When the jury summons arrives---go and serve!
DISSENT / Winter 2008
“WE, THE JURY...”
Years later, I would tell my friends never
to shirk their jury summonses. This is
the most democratic experience you’ll
ever have, I’d insist.
But when I first arrived at the Alameda
County Superior Courthouse, located in what
was the gritty area of downtown Oakland in
the late 1980s, I had little desire to serve on a
criminal trial. I simply assumed that no sane
assistant D.A. would accept me as a member
of a jury because I was a professor, a Berkeley
resident, and a lifelong liberal activist.
Turns out I was wrong. The young assistant
D.A., impeccably dressed for success, immediately
established that I was a professor of
American history at the University of California,
as well as a liberal who had lived in Berkeley
for decades. I was sure I would be home
within the hour. Then, she looked me straight
in the eye and asked, “If I can convince you
that a person recklessly endangered people
driving under the influence of alcohol, would
you be willing to convict such a defendant?” I
hesitated, thought about it for a long moment,
answered truthfully, and said, “Yes, I would do
that.”
Suddenly, I was serving on my first trial.
As we listened to the witnesses’ testimonies,
the evidence was overwhelming. The whitehaired,
elderly African-American man who now
sat in the courtroom casually dressed in mismatched
pants and jacket had left a party,
driven his truck down a hill, careened across
the street, and smashed into a telephone pole.
Several neighbors had witnessed the spectacle.
When the police arrived, he could not walk a
straight line. The breathalyzer test made them
wonder how he was able to stand upright. He
wasn’t just driving under the influence. He was
stone drunk.
As we filed into a stuffy, dim room to discuss
the evidence, we sat around a long table
that reminded me of the film Twelve Angry
Men. But we were not twelve white men. The
jury included ten individuals from ethnic and
racial minorities. Half of us were women.
One man immediately pointed at me and said I
should be the forelady because I was a professor
and probably knew how to do these things.
The rest immediately agreed. I accepted, not
sure I really knew “how to do these things.”
We met for two full days because four
members of the jury wanted to return a vote
of “not guilty.” We took straw votes; we asked
the judge to repeat his instructions; we asked
the bailiff for transcriptions of certain testimonies.
I understood and shared the moral anguish
of the four. We all knew this was the
defendant’s third conviction for drunk driving
and that he’d likely go to prison. What we all
wanted was for him to get help and become
sober. But the judge, a warm, compassionate,
Mexican American, had repeatedly instructed
us, “You must not take into consideration the
possible nature of the sentence, only the evidence
that has been presented. You must only
decide whether the defendant is guilty of the
crime.”
Four members of the jury concluded that
we should tell the judge we were a hung jury.
“No,” I said. “You feel strongly that he is not
guilty and we owe you the time to convince us
of your thinking and feelings.”
That meant we’d have to meet a second day.
The room was still stuffy; the coffee acidic; the
food inedible. By noon, we were hungry, tired,
and exhausted. Still, I insisted that the four
be given plenty of time to convince the rest of
us that he was not guilty.
As tensions grew, I suggested we take a
break and just get to know each other. We were
a diverse group. I was the only professor.
Among us were a waitress, an engineer, a domestic
house worker, a city construction
worker, a retired trucker, a retired grocery store
and a Wal-Mart saleswoman. Some had
dropped out of high school; others seemed well
versed in California law. Half were either immigrants
or the children of immigrants. A third
were African Americans. Some labored for a
minimum wage; the rest earned varying degrees
of middle-class salaries. Nobody was even remotely
wealthy.
The break worked. We established an easy
intimacy. We talked about our lives, our families,
and our work. People dug into their purses
and wallets to show off pictures of their kids
and grandchildren.
Then, when the tension had eased, we got
back to the hard work of dealing with a man
none of us wanted to send to prison. I gently
used skills that I had learned from teaching so
many seminars. I gave the four who wanted to
vote not guilty all the time they needed to express
their anguish. None of them argued that
the man on trial was innocent; they just didn’t
want him to go to prison. Neither did I. Gradually,
the rest of the jury convinced them that
they had to evaluate the evidence, and not consider
the possible sentence. We took yet another
vote, and this time we reached a
unanimous verdict”guilty.”
After living with each other for two days,
we returned to the jury box with the invisible
bonds we had forged inside the jury room. The
judge asked if we had reached a verdict. I stood
up, looked at the rheumy eyes of the defendant,
and reluctantly told the judge that we had
indeed reached a unanimous decision.
The judge thanked us with considerable
graciousness and, before he dismissed us, he
acknowledged how hard this case must have
been for all of us.
I had a queasy feeling as I left the courthouse.
“He shouldn’t go to prison,” I muttered
to myself. “He desperately needs help.” But
then I thought of the kids who had been playing
on that street and how his truck might have
hit one of them instead of a pole.
I had missed a lecture and a seminar that
week. But I knew I had been profoundly transformed
by this experience. True, I had marched
in endless protests for civil rights and against
the Vietnam War and cast votes every year. But
I had never experienced democracy in such a
direct and profound way. I had sat with eleven
other citizens for two days. Together we had
wrestled with tough moral and legal decisions,
and when we parted, it was with genuine affection
and respect.
As I walked down the stairs of the courthouse,
the assistant D.A caught up with me.
“Why did you risk putting me on a jury?” I
asked her. She smiled. “Because I believed you
and, the truth is, it was my first trial.”
Ruth Rosen is a historian and journalist and
teaches history and public policy at the University
of California-Berkeley. An updated and revised
edition of her most recent book, with a new epilogue, The World Split
Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement
Changed America, was recently published by
Penguin.
First off, on technical points: bad formatting and a disorienting opening paragraph. Since I'm not an English major, I don't know or care if that's called past/future tense or what, but it's lousy form.
Secondly, I find the salient qualities of that essay utterly revolting and pandering to racial stereotypes. What's unique about this essay, as opposed ot any other essay on the civic duty to stand for jury, if which there are no shortage, is that from the beginning it heavilly emphasizes race, and portrays a minority defendant as the multiple conviction criminal on trial, and the jurors of color as less rational, except in thier recognition that the educated white woman ought to be lead them.
What motivates an upper class university professor, white woman, and self proclaimed liberal feminist, to write an essay focusing on people's abilities to come togeather and incarcerate a black man. Was it really necessary to include race into the equation? No. And why include such details as "dressed in mismatched pants and jacket."
January 16, 2008 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
...is that from the beginning it heavilly emphasizes race, and portrays a minority defendant as the multiple conviction criminal on trial, and the jurors of color as less rational, except in thier recognition that the educated white woman ought to be lead them.
