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Nobel Prize-winning DNA scientist, the man who (along with with Francis Crick and Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins) won the prize in 1962 for his description of the double helix structure of DNA, and chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Dr. James Watson, said recently in an interview with the London Times that, while “there are many people of color who are very talented,” he is “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really.” Watson wants to deny he meant what he said, and he apologized for saying it, but he has long been a believer in the hereditary theory of intelligence and tests purported to detect such intelligence find that people of African decent are as a group less intelligent than those of European decent.

Dr. Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health, said in a statement: “The comments, which were attributed to Dr. James Watson earlier this week in the London Times, are wrong, from every point of view – not the least of which is that they are completely inconsistent with the body of research literature in this area.” This is true. There is no scientific basis for there being races of human beings. Moreover – and I’m not sure Serhouni meant this but – there is no scientific basis for claiming that mental testing measures hereditary intelligence (see Stephen J. Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man). Noting what appears as the underlying agenda, Elias said, “Scientific prestige is never a substitute for knowledge. As scientists, we are outraged and saddened when science is used to perpetuate prejudice.”

The Science Museum of London canceled a speech Dr. Watson was to have given there today, saying that Dr. Watson’s assertions on race and intelligence are “beyond the point of acceptable debate.” Henry Kelly, president of the Federation of American Scientists, said it was “tragic that one of the icons of modern science has cast such dishonor on the profession.” Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory suspended Watson from the laboratory, where he was president for 35 years and remained (until yesterday) chancellor. They rebuked him and said that they do not do research there that has any bearing on what Watson argued. However, there appears to be a political motive for the laboratory moving so quickly on this matter: the eugenics archive

It’s in his influential 1971 Blaming the Victim that psychologist William Ryan of Boston College coined the phrase “blaming the victim.” For Ryan, victim blaming is an ideology and a tactic used by middle and upper class whites to invalidate demands from black or otherwise marginalized communities for social justice. Racial inequities constituted a racist situation wherein whites are able to deny racism by laying the blame for inequality on what Ryan see as the black victims of white privilege.

Ryan wrote the book in response to Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s notorious 1965 The Negro Family. Moynihan was a Harvard sociologist who was the time serving as an assistant labor secretary under Lyndon Johnson. The thesis of The Negro Family. often referred to as as the “Moynihan Report,” is that a dysfunctional subculture lay at the roots of black poverty, an idea introduced in the 1930s by sociologist E. Franklin Frazier.

“Don’t you think that black people share any responsibility for the conditions of their existence?” This is the question that is sometimes put to me when discussing racial inequality, although I have noticed growing hesitation among my white students to post it. It’s a way to force me to admit that blacks are partly to blame for their situation so that those who blame blacks can feel vindicated.

Once they get their foot in the door, they think (this is my interpretation of motive, anyway), they can push it wide open and confuse others as to the sources of the problems black Americans face that are allegedly more significant than racism.

The question is frustrating because it is so often asked in bad faith. Asked by somebody who is trying to prevent frank discussion of the problem marginalized groups feel, the question forces the expert into a defensive position. A lot of social liberals are made reluctant to speak frankly about the problems facing black Americans because they worry that soon the camel will be inside the tent—as well as risking the charge of victim blaming.

The strict structuralist social scientist will answer the question this way: If by bearing responsibility for the conditions of existence as a demographic category one means that there are black people who don’t pick themselves up by their bootstraps and work hard to achieve the American Dream, then the answer to the question is no. The ordinary everyday behaviors of black people, supposing they aren’t of the hard working and self-reliant type allegedly associated with success, have nothing to do with causing the conditions that befall blacks in the aggregate. To the extent that behaviors in the black community can be differentiated from the behaviors of other groups, these differences are caused by the conditions of their existence and are not the cause of them.

To understand why this is so, attempt an explanation of the circumstances of the white working class that depends on their failure to work hard and act in self-reliant ways. It’s a fact that white workers trail white managers and capitalists in every significant social category. On the whole, white workers suffer poorer health, shorter life-spans, lower incomes, cheaper houses, unstable job market, longer working days, inferior retirement, lower educational attainment, etc.

Are these the cause of their condition? The features of the conditions of the white working class result from the situation of structural inequality. White workers suffer such things because white managers and capitalists enjoy better health, longer life-spans, higher incomes, expensive houses, stable occupations, more leisure time, superior retirement, higher educational attainment, etc. In other words, the equation is not balanced, formulated as it is in the context of capitalist accumulation.

Capitalism is a system in which a few families own and control the means of production (capitalists and managers) and the rest of society is forced to sell its labor to survive or starve when its labor is not wanted—that is the dynamic of capitalist accumulation and the legal relations that maintain the status quo. White working people suffer because capitalists and managers exploit their labor, with the latter paid out of the surplus value labor generates. This is the only way that those who work so little can have so much while those who work so much can have so little.

This is why we call those who blame white workers for the conditions of the white working class classists. The elite look down on the white working class. They maintain the status quo that benefits them by maintaining that the problems working people face are caused by the workers themselves—blaming the victims of the capitalist mode of production.

Of course, we should note that there are very few people explicitly pushing the anti-working class argument these days. Why? It’s campaign season. Phil Gramm of Texas, an adviser to the John McCain campaign, told working people to stop whining and work harder. The McCain campaign quickly disavowed his comments because such an argument is offensive to white workers, and McCain needs their votes.

