Pledge of Allegiance/Politics

Love it or leave it

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

It seems according to some conservatives that if you don’t like the pledge of allegiance, then in actuality you don’t like the United States and are better off just leaving. The "love it or leave it" mentality seems quite strong among these patriotic hypocrites.

The biggest problem with the "love it or leave it" position is how it basically says that you should accept the country however it currently is. Complaining about the current state of affairs in the United States tends to bring out this mentality in quite a few people as well. So let’s get one thing straight: being the best does not mean you cannot be better to ensure you stay the best. After all, even world record holders keep trying to break their previous records.

This mentality was seen quite well in response to a series of videos by YouTube user PaulsEgo (here, here, and here) in which he talks about how he is ashamed to be an American. I suggest you watch them to get a feel for what he’s talking about.

There are many ways the United States falls short of other countries in the world. When it comes to social freedoms, we are far, far behind Europe though fiscally we’ve surpassed the rest of the world on spending.1Government budget by country. (2011, August 30). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 07:18, September 12, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Government_budget_by_country&oldid=447545851 Since we can be better, we should become better, and we should strive to become better.

I, for one, won’t give up on trying to make this country better. And becoming better starts by expanding the liberties and freedoms accorded to Americans by repealing the laws that infringe upon those liberties by design. Yes in many ways Europeans have more freedom than Americans – imagine that!

So until that changes, I will not stop criticizing the United States of America. Nor will I stop criticizing and demonizing the pledge of allegiance for what it really is: patriotic idolatry.

And I’m not going anywhere, either.

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Related posts on the pledge:

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References[+]

Religion/Republican platform/Supreme Court

God *is* allowed in public schools

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

If you’re on Facebook, chances are you’ve seen someone post this to their wall:

A dog had followed his owner to school. His owner was a fourth grader at a public elementary school. However, when the bell rang, the dog went inside the building and made it all the way to the child’s classroom before a teacher noticed and shooed him outside, closing the door behind him.The dog sat down,whimpered and stared at the closed doors. Then God appeared beside the dog, patted his head, and said, "Don’t feel bad fella they won’t let ME in either ".

The idea behind this post is a farce, attempting to assert that God is not allowed in public schools. This is pure, Grade A bullshit to anyone who knows the law, knows what the Courts have actually said, not what religious public relations organizations have misquoted the Courts as saying.

If you take all of the Court decisions, from the Supreme Court on down, what is actually being said? Only one thing: religious expression by students in public schools cannot be implicitly or explicitly compulsory. I’ve summarized this before:

Any religious practice by students on a public school campus should be entirely of the student’s free will and not compelled or mandated by school rules, city ordinances, or state laws. It should also be on the student’s own free time, outside the classroom such as in a study hall or, if in the classroom, in such a way that it is not disruptive to other students.

…

But many people seem to think that the Courts ruling that the government cannot mandate prayer in a public school is equivalent to saying no one can pray in a public school.

God, walk into our public schools. I know that you can see through the lies your so-called representatives are spreading. You know that you are still allowed in public schools, and that many among the students want you there. But would you riddle me this: would you prefer that students call out to you when they see fit, or when their teachers and administrators say it is? Would you prefer each person willingly seek you and your guidance, or would you prefer their teachers and administrators force them to do so?

Christians, which do you think God prefers?

Marriage

Get married, live longer?

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Being someone who is not married – though I’ve been engaged for six years! – I see online a lot of articles discussing marriage. And there’s a good reason for this: the current trend in society today is away from marriage. Fewer people are getting married, and they are waiting longer to get married. So with that trend in mind, how can you convince people into wanting to get married, and do so sooner? Oh, I know! Convince them that if they don’t get married, they’ll die sooner.

Well such seems to be the trend on romance sites. Ladies, if your guy won’t commit, tell him that unless he gets married, he won’t live nearly as long. If only it were that simple.

The recent study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology is not the first study published attempting to link a correlation between marriage and mortality. When looking through a scientific paper, the limitations of the study should always be discussed and acknowledged. If they don’t recognize the limitations of the study, then there is an air of bias to that study that calls the rest of the paper and its conclusions into question.

A 2009 study1Dupre, Matthew, et. al., "Marital Trajectories and Mortality Among US Adults". Am J Epidemiol. 2009 September 1; 170(5): 546–555. Published online 2009 July 7. doi:  10.1093/aje/kwp194 published in the same journal, acknowledged the various limitations of attempting to study the correlation between marriage and mortality:

Our results reaffirm the fact that married persons live longer, and they further demonstrate that the health benefits of marriage and the detriments of marital dissolution are more complex than previously shown. We found that every facet of a marital trajectory was associated with mortality. As anticipated, the mortality risks associated with current marital status were highly significant.

