Thou Shalt Not Mix Religion And Government

The battle for separation of church and state is in my opinion mostly a battle against people who believe in the principle except when it is applied to their religion. This round of the match, fought over the display of yet another Ten Commandments monument, this one on the grounds of the Texas Capitol building since 1961, has a few quirks, but is basically no different from its predecessors:

Austin religious battle reaches Supreme Court
Texas challenge breaks justices' 25-year silence on display of Commandments

WASHINGTON - By night, Thomas Van Orden, homeless and destitute, slept in a tent in an Austin park.

By day, the former lawyer camped out at the Texas State Law Library, where he had free access not only to law books but to pencils, paper and a computer. He used a disposable camera to document his grievance: a 6-foot-tall, red granite monument to the Ten Commandments planted on the grounds of the state Capitol in 1961.

It had to go.

So Van Orden sued the state of Texas — and lost.

     ...

The Bush administration, which last year sided with a California school district to defend keeping the words "under God" in public school classroom recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance, is siding with Texas in Van Orden's case. In the Kentucky case, it is siding with two counties that lost in the lower courts and were ordered to remove framed copies of the Ten Commandments from their courthouses.

     ...

No surprise there, I suppose. The opposing sides have outlined their positions:

     ...

"My position is, it is completely appropriate to have religious symbols on government property, but it has to be done in a very careful way so it doesn't endorse religion or favor one religion over others," [Duke law professor Erwin] Chemerinsky said last week.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a former Houston judge who will argue for the state in his first appearance before the Supreme Court, said the way Texas displays the Commandments is appropriate and should be a model for the nation.

"The state of Texas is not trying to endorse a particular religious belief or religion in general by displaying this monument," he said. "It is simply recognizing the important role (the Commandments) have played in our history and culture."

     ...

It's not endorsing a particular religion? Then why does the monument explicitly display a cross and a star of David? Are these undisputed conventional symbols of Christianity and Judaism also simply recognizing "the important role... in our history and culture"? Forgive me if I see that claim as disingenuous. Whose history are we talking about? whose culture?

Occasionally someone who knows I am neither Jewish nor Christian asks me whether I don't, really, in my heart of hearts, believe in the Ten Commandments as fundamental rules. The short answer, which I give to people I already know pretty well (and to my entire readership here), is "no." My more usual answer is, "only if I get to pick and choose." Some of the commandments seem to me timeless principles; some of them seem instead to be the products of particular social customs, times and religions. Their probable multiple authorship (for those of you who are not biblical literalists) seems obvious to me. And depending on which text one uses, the number "ten" seems a bit arbitrary. If Homo sapiens had evolved with eight fingers, would there have been the Eight Commandments? What are we counting? clearly not sentences, and not separate principles. (At least with the Bill of Rights, there really are 10 of them, even if, as best I recall from my 15-second encounter with the original parchment, they aren't numbered from 1 to 10.) Or one can assume, as Mel Brooks did, that Moses dropped a tablet (so to speak) on the way down, and there were really Fifteen Commandments. In any case, the Approximately Ten Commandments are not a direct part of my religious tradition. So displaying them in a government space in which my civic business is transacted effectively leaves me out. So much for church/state separation.

In conclusion, I can only state the obvious: if religious freedom means anything at all (and these days, in America as in many other places, I am uncertain whether religious freedom is real), it means at least that the government does not sponsor permanent advertisements, literally graven in stone, for the name-brand religions. From outside the folds of Judaism and Christianity, it seems to me that Moses and Jesus don't really need government help; their PR apparatus is already very effective. Be that as it may, the notion that a Muslim or a Hindu or an Atheist or a Wiccan or a UU like me should have to endure such advertisements when we go to the courthouse or the state Capitol to transact our secular civic business is an un-American notion. I can only hope the current Supreme Court recognizes that fact.

(And now the YDD goes off to say his prayers in the alleged UU tradition:  "To Whom it may concern...")

Steve
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Now That's News

From Reuters:

Man bites dog

LONDON (Reuters) - A blind man has been arrested in Scotland after witnesses reported he sank his teeth into his guide dog and kicked her across the road, police have said.

     ...