McCain knows that campaigning on slogans blaming the white worker for unemployment, bankruptcies, and a broken health care system is a nonstarter. McCain doesn’t want to seem like an elitist. He wants to appear to support the white working class. To be sure, Republicans make the personal responsibility argument in terms of class when they are talking among themselves. The same might be said for Democrats except that they wouldn’t be caught dead blaming the working class for its problems. They, too, want those votes. They have a legacy to leverage—however false that legacy is.

To say that black working people are responsible for unstable labor markets, poor health outcomes, educational underachievement, and residential displacement because they don’t try hard enough is something akin to saying that all working people are responsible for unstable labor markets, poor health outcomes, educational underachievement, and residential displacement because they don’t try hard enough. 

It’s not only conservatives who target blacks for special criticism. Progressives defend Obama against the charge of talking down to black people and attack critics like Jesse Jackson for criticizing Obama. It’s a double standard. White workers are the victims of large impersonal forces in their eyes, but black workers aren’t? Black workers need a little tough love from one of their own?

Obama says, “I think it’s time we had a president who doesn’t deny our problems or blame the American people for them but takes responsibility and provides the leadership to solve them.” Political sophisticates on the other side say the same thing. When Sean Hannity notes that we are not in a recession and that people in the US have every opportunity to pursue their dreams, that they don’t appreciate that gift and don’t take advantage of it, Gingrich bristles and said it was the most un-Reaganesque thing Hannity had ever said. Hannity defends himself by saying that it was very Reaganesque because “if you work hard and you play by the rules, you can’t fail.” To which Gingrich replied,

If the American people are complaining, you ought to listen to them and find out why. Now why are they complaining? The price of health care is going up, the price of health insurance is going up, the price of sending their kids to college is going up, the price of gasoline is going up. They fear China as a competitor. They look at a tightening situation. I talked to manufacturers who are seeing dramatic increases in the cost of their—of their raw materials, and they say to each other, this is hard—people for the first time that I can remember, people decline the number of miles they’re driving in the last two months because it is directly affecting their pocketbook. Now if your customer comes in and complains to you it is not good to say to the customer why don’t you quit whining.

Except if you’re black, of course. If you know anything about Newt Gingrich you know that he believes that, if you’re black, then the problem is that you’re not trying hard enough. But, again, Obama operates the same way. Obama is pushing the lie that the problems of black America’s workers are caused by the behavior of black Americans.

Again, ask yourself, are white workers losing their houses and jobs, failing to go to college, etc., because they don’t exhibit proper levels of personal responsibility and pull themselves up by their bootstraps? Is Gramm right that white workers are a bunch of whiners who suffer a recession that exists only in their imagination? BrO is Gingrich right white workers have a right to whine? And black people aren’t allowed to whine?

Even though their situation is worse because of racism, even though they are in less of a position to do anything about their situation compared to whites, blacks are held to an different standard of personal responsibility, even though personal responsibility is not the reason for their problems. It’s racist when Gingrich does it. It’s racist when Obama does it.

When the Diector’s Cut of Ridley Scott’s Alien was released, it contained a formerly-cut scene in which Ripley enters a chamber to find three of her crew mates fixed in the alien’s hardened saliva undergoing transformation into eggs, each of which would contain a “facehugger” and start the alien, or “xenomorph,” reproductive cycle over. This scene was cut because Scott felt it interfered with the pace of the film. I understand his reasoning. Nonetheless, the scene is fascinating because it shows us that there is a purpose behind the killings. Moreover, it provides insight into the xenomorph life cycle.

However, for those who pay attention to science fiction canons, the Director’s Cut creates a problem: Cameron’s xenomorph in Aliens has a different life cycle, one in which a queen lays the eggs with the facehuggers in them, while in Scott’s version, as expounded in Alan Dean Foster’s 1979 novelization, the victims mutate into eggs. Even though I like Scott’s movie better, Cameron’s two-stage life cycle feels better because it is scientifically believable. There are actually species, mosses for example, that have two-generation life cycles. The ability of a creature to transform victims into eggs with facehuggers in them with its saliva, mucus, and other secretions feels a bit too fantastic to be believable. I like my science fiction to have a strong element of plausibility.

There is also a serious internal contradiction with the Director’s Cut. In the first encounter with eggs, the eggs are distributed in a regular-like fashion across the floor of a chamber in the alien ship that the crew of the Nostromo is investigating. This arrangement of eggs looks like the work of a queen xenomorph. Who else would have situated them as such? There is no hardened mucus, etc. One can’t imagine how xenomorphs would come to construct such a pattern given that, on the Nostromo, the arrangments appears nothing like the crews’ initital encounter with eggs (then again, the pattern is not so orderly in the queen’s lair in Aliens). The cut scene depicts xenomorph behavior that is contrary to the pattern of behavior indicated by the scene aboard the alien ship.

Because these contradictions bug me, I am going to suggest an interpretation that will allow us to resolve the problems so that we can enjoy both the Director’s Cut of Aliens and Cameron’s Aliens. 

In Cameron’s version, xenomorphs fix their victims in hardened saliva near eggs (or perhaps eggs can be brought to the fixed victims), so that the facehuggers can emerge and introduce the alien seed into the abdomen of its victim. This activity on the part of the xenomorphs is certainly instinctual. The xenomorph is driven, as are many terrestrial species are, by the impulse to reproduce. It makes sense, then, that the xenomorph on board the Nostromo would take it’s victims to a remote chamber and fix them in saliva, preparing them for facehuggers.

The fact that there are no eggs there is not a problem for this interpretation. The creature could be waiting for the queen to deposit eggs nearby, other aliens to locate eggs nearby, or even be about looking for eggs itself. Thus, what Ripley found, is the product of the xenomorph’s instinctual activity. It was simply doing what its nature compelled it to do. With this interpretation in force, the viewer can simply disregard whatever the scene’s original intent was.