The health benefits of marriage and detriments of divorce are more complex than previously shown. In other words the question is not so cut and dry. Further in the same paragraph, the authors note:

In either case, marital status had the least robust association with mortality compared with other trajectory measures once differences in risk were taken into account.

In other words, marital status alone is not what matters. Yet, this is all that most people seem to be focusing on. As this study notes, as well, the question is complex. Boiling it down to "get married, live longer" is disingenuous at best, fraudulent at worst. Further the age at which you get married is also a contributing factor. Marry younger, die sooner, marry later, live longer, seems to be a trend observed in the 2009 study:

Our analysis demonstrated that the most distal characteristic of marital history—age at first marriage—had lasting consequences for mortality. Results showed that marrying as a teenager increased the risks of dying by 56% for men and 38% for women.

…

Somewhat surprisingly, late marriages significantly reduced men’s mortality by approximately 20% compared with the majority of men who married between ages 19 and 25 years. Moreover, there was no evidence to suggest that postponement of marriage enhanced men’s socioeconomic resources as a mechanism to reduce mortality. To our knowledge, this study is the first to document a significant relation between late marriage and mortality, and we await further studies to confirm this finding.

The last sentence of this quote is the most important: the authors believe their study to be the first to note a positive correlation between marrying later and living longer. As such that observation should be considered only preliminary.

But all of the studies still show that divorce could lead to a lower life span. Should we outlaw divorce for this reason? Absolutely not. But at the same time, the 2009 study seemed to show something else that is of note: it’s not that you’re married, it’s how long you’re married that matters:

Marriage duration is the least studied component of marital life; however, in this study, it was one of the most robust factors contributing to mortality differentials. Mortality decreased significantly as the number of years of marriage increased, and the benefits were greatest for adults who accumulated 40 or more years of marriage compared with those with fewer than 20 years. These findings are especially significant given that a third of respondents with 30 or more years of marriage—and more than a quarter of those with 40 or more years—had at least one marital disruption. Therefore, it is plausible that attaining long durations of marriage can be as protective against mortality as maintaining a stable marriage. However, more research is needed to validate this claim.

I love how the authors of this study are very willing to cite the limitations. Again, this correlation is not well established, but this 2009 study shows a positive correlation.

The one thing on which most of these studies remain focused is the marital status, not the relationship itself. Is it just as possible that a stable, long-term relationship could have the same protections against mortality even if that couple is not married? I see no reason to think it could not, but I do not believe there are any studies that actually seek to answer this question. And the one place where such a question could be studied is the homosexual community.

But then there’s one question not yet addressed: why do those in a stable, long-term marriage have a greater tendency toward longer life? The 2009 study addressed this question as well:

The healthful effects of marriage duration for men were largely reduced by behavioral factors and moderately reduced by socioeconomic resources and health status. This finding supports the argument that marriage length protects men’s health by providing a lasting supportive environment that encourages reduced tobacco use and alcohol consumption, improved diet and exercise, and utilization of preventive care to detect and treat illnesses. Women’s hazard ratios were attenuated most by socioeconomic factors and less by behavioral and health factors. These findings support the argument that long marriages protect women’s health by increasing financial stability, wealth, and the health-purchasing resources needed to access quality health care, pay for costly treatments, and afford prophylactic lifestyles.

Unfortunately the recent 2011 study is locked behind a paywall and is not available anywhere online for free, to the best of my knowledge. That study in question is titled "The rising relative risk of mortality for singles: meta-analysis and meta-regression", and was published in the August 15, 2011, edition of the American Journal of Epidemiology.2Am J Epidemiol. 2011 Aug 15;174(4):379-89. Epub 2011 Jun 29. The study title shows that this recent study is nothing more than a meta-analysis. For those who don’t know, a meta-analysis is a study by which several researchers went back through the published literature looking for all studies relevant to a question and, in examining all of those studies, attempt to summarize the current consensus regarding that question. But meta-analyses raise another important question: what specifics or limitations get lost in the process?

There have been plenty of studies on the correlation between marriage and mortality. Without being able to take the recent study into account, what kind of conclusions can be drawn from this? Not much.

First, longer marriages tend to be happier marriages, so seeing the 2009 study show a negative correlation between longer marriages and mortality is not surprising. Does this mean that married individuals should just fight it out and continue with their marriage? Not if they are unhappy as they may be doing themselves more harm than good.

That is the single fundamental limitation with any study on this question. While it may be easy to assume that longer marriages are happy marriages, this may not always be the case. If they belong to a belief system that frowns on divorce or live in a segment of our society where divorced couples or divorced individuals are treated with less esteem than their married counterparts, the individuals in question may decide to stay in an unhappy marriage just to avoid the social consequences of divorce. This doesn’t mean their marital status automatically means they live longer.

