Law enforcement disgrace

If there is 'storming a bus', is there such a thing as 'painfully seeping into one'? If so, the Philippine hostage...uhh..."rescue" below would qualify for it.

This is from last month, when a disgruntled former Manila police officer took over the bus to win back his job.

Stephen Colbert's testimony to Congress...

"...was an embarassment (to himself)", according to Majority Leader Hoyer, and I cannot agree more.

The other day, a friend asked why I don't like stand-up comedy and I had to explain how I don't have much of a stomach for watching other people embarrass themselves; I wince easily, and all but a few classy stand-up acts (them too, not all the time) are nothing but a few instances of laughter interspersed with long periods of wincing.

I tried watching Colbert's testimony and wasn't able to go beyond the first 90 seconds.

Why we fight

Yesterday, the US Senate failed to pass a defense bill which included, among other things, the repeal of the Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) policy in the military. Before the bill was shut down, Arizona Senator John McCain said in criticism of Democrats who are in favor of repealing DADT:

"...to use a bill that has to do with defending our national security interest when we're in two wars to pursue a social agenda...is reprehensible."

There seems to be something wrong with that statement. The arguments that McCain's fellow hawks have offered in support of America's present and past wars include the spread of liberty and democracy, preserving the American-way-of-life and othersuch social values. If this rhetoric was to be believed, it follows that America fights wars for the promotion of social agendas. Why, then, is Mr McCain complaining?

Interstate influence

Consider the following:

• In 2008, California voters passed Prop 8, which restricted the state's recognition of marriage to that between a man and a woman. 40% of donations that funded the campaign for the proposition came from out of state.

• In the recently concluded Republican primaries in Alaska, incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski was unexpectedly nudged out by an upstart, Cristine O'DonnellJoe Miller. An often cited force behind the upset is The Tea Party Express, a California based conservative group which supported O'DonnellMiller.

• In the current campaign in California for Prop 23, which aims to freeze the state's efforts to curb global warming, a key player supporting the campaign is Valero, a Texas-based oil company. It has already poured $4 million into the fight.

What is common in these stories is the influence of out of state players on matters that concern the state. This seems highly inappropriate, but is perfectly constitutional and legal (per current interpretation). Political donations are considered 'free speech' and are thus protected by the First Amendment.

This was mostly recently illustrated by the highly consequential judgment by the Supreme Court that corporate donations to political campaigns may not be restricted by law. Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority:

If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.

One thinks, sooner or later, American polity would have to re-address this issue from the point of view of influence from outside on electoral affairs within a political jurisdiction (perhaps it has already tried; this writer is too lazy to do his due diligence).

Edit: A kind-hearted but caustic-tongued friend points out I got my politicians wrong. My bad, correction made above. How can anyone get Alaska and Delaware mixed up?

Tax incentives

= Social engineering

Republicans are usually quick to brand this or that as 'socialist'; it is hard to imagine how selective tax cuts/breaks that they so love so much are anything but that.

But, for a change, in the current debate on extending the Bush tax cuts, they have it right. Between the two evils, a secular tax cut is preferable to a selective one.

Un-pimped via judiciary

Consider the tragic case of Renu Agarwal, a 39 year old woman who was killed in a road accident in Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh, which has given rise to some interesting questions about the law, judicial activism, and the role of women in society.

Upon Renu's death, her insurance company offered to pay her family a sum of money far less than what it would have for a person in full-time employment (she was a housewife). Arun, her husband, sued for higher compensation in vain, then appealed to a lower court and finally to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court did agree with Arun and ordered the insurance company to pay up a larger sum that the Court found appropriate.

It wasn't the judgment itself but rather the observations made by the Court about inequities in the law that caught national attention. It noted that the current Motor Vehicle Act does not recognize the service, and the economic value thereof, rendered by those who manage households without holding a formal job. The Court went on to observe that this bias extended to classifications adopted in the national census, wherein housewives are "categorized as non-workers and equated with beggars, prostitutes and prisoners who, according to Census, are not engaged in economically productive work".

A couple of aspects of this story struck me:

Firstly, it comes across as extremely media-savvy of the judges to have used the comparison with prostitutes to illustrate the bias against housewives in the Census. The Court could simply have observed that "The Census' categorization of housewives is unfair"; instead it noted that "The Census equates housewives with prostitutes". The former would have been relegated to dusty reams of case law; the latter hit front pages and will probably fuel a political will towards modifications to the law and the Census methodology.

Judicial activism in India has been on the rise since some time now, which can be good or bad depending on how you look at it (without any sarcasm, I personally recognize the "executive judiciary" as the fourth arm of government). On the other hand the impact of mass-media on Indian polity is now more powerful than ever before in history; it is only appropriate that the judiciary too learns how to manipulate the media.

Secondly, on its way to correcting one perception, it seems the Court itself completely failed on another. Which is because it seems to abet the general perception that the work performed by prostitutes is economically non-productive. Does non-authorization of a transaction by the government make it non-productive? Legality is one thing; recognition is another - a service is provided in exchange for money; seems like perfectly fair trade to me (I don't wish to gloss over the fact that some or many prostitutes enter the profession under duress; but that fact contributes or takes away nothing from this argument).

I don't wish to rap the Court on this; one cannot get everything right in one go, and perhaps it is not time yet. In fact, I am convinced that when prostitution does eventually start moving towards legalization, it will not be motivated by the legislature but owing to a big push from either a champion in the executive (e.g. what A Ramadoss did for legalizing homosexuality) or an activist judiciary.

Burn before reading

9/11 has nearly passed without the Quran-burning by Rev. Terry Jones, but it made for some great spectacle while he was still planning it. Among the number of distinguished voices that tried to dissuade him were those of President Obama and Senator McCain.

Obama:

I want him to understand that this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women who are in uniform. . . . Look, this is a recruitment bonanza for al-Qaeda.

McCain:

Pastor Jones' threats to burn the Koran will put American service men/women in danger - for their sake please don't do it!

Note that both gentlemen have invoked the safety of US' occupying forces as an argument against the burning. Isn't there something patently wrong with weighing the wisdom of an act based on the consequences, rather than its inherent morality?

Not to mention that the argument rests on a fat bed of irony. As of March 31, 2010, there were 1.4 million active duty US military personnel posted abroad. These deployments are a cause of major resentment among unfriendly populations, indeed one that has been used very effectively in anti-American propaganda for decades now. Really, how worse can the Quran-burning make it?

Along a different line, a fiercely pacifist friend commented that using safety of troops as an argument against free speech is going down a slippery slope. The same logic can be used to muffle anti-war demonstrations - that the display of lack of political support at home for wars encourages enemies abroad. One cannot disagree.

***

That said, this episode has been a great unintended exposition of America's commitment to free speech (and reassuringly so). Throughout, there has been little or no talk of preventing the act by force. The president beseeching the fellow to change his mind is one thing; him sending federal agents over to Gainesville is another.