The only problem with this interpretation (apart from Foster’s novelization) is that hardened secreted matter growing around one of the characters (Brett) looks like the outer covering of a xenomorph egg. Therefore, I suggest that this scene be re-edited to exclude the seconds you see the outer covering, but otherwise leave the scene intact. Doing this, at least for the movie canon, would resolve the contradiction completely. Indeed, I am surprised that they didn’t think of this when producing the Director’s Cut. Maybe Scott didn’t want to be a slave to Cameron’s reconceptualizatin of the xenomorph life cycle.

I have been curating essays from the first iteration of Freedom and Reason. Here I curate one that represents my opposition to the Republican Party in which I conclude with the type of anti-worker rhetoric I have come to loathe in others. To be sure, the Republican Party was much worse than it is now, but I need to acknowledge that I have been guilty of a type of ad hominem attack that belittled ordinary Americans and I regret that.

Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, said the debate over coverage of children (SCHIP or State Children’s Health Insurance Program) was “a proxy fight” between advocates for two competing visions. “This is only the first battle in this Congress over who will control health care in America. Will it be parents, families and doctors? Or will it be Washington bureaucrats? That’s what this debate is all about.”

Okay, assuming that you don’t immediately see the problem with what he said, the choice Jeb sets before his listeners is a completely false one. Indeed, when you think about it, it’s a ridiculous argument. Why? Because families and doctors don’t control health care in America—corporate bureaucrats control our health care! And, unlike Washington bureaucrats, corporate bureaucrats work for private tyrannies that aren’t answerable to public grievances. In a democratic society, when the government controls health care that means that families and doctors control health care instead of private tyrannies. (Go here for an excellent discussion about the private tyrannies we call corporations.)

The real choice is between whether you want families and doctors to control health care in a process in which everybody participates in making decisions or whether you want corporations to run health care in a process that they control. The choice is between universal health care, in which every American has access to affordable, high-quality health care, on the one hand, and corporations running health care for profit, denying services to make a buck, and refusing to cover millions of people who can’t afford to pay (who are often nonetheless take care of with the cost of that care dumped on other patients), on the other hand. It’s a clear choice. It would be irrational for the majority of Americans to pick the latter.

There’s more that Jeb and his ilk gloss over. Most US citizens have health insurance through their employers. Health insurance is typically part of a benefits package employees receive when they are hired. Providing health care to employees saves employers money because their size and their ability to decide for their employees allows them to buy group-rate insurance more cheaply than their employees can. If employees purchased their own health care, then wages would have to increase sharply to make those purchases possible. Since the source of profit is mainly derived from the value produced by workers, capitalists will aggressively resist raising wages for this to happen. Moreover, because capitalists can deduct insurance costs on their taxes, and since corporations are only taxed on their income (profits), being able to deduct health insurance costs represents a tax subsidy. The evidence shows that at the system level, this arrangement is actually bad for business, but business consciousness doesn’t operate at that level, rather it operates at the firm level, where rational behavior is often in contradiction with what’s best at the system level (which is the reason why capitalism without massive state intervention is so erratic and self-destructive).

Now, what do we the citizen get for a system that is heavier on the private side than the public side than any other advanced democracy? The advanced countries have more practicing physicians, more nurses, and more acute care hospital beds per 1000 population than the US does. The advanced countries have better health care outcomes than does the United States, and these other countries do it while spending much less on health care (a gap that is growing rapidly, as health care costs in the United States sky rocket), while covering every one of their citizens (45 million US citizens aren’t covered under the current system, a number that grows everyday, as workers are priced out of the system). Better care for everyone for less money?! Wow! How do they do it? Simple – they turned the financing of health care over to the government. 

Before you get confused by propaganda slogans launched from those quarters that don’t want you to have affordable high quality health care, let me emphasize the point that we aren’t talking about “socialized medicine,” where the government actually runs the health care profession. On the contrary, we are talking about a single payer financing mechanism, like they have in Canada, Sweden, and other countries. There, health care is still run by health care professionals, but the government finances health care without the aim to make a profit. Taking profit out of the system means that everybody can be covered with lots of money left over, which means the amount we all pay for health care is sharply reduced. How much money left over? Estimates show that if the US had a universal public run health care system we would save more than a trillion dollars over a 10 year period. (And with the costs of the Iraq War, we need that one trillion plus dollars!)

Estimates for the cost of administering the private system—the corporate bureaucracy, which puts government bureaucracy to shame in red tape—is estimated to run well over 300 billion dollars every year. This is because of the incredibly complex nature of private health insurance, a complexity that is sharply reduced in single payer systems. To compare, while administrative costs run more than 30 percent in the United States, administrative costs in Canada are about half that. You find similar things in other countries. 

There are many other benefits with government-financed health care. With a single payer mechanism, you not only get better and cheaper health care, but you get to choose your provider and you have portability, which means that you don’t lose your health care when you are fired from a job or leave a job for a better one. Hospitals and physicians offices save money because they don’t have to wade through the tangle of insurance company red tape. What is more, doctors get to control their practice again.

Still the Republicans spew all manner of falsehood to scare you away from the system that makes the best sense for individuals and corporations (except private insurance companies). Representative Pete Sessions of Texas said of the SCHIP program that it’s an “attempt to make millions of Americans completely reliant upon the government for their health care needs.” Senator Mel Martinez of Florida said the SCHIP bill would move the United States towards “socialized health care, a Cuban-style health care system, with rationing of care, long waiting lines and, worse yet, no choice.” These are complete lies.