And that is the biggest takeaway from all of the current studies: marital status is not what matters. Instead what matters is the quality of the relationship in question. If the relationship is unhappy, it matters not whether you are married. If you’re in an unhappy, stressful relationship full of misery and strife, you’re probably just as likely, if not more likely to die younger than your unmarried counterparts.

References[+]

Religion

Rejecting God: Why are atheists so hated?

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 2 Comments

On YouTube is an atheist named darkmatter2525. About two weeks ago he posted a video called “The Real God: An Epiphany” (see below), in which he argues something similar to what I said here back in January: that God is all in your mind and nothing more.

His epiphany, so to speak, comes about from what is a flawed line of thinking. He starts out talking about the premise by Christians that atheists are “rejecting” God by going into what rejection means and analogizing it to a person trying to set a friend up on a blind date. Now with some Christians – the proselytizing kind  — they are trying to set you up on a blind date with God. For most Christians, however, such as those who continually say “I’m praying for you”, they’re not trying to set you up. They’ve already given your number to someone else and at least had the courtesy to tell you that they’ve done that, though they lacked the courtesy to ask permission before providing your number.

And the Christian might say, “Oh He’ll call, just you wait.” And so far, my phone’s yet to ring, but I digress.

Now darkmatter does properly assess that the person being set up (the atheist) can express doubt toward or even flat out reject the premise that the friend (God) even exists. So to the Christian I respond, “I’m still waiting for that phone call.”

From there, darkmatter asserts that the Christian does in fact believe we are rejecting God and becomes angry at this rejection because God and the Christian are one in the same. While he is correct that Christians do see atheists as rejecting God, it isn’t because God and the Christian are one in the same. It is because the Christian thinks that when they pray for you, God is actually trying to turn you back toward him. And if you repeatedly assert yourself as an atheist all the while they are praying for you, in their eye you must be rejecting God. Yes it is that simple.

In other words, you can only either accept or reject what God offers since God is “very real”, kind of like you can only accept or reject that person’s best mortal friend.

While the atheist may perceive the Christian as not having any legitimate reason for feeling rejection, as the God of the Bible does not exist, the Christian “knows” their God does exist, hence their feeling of rejection. It is also true that a person may not have any legitimate reason to feel rejected if you reject their best friend, but the feeling of rejection comes from association: the person may feel that by rejecting their friend you are rejecting a part of them. In the case of Christians, we’re talking about rejecting a friend and mentor believed to have a major influence on that person’s life, which is why the sense of rejection appears amplified. They hold that particular friend in high regard, and the atheist rejection of that friend causes that sense of rejection, and the accompanying anger.

This rejection, however, is not the reason atheists are hated by Christians, in my opinion.

A person who hates everyone who does not accept their friends or one particular friend (i.e. God) is a person with deep psychological issues that need to be resolved. And while plenty of atheists would say that religion is a mental disorder, I do not share that point of view. All Christians, except the most reclusive, have other friends and family members that you can choose to accept or not. Your rejection of a subset of those individuals may cause the person to feel a sense of rejection, regardless of how you justify it, but your refusal to accept any particular among them I doubt highly would cause that person to hate or demonize you. Now if you refuse to accept any of that person’s friends, then there’s something to be said on that, but again I digress.

Instead I feel there’s another dichotomy that darkmatter does not consider, and that it is the proper answer to the question of why a lot of Christians hate atheists and atheism: “you’re either with us or against us”. And Christians have, at least for the last several decades, seen atheists as the opposition. In other words: it’s tribalism. To put it in more religious-style terms: you are either the persecutor or the persecuted. And which would you rather be?

One thing that is rather interesting is how Christians can play both the persecutor and the persecuted at the same time:

As True Christians, we are called upon to marginalize other faiths or people with no faith and to scream “PERSECUTION!” when they rudely return the favor.

Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian!

And before anyone responds, yes I know the whole “Betty Bowers” is nothing but an act, but many of the statements attributed to her are rather accurate observations, including the one quoted above. All you have to do is look at how Christians operate in this country. They are the majority and continually try to assert that majority, attempting to demonize and marginalize atheists and “secularists” in the process, and scream persecution or that their rights are being violated whenever they are opposed or don’t get what they want or what they think is constitutional. Actually those are one in the same, as they seem to think that anything agreeing with their politico-religious beliefs is constitutional. They don’t like that the government is being forced by the Courts to obey the Constitution (something it’s members took an oath to do before taking office) and are blaming a politically powerless segment of the population for it.

