Thursday, December 1, 2011

Occupy the Constitution! (updated)

First off, I'd like to take a moment of silence for the Occupy Wall Street movement. They've gone disco.



Meanwhile, though, let’s consider a fascinating legal issue that has come up with the Occupy movement.

See, the problem with the 99% bringing the problem of economic disparity to light, is that, by the nature of the election process, in order to be a politician, you are all but required to be a member of the 1%.

This is the reason that it’s so difficult to get a tax increase for the rich through Congress: they are the rich!

This also means that many of them are predisposed to oppose discussion of income disparity or the economic realities of life in America today. Nobody likes talking about their own sins, when it’s easier to point at other people and scream “Heretic!” So, for example, Mayor Bloomberg of New York (net worth: $18.1 billion) isn’t particularly interested in stopping police brutality against protestors. (If anything, he’s enabling it.)

In Texas, they’ve decided that there is only a limited amount of free speech available in Austin at any one time.



Now, consider that for a minute. If one protest group starts yelling, and leaves after 2 hours and 55 minutes, and another group, unrelated to them and with no knowledge of the previous group, spontaneously showed up in the same neighborhood, they would not be allowed to speak without breaking the law.

It seems to me that this case would be a slam-dunk for any civil rights lawyer. Just take a video camera and show someone showing up after the time limit has expired and not being allowed to speak. Admittedly, the Texas Supreme Court would uphold the police actions, because that’s how Texas works; but it would continue up through the US Supreme Court, and nobody claiming to be a Constitutional scholar could let this pass.

(In a fascinating twist, the Trophy Wife, usually far more optimistic than I've ever been, is feeling more cynical than I do on the subject, and thinks that the Roberts Supreme Court – combined average net worth $47,272,584 – might not be interested in supporting free speech in this case.)

Funny how this issue never came up for the Tea Party protests...
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(Update, 12/3/11)
And in a story broken yesterday by my second least-favorite news source, the Huffington Post (and wildly underreported by other news sources as I write this), the UN has noticed many of the same things:
The United Nations envoy for freedom of expression is drafting an official communication to the U.S. government demanding to know why federal officials are not protecting the rights of Occupy demonstrators whose protests are being disbanded -- sometimes violently -- by local authorities.

Frank La Rue, who serves as the U.N. "special rapporteur" for the protection of free expression, told HuffPost in an interview that the crackdowns against Occupy protesters appear to be violating their human and constitutional rights.

"I believe in city ordinances and I believe in maintaining urban order," he said Thursday. "But on the other hand I also believe that the state -- in this case the federal state -- has an obligation to protect and promote human rights."
...
In moments of crisis, governments often default to a forceful response instead of a dialogue, he said -- but that's a mistake.

"Citizens have the right to dissent with the authorities, and there's no need to use public force to silence that dissension," he said.
Personally, I didn't know that "Frank" was a popular Guatemalan name, but considering Guatemala during the 80s and 90s (and for that matter, the previous decades, when they helped develop the term "banana republic"), they know something about the suppression of human rights.

Of course, who approves of the way the American police are dealing with protesters? Mostly tyrants with their own economic protesters, like Mubarak.

Proud of yourself yet, Washington?

6 comments:

  1. Interesting observations and yes, why would pols want to pursue income disparity when they profit so handsomely from it...

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  2. I wish there was a way to communicate to police unions, and their members, how their personal pensions have suffered at the hands of Wall Street.

    Here in Oregon, public pensions have been converted from Defined Pension plans to 401k-style - meaning they now have a "balance"; meaning when your balance hits Zero, your retirement check ends. The cops need to know that they are not protecting their own interests... But then again strategic thinking has never been the strong suit of people who go into that line of work.

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  3. Nameless,

    I suppose one problem with demo-crassy is that a lot of the people who seek public office are exactly the sort who shouldn't have it: ruthless, dishonest, ambitious, self-promoting people pushing their middling intellects and moderate accomplishments. Lord of the Flies stuff: "I should be the leader because I'm tall and have nice white teeth!" etc. Once in a while, we end up with someone better and smarter than that, and the morons just can't stand it and either savage that person's character or start claiming he or she is actually from Alpha Centauri. And in comparison with them, of course, the poor devil might as well be from Alpha Centauri.

    As for the protests, yes, I think it comes down to something like impatience -- I'm not overly fond of protests and such, but it seems as if the authorities tend to treat the protesters like freaks because we've become so unused to anything like real dissent or activism that they actually seem like freaks.

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  4. Perhaps it would be helpful for the protesters to talk with the officer about the 1st Amendment, peaceful action, and protecting the pensions of the police. As long as you have their attention, you might as well engage them in constructive dialog. They have families too!

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  5. Honesty and completeness weren't exactly hallmarks of the tea party protests.

    Given the way our system works, it's inevitable we would have lots of rich people in Congress and running for president. Just being wealthy doesn't mean someone is hopelessly slanted toward favoring the rich in all things.

    Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were all well off. All three did plenty to help the less affluent.

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  6. I thought you'd appreciate this: city leaders in Los Angeles are taking steps toward preserving the Occupy L.A. mural which depcits a purple octopus.

    Cheers!

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