I have never understood why any rational ordinary American would support the Republican Party. Not only do they lie continuously, but they stand completely opposed to the everyday concerns and interests of the working man and woman and their children. The Republican Party is anti-worker and anti-family. They believe in big government in our bedrooms and corporate control over our lives, but they oppose citizens using government to improve the lives of their families. It’s astonishing the degree to which Republican propaganda has confused Americans as to what is really in the citizens interests.

Off-duty and out of uniform, Washington DC police officers James Haskel and Anthony Clay were in Haskel’s sport-utility vehicle looking for a minibike that Haskel thought had been stolen from his home. They found 14-year-old DeOnté Rawlings on the bike and called out to him. Haskel and Clay claimed that DeOnté opened fire. The men say never had a chance to identify themselves as police officers. They chased DeOnté down and Haskel shot him in the head. The gun that Haskel and Clay said DeOnté fired at them has not been found.

Police are angry that Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) agreed to pay for DeOnté’s funeral. DC Fraternal Order of Police President Lou Cannon says many view Fenty’s actions as questionable. He says the mayor should avoid the perception that he’s siding with the victim. Defenders of the cops say that along with the eight shell casings from Haskel’s police-issued 9mm Glock recovered from the scene, three shell casings from a .45-caliber handgun were found, and that there is a damage to the SUV from DeOnté’s alleged gun. 

However, the problems with the story are many. Police are notorious for carrying with them a weapons, ammunition, and other incriminating evidence that they plant on or locate near shooting victims. It is not a problem to scatter .45-caliber shell casings around the scene of a crime to legitimate a claim that the victim returned fire or fired first. Not having a gun makes it even harder to uncover the deception. Anthony Clay drove the car away from the scene of the shooting for several minutes, parking the car in an unknown location before returning to the scene. That the SUV was driven from the scene and then, when found, showed damage from gun fire is highly suspicious. The police officers did not report the shooting, but patrol units were alerted because of technology designed to detect gun fire. A rooftop ShotSpotter sensor told police where Rawlings’ body was. Patrol units arrived to find DeOnté dead with a head wound. DeOnté’s family has asked where the minibike is. 

Just imagine the situation. Here is a 14-year-old black kid being chased by an SUV with two men inside screaming at him. The officers were off duty, out of uniform, and driving a sports utility fan. How was DeOnté supposed to know they were cops? A sport-utility fan with two big men in it screaming at a 14-year old is going to have what effect on the kid on the minibike? What is a kid in a rough neighborhood supposed to think about the situation? Of course he’s going to run. The police ran him down and shot him in the head. This is the phenomenological reality gleened from the cops’ version. 

The eye witness version is even more damning. According to witnesses in the neighborhood, several youths were riding motorbikes on Atlantic Street and in the alleyway behind it. The SUV showed up sometime after 7:00 pm. The SUV made three passes around the block. On its third passes, the SUV and one of the minibikes crossed paths in the alley. The SUV backed up and several shots rang out in quick succession. DeOnté had been shot in the head. Witnesses say only the police fired. They observed DeOnté, lying bleeding to death on the concrere, and the officers doing nothing to save his life.

A DC police official has confirmed what the family has said, that the teen was never considered dangerous. However, it has come to light that police were frustrated with DeOnté because he always refused to help them with investigations. Both official and relatives have reported this fact. DeOnté father has stated publicly that the cops “were trying to make DeOnté into a snitch.” The several visits to the Rawlings home by police questioning him about various crimes that occurred around the city support Mr. Rawlings’ claims.

At a news conference, Mayor Fenty invited Rawlings’ sisters to the microphone. The girls asked why the officers hadn’t been indicted for killing their brother. That’s my question. This case screams homicide.

Dani Klein, Campus Director of the pro-Israel activism group Stand With Us, said in protest of ‘s visit to Columbia University, “Free speech is one thing. Honoring a modern day Hitler is another.” Now in what manner can the Iranian president be compared to Hitler? Is Iran invading other countries? Is Iran pursuing an expansionist policy? Is Iran dividing people based on ethnicity and relegating despised minorities to ghettos? Does Iran have a vast military apparatus capable of taking over the Middle East? Is Iran engaged in a policy of ethnic cleansing? (The only country in the Middle East that approximates this description is Israel.)

Of course, Klein is taking his cue from those around him. Earlier in the day, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Gillerman, likened the Iranian president to Hitler and said that allowing Ahmadinejad to visit Ground Zero would be like allowing a Nazi leader to visit the site. “We are reminded of a similar situation in 1933, when then Columbia President Nicholas Murray Butler hosted a reception for the Nazi ambassador,” Gillerman said. “We ask Columbia and President Bollinger not to dignify Ahmadinejad, do not honor him, and do not emulate President Butler from 1933.”

In response to Gillerman’s claims, the university’s dean, John Coatsworth, said that he would have extended an invitation to Hitler himself had such an appearance been feasible. “If Hitler were at the League of Nations or some meeting in New York, if Hitler were in the United States, and wanted a platform from which to speak… if he were willing to engage in debate and discussion, to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him.” In an era where free speech is rapidly eroding, Columbia still gets it.

It’s long been clear that Abraham Foxman of the ADL has no concept of free speech, and his comments on the Ahmadinejad-Columbia matter provide yet another example of the dim-witted mentality that makes it so hard for the man to see why comparing right-wing Zionists to fascists isn’t such a leap. “It is inappropriate and a perversion of the concept of freedom of speech,” Foxman said of Columbia’s decision. “Columbia University has no moral imperative, no legal imperative, no social imperative to give Ahmadinejad a platform, which he would not give them in Tehran. Why give him the credibility and the respectability of a major institution of higher learning? What message does that send to the students? This is not what the First Amendment is all about.”

