The Heckler’s Veto?

The Indiana Statehouse has been the focus of a lot of demonstrations over the years, and probably just as many efforts to abort–or at least minimize– those demonstrations. Remember when the KKK came to town? The argument was “We can’t let them use the Statehouse steps–people will riot and it will endanger public safety!” The same argument, of course, was made when Martin Luther King spoke at public venues in the South–public officials argued that he couldn’t be allowed to address the crowds because the local “bubbas” would riot and endanger public safety.

The courts have had a pretty standard response to such arguments: the First Amendment protects all expression, even “the idea we hate.” Neither the government nor the “hecklers” who disagree with the message get to veto other people’s right to speak.

The term “heckler’s veto” is shorthand for the proposition that people who don’t like an idea don’t get to “veto” its expression by threatening the public safety. If there is a genuine concern about safety, courts have uniformly held that the proper response is to address that concern–provide more police, remove weapons, fix rickety stairs or do whatever else it takes to minimize the perceived danger–without denying the speaker(s) First Amendment rights.

Which brings us to the current effort to minimize the message of people opposed to pending Right to Work legislation. If having lots of folks in “the people’s house” is truly dangerous, make whatever alterations/accommodations are necessary to ameliorate that danger. But it’s hard to accept the proposition that this sudden concern about “safety” is isn’t simply a transparently political effort to shut down political opposition, an effort at a somewhat more sophisticated version of the “heckler’s veto.”

Don’t believe that? Let’s engage in a “thought experiment” suggested by my son the other day.

Let’s say a member of the General Assembly offered a bill to provide public funding for late-term abortions, and his colleagues seemed likely to vote for that bill. How many of the legislators who are piously expressing concern for the “public safety” would be working to limit the number of people Eric Miller and his anti-choice cohorts could bring to the Statehouse?

Comments

New Year’s Resolutions

I’m not sure what it is in the human psyche that impels us to see the New Year as a new start–and to make resolutions to behave in certain ways, to turn over new leaves, to focus–yet again!–on self-improvement. But whatever the reason, most of us do take this opportunity to do some navel-gazing, followed by some promises to ourselves.

In that time-honored tradition, here are my “good intentions” for the New Year.

1) I resolve to be more environmentally conscious. Maybe one person can’t make much of a dent in the waste that’s choking our landfills, or the energy use that contributes to global warming, but an ethical approach to the planet we share has to start with each of us.

2) I resolve to be a good capitalist–by which I mean navigating the wealth of choices that a market economy produces in order to patronize establishments that deserve my business. In a free country, Chik-fil-a has the right to support anti-gay causes, and I have the right to eat elsewhere. I can choose not to deposit my   money in the banks that played fast and loose with our economic system and to take my (admittedly insignificant) funds to a local bank instead. In our wired world, it is relatively simple to assess the ethics of the large corporations competing for our dollars, and to spend our dollars in ways that reward good behavior. Capitalism lets me put my money where my mouth is.

3) I resolve to continue working through the political system to support good candidates for office–defined as people who understand our constitutional system and are prepared to work within it, who support evidence-based policymaking, and who are both intelligent and thoughtful. Granted, such candidates have become rare, so in a pinch, I’ll support the people who are pandering to the people who are least scary. Bottom line–just because our politics have become toxic and our politicians venal and/or ignorant will not be an excuse to turn my back on the process.

Will any of this make the world a better place? Probably not. But I’ll feel better.

Oh–and I resolve to lose weight. Again.

Comments

Legislative Whack-A-Mole

As I noted in yesterday’s post, our intrepid legislators are hard at work making fools of themselves on the taxpayers’ dime. There’s the effort to ban the non-existent use of Sharia law by the state’s judiciary, a bill prescribing how school children must sing the Star Spangled Banner (no, I am not making that up–and I’m not going to say anything more about it, either–too depressing), and the effort that will not die no matter how many courts rule it unconstitutional: a bill to allow the teaching of creationism in public school science classes.

What’s wrong with this effort by Senator Kruse (he of the “no Sharia” bill)? Ah, let me count the ways.

First of all, the Supreme Court has ruled that injecting “creation science” (as the bill calls it) into public school science classrooms, is unconstitutional. The reason? “Creation science” is not science. It is religion. In fact, the courts will allow creationism to be taught in classes on comparative religion.

Proponents of teaching this religious dogma in science class consistently betray an utter lack of understanding of what science is. First of all, they use the term “theory” to suggest that evolution is “just a theory.” What they clearly do not understand is that in science, the term “theory” has a specific meaning–and that meaning is very different from the way you and I use the term in casual conversation. The common use means “guess” or “speculation.” In science, a theory is constructed to explain the relationship of carefully documented empirical observations.