They need to keep us marginalized, which is why they react harshly to attempts by atheists to organize and advertise those organization attempts (see “Advertising Atheism“). If we organize, we become an unmanageable threat to their majority and their power. It is not irony nor coincidence that Christian conservatives will readily support the idea that this country is a republic until their majority religious view is challenged, then they assert the existence of that majority – a democratization of their view – as tacit authorization to do whatever they want – creationism in schools, Ten Commandments and other religious displays on government buildings, a cross as the 9/11 memorial, and so on – regardless of whether the Constitution actually permits it.

And this marginalization is not anything new. It has been going on for centuries. And marginalization is not a weapon exclusively wielded by the pious. It has been used by majorities of all flavors, both political and religious, for millennia.

So getting back to darkmatter2525 and his video, he correctly points out that atheists are a demonized, marginalized, hated minority, but incorrectly points out why that is the case. It’s association with the psychological response to rejection exists only to the extent that Christians do feel you are rejecting someone they believe with their whole heart and soul is real. But the reason atheists are hated by Christians has little to do with that rejection and everything to do with seeing us as an opposing force to their politico-religious goals and ends.

Politics

Gabrielle Giffords

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Over the past couple years I’ve discovered that I hold quite a few points of view that are unpopular. Well herein I’m about to express another, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to get on the nerves of pretty much every Democrat in Arizona, if not the United States. So if you’re a Democrat, prepare to be offended.

Gabrielle Giffords, Congressperson for the 8th Congressional District in Arizona, should not be in office.

Her district had been without representation since the attempt on her life back in January that, let us not forget, left a Federal judge and a 9 year-old girl dead. She had been unable to perform her duties until her first and only vote of this Congress thus far, on roll call 690 in the House of Representatives.

So from her shooting on January 8 to the roll call vote on August 1, the 8th Arizona district has been without representation. My question is why Rep. Giffords was never expelled from the House of Representatives? Out of sympathy? Because the Democrat leadership is weary of losing even her seat, despite the fact they had been without her vote for 7 months?

And now there is a person in her district with the balls (or gall, depending on your point of view) to attempt a challenge against Giffords for her seat in 2012, assuming he can get the signatures to get his name on the ballot. He will likely fail to even get the signatures, but if he succeeds he likely won’t electorally survive the primary. The response to his desire to challenge Giffords has been… less than according. If I lived in Arizona’s 8th district, I’d not only sign the petition, I’d do so in a very public place and in a very public manner.

My sympathy to the Representative and her husband, Capt. Mark Kelly, but she should have been expelled from the House of Representatives months ago.

Constitution/Republican platform/Supreme Court

Amending the Constitution

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 1 Comment

A columnist on Yahoo! recently posted a list of 7 ways Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) would like to change the Constitution. Of those seven, only two are ones with which I agree. I’ll link to blog posts describing my agreement rather than reiterate that here, but the others I’ll go into detail.

Before going into the list, there is one point of discussion I want to address first: be wary of anyone who says we should amend the Constitution, and question thoroughly if how they want to amend the Constitution is a legitimate reason. Two of Perry’s ideas are illegitimate reasons to amend the Constitution and should never be considered at all. But beyond this, given the ideas he has, I’m certainly glad the amendment process is intentionally very difficult: two-thirds of a quorum of both chambers of Congress plus the legislatures of 38 of the 50 States.

So let’s get into this list and discuss why five of these ideas are bad ideas.

1. Abolish lifetime tenure for federal judges by amending Article III, Section I of the Constitution.

Article III, Section I of the Constitution establishes the Federal Judiciary and states clearly the tenure of Federal judges:

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

The first sentence is pretty straightforward: the Federal Judiciary will be comprised of one Supreme Court (the Supreme Court of the United States), and various inferior Courts that Congress establishes. Congress has established the various District Courts and 12 Circuit Courts of Appeals, among other specialized Courts.

But the Constitution establishes the judges to have a lifetime tenure with a salary that can never be decreased. Why? To prevent Congress or the Executive Branch from using such as intimidation over the Judiciary. The Judiciary is the safeguard of the Constitution.

By removing said safeguards from the Constitution, Federal judges would be open to the same kind of intimidation that we saw in Iowa this past election cycle when three of Iowa’s Supreme Court justices were removed by popular vote purely because they had the audacity to write a decision that said that Iowa’s prohibition of gay marriage was unconstitutional. Several religious conservative groups campaigned successfully to have those judges removed – and a very dangerous precedent was set in the process.

Lifetime tenure for Federal judges and the requirement of the standard impeachment process for removing them is a necessary safeguard against intimidation by Congress, the Executive Branch, and the People against the only branch of government entrusted with safeguarding what gives them that lifetime tenure: the Constitution.