Foxman’s argument is this? Because Iran doesn’t allow voices critical of Iran and its allies to be heard in Iranian forums, then the US shouldn’t allow Iranian voices to be heard in American forums. But isn’t that the problem with Iran? Isn’t the argument that Iran is not like the West because it doesn’t have the liberal democratic traditions we enjoy here in the United States. So instead of showing the world why we are more free by allowing a politician we disagree with to speak on one of our college campuses, we are supposed to instead be like Iran and suppress speech with which some members of our society disagree? Make you wonder if Foxman’s mouth and ears are operated by the same brain.

Resisting unlawful arrest is a concept that has a long history, dating back to the earliest days of legal systems. The idea is that an individual has the right to defend himself against an arrest that is not legally justified. In many legal systems, the concept of resisting unlawful arrest is thus based on the idea of self-defense. The principle is that a person has the right to use reasonable force to defend themselves from an attacker, including an officer who is trying to unlawfully arrest them. The key to understanding this concept is that the force used must be reasonable, and the person being arrested must have a reasonable belief that they are in danger.

Self-defense is a basic human right recognized in many legal systems around the world as a basic human right. The right to self-defense is rooted in the principle that individuals have the inherent right to protect themselves and others from harm. International human rights law, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, recognizes the right to life, liberty, and security of person. These rights provide the basis for the right to self-defense. The right to self-defense is also recognized in the laws of many countries and, in some cases, is enshrined in their constitutions.

The right to self-defense is not an unlimited right. The use of force in self-defense must be necessary and proportionate to the threat faced, and should not exceed what is reasonably required to protect oneself or others from harm. In some legal systems, there may also be a duty to retreat or avoid the use of force where possible, before resorting to self-defense. The scope and limitations of the right to self-defense depends on the specific legal system or jurisdiction in question, and may be subject to interpretation by courts or other legal authorities, and there may be further specificity to its use in situations of unlawful arrest.

In the United States, for example, the law recognizes a limited right to resist an unlawful arrest, but the amount of force that can be used in self-defense is generally restricted to non-deadly force. However, some states do not recognize any right to resist an unlawful arrest, regardless of the circumstances. In other countries, the law may be different. Crucially, the concept of resisting unlawful arrest is distinct from obstructing or assaulting an officer in the course of their duties. While an individual may have the right to resist an unlawful arrest, they do not have the right to obstruct or assault an officer who is acting lawfully.

What follows are is court rulings that make up the standing law in light of the principle of stare decisis. Stare decisis (“let the decision stand”) is the legal principle that refers to the practice of courts following and applying the legal decisions of previous cases when deciding similar cases in the future. The principle of stare decisis promotes consistency and predictability in the legal system. When a court decides a case, it sets a precedent that can guide the outcome of similar cases in the future. This allows individuals and businesses to make informed decisions based on past legal rulings, and helps to ensure that the law is applied consistently over time. The principle of stare decisis applies primarily to common law legal systems, such as those used in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. In these systems, courts are bound by their own previous decisions and by the decisions of higher courts in the same jurisdiction. In other words, a court is generally required to follow the legal precedent established by its own decisions or by the decisions of higher courts, unless there are compelling reasons to depart from that precedent.

“Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer’s life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306. This premise was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in John Bad Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S. 529. This derives from the English common law, which recognizes the right of an individual to resist with reasonable force an attempt of a police officer to make an unlawful arrest.

“An arrest made with a defective warrant, or one issued without affidavit, or one that fails to allege a crime is within jurisdiction, and one who is being arrested, may resist arrest and break away. lf the arresting officer is killed by one who is so resisting, the killing will be no more than an involuntary manslaughter.” Housh v. People, 75 111. 491; reaffirmed and quoted in State v. Leach, 7 Conn. 452; State v. Gleason, 32 Kan. 245; Ballard v. State, 43 Ohio 349; State v Rousseau, 241 P. 2d 447; State v. Spaulding, 34 Minn. 3621.

“When a person, being without fault, is in a place where he has a right to be, is violently assaulted, he may, without retreating, repel by force, and if, in the reasonable exercise of his right of self defense, his assailant is killed, he is justified.” Runyan v. State, 57 Ind. 80; Miller v. State, 74 Ind. 1.

“These principles apply as well to an officer attempting to make an arrest, who abuses his authority and transcends the bounds thereof by the use of unnecessary force and violence, as they do to a private individual who unlawfully uses such force and violence.” Jones v. State, 26 Tex. App. I; Beaverts v. State, 4 Tex. App. 1 75; Skidmore v. State, 43 Tex. 93, 903.

“An illegal arrest is an assault and battery. The person so attempted to be restrained of his liberty has the same right to use force in defending himself as he would in repelling any other assault and battery.” State v. Robinson, 145 ME. 77, 72 ATL. 26.

“Each person has the right to resist an unlawful arrest. In such a case, the person attempting the arrest stands in the position of a wrongdoer and may be resisted by the use of force, as in self- defense.” State v. Mobley, 240 N.C. 476, 83 S.E. 2d 100.

“One may come to the aid of another being unlawfully arrested, just as he may where one is being assaulted, molested, raped or kidnapped. Thus it is not an offense to liberate one from the unlawful custody of an officer, even though he may have submitted to such custody, without resistance.” Adams v. State, 121 Ga. 16, 48 S.E. 910.

