SamPratt.com

Authoritarians are strange

Why is it that so-called “Law and Order” Republicans often have such trouble grasping the structure of authority as it has been long-established in our country? In other words, why do authoritarians have so much trouble with authority?

For example:

1. Attorneys for the Columbia County Republican Party, who either failed to grasp or just wanted to ignore that lower courts are bound by higher court precedents and rulings;
   
   
2. Taghkanic zoning agency members, elected officials, employees, and even a town attorney who have acted as if their local authority is superior to that of State laws and court decisions;
   
   
3. Montana militia members who, as reported in Talking Points Memo, are demanding that Ravalli County sheriffs and other officials sign oaths to block enforcement of Federal environmental laws and other well-established powers.
   

The answer seems pretty clear: Namely, that such attitudes are driven less by their private fantasies of Law or Order, and more by a need to get their own way now without having to deal with any pesky obstacles. It often seems their actions are driven more by a childish need for instant gratification than by any Rule of Law, or by the Lakoffian yearning to be led by strict father figures.

Even that dubious latter impulse is secondary to their impatient demands: “I want my racetrack/election victory/gun permit/census-taker tarred-and-feathered noowwwwww!” Obeying authority—the church, law enforcement, judges, politicians, and other paternal figures—is important to them, and acquiescence is demanded ofthe rest of society. But people and interests that hold power are selectively exempted from those same rules.

One dollar, one vote

Sometimes the best letters-to-the-editor are the shortest:

To the Editor:

The justices have affirmed a core principle of Republican government: one dollar, one vote.

Stephen Bowles
Santa Barbara, Calif., Jan. 22, 2010

Clueless

There’s a mind-bogglingly clueless editorial from the Register-Star today, displaying a staggering degree of either bias or ignorance about the recent absentee ballot challenges. While making a few tepid stabs at appearing bipartisan in their criticism of how this was handled, its author appears to have either failed to follow the details of what transpired, or else has an axe to grind. Or both.

Here’s just a few of the many decisions and events the editorial appears to be willfully or negligently ignoring:

1. Case law firmly upholds the right of a person with more than one house or apartment to choose where they vote. It does not have to be a “primary” home; it just has to be a home. This is settled law, no matter how many times GOP lawyers shop for a judge to try to get a different result.
   
2. After hearing arguments from both the Columbia County Democrats and Republicans, the 3rd Department appellate court in Albany specifically cited (and thus reaffirmed) one such precedent, the 2008 “Willkie” case from Bovina, New York, in its ruling.
3. Columbia County Supreme Court judge Jonathan Nichols—a Republican—likewise specifically noted the higher court’s citation of Willkie during the final days of proceedings.
4. Judge Nichols likewise specifically noted that if the Republicans had a problem about anyone’s STAR exemptions or other benefits, that was a matter for the STAR board or other benefit agencies, not grounds for taking away their votes.
   
5. Despite the Register’s suggestion that all parties were acting in good faith in this dispute, Judge Nichols clearly expressed his astonishment at the GOP’s conduct. For example, Republican attorney James Walsh was admonished in his court for misleadingly reading only a portion of an Election Law statute, leaving out the portion that didn't support Walsh’s position. (Note: This damning exchange was omitted from the Register’s report of the hearing.)
   
6. Judge Nichols twice stated that the Republican position was “completely unconvincing” (remarks which the Register likewise erased from its news reports).
   
7. Similarly, Judge Nichols expressed frustration that his repeated orders for the Republicans to produce specific objections to voters were repeatedly ignored. In many court observers’ view, the GOP operatives are fortunate not to have been found in contempt.
   
8. A motion is pending calling for sanctions of the GOP for the manner in which they conducted these challenges.
9. As far as any delays are concerned, the Register upbraids Democratic Commissioner Martin for standing firm for part of one day on the matter of how to proceed with the count. But the Register ignores that once that count began, the Republicans were not prepared to go forward, having not assembled their necessary documents, causing further delay—and then held up the counting of votes for over two months with ham-handed legal actions that proved completely pointless.
   

One wonders whether the Register’s editorial writer actually understood what transpired, or even followed its own reporting (which was itself often protective of the GOP’s increasingly embarrassing performances).

And this is not an isolated incident of the Register encouraging ignorance of the facts about the absentee voting issue; for example, the paper repeatedly published irresponsible letters expressing outrage that people were “voting twice,” even though that inflammatory charge was not raised in court against a single voter during the entire two-month proceeding.

But whether such editorials are the result of flagrant bias or just run-of-the-mill incompetence (again, or both) is ultimately of little import, as the resulting shoddy product is the same.

How to make right-wingers' heads explode

Just tell them that the Roberts Supreme Court ruling they’ve been celebrating—which allows unfettered spending on campaign advertising by both domestic and foreign corporations—would also allow Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to support U.S. political candidates.

Corpocracy now

ABOVE: Unfettered corporate free speech in the Town of Greenport (NY)

A very destructive ruling was handed down today by the Roberts Supreme Court, which will unleash a flood of corporate-backed campaign ads in future elections.

The SCOTUS sided with the idea—a legal bone of contention going back to the 19th Century Robber Baron era, then picked up again by conservative ideologues in the 1970s as a route to enlarging their political influence—that corporations have the same First Amendment “free speech” rights as individuals.

Congressman Alan Grayson (D-Fla) has introduced a suite of bills, which he’s calling the Save Our Democracy package, to try to roll back this and other court decisions empowering big corporations over ordinary citizens. Meanwhile, a coalition of public interest groups have launched the site Free Speech for People in an effort to overturn the right-wing activism of justices appointed by Reagan, Bush I and Bush II. But hey, it’s only judicial activism and legislating from the bench if the judge is a Democrat...