Last night a guy is stopped by a policeman for having two nooses hanging from the back of his truck as he drove through Jena. Today on CNN the local police report that the driver was questioned, but there is no discussion of hate crimes.
Similarly, the boys that were suspended for hanging the nooses in the tree that started this whole charlie-foxtrot were not charged with hate crimes.
I just love our country now. We are so damn deluded about who and what we are it’s not even funny. I guess a threatening symbol, harkening back to the golden age of the Klan and rampant torture and murders just don’t constitute enough hateful intention to get attention anymore.
Listening to the townspeople of Jena – “This is just a quiet little town… nothing like this really ever happens. I don’t think we’re racist.”
Of course not dear. So long as those pesky niggers stay OUT FROM UNDER OUR TREE then we won’t have to let them know what happens when they get uppity (sound of spittle hitting spitoon) Sheeeiit them colored boys had it comin’ to ‘em.
Ignorant white trash, all of them.
What is a hate crime anyways? Why isn’t regular crime enough? If I kill somone it’s pretty obvious I don’t like them. If I happen to hate them, or kill them for some other petty reason why does this change thigs?
Sure, this guy was a total ahole. But unless he had somone’s next inside of those nooses I don’t see how it is any of your business, or anyone elses that he hangs them from his truck. The same goes for the tree. Provided the tree was on his property, and the rope was his, he can do whatever the hell he wants to with it.
Just because you may not like it gives that pig no right to pull him over and harrass him for it.
@Hate crime – well said. Crime is crime.
The essence of your comment is free speech.
Free speech is about you and I protecting the rights of someone or some view that we despise or would spend our life decrying. It is about being willing to allow the Klan equal time to talk their talk.
My point is not that the boy with the nooses should get popped for having nooses. It’s about the fact that a lot of energy is spent in this country trying to hide the fact that we are still a rascist country. In fact, I think it’s great that this happened, because we need to look this stuff in the face.
My post was about the inequality of justice, not the inappropriateness of the expression. although I despise the repugnant expression of race-based hatred, sol long as it is speech and not action it should be protected.
CAVEAT: The nooses hung from the tree have a very specific historical reference to the way that black people were treated. It insinuates, “hang out here again, and you’ll REALLY be hanging out here.” Ergo, it is a bit different because there is an implied threat that has been acted upon a great many times in the past. So the fact that the white guy got the shit kicked out of him for hanging the nooses is appropriate to me. And it is appropriate that the black kids that did it are punished appropriately for taking action into their own hands. But 80 years in prison for attempted murder, in contrast to the punishments meted out in Virginia for REAL ACTIONS stinks of rascism rather than justice.
I’m not going to defend some judge who charged some black kids worse than he did some white kids. The problem here is not racism. The problem here is that you are relying on government force to solve your problems. When you let go of control and give it to somone else you are not going to get the result you want. Especially if that force is a monopolistic entity such as the government. The government has no incentive to do a good job here. Some judges have their jobs for life. It doesn’t really matter how good they do. There is no icentive for them to be fair or just. All they have to do is be good enough.
But, again, this justice is being handed down and financed by force. You and I are being forced to pay for this racist judge. A far better solution could be provided for by the market. In the market a dispute resolution organization would have an monetary incentive to provide good service to both sides of the argument. If the DRO was seen as handing down unfair, or biased judgements then the market value of their services would wane and the organization would go defunkt.
This is not true with the government. When the government screws up, usually the response is to increase funding. Further victimizing everyone, and not at all solving the problem.
Racism is disgusting. I do not like it. But, as a human I have the right to be an a-hole, be a racist, and hate people for any reason I so choose.
I see your point, Lupus. But the problem with the market is that it biased, where our government is not supposed to be. The richest, and often, most powerful, absolutely get to influence the market – it happens on Wall Street every day. If we were to mistakenly institute enforcement of our laws on such a model the great bulk of us would suffer from an unfair disadvantage and put the power over us straight into the hands of robber barons.
Remember, capitalism is a trade policy; democracy is a form of government. The two should never be confused.
Lastly, I hear too many people complaining about “the government.” Beginning with Ronald Reagan, Americans have been told “Government is bad.” Those same people who preach this have systematically been elected by us, and when they screw everything up (e.g. hurricane Katrina, saddle all of us with national debt, create and support insane trade policies like NAFTA, CAFTA, and GATT) they turn the American people and say “See … I told you government was bad.”
Government is you and me. It’s we the people, and if we don’t begin to stand up and take it back from the crazies then we have no one but ourselves to blame. I’m not bad, and I’m fairly certain you’re not bad either. Since government is made up of people like you and me, how can it be bad? – at least in principle.
Well said JA – and may I add… that those very same people that want to say Government is Bad seem to want to continue to get elected…
Ja, no the government is not you and me. The government it made up of the old boys club who sets up the rules in such a fashion to tip it into their way.
The current market is not true capatalism. It is corperatism. The corporations are fake entities written down on paper and protected by the government. You don’t realize that the government that you love so much is influenced by the same forces that you fear in the market.
If dispute resolution was handled by private entities I could choose the one I wanted to arbitrate my dispute. Therefore I could look at the reputation of the organization and pick one that met my needs. Right now if you deal with the court system you have to deal with the one that has juristdiction. Which is going to be far more biased that the market. Hello!!! This blog post is all about a biased judge. Decide what position you have and stick to it. Don’t just throw somthing out there to make your government look good.
You mentioned several other things there that I should comment on ja, like t he election system, but I’ll save that for another day.
Lupus, I absolutely agree with what you’re alluding to in the corporatization of our government – and yes, I absolutely realize that it’s sickly and infected right now with lobbying interests writing the great bulk of the legislation that’s coming out of the committees. I realize that and don’t for a second believe our founding fathers could ever have envisioned the idea of “corporate personhood” or that “money equals speech.” But you’re right, that’s currently the reality. However, I haven’t given up on the notion of right and wrong, or that democracy can and will right this ship. Remember, at it’s roots the definition of democracy is “mob rule,” and I’m willing to jump in with the mob in order to change they who rule – I only wish you would do the same because we can do nothing as individuals. Ayn Rand was wrong.
To your point about dispute resolution – you are making two key and incorrect assumptions: 1) that you actually have money to pay for the process (if you do, that’s great for you. But not eveyone does, and that’s my point.) FDR said “a necessitous man is not a free man,” and there are millions of people just like that in this country who cannot even take a day off of work during the week for your dispute resolution, much less pay for it.
The second assumption you’re making is that you would actually trust or believe the reputation of a corporation, especially a private corporation. They can tell you whatever they think you want to hear and you’ve no way to accurately corroborate the line they may be feeding you. Case in point – for some insane reason we’ve privatized our national elections and are using electronic balloting machines owned by private firms. During the election of 2004 activist groups sued the equipment manufacturers to try and get the vote-counts required to prove the equipment used was faulty. They lost because a judge indicated they were a privately held firm and we have no rights to their books, ledgers, or counts performed on their machines because all of that constituted “trade secrets.”
We’ve gotten way off topic here, and it’s been an interesting back-and-forth with you. Now to the point of the Jena 6 – you’re absolutely right – this is about a biased judge and the feds need to crack down here so these men can have their fair day in court.
Take care.