What in blue blazes are police officers doing hanging out in men’s bathroom busting gregarious civilians for non-criminal offenses? Isn’t the public better served by having the police fighting crime? It’s not like a man putting his foot in my stall is rape or some other actual violation of my person. I’ve had men make passes at me in bathrooms. Do you know how I respond in such a situation? It’s simple, really. I ignore their gestures, wipe my ass, and move on with on life. No harm no foul. But not Republicans. Not only do they oppose gay marriage, but they also support criminalizing gestures they think gay men use to communicate with one another in public places. Does anybody else out there recognize this as the hallmark of the police state – criminalizing homosexual flirting?

Because you can’t get away from this story, and because I have suspected there’s more to the facts of the case than what I have been hearing, I listened to the actual taped interview between Senator Larry Craig and the arresting officer. Good grief. The whole thing is nonsense, with the most irrational elements thrown in. The officer keeps going on and on about how embarrassing it all is and how disappointed he is in Craig. Who gives a damn what this police officer thinks about Larry Craig? It’s not for a cop in this situation to tell a senator that he’s disappointed in him. This isn’t Romper Room. The officer can be heard crying like Craig is his incorrigible son whom he’s at wit’s end to control. That is embarrassing. 

Craig is heard rationally and politely disputing the officer’s account, as well he should (though not politely). The officer sounds like he knows he’s blowing smoke with this arrest (his shaky voice gives him away). But since he’s arresting a man for ambiguous behavior that shouldn’t even be policed in the first place, he’d better have a convincing story to tell. But he doesn’t. The officer says Craig made gestures with his left hand. He knows because he saw the wedding band and he knows what a left hand looks like. But Craig’s left hand was opposite the stall the officer was in. The officer even admits this fact. Does this officer really expect us to believe that Craig is turned all the way around in a bathroom stall to gesture with his left hand – the hand with a wedding ring on it, no less – when he could have simply used his right hand, already in a position close to the officer? Sure the officer knows Craig has a wedding ring on his left hand. That doesn’t mean he saw it in the bathroom stall. The officer asks Craig if he had his wedding band on his right hand at any point during the day. Why ask this? The officer already said he knows what a left hand looks like.

At that point, the officer goes all racist on Craig, saying that he usually deals with people from the wrong side of the tracks, real scumbags who are expected to lie, but that he expects more from Craig. Why, because Craig is a well-off white man? What makes his little lecture all the more disingenuous is that, while most people believe that “all politicians are liars,” this cop expects more from a US senator. Sorry, but that doesn’t pass the smell test.

I completely understand why Craig copped a plea of guilty. The officer keeps telling Craig that if he cops a plea it will all end and that he, the officer, won’t blab it around town; but if Craig decides to fight the charge in court, the officer tells him, then the officer will have to appear and testify about what happened – that is, give the court his story, and we all know that means a public trial and a media circus. So Craig says to himself, “Okay, just sign the papers, pay the fine, and move on with my life.” After all, the man is a US senator with a family and friends. He has a reputation to protect. Does anybody out there really believe that he should see such a thing to trial so that the whole world shares in his embarrassment – over gestures in a public bathroom? And then it gets blabbed all over town. 

What we have here is entrapment, in which a cop is waiting around in a men’s bathroom stall to bust people who gesture with their feet and hands (note to self: when next taking a shit in a public restroom be sure to sit frozen like a stature with feet held firmly together and hands buried under armpits); blackmail, in which the cop says either Craig pleads guilty and makes it all go away or he disputes the cop’s story in public over a crime that is not even a real crime while the whole nation watches (which happens anyway); and the state criminalizing homosexual flirting. Imagine a unisex bathroom where a man or a woman flirts with a member of the opposite sex and one of them is a cop who arrests the flirter. Hard to imagine because it wouldn’t happen. Nor should it. Meanwhile, women suffer the real harassment of cat calls and whistling and the state does nothing about that. It’s about homosexuality, not flirting.

We all know I don’t care for Republicans, and the way they are bailing on Craig shows you why I find them such a despicable lot. They believe this cop’s story over their colleague – more importantly believe such charges are legitimate – and then run as fast as they can away from the man they used to call friend. At the same time, they have colleagues they stand behind who have committed actual ethical violations. It makes you wonder why the Democrats haven’t pitched in more here to help out Craig. Surely Democrats don’t approve of police officers arresting men in bathrooms for wandering feet.

Speaking of actual moral offenses, the obvious truth that appears to have eluded everybody now enters the public discourse: How can the Republicans distance themselves from Craig over such a petty thing – really a no thing – when they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a president who is guilty of the crimes of kidnapping, lying to Congress and the public, spying on US citizens, torturing prisoners, and waging aggressive war? Playing footsies in a public bathroom is a terrible moral offense, but murdering Iraqi children for oil is noble? Talk about misplaced values. That, brothers and sisters, is the real hypocrisy in this whole affair.

Steven Pearlstein, writing in The Washington Post, argues,

It is more than a bit disingenuous for liberals to push for worthwhile programs like food stamps, housing vouchers, child tax credits and the earned income tax credit – and then to constantly cite official income and poverty statistics that do not include the impact of food stamps, housing vouchers, child tax credits and the earned income tax credit.

Why is that (more than a bit) disingenuous? For any maximally-objective grasp of things, we need to develop an honest empirical profile of the problem without the effects of the solution confounding it. Imagine if a doctor examined a patient whose symptoms were masked by another doctor’s previous intervention. The present doctor would quite likely miss the underlying condition affecting the patient. There is nothing at all disingenuous about wanting to see the patient’s medical records before drawing conclusions about the patient’s case. Indeed, that must be the approach the doctor takes.