2. Congress should have the power to override Supreme Court decisions with a two-thirds vote.

Governor Perry should now be named the most dangerous politician in the United States. Quoting Governor Perry’s book:

[A]llow Congress to override the Supreme Court with a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate, which risks increased politicization of judicial decisions, but also has the benefit of letting the people stop the Court from unilaterally deciding policy.

The Court does not decide policy, only if any implemented policy is in line with the Constitution. This means that, as I have said before on this blog, the Courts may overturn what the People want. How many times do I have to say this: where the will of the People and the Constitution are found to be in conflict, the Constitution wins, every time.

In allowing Congress to overturn Supreme Court decisions, Congress could muster support to overturn any Supreme Court decision, even ones wherein what Congress sought was in clear violation of the Constitution. I think when Governor Perry made mention of this idea, he was being extremely short-sighted, looking only at decisions like Roe v. Wade (arguably probably top in his list), Lawrence v. Texas, the various decisions against prayer in public schools, and the like.

But what if Congress decides to go after Miranda v. Arizona, which establishes the Miranda rule? Or Gideon v. Wainwright, which established the rule wherein indigent defendants must be provided competent counsel at the cost of the Court? Or, more recently, Ring v. Arizona, which strengthened the role of juries in criminal trials?

Let’s fast forward a little in time and presume that the Supreme Court declares unconstitutional the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, also known as “Obamacare”? Then the People vote in Democrat supermajorities into both houses with this kind of power sitting in the Constitution. Such a Congress would have the power to overrule the Supreme Court and Obamacare is once again legal with no ability for the Court to nullify it.

When you give such a power to Congress, the Courts lose their ability to keep Congress in check, and that is the principal power of the Courts. When you give such a power to Congress, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights become irrelevant. And when such becomes the case, we have tyranny.

I know Perry doesn’t like how “liberal activist judges” have ruled in the past, but that does not justify gutting the power of the Judiciary.

3. Scrap the federal income tax by repealing the Sixteenth Amendment.

I’m in favor of this simply because I don’t like nearly 40% of my salary disappearing to the various taxes. Income taxes were meant to be temporary, but when you give the Federal government a cookie, it’s going to want more cookies and a jug of milk to go with it.

4. End the direct election of senators by repealing the Seventeenth Amendment.

I’ve discussed my support for this notion in great length: “Advice and consent“

5. Require the federal government to balance its budget every year.

I’m mixed on this notion. On one hand, it would require the Federal government to have the same fiscal accountability the States have imposed on themselves already, but on the other hand, I consider it an unnecessary constraint. In overturning the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, which statutorily created the power of “line item veto” that was exercised by President Clinton, Justice Anthony Kennedy stated in his concurring opinion, “Failure of political will does not justify unconstitutional remedies.”

While an Amendment to the Constitution requiring a balanced budget and restricting Federal spending would create a constitutional remedy, it would be a remedy to an obvious failure of political will. I would expand Justice Kennedy’s words to say that a failure of political will does not justify necessarily amending the Constitution.

6. The federal Constitution should define marriage as between one man and one woman in all 50 states.

I’ve discussed in part why this is a bad idea already: “Responding to the Republican platform – ‘Traditional marriage’“. Look for the section called “Amending the Constitution”. While you’re at it, read the section called “Restricting appellate review” to see another way Perry and other Republicans would like to stifle the ability of the Courts with regard to reviewing government actions. In short it’s about ignoring the problem and shortcutting to a “solution” because they think they know what’s best.

And yet Republicans accuse Democrats of trying to do the exact same thing. Hypocrites!

7. Abortion should be made illegal throughout the country.

Like the Prohibition amendment (Eighteenth Amendment), this could end up doing much more harm than good. “Speakeasies for abortions” could end up once again being commonplace as they were when abortion was illegal prior to several States legalizing it in 1970 and the Supreme Court decision in 1973.

Such an amendment, and the situations that would arise in its wake, would neuter and likely reverse the current downward trend in the abortion rates. I believe, and will discuss at length later, that abortion and poverty are closely tied together. So one effective method to continue to reduce abortion with the potential aim to virtually eliminate it is to bring those who are obtaining the abortions out of poverty. Now not everyone who obtains an abortion is impoverished, but the vast majority have incomes at less then 200% of the poverty rate.

Abortion is not a black and white issue. It has quite a few gray areas, but Perry shows he is willing to shortcut right to what he feels is the solution to that issue: amending the Constitution.

Conclusion

In short, Governor Perry needs to go back to college and restudy the Constitution. Given he recently used the Office of the Governor of Texas to promote religion, this need is not surprising. Most of the points above where he wants to see the Constitution changed solidify this need.

In short, Republicans accuse Obama of wanting to bypass Congress to get what he wants, yet Republicans want to bypass the Courts to get want they want.

