Category: politics

From The Seattle Times, Atheist Scout fights decision to boot him:

The Chief Seattle Council of the Boy Scouts has given Eagle Scout Darrell Lambert about a week to decide “in his heart” if he’s truly an atheist. If he insists on sticking to his belief that there is no God, the Council will terminate his membership. […]

Hmm, I’m not sure how I feel about that one. Sure, the Boy Scouts have a right to boot him if they want to, but I’m not sure if that’s the right thing to do. (Link from ObscureStore)

Newsday has a good Overview of Changes to Legal Rights since 9/11 of 2001 (from the Associated Press). Among them:

Right to Legal Representation: Government may monitor federal prison jailhouse conversations between attorneys and clients, and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes.

Freedom from Unreasonable Searches: Government may search and seize Americans' papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation. […]

Yay freedom.

A new study from the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington, DC-based think-tank that advocates for alternatives to prison, has found that after two decades of harsh criminal justice policies, there are more black men in jail or prison than in college. At the end of 2000, 791,600 black men were behind bars and 603,032 were enrolled in colleges or universities. By contrast, in 1980 — before the prison boom — black men in college outnumbered black men behind bars by a ratio of more than 3 to 1, the study found. […]

Whoah. I know that many black men are in prison, but I had no idea that it was to this extent.

I was going to e-mail my brother about this, but I figured that I’d post it here as well. He and I were talking on the phone the other day when the conversation came around to Bush and our respective opinions of him.

Though I didn’t vote for him, I generally supported Bush in the past. For instance, I was pleased that he was elected in the electoral college over Gore. If for no other reason, I knew that Bush was more likely to enact tax cuts than Gore (I’m not generally in favor of the government deciding “it knows best” how to spend my money).

However, after the 9/11 attacks, the USA PATRIOT Act (yes, it’s an acronym) was quickly pushed through Congress. Though under the guise of preventing terrorism, it was full of bad ideas:

• Allow for indefinite detention of non-citizens who are not terrorists on minor visa violations if they cannot be deported because they are stateless, their country of origin refuses to accept them or because they would face torture in their country of origin. […]
• Give the Attorney General and the Secretary of State the power to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and deport any non-citizen who belongs to them. […]
• Expands the use of secret searches. Normally, a person is notified when law enforcement conducts a search. In some cases regarding searches for electronic information, law enforcement authorities can get court permission to delay notification of a search. The USA PATRIOT Act extends the authority of the government to request “secret searches” to every criminal case.

The ACLU also has this chart that compares various before-and-after effects of the act.

And, after all this, I’m not sure what I think of Bush. Sure, economic freedom is a plus, but that’s no good without civil freedom.