This is not to say that having an after-intervention accounting of things isn’t useful. How else would one know if the intervention is working? More importantly, how else would one know if a different and better intervention was needed? As if we are ignorant of such things, Pearlstein believes he has to remind us that there is an after-intervention accounting:

[E]ach spring the Census Bureau gets around to computing an alternative after-tax measure of disposable income that includes these various tax and transfer programs, while also making adjustments in the official poverty line to reflect the economic realities of different household sizes…. In 2005, for example, they dropped the poverty rate from 12.6 percent to 10.3 percent, with the biggest improvement coming in a four-percentage-point reduction in child poverty.

In response to this account, Pearlstein notes the obvious, that “these revisions help put the lie to the right-wing conceit that government tax and transfer policies only make poverty worse.” But then he misses the most important fact – that even after adding in the benefits of government programs, one out of every ten Americans still lives in poverty. Moreover, for minorities that ratio is a lot more dramatic. (Frankly, to have one chronically poor person in the wealthiest nation on earth is a scandal, but more on that in a moment.)

Instead, Pearlstein comments,

Conservatives are left to fall back on the argument that government handouts and social insurance programs, while appearing to lift some out of poverty, have created a permanent underclass by discouraging work and thrift and fostering a culture of dependence.

Don’t expect Pearlstein to go on to blast the classist-racist-sexist “culture of poverty” thesis. Instead, he brings in Charles Karelis’ arguments from his new book The Persistence of Poverty. Karelis is the philosopher at George Washington University who argues that people are poor because they don’t have enough money. Before you scoff at Karelis’ tautology (I had a social problems professor who made the same observation), Pearlstein elaborates Karelis’ argument:

The reason the poor are poor is that they are more likely to not finish school, not work, not save, and get hooked on drugs and alcohol and run afoul of the law. Liberals tend to blame it on history (slavery) or lack of opportunity (poor schools, discrimination), while conservatives blame government (welfare) and personal failings (lack of discipline), but both sides agree that these behaviors are so contrary to self-interest that they must be irrational.

The only historical reason liberals give for poverty is slavery? That will come as a surprise to anybody who reads liberal scholarship on the subject. What about the oft-noted facts of the ghetto and Jim Crow segregation, de facto and de jure forces that have created a system of racial separation that continues to divide blacks and whites not only in housing, but also in occupation, education, and dozens of other things. Discrimination is rooted in the continuing objective system (or structure, if you like) of apartheid. A New Liberal, armed with the weapons of social science, should neither blame poverty only on slavery nor know discrimination only as an interpersonal phenomenon disconnected from an underlying system of racial separation. (As a Marxist, I don’t consider myself a liberal, but one thing clearly separating liberals from conservatives is a superior grasp of the methods and findings of sound social science.)

The conservative argument that poverty results from lack of discipline ignores the reality that our wealthiest citizens are the worst when it comes to discipline. Let us be blunt about the truth here: the wealthiest among us do little or no productive work. They don’t even mow their own lawns. I know they want the rest of us to believe they are the new Apostles of Christ, but in truth, their lives are spent in leisure, where their only concern for time is making sure they meet friends and business associates for golf games or have their weekly pedicure performed by their favorite salon employee. Wealthy parents allow their children free rein over their own lives protected within an exclusive communal cocoon. The male children of wealthy families are especially undisciplined (and frequently obnoxious to boot).

Contrast this existence with the lives of the working poor, who exhibit an extremely disciplined manner in making sure not only that they get to work on time every day and every night at their two or more part-time jobs, but that their children learn to unquestioningly respect authority (training to their children’s detriment, in my opinion, since respect for authority makes it harder to develop the consciousness sufficient for rebellion and revolution, which is sorely needed). Indeed, the strictest disciplinarians in American society are working people, especially the working poor.

Ultimately, then, several assumptions Pearlstein and Karelis operate with are wrong. First, in contrast to the wealthy, the poor do work. They work hard. It is expensive being poor, as Ehrenreich famously observed, and you have to work all the time to be able to support that lifestyle. To say the poor are poor because they don’t work is to exhibit a profound ignorance of the reality of poverty. Second, contrary to assumptions in Karelis’ argument, the poor are no more likely to drink and drug than are the wealthy. The difference is that the wealthy can hide their drinking and drugging within gated communities. And they can afford private treatment when their drinking and drugging get out of hand. Third, running afoul of the law has more to do with who breaks the law than it does about the essence of the behaviors to which the law is applied. The wealthy commit all manner of illegal, immoral, unethical, and socially dangerous acts, yet they are relatively immune from the sanctions that control or should control these acts. There’s a reason why our prisons are overflowing with poor people and not rich people, and it has very little to do with actual criminality. Fourth, if not working, drinking and drugging, and breaking the law cause poverty, then the wealthiest among us would be the poorest among us. Obviously that is an absurdity, hence the absurdity of Karelis’ argument.

There is an important and relevant truth in all this: wealth is passed on, either directly in inheritance or indirectly through the good fortune of being a child born to well-off parents. Indeed, this is the justification for passing wealth along! But the same is true for the poor – only here, the disadvantages accumulate. Since, there’s no such thing as parental selection, it ridiculous to blame the poor for poverty (something akin to blaming a corpse for murder). The structure of American society is such that it accumulates advantages at one end while accumulating disadvantages at the other. That is the fundamental character and operation of social class under capitalism. Without massive government intervention (such as we see in Scandinavia counties) or a socialist revolution (which is long overdue), nothing can be done about this.