Casey Anthony/Double jeopardy

Overturning a “Not guilty” verdict

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 11 Comments

This is one delusion that needs to be nipped in the bud. Plenty of people are under the delusion that a judge can overturn a “not guilty” verdict returned by a jury. And I know from reading around that this is due to a major confusion regarding our entire court system, not just the criminal justice system.

One such case that has been cited to support the idea of a judge vacating an acquittal is a case in Illinois in 2006 involving Chicago Rail Link. In 2003, Gary Pierce, then 26 at the time, was struck by a moving locomotive, suffering some major injuries as a result. When Pierce sued his employer in Federal court, the court initially ruled for the defendant, Chicago Rail Link. This is how the law firm Pierce retained described the outcome (emphasis added):1Farina, James. “Jury’s ‘Not Guilty’ Verdict Overturned By Federal Trial Judge“. Hoey & Farina, PC.

After two weeks of presenting evidence of CRL’s negligence, the jury was asked whether CRL violated the two Radio Rules. The jury answered “No” to both questions and returned a ‘not guilty‘ verdict in favor of CRL, based in large part upon a novel and distorted interpretation of the Radio Rules argued by CRL’s attorneys at trial.

This description is a distortion.

First in a civil case such as a lawsuit, the jury does not hand down a verdict of “guilty” or “not guilty”. Instead the jury is asked to evaluate several questions against the evidence and determine, by a preponderance of that evidence, the likely answers to those questions. With the above quoted case, the jury was asked to determine if Chicago Rail Link violated two rules.

Civil cases have much, much more lenient standards at play – and the only provision of the Bill of Rights that comes into play is the right to have that dispute heard by a jury. However civil cases never involve cases where a person’s liberty may be taken away. They are never subject to any jeopardy. As such, a jury’s verdict in a civil trial can be overturned, even by the original trial judge, regardless of in which direction the jury ruled.

So in the above case, the jury never acquitted the railroad of anything. Merely the jury originally determined that the railroad was not at fault for the injuries Mr. Pierce sustained while on the job. A motion with the judge allowed the verdict to be vacated, and a new trial was ordered.

Yet many are attempting to use a civil case as an example of how to get a verdict of “not guilty” in a criminal trial overturned. Again the law firm’s use of the words “not guilty” in reference to the verdict in the railroad’s favor was a gross distortion.

The closest example in a criminal trial that I could find to an attempt to get an acquittal vacated occurred in January 2009 in the State of West Virginia.2Kiley, Karen. (2009, January 22). “Taylor ‘Not Guilty’ verdict could be overturned“. In the case State of WV v. Lincoln Stuart Taylor, Taylor was brought to trial on two charges: murder, and conspiracy to commit murder. After a two week trial, the jury had allegedly deadlocked on the murder charge, but returned a verdict of “not guilty” on the conspiracy charge. The judge so entered the verdict into the record, acquitting Taylor on conspiracy to commit murder.

However, according to a motion filed by the prosecuting attorney, evidence surfaced after the fact to indicate that the verdict entered into the record by the judge was not the verdict properly returned by the jury. The motion sought to have that verdict vacated and a mistrial on the conspiracy charge declared and, if that could not occur, then the jury should at least be deposed. Nothing appears to have come of the motion, however, and it’s likely nothing would have come of it. Such a motion is equivalent to asking the judge to vacate an acquittal, something no judge can do.

Never, as I’ve already discussed, never can a judge set aside an acquittal, yet too many people do not want to believe that, especially with regard to cases like OJ Simpson and, most recently, Casey Anthony. Now I’m open to be surprised – and this would be one hell of a surprise. If you can find a genuine case in the United States where a judge presiding over a criminal trial has set aside a jury’s verdict of “not guilty”, I welcome the presentation. I’d even be willing to put money on it, but I don’t like to gamble, even though this would quite literally be the equivalent of a sure bet.

Let the gauntlet be set: I welcome anyone, anywhere in the world, to present to me a case where a criminal court judge in the United States has set aside a jury’s verdict of “not guilty”.

Follow-up: The finality of acquittals

References[+]

Religion

Crossbeams

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

On September 11, 2001, the United States was attacked when hijackers crashed two commercial airliners into the “twin towers”: One and Two World Trade Center. As we all know, those buildings collapsed, along with other buildings in the area with other buildings being demolished because they were structurally unsound.

As part of a memorial, the New York Port Authority, a government agency that owns the land on which the towers once stood, has selected a portion of the building rubble – crossbeams – to be part of the memorial structure. These crossbeams look, coincidentally and strikingly, like the Christian cross. This has caused issue with some atheists, and the organization American Atheists filed a lawsuit on that mark.