Well, no, it's not news, despite the traditional saying. But I suppose that, for our SCLM, it beats writing about Gannon, Social Security, Plame, Iraq, torture, Afghanistan, Halliburton, Iran, N. Korea, poverty, unemployment, ...

Steve
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Friday Interspecies Love Blogging

I suppose that title will attract a few unwanted page hits!

I'm not sure if that's Tabitha occupying her rightful place, as Samantha (left, barely visible) looks on, hoping for attention, or if Stella has grabbed up Samantha (which she occasionally does), and Tabitha is exhibiting her typical jealousy. As oldwhitelady has noted, those cats do look a lot alike.

Steve
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Kansas AG Goes Fishing

"Round up all the usual suspects" may be valid British law, but it is unconstitutional in America. Regrettably, that doesn't stop some people from pursuing fishing expeditions. In this case the fisherman is Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline. His ultimate target appears to be a doctor who performs late-term abortions Kline thinks may be illegal, and in addition some Kansas teens who got pregnant while underage, and subsequently had abortions. And Kline's method is to demand all records meeting certain very broad criteria from a number of Kansas abortion clinics. Clinics have objected that the privacy of about 90 women would be compromised:

Kansas official seeks abortion clinics' records
Facilities fight to protect the privacy of female patients
By JOHN MILBURN
Associated Press

TOPEKA, KAN. - The Kansas attorney general is demanding abortion clinics turn over the medical records of nearly 90 women and girls, saying he needs the material for an investigation into underage sex and illegal late-term abortions.

Two clinics are fighting the request in Kansas Supreme Court, saying the state has no right to such personal information.

But Attorney General Phill Kline, an abortion opponent, insisted Thursday: "I have the duty to investigate and prosecute child rape and other crimes in order to protect Kansas children."

Kline is seeking the records of girls who had abortions and women who received late-term abortions. Sex involving someone younger than 16 is illegal in Kansas, and it is illegal in the state for doctors to perform an abortion after 22 weeks unless there is reason to think it is needed to protect the mother's health.

     ...

NTodd of Dohiyi Mir is pursuing an effort in the new online magazine Blue and Red, trying to find some common ground, some compromise, on the abortion issue. Below his Dohiyi Mir post is an interesting comment thread in which I've participated quite a bit, addressing not so much the abortion issue itself... NTodd is pro-choice, perhaps for reasons different from my own... as the question of whether any sort of dialogue or compromise is possible with the anti-choice advocates. I'm on the "NO" side of that argument: it appears to me that, despite Roe, a woman's right to choose abortion... or not... has largely been demolished in a dozen different ways. (See NTodd's comment thread for my arguments.) In other words, I see those women's fundamental rights as having been largely lost, and I'm not about to give up what little remains.

If you need more persuasion that, in the abortion issue, compromise is very much akin to capitulation, please read again about A.G. Kline's fishing expedition. If we let him (and people like him), he'll reel us all in.

---

(Full disclosure: my very first contract as an independent contract programmer back in 1988 was for Planned Parenthood, creating a political mailing list database for them. It was a paying job and a labor of love. I am anything but objective about this matter.)

Steve
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Modus Viviennedi

Oh, good grief!

Sad, Lonely? For a Good Time, Call Vivienne*
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: February 24, 2005

HONG KONG, Feb. 18 - Men, are you tired of the time, trouble and expense of having a girlfriend? Irritated by the difficulty of finding a new one?

Eberhard Schöneburg, the chief executive of the software maker Artificial Life Inc. of Hong Kong, may have found the answer: a virtual girlfriend named Vivienne who goes wherever you go.

     ...

"Vivienne" is available through your high-end cell phone. She speaks several languages. She can converse on thousands of subjects. She is modest unto prudish. She is sometimes cranky. She has a taste for expensive gifts, some of which incur small charges on your cell phone bill. If you go so far as to virtually marry her, you also get a virtual mother-in-law who is intrusive. Soon there will be other products in the family: boyfriends for women, boyfriends for men and girlfriends for women. No one will be left out!

Arrrgggghhh! Forget the software; forget the firmware... I'm sticking with the wetware.