Oblivious to the facts of the matter, Pearlstein opines,

After all, the reason we study, work, save and generally behave ourselves is that these behaviors allow us to earn more money, and more money will improve our lives. And, by logic, that must be particularly true of the poor, for whom each extra dollar to be earned or saved for a rainy day is surely more valuable than it is for, say, Bill Gates.

Yet, Pearlstein seems to understand something. After noting that the extension of logic in the previous paragraph is problematic, he writes,

On the other hand, maybe the point at which people are most willing to work hard, save and play by the rules isn’t when they are very poor, or very rich, but in the neighborhoods on either side of the point you might call economic sufficiency – a motivational sweet spot that, in statistical terms, might be defined as between 50 percent ($24,000) and 200 percent ($96,000) of median household income. And if that is so, then maybe the best way to break the cycle of poverty is to raise the hopes and expectations of the poor by putting them closer to the goal line.

Now, if he could only connect this observation to the reality he misses about the dynamic of capitalism, then he would understand that poverty can only be eliminated by getting rid of the wealthy (and I don’t mean persons but the station), since it is the lazy existence of the rich that forces so many millions of hard-working people into the hellish existence of poverty (where they are not only the victims of discrimination, but also of prejudice and shame, as well). Because a few have so much, the many have very little. Thus the conclusion Pearlstein reaches, that there is “a solid economic argument to replace the old moral ones for spending more money on programs like food stamps, subsidized child care and the earned income tax credit,” falls far short of a real and permanent solution. (Of course, generous social welfare programs are the least we can do as a civilized society.)

While liberals are mostly correct but insufficiently radical in all this, conservatives are completely wrong. As Pearlstein himself puts it, “after a decade of welfare reform, budget cuts and calls for individual responsibility, poverty is still very much with us.” The conservative solution to poverty is either to blame the poor for their situation – blame the corpse for murder – or to simply remind us that Jesus told us, “The poor will always be among us.” Just as they put the market beyond politics, they locate the source of poverty in theology, all of it out of the hands of “the haves.” How convenient.

Conservatives believe that poverty is explained by personal inadequacies, such as stupidity, bad values, and laziness. They believe that relief should be a gift of charity and that there should be conditions upon receiving it, such as performing menial labor. Aid should only be temporary, they say, and seeking it should carry stigma. Poor people should find public assistance an unpleasant experience so that receiving welfare is itself a deterrence to seeking it. Aid given to poor people should be minimal; the poor would prefer to receive generous aid rather than work so any assistance should always be much less than what they could get if they worked for the lowest possible wage. Fear of hunger and discomfort must exist to compel the poor to work. Individuals make their own decisions and society should not protect persons from the negative consequences of their actions.

Such beliefs are bizarre in light of the way the world actually works. At the individual level, poverty is almost always caused by factors beyond an individual’s control. This is because, at the structural level, poverty is the result of social stratification. Any society that is divided by class is necessarily a society in which the social product is unequally distributed; otherwise, there would be no social classes, there would be no inequality, there would be no poverty. In class systems, some get more for doing less, while others get less for doing more. This is the source of wealth and poverty in society. While some poor people may find their way out of poverty, there will always be poor people in a class society. Since you cannot blame the poor persons for the structure of the societal order, seeing how they haven’t the poor to determine that order, the conservative argument is irrational.

But it’s more than irrational. It’s hateful. Loving and compassionate human beings care about their brothers and sisters. Persons with a normal moral capacity believe that the poor are entitled to aid, since it is not their fault that they are poor. Ethical persons don’t blame victims. If all persons were free to produce for themselves, they would be no need for aid at all. Having people perform menial tasks with no productive or creative value is degrading; as a rule, human beings should never be forced to routinely perform work they do not find fulfilling. Because human beings realize themselves through productive work, most individuals prefer rewarding creative endeavor over receiving aid. The problem is that not everybody is allowed to pursue creative endeavors sufficient for the production of an adequate social provision for themselves. This is because there are some who get a lot for doing very little. They are called capitalists.

The death penalty should be abolished for the following reasons:

1. There are people on death row who are innocent. Individuals are being let out all the time after serving many years on death row facing execution. Killing innocents is an unjustifiable risk, especially when life in prison without parole is an option and sufficient for incapacitation.

2. The poor are disproportionately executed given their representation in homicide statistics. Poor people are at a marked disadvantage when it comes to defending themselves against the power of the state. The death penalty is class biased and therefore unjust. Most serious punishment is biased and unjust because of this, however the death penalty is irrevocable.

3. Blacks are disproportionately executed given their representation in homicide statistics. Blacks are at a marked disadvantage when it comes to defending themselves against the power of the state, both because blacks are disproportionately poor and the system is racially discriminatory. The death penalty is race biased and therefore unjust.

4. It is not a deterrent. In fact, it increases murder where it is practiced (what has been called the brutalization effect). This is because the state sanctions lethal violence. The state should not engage in behavior that increases the likelihood of lethal violence. The state, by killing people, puts others at risk of being killed or injured.

5. It is inefficient. The costs of killing a person is far more than the costs of keeping them in prison for life. It costs more because we have safeguards in place so that the risk of executing innocent person is less. The safeguards must remain in place as long as we practice the death penalty, so there is no way to make the punishment cheaper than imprisonment.

6. Incarceration is an effective method of incapacitation (and you don’t risk killing an innocent person). The more rational alternative is preferred.

7. The death penalty as currently practiced violates the eighth amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishments. It is therefore unconstitutional. It is unlikely that killing a person can with any certainty be made free of suffering, either physically or psychologically.

8. The taking of human life, except in self-defense or to save the lives of the innocent, is unjustifiable homicide. The death penalty is employed under neither exception and is therefore unjustifiable homicide – that is murder.