I think you misunderstand the intent and some of the details. For instance, nowhere in the post did Prof. Rosen identify what race the 4 jurors belonged to that wanted to vote 'Not Guilty'. The details of the formatting are unknown, but you might want to look into spell check yourself if you're into technical points details. As for the starting paragraph, it is a well recognized technique and didn't disorient or detract from my interest in the post. I don't mean to come down on you, but not everyone is Raymond Allen or needs to be treated roughly.
"To save your world you asked this man to die; Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?" W.H. Auden
January 16, 2008 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's another case of reckless driving: Carole Midgen, State Senator representing Marin and parts of San Francisco (my home) whose base is heavily white feminists and the LGBT community.
Midgen went on a 30 mile high speed reckless driving spree in her Toyota Hybrid Highlander SUV in the Bay Area, which replaced her previously tax payer bought Cadillac STS SUV. During her 30 mile spree she hit the center divider twice, and swerved lanes repeatedly prompting many 911 calls from other drivers. She was also using her cell phone during this time.
She finally ended her spree by rear ending a compact Honda sedan stopped at a red light. Sending a working class Latino mother and her 3yo to the hospital with injuries that thankfully and luckily weren't fatal, though they easily could have been under the circumstances of an SUV plowing into a stopped compact sedan.
Her excuse given days after the fact?
Her Leukemia medication impaired her judgment and memory, which also accounted for her false statements to CHP about her 30 mile reckless driving spree with 3 collisions, two of which she initially denied. While she was on her cell phone arranging meetings. And what do heavy medications warn? "Do not operate vehicles or machinery."
Result of such utterly reckless behavior from someone who should know better? Conviction and jail sentencing? Nope. She was allowed to plead nolo contendre, paid a $710 fine, has to do a little community work, and is voluntarily stopping driving.
And there was a big ZERO public outcry from the white feminists and LGBT community. Showing once again that it's much more about tribal identity and getting one's own, than any principled stance.
Ruth Rosen is right about one thing, if it had been a black man, absolutely he'd be doing jail time and white feminists would be writing essays on the justice of it.
***
btw, I drive a Prius.
In my experience, the most reckless drivers are almost always yuppies in power SUV and luxury sport sedans. Pickup and truck drivers are often selfish drivers, in that they'll not respect rules and merges and such. But when I see a car swevring going 90-100mph+ it's almost always a white, male or female, power yuppie in a high end Mercedes, BMW, Audi, or such.
The last accident I avoided by evasion involved a white yuppie woman driving an Audi "turbo" stationwagon with a kid on the back seat. She swerved out from behind backed up traffic, gunned it and switched lanes again in mid intersection, to make a red light, that she also ran.
January 16, 2008 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm a bit baffled by your disapproval of Rosen's portrayal. You're jumping incorrectly here and there, as in the quibble over "half of us." The "us" has to be the whole so that the "half" is women. "Us" is not women. And the votes for conviction were not a minority of the jury.
We don't know how the defendant in Rosen's jury service was sentenced. (I note the Midgen story does not imply she was on her third offense.)
January 16, 2008 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have no problem with convicting reckless and impaired drivers. All of them, equally. If a black man or white republican, or whoever did as Midgen has, I'd be all for them doing jail time.
But the fact remains that Rosen's essay is full of totally unnecessary racial and class references, unless she's making some racial and class point. That in context of our courts being tilted in favor of white, upper class, men and women, and against the poor and people of color, especially black men.
Carole Midgen went on a 30 mile high speed reckless driving spree in her SUV while medicated, hit the center divider twice, prompted many 911 calls, and sent a Latino woman and her 3yo to the hospital, and who luckily weren't killed as they easily could have been. Midgen initially denied her reckless driving spree to the CHP, and later claimed memory loss. Yet, she was coherent enough to use her cell phone throughout this period to discuss her schedule with staff.
There was no outrage from Midgen's white feminist and LGBT base. She'll probably be reelected in 2008.
I even agree with most of her politics, and IF she wasn't guilty of such criminal acts and given a free pass, I'd have been happy to see her reelected.
But there is nothing principled about Midgen getting a free pass from white feminists and the LGBT community for blatantly criminal negligence, at the same time they lobby for other tough on crime measures targeted at the poor and especially people of color, and most especially hetero black men.
It just smacks of the sort of vile, self serving, hypocrisy we always see in identity politics. That is NOT the way to bring about real reform and Progressive politics.
January 16, 2008 7:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually she does implicitly.
Half of "us" were women. "The jury" was mostly minorites, including Walmart workers, and so on.
Whenever race is mentioned it's either to reinforce the stereotype of bad lower class minorities, like the black repeat offender, or reinforce that good upper class minorities urge their conviction, and of course the protagonist is a white, upper class, feminist, natural leader and educator, showing people right thinking.
Which is a nice "fairy tale" and "political identity narrative" as some would say.
The gender, racial, and class overtones are clearly implicit throughout. Maybe unintentional, but if that's unintentional, then Rosen has some deep issues. Rather Freudian either way.
January 16, 2008 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
So much baloney.
Actually, my impression when reading it, until I read your's was that she was pandering; setting you up to feel symapthy for this guy, who being a minority and obviously poor [the clothes] has had a tough life and could use some compassion at this point.
No this ain't such a great piece. I wouldn't say "Freudian" because I know what that really means, but it does seem to reveal something.
dc
January 17, 2008 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
I too served as a juror for a criminal trial. Being Minnesotans, none of us was a Berkeley Professor but we were all above average. We let the guilty as sin sleaze ball go because the young prosecutor was not above average. We were about as diverse as Lake Woebegone.
January 16, 2008 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
For whatever reason Rosen's essay set my teeth on edge, as well. I am surprised she didn't offer to lead a discussion on the virtues of "jury nullification" or at the least offer to bring milk and cookies.
January 16, 2008 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is also a topic that an American History professor may be able to offer very insightful commentary on how it became to be embraced in American jurisprudential theory.
Jury nullification was clearly believed to be a celebrated right of jurors in Revolutionary era America, as is evidenced in the trial of John Peter Zenger. My honest answers to questions regarding jury nullification during the jury selection process has probably been the reason for my dismissal on more than on occasion in the past. There is a great variation in the manner the subject has been broached in the jury selection processes I've witnessed.
January 17, 2008 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I also don't get the point of all the ethnic references. What I don't see is mention of the guy's defense attorney. For my jury, the defense attorney was critical to our decision not to convict. He ran circles around the prosecutor and cast doubt on every bit of evidence against the defendent.
January 16, 2008 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well chances are an elderly black man had the P.D. who was guaranteed to be overloaded. The problem is that without a competent defense to challenge evidence, any case looks like an open and shut easy conviction. He may very well have been guilty, but it's still a miscarriage of justice that the poor don't get adequate defense.
