A Law Making Attacks On Cops A "Hate Crime"? A Bad Idea

While one can (and must ) surely sympathize with the families of police officers recently slain in Dallas and Baton Rouge, given they were doing their best to uphold the law, it is definitely a step too far to try to pass a law (H.R. 4760) making attacks on cops a hate crime. There are dozens of reasons for this but I plan to examine the main ones here.

As today's Editorial in The Denver Post puts it:

"An effort in Congress to make the act of targeting a police officer for violence a hate crime strikes us as unnecessary even while we encourage a serious discussion of the bill's motivations".


The Post goes on to note this bill (H.R. 4760) is being sponsored by Rep. Ken Buck, of Greeley, CO,  and also with the assistance of the "Blue Lives Matter" bunch. (See link at the end). The legislation was actually filed by Buck  earlier this year before the police killings. The bandwagon was then jumped on by looneytune Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke and his 'Blue Lives Matter' counter meme to Black Lives Matter.  (Fortunately, Milwaukee actually has a sane representative of law enforcement - Police Chief Edward A. Flynn.

Chief Flynn, like Dallas Chief David Brown is intelligent and gave an articulate, compelling address in the ABC televised 'The President and the People'.  He is absolutely the antithesis of the clownish, gun crazy zombot cartoon embodied by David Clarke, a guy who really needs to be replaced and given the job of dog catcher.

Moving on, Buck himself is best remembered (or not?) for his clamoring to pass a constitutional amendment on behalf of "personhood" 5 years ago in this state which would have made all abortions unconstitutional.  This is based on the fetus being assigned a specious "personhood".  It also would  have made pregnant women liable to arrest and prosecution for any acts deemed "irresponsible" to said "person"  under Sections (3), (6) and (25).   Such violations of the amendment might include everything from going to the top of Pike's Peak (where the oxygen is one fifth that at sea level), to having a couple drinks at a bar to going horse back riding or white water rafting.

I bring Buck's past up merely to show he already has a rep for proposing extreme legislation. His push for a law making attacks on cops a hate crime is in the same category because it conflates the legal definition (pertaining to a group's genetic or social identity) with the choice of one's employment.

In the first case, one cannot help if he or she is black, or gay by virtue of birth and/or genetics. Therefore, attacks against them as "black apes" or "faggots" (sic)  amount to hate crimes since there is no option or choice that arises. A black person cannot change his or her skin color at will, after all, to make it less likely they will  be stopped, frisked,  beaten or shot for walking while black, driving while black ....or (as in a recent case in North Miami) helping one's autistic charge cross a street while black. In the latter incident, the black man targeted by 3 cops actually lay down on the sidewalk with hands up in the air and he was still shot, in the leg. See e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq-LPQin7zk


In the second case, one chooses to put oneself in harm's way by being a cop, in much the same way one chooses to put oneself in harm's way by signing up to be an Army volunteer - ending up in Afghanistan.

In other words, one does not become  a cop by accident of birth or genetics, such that special protection is warranted for an identity one could not control.

As The Post Editorial notes:

"We  believe that being a police officer is not a part of one's identity. You're not born a police officer."

Exactly. Hence, under current legal parameters applied to hate crimes, with the definition:

 A crime, usually violent, motivated by prejudice or intolerance toward an individual's national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability

The Post continues:

"Further, police are provided many protections already. We arm them and grant them great leeway in use of deadly force. We protect them with body armor and other gear. Rarely do juries charge officers who kill offenders."

Indeed, and as we beheld in Dallas, they even have bomber robots at their disposal to blow up a bad guy with the armed robot suddenly the judge, jury and executioner all in one.

So no, cops don't need a hate crime protection in addition to all their military level equipment too.  Buck and his cohort would be better served focusing on improved police training instead of firing first and asking questions later. Also, several pages could be taken from Dallas Chief David Brown's book based on his community policing and firing bad eggs publicly. I warrant such policies would have vastly bigger impacts than creating a special "hate crime" law for an occupation.