Now if the memorial the Port Authority was attempting to erect was unmistakably a Christian cross, they’d run afoul of the First Amendment in a heartbeat. Remember that the Port Authority is a government agency, meaning they are restricted by the Constitution. They may not do any thing that overtly promotes religion, and erecting a cross on public property does such a thing. But then there’s this cross, or crossbeam rather:

911site_crossSome important questions need to be asked.

First question to be asked is this: why was this crossbeam selected? Sure, it’s relatively small, smaller than some of the other rubble around Ground Zero, and there are similar pieces of rubble recovered from Ground Zero. And if the intent is for it to be treated just as a piece of rubble from the original towers – it’s believed to come from One World Trade Center – then why is it being treated as a religious relic? Replicas of the cross or other crossbeams from Ground Zero have been given to religious organizations, including the Knights of Columbus1http://www.rockawave.com/news/2004-09-10/Community/068.html and Society of the Atonement2http://web.archive.org/web/20071009211450/http://cny.org/archive/ld/ld090403.htm. The nearby St Paul’s Chapel sells replicas of the cross, calling it the Ground Zero “Miracle Cross”.3http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/shop/products/gifts-ground-zero-miracle-cross-pewter-collection/

With all of this religious symbolism around the cross, along with the continual Christian backlash against attempts by Islamic organizations to build a mosque blocks away from Ground Zero, how can an attempt to erect something in the shape of a cross, that has been treated as a religious relic by so many people and organizations, not be in violation of the First Amendment?

In my opinion, the Port Authority’s erection of the cross on public land is a violation of the First Amendment.

But other atheists disagree. A New York lawyer who video blogs on YouTube under the name ProfMTH posted a video (below) and a blog article4http://profmth.tumblr.com/post/8238304488/sometimes-a-cross-beam-is-just-a-cross-beam saying essentially that the lawsuit by American Atheists is “frivolous” because the cross is just a set of crossbeams like dozens of others also recovered from Ground Zero.

In my opinion the history behind this piece of rubble makes it impossible for the Port Authority to separate itself from the promotion of religion in erecting the cross. Why the cross? Why that particular piece of rubble? Is there no alternative, a piece of rubble that they can display that cannot at a glance be mistaken for a religious symbol? I can think of one:

There are so many other pieces of rubble they could have selected, yet this cross is what was chosen, likely for religious reasons. The site will forever be treated as hallowed ground by everyone who knows what happened there. Some will certainly pray on the site, and that is within their rights. Others will quietly reflect on history, like walking through a Civil War battleground.

But what we don’t need is a religious relic being purposefully installed on public ground by a government agency.

Too many people view “9/11” as an attack on Christianity by Islam, as if it’s another battle in a religion-on-religion war, primarily for the purpose of persisting the guise of Christianity itself being persecuted, just as Jesus was persecuted according to the Bible. Except it was no such thing. Yet this cross perpetuates that lie. It was not an attack on Christianity, just as the attack in the London subway 911 days after “9/11” was not an attack on Anglicanism. No one else in the world views “9/11” as an attack on Christianity, only Americans.

Again it was not an attack on Christianity. The attacks of September 11, 2011, were attacks by Islamic mercenaries, who had trained in Afghanistan and were harbored by the Taliban government, against the United States of America.

References[+]

Capitalism

Creating Jobs 101

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

In the current unemployment climate, the one piece of empty rhetoric you constantly hear is "creating jobs":

  • "Obama created jobs"
  • "Bush’s tax cuts didn’t create any jobs"

And yet when you look around, unemployment is still very high, underemployment is high, and many people are scraping the barrel to make ends meet. "Where are all the jobs?" has been screamed by people at all four corners of the political spectrum. Everyone wants jobs, and they think the government is who creates them, as if Congress or the President (or one of his many employees) calls up various companies in the United States and says to them, "I want you to create some jobs".

Imagine this kind of phone conversation:

President: Jim, the country’s hurting. I need you to create some jobs, get some people back to work.

Jim: Well, Mr President, I’d love to be able to, but we cannot just up and create jobs.

President: Why not?

Jim: Well, sir, our revenues have been on a downward trend for the last couple quarters. Orders are down as well, so we’ve had to scale back production and reorganize our production lines to optimize our labor usage.

President: So what you’re telling me is that you won’t create any jobs?

Jim: What I’m telling you, Mr President, is that I can’t create any jobs. The demand on our products and services is going down, despite our best efforts to market our company to increase sales. When demand goes back up, we will not only be able to create jobs, we will need to create jobs to keep up with that demand.

Now if you’re reading this conversation from a left-wing perspective, you’re probably thinking that Jim is just trying to protect his company’s bottom-line and doesn’t want to create any jobs so he can keep lining his pockets with as much cash as possible. If you’re reading this from a right-wing perspective, you’re probably wondering why the President is asking a corporate executive to create jobs.