I'd also point out the Orwellian ludicrousness of Rosen's assertion that a prosecutor wouldn't want a white, upper class, woman, and self identified feminist, to help convict a black man who by accounts sounds like he was probably poor as well.
"Liberal" or otherwise, they're on opposite ends of the spectrum of life experiences in most regards. The prosecutor could only have done marginally better with a white, upper class, man, and self described Republican.
That's not just my opinion, but has LONG been a major complaint by feminists of color against white "liberal" feminists like Gloria Steinem for example.
January 16, 2008 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's not just my opinion, but has LONG been a major complaint by feminists of color against white "liberal" feminists like Gloria Steinem for example.
I agree. In the case I described below where I was juror #8, there was not a shred of shared life experiences between the defendant and I or the defendant and any of the jurors. Not one shred.
Well chances are an elderly black man had the P.D. who was guaranteed to be overloaded. The problem is that without a competent defense to challenge evidence, any case looks like an open and shut easy conviction.
The PDs for my case were terrible, too. On several occasions the judge had to prompt them on presenting evidence or rebutting the prosecutors. Once in the jury room though, we all agreed to not let the dismal performance sway our thinking and hoped that the judge had made sure we had the information we needed.
"To save your world you asked this man to die; Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?" W.H. Auden
January 16, 2008 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I sat on my first criminal trial a year ago (I was convinced that I wouldn't serve because the last time I was called, in voir dire, the plaintiffs lawyer in the civil case laughed out loud when he saw my job history).
The thing that struck me was how different in practice the reasonable doubt standard seems than it did before I was in the jurors room. I went into deliberations thinking that we would convict on one or two charges, but acquit on others, because the evidence didn't seem absolute. None of us really had any idea how to approach deliberations. We ended up looking at the evidence for one charge and asking ourselves what a reasonable doubt would be, and what possible circumstances the allegations could be false. Once we felt that we had no reasonable doubt on a key piece of testimony, the rest fell into place and we convicted on all counts - ther rest didn't seem like it could be false if the initial piece was true.
Somehow, I imagined in practice that the reasonable doubt standard would be something very rigorous, approaching Cartesian doubt. It was a lot more like the standards I apply to determining whether my kid is telling the truth.
On a personal level, the experience had it's warmth and fuzziness - it was a good cross-section of my borough in all ways, everybody participated honestly and vigorously and we all felt bonded. But I think all of us left with something gnawing, a sense that we wished it had been clearer that we'd done the right thing.
In all honesty, civic duty is great and all, but I wouldn't go out of my way to be in a position where I held someone's fate in my hands, and had to reason through the situation with a bunch of other people I don't know to an uncertain outcome. It's kind of traumatic.
January 16, 2008 7:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jury duty is a bit traumatic, but it is also an essential element of a free society, and jury pools should be filled with a decent sampling of the community in which the Courthouse resides. I have sat on a jury, and it also caused be a bit of anxiety, but I have never attempted to weasel out of a Jury summons. Once I was allowed to to get bounced to a different jury pool two months in the future because of a potential serious problem with an unchangeable project deadline at work, and once I was excluded from a jury pool because my appearance was the day after I'd returned from my mother's funeral, and at the time I was unsure of my ability to be a competent, unbiased juror.
Every other summons I have received, I have appeared for. The first thing I ask anyone who complains about the high settlement assessed in civil trials is when was the last time they willingly and without protest answered a jury summons. Up until Judges and legislatures started to get tough on jury exclusions, almost anyone could conceive of a reason why they should be exempted from serving on a jury.
January 17, 2008 10:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a positively awful story and a terrible argument for jury service.
If we're to all have (should we need it) a trial of our peers, shouldn't our peers be allowed to take potentially unsuitable punishments into account when deciding on our guilt or innocence? Because this is my view as a citizen... Better to let a guilty man go free than to let a guilty man be over-punished.
I was in a jury pool recently. Death penalty case. Was disqualified because I said, honestly, that I'd sooner vote innocent than contribute to somebody being executed by the state.
I was disqualified for that.
How sick is that?
We're entitled to a jury by our peers. I was and am the peer of the defendant. I would, under no circumstances, consent to his execution. Why was I suddenly removed from his community of peers? I was a peer when he commited his crime and when he was arrested... but when it came to judgment and sentencing I was no longer a peer?
I'd love to think of jury service as a chance to participate in government on a visceral level. But my views (anti-death penalty, anti-victimless crime convictions) aren't even allowed expression in court! So why should I be inconvenienced for a supposedly civic responsibility that doesn't allow me to express myself?
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
January 16, 2008 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you have to ask, I'm not sure I can explain. Is this rhetorical?
January 16, 2008 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
My take on this is different from the professor's. I'd have been taken back by the prosecutor's initial question.
"If I can convince you that a person recklessly endangered people driving under the influence of alcohol, would you be willing to convict such a defendant?"
The "driving under the influence of alcohol" aspect seems extraneous. "If I can convince you that a person recklessly endangered people, would you be willing to convict such a defendant?" should have been the question. We've basically been given years of indoctrination about drunk drivers and now the broader, "driving under the influence." But there have been recent studies indicating that using a cell phone also impairs a driver's ability, to the extent of being comparable to being "under the influence." So if the prosecutor had asked,
"If I can convince you that a person recklessly endangered people driving while talking on a cell phone, would you be willing to convict such a defendant?"
.. would the jury have been as accepting of sending a young mother to jail for her third time being stopped for driving while talking on a cell phone? To make the matter more comparable, if the third time the young mother had side swiped a parked car?
Who is more likely to kill a child? The mother making a call while driving to pick up a child at school, or the person leaving a bar at 12:15AM? Would the jury have been as easily convinced that a jail term was an appropriate punishment? Maybe some therapy to wean the addicted cell phone user off the habit would have been preferable.
My point is that there is a bias in the entire basis of the story that is conveniently ignored. The drunk is considered to be a peril to our society even though the danger is apparently little different from that of the person using a cell phone while controlling a two ton mass of steel going 40 mph in a school zone.
Spare me the argument that there are levels of impairment from using a substance that go beyond cell phone use distraction. I've seen people screaming into cell phones as if they were portals to someone standing just behind it.
January 16, 2008 8:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can't escape the argument that the cell phone user can switch attention, while the drunk cannot even bring attention to bear in the first place.
And of course there are levels beyond, like unconsciousness.
January 16, 2008 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's beside the point.
His point is that people who drive recklessly, for various reasons, should be treated equally under the law. But that these issues are often determined by identity politics.
One prominent example of that is the Midgen case, who got a free pass becasue she's a white feminist supported by the LGBT community. If she was a poor black man she would likely be doing jail time for criminal negligence and endangering the lives of others.
