More Good than Evil

Guess what? From the Basement seems to be more “good” than “evil.” Not much more, though. Maybe I need to repent more.

Power Grubbing in the Utah Senate

Yet again Utah Senator Chris Buttars, in his on-going quest for local political power, is trying to bypass the Utah State Constitution. Last session he championed the dubious topic of teaching divine intervention in schools. This time around he wants the state senate to be able to fire judges they don’t like.

Get a load of this:

"That is the only way to make the public aware of some of these terrible decisions. ... I don't know where some of these decisions are coming from. Some judges just go in there and wing it," Buttars said.

Oh, that’s just brilliant. NOT!

Scott Daniels, former president of the Utah Bar Association, had this to say:

"If you did something that displeased the power brokers (in the Senate), you would be out of office, without a practice, without clients. You'd have to start your practicing career all over again. Who would risk that?"

He’s right. This move simply destroys the independence of the Utah Judiciary.

"We have the cream of the crop in judges in this state," said Buttars, but every year, one or two judges "make a decision that makes no sense" and they need to be held accountable for those.

Nice pandering, but I just gotta ask, “Who gets to decide if the decision made sense not?” Buttars wants the state senate to do it, even though the state constitution clearly provides a way for the judiciary to police itself already.

In the long run, this is just another power grab by a silly local politician who is trying to service his career by pandering to a group of disgruntled right-wing zealots. Don’t get me wrong. I’m part of the “right-wing” conservative group myself. But if you start getting too far to the right, you start looking like a fascist, not a conservative.

GITMO Guards Have it Bad, Too

Here’s something you don’t see every day. The mass media is actually reporting on how badly the guards are being treated by the detainees at GITMO. Usually they ignore this part and just try to paint these accused war criminals as poor victims of our military.

Individual Rights vs. Safety

At what point do we give up our rights, or infringe on the rights of others, in the name of safety? This is not a new argument. It was certainly debated with the Patriot Act. It’s become a local Utah issue as well with the Destiny Norton case.

For those who don’t know, Destiny is a five year old girl who came up missing a few days ago in Utah. This poor girl was missing for several days only to be found in a neighbor’s home last Monday.  

The police were criticized by the Norton family, and many others, for not finding the girl sooner, even though she was a mere 150 feet from the home. One man I listened to even said that, “When the police went to his door and he wouldn’t let them search his home, they should have known there was a problem and gone in anyway!” The family has apologized to the police, but the sentiment is still raging in the minds of many Utahns.

As heartbroken as I am over the loss of this innocent girl, there is a problem here. It’s called the Fourth Amendment.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

At the point the police were searching the neighboring homes they had no warrant or probable cause. Some people I’ve talked to have said that, “in cases like this they [the police] should be able to just go in anyway.” As we find more about the suspect, Craig Gregerson, a picture is painted of an anti-social person. Another neighbor to the Nortons said, “The police should be able to investigate people like that. They should have known that he was probably dangerous because he just wasn’t normal.”

That’s when I fell out of my chair. I understand the grief. I understand that grief makes people say weird things they regret later. I’ve done it countless times.  But haven’t we gotten past the notion that we can take police action against someone because they’re “different?”

This is why we have such laws, people. I’m pretty “different” myself. I’m a member of the LDS Church. I like science fiction. I’m a “geek.” I like Jazz music. I hate yard work so my lawn is more brown and dead than green and alive. I prefer to live a quiet, and more private, life. I’m a blogger (the dichotomy is not lost on me, okay?). Does this make me “different” enough to be dangerous? Should my privacy be violated because of it?

If we give credence to such ideas, we are stepping on road that will lead to the loss of the liberties that we, as Americans, claim to cherish.