If you’re reading this from an educated perspective, meaning you’ve educated yourself on economics, you see clearly why Jim isn’t able to create any new jobs as the President is asking: demand for his products and services is down. And when demand is down, a company will first try to do what they can to level out the decline and send it back on an upward trend, and if that isn’t working out well, they will scale back, reorganizing production to get the most out of their labor force, possibly even laying off some of their labor force while further cutting back production.

But there is one quote out of this conversation that begs attention:

When demand goes back up, we will not only be able to create jobs, we will need to create jobs to keep up with that demand.

When a company sees increased demand for their products and services, they will need to hire more people to keep pace with that demand. Some companies may even create more jobs than needed to outpace the demand. This would actually be a better approach and reduces the risk of them being caught understaffed should demand start rising faster than is forecasted.

So market demand is the key. This begs the question: what influences market demand?

In short, we do. Consumers and customers influence demand. And we do it all the time, mostly unconsciously. Market demand is such a broad topic that I’m not going to go into it. I’d be writing forever if I did, but if you Google "supply and demand" or "market demand", I’m sure you’ll find a lot to read on that topic.

One concept, however, that is highly relevant can be summarized as this: all corporate taxes are paid by consumers. This is an offshoot of the broader statement: All costs of business are passed onto consumers.

For corporations to pay taxes, they need revenue. And from where does revenue come? Customers.

Any tax increases passed by Congress automatically become tax increases on everyone. There is no escaping this. This is why increased taxation as a means of generating government revenue is always doomed to fail. Raising taxes on businesses means that business will need to raise prices. Sales taxes always come directly out of the consumers’ wallets. All taxes levied by Congress are paid by the consumer, directly or indirectly, with no exceptions.

So what can government do to create new jobs?

Not much is required of the government except to lower taxes and scale back on what they do. The government itself does not need to be creating any new jobs. Instead the government needs to scale back, reducing the sizes of many departments so they can pay down the public debt and get out of everyone’s way.

Reducing taxes puts money back into the pockets of the people who pay them: consumers. Changes in tax policy result in changes in consumer behavior. Raising taxes means consumers spend less because products and services will end up costing more. Raising income taxes means that companies have to pay their employees a higher gross salary or wage to make up the shortfall the taxes would create, forcing the company to increase prices to be able to pay that higher salary or wage.

The government does not create new jobs, we do. Consumers cause the creation of new jobs by creating demand in markets. Increasing demand in markets means that companies must create jobs to keep up with that demand. If the demand is great enough that existing companies find it difficult to keep up, new companies will be formed by entrepreneurial individuals seeking to capitalize on that demand for their own profits as long as the demand holds out.

Reducing taxes, putting money back into the pockets of consumers, gives us more money by which we can influence that market demand, growing the economy, allowing for a more efficient system of wealth creation and more prosperity for everyone.

We create the jobs, and the government needs to get out of our way and stop taking so much of our money so we can influence market demand in the direction of job creation.

Casey Anthony/Double jeopardy

Not Guilty – My last word on Casey Anthony

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 11 Comments

Over the last several days there have been a lot of search terms coming into the blog regarding the fact that Casey Anthony was acquitted:

  • can a not guilty verdict be overturned
  • is there any way the casey anthony verdict could be overturned?
  • can a not guilty verdict ever be overturned?
  • if jury failed to follow instructions can anthony verdict be overturned
  • the casey anthony jury needs to be charged
  • can the supreme court overturned a casey anthony’s verdict?
  • may the casey verdict be overturned if more evidence is found
  • can the federal court overturn not guilty verdict without double jeopardy?
  • how can a not guilty verdict be overturned
  • is there any way the casey anthomy trial could be overturned?
  • can casey anthony aquital be overturned if jury tainted

* * * * *

So many people have become so obsessed about the Casey Anthony verdict. They cannot stand the fact that she was properly acquitted by a jury of her peers. And they are searching desperately for anything, any reason her verdict could be vacated so she can be put back in jail and retried and, hopefully convicted. And those searches I know have been in vain.

Nothing can overturn an acquittal from a jury. Okay. Nothing.

Her acquittal is final. Her acquittal will never be overturned. That is how it works in the United States of America. Be glad that is how it works, because you might someday find yourself in front of a jury who may acquit you for something, and you’ll be thrilled to know that verdict cannot be overturned or vacated.

A “Not guilty” verdict is final. And the jury cannot be touched. The jury cannot be held in contempt for returning a verdict the Court or the people did not like.

* * * * *

To all of you so obsessed about the verdict, so angered by it that you’re looking for anything that can put her back in jail, I have just two words for you: GIVE UP!

Give up. For God’s sake, just give up.