Another example is the rushhour accidents on the freeway every morning and night, caused by commuting office workers, more than 50% of whom are white and Asian. The majority of those accidents are caused by negligent driving, including talking on the phone, eating while driving, chronic sleep deprivation, and so on. And they kill far more people than old drunk black guys.
But where is the political impetus to prosecute the yuppie with the cell phone in one hand, cappuccino in the other, who then spills it in their lap or is just distracted from the conversation, and plows a two ton SUV into a compact sedan, killing or maiming somebody. That happens far more often, but becasue that's "us" there's almost no prosecution or culpability.
I'm past the twisted identity politics of 'justice' being to go after the easy target; the poor, especially black guys, and call it a war on drugs, or protecting women, or some other pretense that's never actually accomplished.
January 17, 2008 5:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's not beside the point. While I agree with the underlying animus you have towards the racialized "War on Drugs" and such, I think you are applying it in really strange ways here.
Was Midgen given the sentence because it was her first, and lesser, offense or because she was white? Was the man in Rosen's story there because he was black or because he ran himself into a telephone poll drunk as all hell? This is not to argue that there are not all sorts of racial bias in our legal system - of course there are.
But when you find yourself going after a pretty innocuous story relating basic civic pride, arguing that cell phone use is the same as being drunk, and equating someone being charged on their first offense with a serial drunk driver... well, maybe its time to reconsider your initial premise.
January 17, 2008 7:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
First offense? Are you kidding? Hello?
It was multiple counts of reckless driving.
1) 30 mile reckless driving spree, swerving lanes the whole time
2) hitting the center divider twice, miles apart
3) using her phone while engaged in reckless driving
4) driving while incapacitated by medication
5) plowing into a stopped car
6) sending a woman and her 3yo to the hospital
7) endangering the lives of many along the way, and could easilly have killed that mother and child.
8) lying to CHP about the driving spree, and then changing her story later once evidence was presented, and claiming "memory loss" though she was coherent enough to speak on the phone to staff throughout the spree.
First offense? Get real.
And for that she gets a $710 fine, a little community service, and voluntarily stopping driving. The Bay Area feminist and LGBT community had no problem with that.
January 17, 2008 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
So she's connected. Campaign against her. No one here is defending her.
But this is not what is meant by repeat offense. Once a driver's license is suspended or revoked, some people repeatedly drive and get into trouble. The absence of license doesn't stop them. What do you recommend for these cases?
January 17, 2008 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's just nonsense and spin.
The reality remains Midgen got a free pass for some very criminally negligent behavior, including: multiple collisions, hospitalizing a mother and young child who could have been easily killed, over 30 mile spree, at high speed on the freeway, prompting multiple 911 calls. ?For which she got a tiny fine of $710 and a little community work. She didn't even have her license revoked but voluntarily stopped driving, and is now chaffered at taxpayer expense!
The old black guy in Rosen's piece went to prison for a "3rd offense" of hitting a telephone pole, at low speed, on a short drive, causing no injuries.
Midgen got a free pass from the feminist and LGBT community in the Bay Area who are her base. She of course would have the best defense and court on her side. The black guy went to jail for presumably being a menace, probably without any defense provided by the P.D.
It's vile hypocrisy. Which is what we usually say about poor black men in relation to white Republicans. It's more than a little sickening to have to say it about so called "liberals" who are actually just power players.
For a white, upper class, feminist, in the Bay Area, like Rosen, to have the audacity and hypocrisy to claim pride in convicting some anonymous black drunken driver, when her own community is manifestly NOT applying the same standards to it's own, just reeks of structural racism and classism and willingness to twist the law for one's own group.
The issue is fair treatment under the law, power dynamics, and hypocrisy.
I and many others am sick of hearing feminists and the LGBT community claim to be disempowered victims and disenfranchised; when in fact as they "climb up" they're so often "kicking down" on those who truly are disempowered and disenfranchised, and only becoming more so, thanks in no small part to feminists and the LGBT community joining the establishment.
I and many others are sick of the identity politics and rank hypocrisy of it.
Civil Rights means to have principles of fairness and apply them equally to others. Civil Rights must include reaching out, and especially downwards, to help lift others up as much as possible.
A group clawing itself into power only to abuse it, treat their own with favor, and help the status quo kick others down, is NOT Civil Rights.
January 17, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
So shoot Rosen.
Jeez, she should just shut up, I guess, and let you write.
Will you offer us a blog post or discussion table piece? Maybe with lots of bold type, or ALL CAPS?
January 17, 2008 9:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just another idiotic troll by TW. Aside from trolling, and childish "not uh" comments, what is TW contributing? Zilch.
The point is this: Ruth Rosen and the white, upper class, feminist, LGBT community should stop being such complete hypocrites. They can't have it both ways, claiming victim status and claiming to be for civil rights on one hand, and kicking down on minorities and the poor on the other. Which they've done for decades. That routine is long past expired.
At the very least Rosen should have more sense than to write an article extolling her virtues at convicting an old black guy for hitting a telephone pole, while her community applies totally different standards to it's own.
Rosen was a columnist at the Chronicle in San Francisco and LA Times. Her essay indicates her jury duty was "years" ago so she was well familiar with the issue of reckless driving at the time of Migden's spree. So, where is Ruth Rosen's essay condemning Carole Migden? Nowhere that I found by Googling.
I guess it would actually take some courage for the principled stance, and call for justice on a Bay Area, white, upper class, feminist, and leader of the powerful and wealthy LGBT community.
It's a cowardly betrayal of civil rights principles to instead pat oneself on the back for convicting some old anonymous black guy. So much for Rosen's honesty, justice, courage or civil rights.
January 18, 2008 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, Mr. anonymous super-moral perfect person: Back off and stop beating up on everyone here. We're on your side, jerk.
January 18, 2008 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think what Tom means is that, gosh, we wish we could be just like you.
January 18, 2008 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh right, you're on my side... that explains all the name calling, trolling, and rating abuse. Before striving to be a "super-moral perfect person" why don't you try and stop being such a douche bag?
btw, you could contribute something more to the conversation than rating abuse and childish not-uh knee jerk comments. If you have a specific opinion as to how great Ruth Rosen is, beyond reverence for all that is PC and self serving, feel free to share it.
January 19, 2008 1:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Show me where I have abused ratings on you, or any name I have used worse than the deserved "jerk". You, however, are calling me idiotic, troll, and the above.
Keep it up and I'll pile on with the ratings.
January 19, 2008 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
There are studies which suggest that cell-phone use can impair driving as much as drunk driving at the legal limit. But I'm not aware of any studies showing impairment on the level of someone so drunk as to be barely able to stand. Such details matter.
As for people being so wound up in their cell conversations as to treat them as "portals to someone standing just behind it:" how would this be any different than someone wound up in an conversation with a passenger? Are we to outlaw live conversations in cars as distractions?
