'Jena Six'

I'll touch on hot-button issue that is currently ragging in the media, the 'Jena six'.

From what I have heard so far, a group of white students placed nooses on/around a tree. A few days later a group of 6 black students beat one of the white students pretty good. The white students were suspended from school for 3 days while the black students were expelled, arrested, and charged with a variety of crimes. There is currently a huge demonstration happening in Jena with people calling the punishments racist and discriminatory.

Let me break this down as someone who respects the law and believes all people are equal, no matter their education, culture, religion, etc. The terms "white students" and "black students" are used solely to identify the groups. If you wish, you could replace these terms with "Group A' and "Group B' if you like, the logic is still the same.

What the white students did was obviously incredibly wrong. I have no respect for a person who thinks that the answer to any problem involves the killing of another without justified reasons (such as kill or be killed, as is the case in a 'justified' war like WWII), which is clearly what the noose was meant to represent. I think that the punishment handed out by the school was a good starting point, but I don't think they took it far enough. An instance such as this should have involved a much longer suspension (like the remainder of the school year) instead of just 3 days.

However, the act of placing the nooses on/around the tree can be considered a First Amendment right, since it did not (to my knowledge) explicitly identify any individuals in the statement and was just a public display of an opinion, such as the "Support our troops. Impeach George Bush" bumper stickers you see on cars. As long as there isn't a Local/State/Federal law prohibiting the displaying or hanging of nooses in a public setting, then there is little the white students can be charged with, except maybe disturbing the peace or such. There is a little gray area here, since it could be argued that the statement represented a risk to the safety of a portion of the public (much like yelling "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater), but that is an exercise for those with law degrees.

On the other side, the group of black students physically beat one of the white students. This act cannot be covered by the First Amendment since it involved the physical harm of another individual and is not longer a statement or opinion. There are very specific laws regarding this and they are being charged in accordance with those laws. The specific charges are decided based on motive and intent. If the black students initiated the beating with the intent of killing the white student, then they can be charged with attempted murder. Otherwise they could be looking at charges like Assualt & Battery, or other similar charges. Again, since I am not a lawyer, I'll leave the specific law questions up to them.

Bottom line...

Were the actions of the white students unquestionably immoral and wrong? Absolutely.
Should they have been punished by the school more? Definitely.
Did they commit an actual crime? Maybe. It depends on specific Local/State/Federal laws.

Were the actions of the blacks students wrong? Absolutely.
Should they have been punished less by the school? Depends on school policy.
Did they commit an actual crime warranting arrest. Yes.

You can't go around beating people up for expressing an opinion, no matter how strongly you feel against it. It is an opinion and not a direct physical threat.

Yelling "All Muslims must die!" is a matter of opinion, but yelling "All Muslims must die!" while firing a fully automatic machine gun into a crowd of Muslims is not. There is a distinct difference between the two. If you don't see that difference, then we have bigger problems as a species.

Green cars you can't buy

First - It's been over 2 months since my last post. I know I said that I try to post more often, but life has a way of altering your plans whenever it wants. My son was born at the beginning of July and things are just now starting to settle down, if only slightly. Hopefully I'll have some more time to update this blog in the future.

And now, the latest from my synapses...

According to this article on MSN autos by a new columnist, it is against the law to sell you an extremely low-emissions vehicle in the 42 states that don't follow California's lead on clean air and curbing auto emissions (luckily, New York has). Ironically, the law that makes this illegal is contained in the Clean Air Act! Only in American politics could something like this happen and is further proof that most of our legislators are a bunch of corporate, pan-handling pansies.

In the past few years, the has been a huge up-swing of people acting more responsible in regards to the environment, a surge in websites promoting green technologies (such as EcoGeek.org), and even some corporations are taking environmental concerns very seriously. It's time that the politicians recognized this trend and got on board, not just with words, but with solid actions as well.