A Day Like All Days

The US House of Representatives passed a bill (H.R. 4437) last December that, if also passed by the Senate and signed into law by George II, would make it a felony to be in the US illegally and would also prohibit anyone from giving aid to illegal immigrants. While this may seem reasonable, if perhaps mean-spirited, the devil is in the details.

( The details... )

Some say that illegal aliens are stealing our jobs. For the most part this is not borne out by the facts, as illegal aliens tend to be exploited in labor-intensive jobs under conditions that are actually illegal (not to mention entirely immoral) to subject anyone to. Legal aliens are the ones who tend to fill positions that might otherwise go to middle-class Americans, and abuse of these provisions of law is not nearly as widespread as one would think -- tech firms do, after all, have lots of people working for them with brains (by definition) and at least a modicum of moral compunction about how they use them.

I think the dearth of good jobs over the last few years stems not from immigration so much as from the unwillingness of corporations to invest in their rank-and-file worker in order to maximize benefits for the CEO. That is a set of misplaced priorities which is reinforced by the Republicans at every turn, and frankly I wonder how much longer the country can stand it. Immigration reform, whatever form it takes, is ultimately a red herring that distracts people from the evil that is done in the name of corporate excess and government beholden to it -- including propping up the civil war we started in Iraq in the name of those same goals.

Cindy Sheehan arrested in the House chamber before the State of the Union address

The stated reason for her arrest: "refusing to cover up a T-shirt bearing an anti-war slogan". She was an invited guest of a U.S. Representative, so trespassing wouldn't fly -- so they charged her with "unlawful conduct", which strikes me as a completely bogus charge. Any law she could possibly be violating is clearly in violation of the First Amendment -- what part of "Congress shall make no law" didn't they understand?

Trampling on the Constitution, in the very chamber where a traditional event it created is about to begin, is really bad form and shows the contempt George II has for civil liberties -- while spouting platitudes about spreading freedom and democracy around the world, how about remembering to defend freedom at home? How about it, Mr. President?

I hope the ACLU is all over this one.

I've seen lots of remarks about this Oklahoma pastor's arrest for soliciting oral sex from an undercover cop -- most of them taking on the theme of "poetic justice" or "divine justice". However, after watching a video clip related to the story, I discovered that the reason for the arrest is that, while the act of oral sex in private is legal (thanks, no doubt, to Lawrence v. Texas), offering in public to perform such an act is not.

This sounds blatantly unconstitutional to me, in that criminalizing just *talking about* an otherwise legal act in a public place couldn't possibly pass First Amendment scrutiny. As tempting as it is to laugh at the situation and say "serves him right", I also hope he finds competent legal representation and gets this nuisance law stricken from the books as it ought to be.

I'm not sure why I feel as strongly as I do about this case half a world away where a woman who was clearly framed by drug smugglers at Sydney airport was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment after the judges refused to hear the evidence that this was a frame-up. But after reading the CNN report and seeing the coverage of the case on ITV, I can see people are extremely angry and it's clear that enormous pressure will be brought to bear on the Howard government to denounce Indonesia for this travesty of justice. Of course, cooler heads will eventually prevail.

Last night, I saw some more coverage of the inquiry into the case of Maher Arar, who was intercepted on a flight layover in New York en route from Tunis to his home in Ottawa, and deported to his native Syria on trumped-up charges with the knowledge he would be tortured there. This time, it is my own government who initially perpetrated this travesty of justice, and I'm just as angry hearing of this.

I suppose I have never believed that the world is fundamentally unfair, which seems to be a common belief around the world. News of injustice like this frustrates me, and frustration turns all too often to impotent rage.