January 17, 2008 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
The studies about cell phones and accidents, which at first seem to ring true, are not very strong evidence because the populations in question are very far from random, if they were surveys. No one had asked random subjects to try talking non-stop on cell phones and see how many accidents they racked up on their records.
If groups had been tested by driving obstacle courses while talking, that seems fair, until one considers that it's hard to take risks seriously while driving a fake test course. Therefore, one can't extrapolate to real traffic where a conversation can yield to needs outside the car. In contrast, one can't easily shake off a good buzz. (Chemical note--one can in fact shake off a good pot buzz.) Reflexes are kind of important, but they are not affected by talking, only attention is.
Given the huge increase (from zero to almost everyone) in cell phone ownership, and the expected percentage of us talking while driving, I ask where is the epidemic of accidents asoociated with cell phones? I'm liberal in politics but will acknowledge silly laws when I see them, and the cell phone laws are such.
As pointed out above, one has to find an important difference between talking to someone present and someone on the phone to justify the laws. Only one I can think of is that my passenger can see the car running the stop sign when I might miss him. (That's happened more than once to me---saved by my passenger.) But studies of attentional blindness would not support any difference between talking while holding a phone, and hands-free conversation, which is legal in Chicago.
What do they against one-armed drivers?
January 17, 2008 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
My first criminal trial was a few years ago. It was a high profile, capital murder case with a 21 year old African American defendant pleading insanity. Starting with 96 jurors, the first order of business was to eliminate those who were against the death penalty. Every single African-American raised their hands and were excused. I could have screamed. I put my hand down and when questioned about it said I was against it except for Ted Bundy (my dislike for him was visceral, but he was long dead and gone). They kept me anyway and now we had about 86 potential jurors--all of us white. After plowing through a 16 page questionnaire, I didn't think I had a chance with all of my liberal leanings and a reiteration of my basic objections to the death penalty, which was fine, but I was afraid the poor guy would end up with 12 Republicans in the jury. Turns out I was juror number 8 and we did convict. Even I could see there wasn't much choice. But if we had gone on to the next phase, I'm pretty sure the vote would have been 11-1, with me as the lonely 1. Evidently, his PD could see that coming, too, and chose to have the judge sentence him. The judge chose what I would have gone for - life with no parole.
After the trial, I read the daily front page news articles and every one of them started off with, "An all white jury..." His appeal is not online that I can find, but I did read somewhere that he had lost.
"To save your world you asked this man to die; Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?" W.H. Auden
January 16, 2008 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
The government should reimburse jurors the full value of their lost income, not the insulting pittance that it pays. I am blessed with an employer that offers jury pay, but many jurors aren't so lucky.
I bet lots of jury duty dodgers are really just trying to not lose income.
January 16, 2008 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
ok. And?
January 17, 2008 6:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I thought, too, it was a silly post. We don't need racially loaded tales of civic virtue from a quarter a century ago to be reminded that, yeah, even someone in Ruth's exalted position needs to do jury duty. I don't recall having had a lot of choice, actually.
Perhaps just by state law, my experience in two trials for relatively petty matters like theft was different. The foreman wasn't elected; I think it was a matter of who landed in the first chair during jury selection. We did our job without lots of personal confessions. In fact, I learned pretty much zilch about the others, beyond their willingness to speak and listen. And I have to agree with Ruth, here, that it was an encouraging experience for democracy. People really did.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
January 17, 2008 8:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
well, if all will look more carefully at the beginning of Ms. Rosen's post, you will see that it was originally written for Dissent Magazine's Winter 2008 issue. I went to their site and in the table of contents for that issue I found that it was apparently part of a group of essays on that title:
I haven't read much of Dissent Magazine, but from that which I have seen in the past made me think that it editorial policy/marketing is towards liberals of the type still interested in issues of "a quarter century ago." Which is why I haven't read much more of it. :-)
January 17, 2008 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's us Cafe-ers. Always getting used goods. :'-(
January 17, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Artappraiser
Some of us still live in geographic areas that have the same issues and worse than "a quarter century ago." In the geographic location I live in many of the local minority leaders have been co-opted by the local power structure. The poor whites have "gotten religion" and both the poor and rich say and refrain for social activities in the “Public Interest”. I am sure the same is happening in others areas.
They believe prayer changes everything and God does not require humans to act through: Just Pray.
I look at this as they are using the wrong word. The exclusive use of prayer for the "general good" has allowed themselves and others to become “prey” for the powerful to be plundered and pillaged. A way of looking at this is that the elite use religion as control and as a way of keeping the masses passive and quiet.
The replacement of actions with prayer fits the powerful need to neutralize actions against their goals.
Religion has fallen into the trap of activity helping only the small community of their church and sends money overseas to “X” county. They only pray for the community and those fallen, God will help. They have been blinded to feel that to help is only to enable the affliction. It is God’s will. The word “Enabling” is the holy water of today that washes the conscience that should move one to action.
There are other "programs" also. The legal system and prisons are another. Drugs have ravaged all communities but particularly public is the black communities. I believe that the drug responses are a big part of this. Drugs take the heart of the youths and inhibit action against the social and economic situations still present today in America. Some would use the limiting words of the black community, but it is everywhere.
The support groups Al-Anon and Nar-Anon for families and friends of alcoholics and drugs are in place to help the family and friends feel it is and was kick out and not help the abuser so they will hit bottom. Hit bottom in the case of drugs leads to death by use of the drug, death from others, or 20 to 30 years in prison.
The only help to be found is for those who already want to quit. The treatment facilities and all medical facilities take those "want to stop" and they use the euphuism “disassociate” your emotion from the addict and let the abuser hit bottom when they refuse to treat those who are in the worst situations and do not want to go into treatment if there can be facilities found.
The victims, families and groups should be there to educate for change using mental health based treatments. It would be the “human” thing to help them not jail them. It is cheaper to treat the underlying problems than to jail them. None of these groups go out to prevent new tragedies in the lives of the new members that arrive in the groups. If they did not exist those who derive the income from the activities would invent such a system to stop their income stream from diminishing.
Besides the usefulness of the “situation”, the addiction doctors are a problem. They are not psychiatrists and may have little if any formal information and training. In California any physician can be an addiction doctor with 14 hours of study! These "doctors" would not be qualified to do mental health treatments! Understand the reason so few if really any of the approaches are mental health based with real world testing of treatments before being used for poor results. It is estamated that 70 plus persent have a co-occuring mental healt problem with the addiction only 20 percent get some type of treatment.
We the rabble are truly viewed and treated as non-worthy of outside help, the cure is to spend no resources or as little as possible and do it by ones’ own resources of “spirit”.
I only wish I was a better writer and could do justice to the above issues.
-----------------------------------------------
Today, are we searching for I deals or Ideals?