Steve
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Terri Schiavo Again

Jeb Bush is once again trying to block the removal of Terri Schiavo's life support:

CLEARWATER, Fla., Feb. 23 -- The administration of Gov. Jeb Bush, already forcefully rebuked by the Florida Supreme Court for trying to override judicial orders and block the removal of a brain-damaged woman's feeding tubes, launched itself back into the case Wednesday by asking for a delay to investigate abuse allegations.

I am too weary and sleepy at the moment to comment effectively on this latest atrocity by another Bush in power. So I'll let my words of October 2003, when Jeb Bush first intervened, serve me instead. This woman has been effectively dead for a year and a half now: why is the matter still being delayed by a governor who, as the courts ruled, had no authority to intervene in the first place? Anyway, here's the poem. Forgive me; I'm not as good at serious poetry as I am at humor or satire. But this poem is, de facto if not de jure , my own living will. Some of you may recall that I had to make the decision to "pull the plug" on my father, in accordance with his express wishes and his living will. It wasn't easy. But it was in every sense the right thing to do. Everyone has the right... well, let my old poem say it for me:

For Terri

The vacant stare, the empty grin,
Convince me there's no soul within.
The vacant grin, the empty stare...
There's nothing left of Terri there.
Thus, choking back my own great fear
Of vacancy, with mind still clear,
I call upon my greatest skill
To write myself a living will.

My life has been both long and good.
I'd live it longer if I could.
And yet, my self is in my brain,
And when, within, no thoughts remain,
Then there's no being there, no "I";
How sad, perhaps my loved ones cry,
But spare me wires, and tubes, and drugs...
Just let the doctors pull their plugs.

I measure life, not by how long,
But how engaging, vibrant, strong.
I do not shrink from ripe old age,
But I'll not live it in a cage
Of breathing-dead unconsciousness:
No sickness, pain, or great distress?
No love or joy? To all I know,
I urge you, then... just let me go.

It's not our choice, but still I pray
That my demise take but a day,
That my loved ones not feel the weight
That Terri's have. But if my fate
Should follow hers, with due respect,
I ask, while I have intellect,
Just this: If you would love me well,
Don't trap me in an undead hell.


Steve Bates

Steve
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Tasers On "Kill"

On Friday, Houston Police experienced their first death apparently resulting from the use of a Taser:

     ...

The ACLU's call for a moratorium was spurred, in part, by the death of mental health patient Joel Casey, who died on his 52nd birthday after being shocked by a Taser gun while fighting with Harris County Precinct 1 deputy constables. Casey's exact cause of death has not been determined, but deputies later learned he had a history of heart problems and hepatitis B — issues not disclosed in paperwork sent by a private psychiatric center to the constable's office.

     ...

Meanwhile, a civil rights activist expressed concern about how often Tasers are used by Houston Police Department officers. Houston police have used Tasers about 140 times since the devices were bought in November — a rate of about one or two instances a day, said HPD Lt. Robert Manzo.

Friday's death and HPD's statistics have ignited a long-simmering debate about whether Tasers are safe and whether police use them too liberally.

     ...

Casey's death Friday marked the first time in Houston a person has become unresponsive and died after being shocked by a Taser. Deputies would not have used a Taser on Casey had they known of his heart problems, Precinct 1 Chief Deputy J.C. Mosier said.

     ...

(All emphasis is mine in all quotes in this post.)

The circumstances of the use may be part of the reason this man died:

     ...

Casey was shocked by a Taser three times during the fight in the 4100 block of Meyerwood, but the device seemed to have no effect, according to the deputies' statements. One deputy wrote that the jolt seemed to make Casey "rage uncontrollably," Mosier said.

Casey was zapped once in the upper chest , but he continued fighting with the deputies, reports show. After a second jolt, Casey knocked the Taser out of a deputy's hand. The Taser was then used a third time.

     ...

Casey continued fighting. There's no argument here that the police had any choice but to subdue Casey; the only question is the means, especially in light of the consequences. But then we have this astonishing quote (which, honestly, is what provoked me to write this post):

"I'll tell you something — I don't believe the Taser had anything to do with this," Mosier said of the man's death.

How likely is it that the Taser did not have "anything" to do with Casey's death? and why does Mosier feel compelled to defend the Taser?