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/max-blumenthal/68202/is-blue-lives-matter-a-racist-hate-group

OK, So I Gave In And Voted 'Lesser of Two Evils' - Will Others Do It?

I admit it, and can't deny it. While I railed against current Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper for his Neoliberal ways, including pushing fracking on our state as a way to encourage economic growth (and at the expense of citizens' health), I have had to admit the alternative was 100 times worse. So go ahead if you want and blame me for backtracking if I  believe that dysentery is a lot less horrific than Ebola - in effect voting for 'Hick' as opposed to his R-opponent, Bob Beauprez.

I am talking about the mail ballot which was filled out over a week ago. (In Colorado we can receive mail ballots and more than 50% of the population opts to do so -removing a lot of headaches at the polls - including voter ID challenges by the likes of 'True the Vote').  I do admit that I hesitated for something like ten minutes, even considering writing in 'Donald Duck', or leaving the space blank. But on reconsideration and realizing how close many local elections can be,  I filled in the blank for Hick.

Why? Because Bob Beauprez would be an unmitigated train wreck of a disaster, something I hope the younger demographic in our state appreciates and why they need to vote this midterm. For one thing Beauprez has made it clear that he plans to do all in his power to repeal Colorado State Amendment 64 - for the establishment of marijuana retail businesses - effectively rolling back the votes of nearly 57% of Colorado voters (including yours truly) in 2012.

As I said then, I  am not a stoner, nor do I use MJ even occasionally. Like tens of thousands of other sane citizens I voted for the amendment as a way to infuse more money into the state's meager coffers, via the excise, state and other taxes imposed on the product. (This was among the few options given CO voters have repeatedly voted against any other tax increases) That has been realized this year with more than $45 m taken in, and schools and other public enterprises the beneficiaries.

If Beauprez is elected and gets his way all that will cease. Schools will again struggle for adequate funding and even sick people who depend on medical MJ may have to do without (as medical MJ operations will be next). Out of state MJ tourists will have to go elsewhere for their 'edibles' - maybe Washington (which is far behind Colorado in getting its retail stores up to snuff, mainly because of inadequate grow supply - owing to delayed state approvals of MJ grow operations.)  And all the existing retail stores - such as the one Rachel Maddow visited over a week ago - will have to be shuttered.

Beauprez has also made it clear he intends to make contraceptives almost impossible to get for women of any age. He will also stand by prosecuting any woman who has an abortion even in cases of incest or rape. By his ideology, all such women will be expected to bear any conceived offspring to term because they are regarded as full 'persons'.

Needless to say, if the current Personhood Amendment fails,  as it will (according to polls taken by the COS Independent, 55% are against it) Beauprez will certainly push for legislation to make it a reality - especially if the Repubs take the two state houses.  (As they might).

Will Hick be the ideal guv? Hardly! His indiscriminate push to frack the state under is underwritten by the infusion of campaign cash from the oil and gas lobby, which already had a stranglehold in the state. It has also been largely responsible for knocking out at least two initiatives for putting fracking operations under local control. Be that as it may, Hick as governor would be a lot less vile than Beauprez. Again, dysentery vs. Ebola.

Lastly, current polling suggests the Colorado Amendment 105 is likely to be shot down. This is the proposal to label GMO foods so we know what the hell we are eating. But the same COS Indy polls published Oct.30-31 show 57%  voting against it.  Likely reason? The vast amounts of money poured into the campaign to brainwash voters with scare stories, including how food prices will explode and how imperfect it is, e.g.

. See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/10/anti-gmo-labelers-wage-massive.html

So, it looks as though these voters won't mind not knowing how much glyphosate they're loading into their bodies - leaving them open to Alzheimer's disease, or Parkinson's.

Many of the rest of us will have to be much more diligent in avoiding the sources of GMO foods, even if we have to spend more.

