill him. You kill him and every person like him. You hunt them down, you gather them up, and you kill each and every one. You do not try to understand rape, to quantify rape, to concoct some proportional punishment to rape. He raped an eight year old girl. He dies.

It won't make the eight year old girl feel better. It won't even begin to heal or compensate for what he did to her; no one and no thing can heal or compensate for that. Rape is beyond healing or compensation. But attempts at healing, compensation are not the reasons why you kill him.

You kill him because when he saw an eight year old girl sorting Girl Scout cookies in a garage he raped her.

You kill him because rape is worse than death.

James Dobson: Cognitive Dissonance Immune

If you read this survey of 35,000 Americans by The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life you'll probably come away from it with both an idea of what 35,000 Americans think about religion and a severe migraine. Why the migraine? Well, try this one:
There is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of my religion.
64% of Protestants agree.
77% of Catholics agree.

Ok, the foundation of Protestantism, the Protestant Reformation was the idea that Catholicism did not have a monopoly on religious truth. According to Protestantism: The Bible, Church teachings, Christianity are open to interpretation. So, really, to answer that question in a manner consistent with one's beliefs as stated by one's religious affiliation? The response ought to have been that 100% of Protestants agree while 0% of Catholics agree.

This one is even better:
Many Religions can lead to eternal life.
66% of Protestants agree.
79% of Catholics agree.

Fine, except 0% of John 14:6 agrees! "Jesus said to him, `I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.'"

You see my point: Religious laypeople (Or "pewfillers") do not know what the god-damned fucking hell they're talking about. They waft about on their ignorance mindlessly following and changing rules they do not understand. Which is just fucking terrific when you couple it with this shit James Dobson said yesterday about Obama:
"I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology."

Are you fucking kidding me? Contemporary Religion is a deliberate distortion of the traditional understand of the Bible. Fuck attempting to assess what "traditional" means in a historical context. How about we just focus on reading comprehension and go from there? Regardless of your own personal feelings about Fred Phelps let's at least acknowledge that he read the fucking Bible. If that survey is any indication at least 35,000 people haven't even done that.

Obama's point, which James Dobson apparently missed, is that, well, I'll just quote him:
"Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's?"

Different factions of Christianity have different beliefs. So to apply one strict Christianity we would need one strict Christianity, which we obviously lack because apparently the only person capable of reading the fucking book and doing what it says is A.J. Jacobs, and he's a fucking tool.

George Carlin: Philosopher, Mentor, Right

“Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.”
- George Carlin

There is no blood, brains, or anima in any of the virtually identical George Carlin obituaries mindlessly replicated throughout the internet today more out of a sense of obligation than true sorrow or appreciation. Each in its own way minimalizes the life of George Carlin down to a sequence of events and a few passing references to his routines. George Carlin, when understood through these half-assed, trite, obligatory articles was merely a famous comic, a purveyor of counter-culture rhetoric and "That guy who did 'Seven Words You Can't Say on Television'."

But that is not George Carlin.

When Douglas Adams died, when Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died, I knew that it was an end to a line of work, of writings. While I was saddened by their deaths I knew that their writings would linger on; I knew that I could continue to read Hitchhiker's, Slaughterhouse-Five. The men were dead, but it did not feel as if they were gone. When I learned that George Carlin had died...I felt alone.

George Carlin was more than just an author, an actor, an entertainer, a stand-up comic, a philosopher. George Carlin understood. And while I never met him, never saw him live, he was always a source of comfort for me. Because I knew that he was never only joking about religion, society, censorship, language, or stuff. Regardless of the particular subject George Carlin was always focused upon the fact that, in his own words:

"the longer you live, the more you look around, the more you realize...something is FUCKED-UP. Something is WRONG here."

That's who George Carlin was: George Carlin understood; George Carlin was right. And I took comfort in the fact that he was out there trying to get others to understand. Even if they dismissed him as an entertainer or merely humored him as he humored them...he was out there saying true things to people who needed to hear him. Yes, we still have his works. But we lost the man. And while we still have his message we lost the one most adept at communicating it.

In George Carlin we did not lose "the guy who said 'Seven Dirty Words'; we did not lose a comic. We lost a mentor, I lost a mentor, Sunday afternoon. We lost someone who was right.

And you can't replace that.

George Carlin Dead 71

George Carlin died...


(the above is a link to the NYT article, from the front page. If it doesn't work, I'm sure there are obits elsewhere. damnit.)

Update:
New York Times Op-Ed by Jerry Seinfeld

J.C.V.D.

I want to see this so badly.