The state ACLU is calling for exactly the right response: a moratorium on Taser use until issues of safety and officer training are resolved. Some have suggested that a Taser is less dangerous to its target than a nightstick. Maybe that is so; I don't know. But nightsticks have been around for centuries at least, while Tasers have been in regular use for only a few years. Busy officers who receive relatively minimal training may not realize the power they have in their hands, a point made explicitly by Will Harrell, executive director of the ACLU of Texas.

Almost everyone in America above a certain age grew up under the influence of the classic Star Trek. When Kirk uses his phaser set to "stun," the person he shoots always survives. Of course it's not that simple in real life, at least not with the Taser, but just as its manufacturer doubtless intended, we all think "phaser" when we hear "Taser." There have been numerous instances in which people have died apparently as a result of Taser use.

So is the Taser safe, relative to the alternatives? From the ACLU:

     ...

Taser International, the Arizona-based company that manufactures the weapon, claims that the guns have never caused a fatality. However, national news reports have begun to question that claim. The New York Times recently reported that six people died in June after being shot by Tasers. Similarly, a study of Taser-related deaths conducted by the Arizona Republic found that in several cases, medical examiners’ reports listed Taser shocks as a contributing cause of death. However, because none of the reports ruled that the Taser guns were solely responsible for the deaths, Taser International continues to market its product to police departments as a safe weapon. Despite the controversy, no government study has been conducted to evaluate the Taser’s safety or its effect on victims.

     ...

The ACLU also said evidence shows that drug and alcohol use may make a subject more prone to electroshock injury – or death – from the Taser. This is problematic because the Taser is often used to subdue intoxicated people.

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Based on the articles above, we can list heart problems, major infection, and drug and alcohol use as factors enhancing the risk that someone will die of a Taser shock. Think for a moment about the people police are liable to encounter on the street. Right... many are high-risk.

Again, the issue here is what circumstance justifies use of a Taser. Again from the ACLU, this time about an incident in California:

     ...

The letter also outlines a series of recommendations for the commission to enact if they decide to adopt tasers, including the following:

• Only authorize taser use in cases where deadly force would otherwise be authorized or where there is an imminent threat to human life.
• Adopt strict reporting requirements and accountability measures that require officers to report each time a taser is used.
• Each police report should include the reason the weapon was used, the number of times electric shocks were fired at a person, the duration the weapon was held down, the race of the individual the weapon was used on, the name of the officer, whether there was any injury, and the extent of medical attention required.
• The Office of Citizen Complaints and the Risk Management Office should conduct quarterly reviews on how tasers are being used, as well as the effectiveness of the weapon.

The recommendations are similar to police policies followed in the United Kingdom, which, following a comprehensive review of the medical literature related to taser use, authorized the use of the weapons only as a less lethal alternative for use in situations where firearms would otherwise be authorized

     ...

That sounds quite reasonable to me.

There are many more articles on the ACLU site; just Google on
      taser site:aclu.org
for a great deal more info than you probably want.

One last thing. For those of us who engage in peaceful protest, the emergence of the Taser as a weapon of choice by at least some police in Miami during the FTAA protests a few years ago is a frightening thing:

Bryan Brown, 38, a disabled United States Veteran who lives in the Redlands, was arrested on November 20 while riding his bicycle and taking pictures of the public protests taking place in downtown Miami. Although police officers had no basis for seizing Brown's property and no need to use force, they repeatedly shocked him with Taser guns. Officers then took his bicycle and personal belongings, including a camera that was destroyed by a Miami police officer. He was experiencing an asthma attack and pleaded with the police to give him his inhaler, which was in his backpack, but they refused.

I have often participated in nonviolent protests, and I have occasionally taken pictures. Fortunately, there have been no Tasers present that I know of.

Can a device be the cause of abuse? Probably not, at least not by itself. One could argue, paraphrasing the NRA, that "Tasers don't kill people; people kill people." But Tasers are billed as nonlethal, and an officer who believes that statement... really just a company sales pitch... could well use a Taser when he or she might otherwise exercise restraint, or use some other means.

The ACLU is right. Let's take these weapons off the streets until we know the full consequences of their use, and have trained all officers based on that knowledge. Tasers on "Off," Captain.

Steve
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AARP, ACLU, YMCA, Whatever

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