-Thinking
January 19, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Prof. Rosen
I would also like to ask about the article and implications of the list of authors or backers of you writing in Dissent Magazine?
Is this article an allegory?
Can you help us with the writing spirit or intent?
What is the statement being made or why are these individuals particularly listed?
Any other thoughts of the backgroud or landscape surounding this article would be appreciated.
Thank you
Thinking
We, the Jury...
Joanne Barkan, Paul Berman, Susan Cheever, Nicolaus Mills, Maxine Phillips, Ruth Rosen, Jim Sleeper,
-----------------------------------------------
Today, are we searching for I deals or Ideals?
-Thinking
January 19, 2008 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't forget that, in terms of "getting help" for drug addictions, that particular problem is excluded from almost every insurance policy. (I say almost because I have not seen every one of them, but it is written in as an exclusion on every single policy I have ever seen.
Anyone who has ever been hospitalized for depression or any other mental problem can forget about self-insurance.
Jan
January 20, 2008 8:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
This thread is so refreshing! I was beginning to think I was one of very few disgusted with the hypocrisy of the modern feminists. Here we are in the 41st year of reproductive choice for women (I'm currently sitting in Colorado) and we have not moved one inch closer to the same right for men. So much for the feminist professed goal of "equality"! My experience is there is no daylight whatsoever between the modern feminists and the radical pro-life Republicans when the issue is reproductive choice for men! Even when you point out consolidating reproductive choice for all citizens would so much strengthen the victory, and lead to a true Constitutional right, they still refuse to support this simple principal.
I'm so bothered by the Clinton campaign at this point that I WILL sit home on election day if she is the party's nominee. It will be the only presidential election in over thirty years that I will not participate in!
January 17, 2008 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you sure this is in the right thread? If so, could you help explain what you mean here?
January 17, 2008 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm never sure if I have the right thread, but I am sure that I agree with several other posters in the above comments.
January 17, 2008 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I for one think your notion of "male reproductive choice" is pretty goofy if you mean what I suspect you do. As bad as many feminists are, there are plenty of kooks who oppose them for all the wrong reasons too.
That's part of what has produced this endless battle of identity politics between paranoid feminist extremists on one side, and various wackos on the other side too. They both benefit by the arrangement, as they both pander to their militant base to buy their books, get their web sites ad revenue, and support their "activism."
When a wacko on the right says something crazy, feministing or whatever will seize on it to rally their paranoid fans' worst fears. And then feministing whoever says something crazy, and some wacko on the far right will seize on it to rally their fans' paranoia.
They're crazy on both sides. And they've both made a cottage industry out of spreading the crazy.
January 17, 2008 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
kozmik stated:
kozmik,
I agree very strongly with what you have written - there is a strong symbiotic relationship between these groups. Unfortunately, they often work together on legislation that creates harm for the rest of us! More than once, at the legislative level, I have watched as the radical feminist have formed unholy alliances with the radical religious right - issues like limiting the First Amendment by going after pornography (think Andrea Dworkin/Pat Robertson working together). I watched earlier this century as they joined forces in Colorado to further limit marriage through their mutual belief that women are weak and must be protected from evil men. When the most strident Denver feminist legislators combine efforts with the megachurch sponsored radical right legislators from Colorado Springs, the freedom of the rest of us takes a severe hit. Yes, publically they fight, if for no other reason thsn to raise money. It's the under the table alliances they form that do true harm to the rest of us.
January 18, 2008 8:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good, I'm glad we agree.
Because, to be clear, I was saying that your notion of "male reproductive choice" is the kind of "mens advocacy" garbage that's just as moronic as the militant feminist movement you oppose.
January 19, 2008 12:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps it is. Or it just might be a true support for equality - an advancement for society in general known as progress. This concept led me to fight for the ERA, which would have implemented exactly what I have advocated here. Much of the original ERA has been accomplished through legislation and court decisions, but there is still much to be done. I say "original" ERA because the National Organization for Women chose to abandon the elegant and simple text of the original ERA and replace it with something that ignores equality in favor of ever expanding privilege. This was in 1995 and the text is on their website: http://www.now.org/issues/economic/cea/draft.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To say I oppose feminism is inaccurate as I support the previous movement that advocated equality, not the current privilege focused movement. This led me to post here as I saw the original poster denying the privilege she clearly enjoys.
January 19, 2008 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here we are in the 41st year of reproductive choice for women (I'm currently sitting in Colorado) and we have not moved one inch closer to the same right for men.
You, too, have the right not to get pregnant. What are you looking for?
January 17, 2008 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
A very succinct pro-life statement!
Equality. Nothing less. No person should be able to force another person to become a parent. Just as no person should be able to force sex upon another, no person should be able to force parenthood upon another without their agreement. Neither should a person be able to force another into abortion or adoption or abandonment (all currently legal choices for the woman). A failure of contraception should result in a choice for BOTH potential parents. Should the man not agree to parenthood in a timely manner (say first trimester), then the woman has additional information that will help her make her own decision regarding parenthood or continuing the pregnancy and choosing a post-birth option. If the man agrees to become a parent, then the woman still has her decision as to whether to continue her pregnancy - no one can force the other into parenthood. Period. Nothing more than that.
Currently, as the article makes pretty clear, women have a privileged position beyond that of the vast majority of our society, yet continue to claim "oppression" with a straight face. This argument has been inaccurate for several decades now.
January 17, 2008 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just as no person should be able to force sex upon another, no person should be able to force parenthood upon another without their agreement. Neither should a person be able to force another into abortion or adoption or abandonment
So, in short, no one should be able to force you to act like a parent. You're in luck on that one.
January 17, 2008 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Like I said, here come the kooks on both sides...
Which is one reason why I can't stand identity politics and the morons it appeals to.
January 17, 2008 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
What he means is get out of having to pay child support for the next 18+ years. Which would be the law if the "pro-choicers" really had a principled stand rather than "give the woman whatever she wants."
Having siad this, I wonder what this has to do with this article?
"You say I'm a dreamer. We're two of a kind. Looking for some perfect world that we both know that we'll never find." - Thompson Twins, "Hold Me Now"
January 17, 2008 8:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
While this is true, it is a very minor portion of the overall advantage to making reproductive choice a right of all citizens. One of the big advantages is the creation of a moral obligation on the part of the father to actually be a father. Sending a monthly check is an easy out and all of the obligation currently required - with disastrous results for children wanted by only a single parent and often more for the relatively minor income string of child support. A child wanted, supported, and cared for by two parents has a much higher chance of success. The greater issue is one of equality - an obligation to meet the goals originally demanded by the feminist movement or face the loss of the gains the movement fought for over the years.