There is one common thread to the two meanings, however, and it is what sets science apart from religion or ideology: both our casual “theories” and scientific theories are falsifiable. That means they must be changed if new evidence emerges that warrants such change. The scientific method is built on this concept of falsification–scientists constantly challenge and test what they think they know, and modify their understandings accordingly. That is how science advances.

If a belief is rigid, if it is held despite facts that challenge all or part of it, it is by definition not science. (If Senator Kruse will explain how God can be dragged into a high school lab and tested, he might have–excuse the expression–a prayer.) Creationism is a matter of faith, and faith–again, by definition–is not science.

It probably goes without saying that in a state pursuing economic development through a variety of bio-science initiatives, passage of Kruse’s bill would send a very embarrassing message. Evolution, after all, is the necessary basis of biology. But what is most depressing about this exercise is its predictable futility. During the past decade or so, creation “science” has been authorized in Kansas and Pennsylvania and–predictably–struck down by the courts. (In Kansas, voters also went to the polls in droves to defeat the Kansas Board of Education members who’d made the state a national laughingstock). It’s like the game of “whack a mole”–you whap it here and it pops up there.

Meanwhile, the state’s real problems languish and the legislature’s real business is neglected.

I guess there’s a lesson here: don’t be some fancy-pants elitist who actually understands biology. And for goodness sake, watch how you sing the Star Spangled Banner…..

Comments

At Least It’s A Short Session…..

My own children weren’t among those who feared monsters under the bed, but I had friends who regularly had to assure their toddlers that the room had been cleared of things that go bump in the night.

Those children evidently grew up to populate the Indiana General Assembly.

Senator Kruse has filed Senate Bill 90, aimed at preventing Indiana courts from applying Sharia law. Because that is so likely to happen here. This trend began last year in Oklahoma, and legal blogs report that in addition to Indiana, five states are considering such legislation: Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, South Carolina and Wyoming. (Not surprisingly, these are not states that top the educational achievement lists….)

Senate Bill 90 “Prohibits the enforcement of a foreign law (defined as a law established and used outside the jurisdiction of the United States) if the enforcement would violate a right granted by the Indiana or U.S. Constitution.” It prohibits people from entering into a contract to apply foreign law to  contract disputes, and prohibits courts from transferring cases to other jurisdictions if the transfer is likely to “affect the constitutional rights of the nonmoving party.”

I’m not sure what effect this would have on the application of international trade laws, or the Law of the Sea, and it does appear to interfere with the right of two parties to decide for themselves what law will apply to their contracts. I’m not sure how judges are supposed to know whether courts in other jurisdictions–say New York or California–might rule in ways that the bill’s sponsor believes will “affect” the constitutional rights of the nonmoving party.

Indiana faces significant challenges. Unemployment remains stubbornly high. Our local governments are starving for resources. Our infrastructure needs outstrip our ability to address them. We continue to fight over the best way to improve our substandard schools. So our legislators have gotten really busy–outlawing Sharia law and promoting creationism. (More on that tomorrow.)

Given the language of the bill, it probably passes constitutional muster. So would a bill outlawing monsters under the bed.

Comments

You Could See This One Coming…..

Yesterday, there was an attempted robbery at a northwest side  Kroger Store; the perpetrator stuck “something” (evidently not a weapon, although reports weren’t clear on the point) in the back of a clerk and made her walk to the office where the money was kept. At that point, another Kroger employee pulled out a gun and killed the would-be robber.

Wuss that I am, I think I’d just have let him have the money.

The media was all over the story. My husband looked at me during one of the TV reports and said “Here we go again. It won’t be two days until the gun  lovers start insisting that everyone should be armed.”

He was wrong; it only took a day. One Mike Speedy, a member of the General Assembly, was quoted in this morning’s Star decrying Kroger’s policy against gun-toting employees, saying “This could have turned out a different way if that employee was not carrying. Kroger could have two dead employees. What value is their policy then?”

How do we elect these people?

I can see it now: Shoot-out in canned goods! Gunfire in the cereal aisle (those granola-eating liberals had it coming…they weren’t even packing heat!) So what if Kroger has to pay zillions of dollars to innocent shoppers who might inadvertently step into the line of fire? So what if a trigger-happy employee misconstrues a “situation” and starts shooting? So what if…well, let’s just say there are innumerable scenarios that would not end well.

I don’t know about Mr. (or Mrs.) Speedy, but knowing that the guy restocking the dairy case is carrying would certainly get me to shop–elsewhere.

Comments