Sheridan: Con-Law

FREEDOM

When the little guy gets stepped on by government employees, we may think, "Cluck, cluck, tsk, tsk, poor little guy, well, you can't fight city hall, can you? Better dust yourself off, call it a day, chalk it up to experience, and get back to work." That is an old way of thinking. You can fight city hall. That's what the "Save the Bay" campaign was about five decades ago, and the refusal of San Franciscans to allow a freeway to pierce the heart of the city, which is why you have to take local surface roads to get to the Golden Gate Bridge from any freeway leading into the city.

Or you could sue, but that is like trying to bail the ocean a teaspoon at a time.

So it is with some interest when we see a powerful guy, a genuine big-shot, this time in the world of journalism, the editor-in-chief of the San Francisco Chronicle, a man who political candidates court, unable to buy an airplane ticket because his name, John Diaz, is on the watch-list.

So get me off it, he says. Talk to the ticket agent, he's told. The ticket agent tells him to take it up with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. You can imagine where he's going to get with that cobbled together dog's breakfast of a federal agency. Take someone off the watch list? And let in a possible terrorist? Impossible!

Does Mr. Diaz sue?

Nah.

He writes an article and publishes it in his newspaper. After all, he runs the thing.

Maybe some good will come of it. Perhaps not any time soon, but he raises a serious constitutional issue. At what point does our government become a freedom destroying tyrant? When secret government replaces open democracy? When you can't complain and be heard? When you can't get redress from legitimate grievances?

You know what happens when you can't get redress of grievances, right?

See Thomas Jefferson and his fellow criminal conspirators.

The article is below.

CHICKEN OR EGG?

I came across this verse on the web, en route to something else, as usual:

It’s the soldier, not the reporter who has given us freedom of the press.

It’s the soldier, not the poet who has given us freedom of speech.

It’s the soldier, not the campus organizer who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

It’s the soldier, not the lawyer who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It’s the soldier who salutes the flag, serves the flag and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives the protester the right to burn the flag.

Text by Father D. E. O'Brien

I respect our soldiers as well as the next guy, but do you really think the above is correct?

Who do you think hired the soldiers?

Who do you think the soldiers are fighting for?

Soldiers gave us fair trials?  Was that a soldier or a lawyer arguing for the right to a fair trial?  Who do you think represents the soldier when he gets in trouble with the army?  Another soldier?  Right, one with a law degree.

And so forth, down the line.

Maybe this is a chicken or egg problem, which came first.  Fact is, you need both, or all, or you've got  nothing.