Very little. More to do with the subsequent comments that were posted. The author is a woman of privilege clearly focused on the identity politics which receive primary focus in many so-called "progressive" communities such as UC Berkeley. The hypocrisy was being called out by the posters here and I agree. Thought a more concrete example might help.
January 17, 2008 8:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
What do you mean when you reference "reproductive rights" for men? Do you want men to have babies? I just can't make any sense out of what you are saying, and would like to know what Colorado has to do with it in particular.
As to this: My experience is there is no daylight whatsoever between the modern feminists and the radical pro-life Republicans when the issue is reproductive choice for men!
If there is no daylight between the two it might be because niether of them knows what you're talking about.
Jan
January 19, 2008 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Code alert.
Kind of like the War on Christmas.
January 19, 2008 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Welcome Jan! I will try and explain again. I want men and women to have equal decisions regarding reproduction, within the obvious limits of biology. Primarily this means neither can force parenthood upon the other - a key factor. A man should be given notice as early as possible in a pregnancy that contraception has failed and he must give consent, with all of the rights and repsonsibilities his choice entails, to being a father. If he does not consent to fatherhood, then he his denied those rights forever. This allows the woman to make the ultimate choice regarding her body just as she currently does, but with additional information concerning whether she will be a single parent or not. She retains the option of abortion, adoption, or returning the baby to the hospital if she changes her mind, as many states currently allow. The advantages are pretty obvious - especially as it relates to future opportunities and support for the child. The man would be both legally and morally obligated to support the child - well beyond the current concepts of financial child support. In no cirmcumstance could one party force their decision upon the other and the man could neither force the woman to carry the child nor force her to obtain an abortion. Anyone wanting to have a child must do so with the willing participation of the other party. Of course, women could still obtain the necessary genetic material from a sperm bank and men might engage the use of a surrogate mother if so inclined.
As far as Colorado goes, reproductive rights for women were legalized in 1967; we are in the 41st year of women having that option, but men have no legal advances over where the law was in 1967. Does this help?
January 19, 2008 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
This has gone on far enough. You are an idiot, a whiner, and since you demand equal rights, a girlie-boi too. You cannot "own" a fertilised ova, even if half it's DNA matches yours. Want to know why? Aside from the fact it is NOT chattel, you are not in possession of it. Can you say 9/10ths of the flaw in your reasoning?
So things did not turn out quite the way you planned. This does not give you a right to throw off the responsibilities which flow from your past actions. C'mon, be a man....oh wait, you don't wannabe...
If you're having girl problems
I feel bad for you son
I got 99 problems
but a b***h ain't one
Hit me
"99 Problems" - Jay-Z
The Black Album - Roc-A-Fella/Island Def Jam (2003)
January 19, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hold on to your whip, Batman --> I just went to the web site that Tom provided up above, and I have to say I agree with RS's point of view (as far as I have read).
The first case involved a man who was involved with a woman who told him she was not capable of conceiving and understood that he did not want children (so obviously they had had the conversation.) When she did get pregnant he told her he did not want to have paternal rights OR responsibilities. She said, "No, you have to pay."
He sued on the premise that if a woman (per Roe v Wade) can have sex and then choose not to have the child, a man should be able to as well -- NOT by forcing the woman to have an abortion -- but by saying he will not be responsible for the child.
That actually seems just and fair to me (at least in this case).
That said, it has absolutely nothing to do with this thread and I do get annoyed with people hogging a thread with their own issues.
Jan
January 20, 2008 8:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't have much patience for the idea, which led RS to this sub-thread, that feminism is all about getting more for women at the expense of men. But I can see that there is perhaps an imbalance in power here that will lead to injustices.
However, having said that, my guess is that any legal remedy to right the balance would do more harm than good. I don't see how you can say that men have the option at the outset to opt out of parenthood without pretty much gutting the child support system, making payments pretty much an optimal thing. I see there are wrinkles, and possible defenses against that, but my instinct is that they won't work. I'll try to flesh out later.
January 20, 2008 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with what you just said, and my only point about the case I mentioned is that the two people in question HAD talked about pregnancy; the woman had assured him she could NOT conceive (that may have been something she had been told and could have been an error rather than a lie); and that they both agreed that they did not want to have children.
Certainly that is a rather unique case, and I think that usually the circumstances are otherwise, and the option for a guy to just opt out after the fact is not really fair. After all, no matter what the circumstances, the woman can not simply "opt out." In some places she can't even get an abortion.
The actual answer is for there to be excellent birth control for both sexes, and for anyone who doesn't want a pregnancy to use it, regardless of what the other person is doing. We're not there yet, unfortunately, and if the Republicans have their way we never will be. They don't even want a morning after pill for rape victims!
Their idea of sex before marriage is that it MUST come with a punishment. And that punishment should come in about 9 months.
And once that "punishment" arrives, the republicans slink away and offer nothing else, except a few tsk tsk tsks.
Do all the closeted gay repubs feel justified because they can't get pregnant? Wouldn't that be an interesting, government-funded study?
Jan
January 20, 2008 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I completely agree with your statement, but consider it unfortunate when technology so often is ahead of the law. Even when effective, and temporary, birth control becomes an option for men, I still think there is value in demanding equality before the law.
A more recent area where technology is well ahead of law is in DNA testing - hundreds of men have now been released from prison after having convictions overturned with re-examination of evidence with DNA technology. This leads me to Devon's statement:
I'm looking forward to the "flesh out" of this theory, but we already have the results of DNA paternity testing. In about 1/3 of the DNA paternity tests conducted the man in question has been excluded as the father. In a few of these cases, the man has been able to get the court to agree to no futher child support payments once he has been proven not to be the father. Yet, I'm not aware of a single case where a man has been able to recover past illegitimate child support payments.As to Jan's criticism:
Now that we have an actual discussion of the issue I surfaced, let me draw it back to the original article. The author starting out advocating people serving on juries, but her article highlighted identity politics (virtually everyone is described by a birth characteristic) and the relative power position of herself versus both the other members of the jury and the "third strike" defendent. The responses of the TPM community to this were refreshing and accurate, especially the double standard of the female politician versus the man sent to prison in the trial. The disparate outcomes of the two cases within the "justice" system are shocking until one examines the justice system from other perspectives. We don't know the details of the life of the man convicted for the third time - whether a family was left even further impoverished with his imprisonment - or if there are children now deprived of child support payments. We do know that if this individual had any licenses (electrician, plumber, etc.) and was unable to make child support payments, even do to his being in prison, he will lose those licenses and be restricted from earning a living even following his release. The overall effect is that a person of privilege, while claiming life-long "liberal activism" is contributing to keeping persons of the lowest economic class in that situation. She simply returns to her life of pontificating on "injustice" through her writings in the media while continuing to ignore the privilege she enjoys. My effort here has been to show another, critical, area where this privilege clearly exists. Few decisions are so critical to both society and the individual as the decision to reproduce.
