I like to excel in what I do. Accordingly, when I make a mistake, I like to make the kind of error that causes total strangers to howl with glee and emit expressions like, "What an asshole!" or "Now there's a REAL dork!" These, I account successes, and there have been many. Occasionally, though, I make the kind of mistake that very few notice and one that even I, in a first blush of realization, feel I could let slide into peaceful oblivion wihout anyone being the wiser.
However, this is not the case when it comes to the news item that reported an Iowa judge had ruled that prohibiting a blind individual from carrying a loaded gun violated his constitutional rights. Like many progressives, and quite a few conservatives, I went from scratching my head at the imbicility of the judge to indignation about guns in general and anger at the NRA. I even started a diary about it.
Then I visited a lawyer.
This particular lawyer, who was not in my circle of friends, but a casual acquaintance whom I would probably never have met if my wife hadn't been hit by a car, was a friendly sort of person with an active mind and a good sense of humor. After my wife's business had been transacted, I happened to mention the absurdity of the law and cited the Iowa case as an example of legal asininity. He looked up and smiled. It seems he had found the case fascinating and had done legal research into it, which was a lot more thorough than my own cursory reading in Wikipedia.
According to him, the judge had no choice in his decisions since there was no mention of the ability to see in the Iowa legal requirements to own a firearm. Judges, by law, have to follow it and legislating from the bench, which would have been the case if he had ruled against the blind man, is a big no-no for judges, even though it happens from time to time.
This, in turn, made me examine my own reaction, which was NOT based on law, but on emotion and common sense. The problem with common sense is whose common sense you're considering and whether the emotion in question is tainted by a number of factors, among which, sadly, can be race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. In other words, you either obey the law or you don't. You're allowed a certain degree of interpretation, but you can't make things up as you go along. The blind man gets his gun. George Zimmerman walks. We may not like it, but unless you can prove guilt beyond the shadow of a doubt to a jury of the defendant's peers, he's as innocent as when he walked in the courtroom.
The same goes for the slimebags you read about whom you'd llike to feed to a pack of starving jackels. Sorry, folks, you can't. The Eighth Amendment protects them- and you. One of the big fights we're having over the Constitution is whether we're going to adopt Dick Cheney's view of the Constitution or James Madison's. Cheney's is easier - if they won't talk, waterboard them. If you suspect them, tap their phones. It might even keep us safer, but it might just turn the NSA into a version of the Stasi or the Gestapo. With a new, improved Constitution, what could stop them?
We might not like what comes out of our justice system, and I'm certain the law is for sale in many cases, which is why so few rich people are cracking rocks. But every time any one of us bitches about letting the &(%# go free or not cutting someone's ^&%$ off, we're weakening what real liberty we've got left.
It's not easy being American.