Fundies Put 'Personhood" On November Ballot Again!

It's getting really, really tiresome now. That is, to see the knuckle-dragging Religious Right trot out their new "Personhood amendment" for Colorado's voters to stomp on once more. It's already been stopped three times, but I guess these useless turkeys seem to believe if they keep putting it up they will win out at some point.

The last time this farce got on the ballot (2011)  58% of voters cast votes against the amendment and the resistance was across age, race and class lines. In some places, especially college campuses, the tensions were so severe that it was being described as "Christian against Christian". The reason? Evidently, many critically thinking Christians properly saw this amendment as a step too far, and way..way beyond the bounds of simply protecting life.

This bollocks appeared before in 2010 and also in 2008. On both occasions here in Colorado it was roundly defeated, and so badly the last time, one would have thought its proponents would have tucked their tails between their legs and finally found something better to do with their time. But see, because they are zealots, they're unable to do that. So they simply "regroup" for the next election cycle, wasting taxpayers' money and time as they do so. They aren't motivated by facts, data or logic but specious beliefs.

Accordingly, their amendment states that a "fertilized human egg is a person, whether in a woman's uterus or in a test tube."  (In its newest incarnation, according to the Denver Post, Aug. 21, p. 2A)  it defines "an unborn child" as a "person").

Let's leave aside for the moment the fact that no sane person in his or her right mind can possibly regard a "zygote" as a person, or a fetus as an "unborn child". There is simply no standard by which that passes even elemental laws or tests of logic, or science.  A child cannot be "unborn" because by definition it is already born!  Thus, we send the 'child' to school, to take his medicine and so on. If unborn, it's a fetus, not a "child". Don't these ignorant twits know any better?

Meanwhile, a person, a human person, must have at least minimal capacity for basic cognition and rudimentary choice. It must possess a brain, at the very least, which evinces definite brain waves. Anything that doesn't is a proto-human entity, but clearly not a person. The logical error made is called the "genetic fallacy". That is, arguing that because a thing is going to become something, it IS something. It would be like me picking up an acorn and claiming it's an oak tree. Nope. No way.

Then there is the aspect of unintended consequences, which I actually believe drove most sane Christians to vote against it. Consider here, that if (by the dictates of the amendment) the destruction of fertilized eggs is outlawed then that would mean wholesale banning of various birth control devices. For example, it would ban the use of all IUDs, or intra-uterine devices, by virtue of the fact that while they permit fertilization they impede the attachment of the fertilized egg to the uterine wall. Hence, any woman using one would -by the letter of the law- be eligible for imprisonment, perhaps up to five years or more.

The morning after pill would also be criminal to use, because its primary benefit is to interfere with the fertilization. The pill delays ovulation or thickens cervical mucus to prevent sperm from reaching the egg, meaning that fertilization can't occur. Beyond that, it is certainly plausible that any pregnant women deemed to exhibit "dire disrespect for the life of the zygote" might be taken in by the pro-fertilization cops. For example, if caught having one too many at a bar, or lighting up a toke - say at a party. Even if they participate in an event (say 5K run) deemed not to be in their best interest.

The worst thing is that even with such passage, the psychotically driven lunatics behind it likely won't be satisfied and may be encouraged to go one step further: say outlawing the slaughter of sperm cells as "potential living persons" (i.e. after being united with eggs). In this hellacious case, all male masturbators would be fined and imprisoned merely for performing a vital function which many medical practitioners recommend (to reduce the risk of prostate cancer, see e.g. Dorothy Baldwin's monograph 'Understanding Male Sexual Health').

DO we really, really want to go there? Have some possible poor guy in some dark, zealot-driven future emerge as a test case to face execution for committing a "holocaust" via release of semen outside of an act of potential conception?

It's time for Colorado voters to teach these lunatics another lesson, and this time let's make it such a blowout vote against they will never put their personhood twaddle on any ballot ever again!