January 20, 2008 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, the premise is wrong. It isn't about "rights". This is what got me upset. I am quite willing to believe that RS and a multitude of men may have come out on the raw end of the deal, but it has almost nothing to do with their rights, and everything to do with lawful responsibility, from which liability flows.
Family law has very little to do with "parental rights" and one hell of a lot to do with parental responsibility. It is a civil issue, not a criminal matter. I have a friend in Nevada, who had been separated from his wife for over a year. They were amicable towards each other, and had decided for financial reasons (tax and real property) not to get a divorce quickly after breaking up. His wife became unemployed, pregnant, the father broke-up with her 7 months into the pregnancy, and left the community. My friend was hit with 18yrs of support because of Nevada law, even though my friend, his wife and the State of Nevada all knew and did not dispute, the identity of the real father. The law in Nevada assesses liability for a child's welfare in cases like this wholly upon the married couple, irregardless of actual parentage. It ain't fair by a long shot, but it is an application of due process of law. It is legislation which was enacted by a dutifully elected state legislature. Its intent is to somehow provide a framework which could be rationally and evenly applied to mitigate a very problematical societal concern. It is an attempt to assure that children whose fate has handed them a dysfunctional family reality are at least going to have some sort of a chance in life. We both know that present day American society is not about to willingly allow even an extra pittance of taxation spread out amongst the whole citizenry to aid solving this problem.
The Jay-Z reference was more than a whip. There was a syncopated correlation within the riff. I realised that it would be lost on the vast majority of TMP Cafe members who read my off the hip flame, but that does not decrease its felicity. Jay-Z grew up in Brooklyn, Bed-Stuy to be more precise, and he grew up a thug. After his career as a Hip-Hop performer had gone interstellar, a rival of his was knifed in a club, with Jay-Z in attendance. He was indicted, plead not guilty, and the defense had video-tape strongly indicating there was no possible way he could have been the perpetrator. Jay-Z ended up pleading a misdemeanor, and receiving a probationary sentence, almost certainly because if he had beat the charge, the state would have nailed one in his fold, who would have ended-up doing serious time. He took the hit as the front man, accepting the responsibility for what another had done in his name. Jay-Z is also a very talented musician, who has attempted to take the homicidal animosity out of hip-hop, starting by making peace with his own bitter foes.
There are times in life, when fairness is not an available option. What I sense RS has been implying is that he was forced to bear more than his share of the hurt, and wills that another should feel pain. He'll get no sympathy from me projecting that attitude. It was never about "his rights". It was instead, one of the few instances where it can be properly claimed: it's for the children.
January 21, 2008 4:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
I just do not understand your desire to personalize this. I do not have children, if that matters, and I'm at an age where very few of the women I'm involved with have a possible pregnancy as a consideration. I have projected no "attitude" that I am aware of and neither require nor desire any "sympathy". Your decisions to personalize this issue is yours and yours alone, and, I suspect, a projection of a personal experience on your part.
January 21, 2008 9:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I think you're all full of it.
I enjoyed the article very much and I'm really astounded at the mean spirit shown by some of the comments.
January 17, 2008 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Welcome to the front page....
January 17, 2008 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
So why are you here?
January 17, 2008 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eh. If I get bored with snideness, I can do something else.
Having said that, I would say that for the most part, comments are more charitable, and discussion more interesting, as far as I am concerned, on the reader blog pages. I have a hard time not seeing some kind of sad envy in the difference.
January 17, 2008 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Sad envy"? Or a righteous feeling of being taken advantage of by posters who do a drive-by drop-off of "used goods"? Rosen and Etzioni, par example.
January 17, 2008 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe, sure - I understand the indignation. But if that's what it is, why bother to read through and comment at all?
January 17, 2008 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I’m left pondering two issues in the above. One is whether one of the fair trial criteria – a jury of his peers- is met if the social background and life experience of those who chiefly determine the jury’s decision are so different that essentially they don’t know defendant.
Presumably the requirement for “peers’ was meant to ensure that the nobility sat on cases involving nobles, the common folk on folk cases and clergy on clergy .But why? Perhaps because this responded to a rational requirement in a stratified medieval society. But then why is the phrase still used? Does it suggest that for a jury to fairly assess guilt it needs to have sufficient in common with the defendant so that his motives aren’t terra incognita? If so a Berkley professor might not have been the greatest fit in this case. (AOBTW a jury mostly made up of sanitation workers might be equally unsuited to understand the fund manager who wreaked havoc on a pension plan by inducing the ceo to heavily invest in a favorite dotcom of the manager.)
Perhaps of his peers is simply meaningless-you’re tried by whoever comes into court that day. And in fact it should be dropped because it produces a content- free feeling of security,
Issue #2 is the judge’s instruction that the jury decide the facts without consideration of the likely penalty.
Back to the purpose of having a jury, .I suppose it is to reduce the chance of civil discontent because people think the legal system isn’t fair. (And the chance of crime that would necessarily ensue.)
But what could cause civil discontent? The implication of the judge’s instruction is that the only unfairness we care about is the unfairness connected with a discrepancy between what people think happened and what the legal system rules was the case... But isn’t it at least as likely that the perception of unacceptable unfairness is more likely to stem from a discrepancy between the crimes and the penalty. And that the ancient right to be tried by a jury of your peers implies not just whether you did the crime but also whether you should do the time... Not just what you did but whether what you did merits the punishment which the state intends to invoke...
Jury nullification anyone?
January 17, 2008 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
What amazes me is that through this entire thread, no one mentioned OJ. Is that too politically incorrect? We all know he killed his wife and was given a pass by a black jury. Come on. Lets be honest, as well as liberal. The two are not mutually exclusive. And RS, you are scary. You want the father to be able to force the woman to get an abortion? And you think that is a progressive opinion?
January 17, 2008 9:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely not! I never made any such statement - the ultimate decision always remains the woman's as it is her body. My proposal eliminates the use of force or one person making a decision for another. Better work on that reading comprehension!
January 17, 2008 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
You said, "no person should be able to force parenthood upon another without their agreement." If you don't mean for that statement to mean what it appears to mean, then I suggest you work a bit on writting more clearly.
January 17, 2008 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent article on one of life's little dramas.
January 18, 2008 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Life is full of contradictions. The law required jail but the reality required some form of treatment for what medical science has categorized an illness. Both are solutions to a difficult problem but only one holds the potential to solve it while the other may actually be counter-productive. Your decision was correct but your available choices needed a door three option. Had you made a different choice it may have made our lawmakers examine the possibility of the need for door three. Our laws are only as good as the remedies they provide and when they are insufficient to resolve the complexities of life they are not very.
January 19, 2008 4:27 AM | Reply | Permalink