COINCIDENCE, CONSPIRACY, OR “COPYCATS”?

4 LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS MURDERED IN LAST 8 WEEKS

WHO IS BEHIND THESE ASSASSINATIONS?

SHERIFF EUGENE CRUM MURDERED TODAY IN WEST VIRGINIA

(Wednesday April 3, 2013, Kaufman, TX)  The multi-agency task force that has been investigating the recent murders of two prosecutors from this sparsely populated county southeast of the Dallas Metroplex, their attention shifted to a small rural hamlet over 1000 miles away in the hills of southern West Virginia.  Earlier today in Williamson West Virginia the Mingo County Sheriff Eugene Crum was shot in the head as he sat in his patrol car eating his lunch in his customary location.  A suspect has been shot after a brief chase and an exchange of gunfire.  He has been identified as 36 year old Tennis Melvin Maynard.  He has been transported to Huntington for medical care.

The eyes and attention of the Texas law enforcement task force turned to West Virginia today because the cases they’re presently investigating bear distinct similarities to the assassination of Sherriff Crum.  This hard-nosed Sheriff is the fourth law enforcement official to be gunned down in cold blood since January 31^st of this year.  Last Saturday evening the Kaufman County (TX) District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia were shot to death in their home just miles from the County Courthouse.  He had been deeply involved in the murder of his Assistant DA, Mark Hasse on January 31, 2013 who was shot in broad daylight as he made the familiar walk from his parked car to the Courthouse.

The investigation has active elements in the upscale, wooded hamlet of Monument Colorado where the Colorado Director of Prisons, Tom Clements was shot to death in his secluded home on March 19^th.  Clements had also served in a similar position in the Missouri Department of Prisons.

LOTS OF DOTS

As a rule most law enforcement officers (LEO’s) do not believe in coincidences.  Investigators focus on the detection, collection and analysis of physical, eye witness and circumstantial evidence.  Detectives build their cases methodically, sometimes painstakingly, assembling the elements knot a coherent narrative supported by facts.  If there are “leaps of faith” made by investigators they are usually the product of years of experience, hard earned instincts, and the occasional “hunch”.  Despite the portrayal of the detective process in TV programs and films, the process is typically a straight forward slog sometimes punctuated by “breaks” that may come in the form of laboratory forensic evidence or the late development of witness testimony.

Detectives also look for patterns, for similarities when there is more than one crime involved as is the case here in Texas.  Modern policing has benefited enormously from technology particularly in the establishment of national and local data bases, networked systems linking federal, state and local law enforcement agencies as never before.  The FBI has spent years refining their techniques and methods in their efforts in “criminal profiling”.  As the databases continue to grow and evolve more diverse resources can be brought to bear on any individual investigation.  The four murders of men in the law enforcement community appear to be related and not isolated incidents attributable to mere coincidence.  They may prove to be unrelated but that is clearly not the approach the officers and agents involved are adopting at the present time.  The idea that these four events are unrelated seems to be a stretch.

Officially the task force is reluctant to say conclusively that the murder of the Assistant District Attorney and the District Attorney in Kaufman are related to the murders of Tom Clements in Colorado and Sheriff Crum in West Virginia are related or have been perpetrated in a deliberate and preconceived plan by a single group or gang.  Certainly, there is no lack of suspects and motives; actually, there is a wealth of both. 

A phrase made popular in the wake of the gross intelligence failures that allowed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there are plenty of “dots” that can be connected.  Until today the connected dots defined an oddly shaped triangular region from central Colorado to Decatur and Kaufman County.  Sheriff Crum’s assassination altered the shape of that triangle but is uncannily similar to the other murders.  The notion that Sheriff Crum’s murder was perpetrated by a “copycat”, a not uncommon occurrence after high profile murders, is being carefully considered; no leaps of faith will be made despite the inclination to make such leaps. 

 Kaufman County Prosecutors Hasse and McLelland

Murdered eight weeks apart

THE USUAL AND UNUSUAL SUSPECTS

Two days after the murder of Tom Clements in Colorado, a man recently paroled from that state was killed after a shoot-out with local authorities in Decatur Texas. After a high speed chase and the exchange of gunfire Evan S. Ebel was killed.  Ballistic analysis proved that the same gun used to kill Clements was used by Ebel in Decatur.  Ebel had been driving a vehicle that eye witnesses had seen near the Clements’ residence around the same time of his murder.  Also found in this vehicle was what authorities are calling “bomb making materials”.  The fact that Ebel fled to Texas certainly presents the possibility that he was part of a broader “criminal conspiracy”, in other words, part of a concerted effort aimed at targeting specific members of service (MOS) in the law enforcement community (LEC).  Ebel’s alleged association with the notorious prison gang; The Aryan Brotherhood is being carefully investigated since the two Texas prosecutors had taken a vigorous approach to prosecuting members of The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, an off-shoot of the larger gang.

Mingo County West Virginia, Sheriff Crum’s jurisdiction, is a well-known hotbed of the illegal drug trade and in particular the manufacture and distribution of “meth” (methamphetamine), a major source of revenue for The Aryan Brotherhood.  The Aryan Brotherhood has not been shy about leveling threats to law enforcement officials across the country and does indeed have a “national reach” as one Texas Ranger commented.  But some Texas officials have been quick to point out that their list of possible suspects range from local gang members to elements of the Mexican drug cartels. 

One investigative avenue being pursued in the murder of Tom Clements has to do with a decision he made just a week prior to his assassination.  A Saudi national and prominent member of the Denver Muslim Community, Homaidan al-Turki who had been convicted in 2006 for sex offenses among other charges, had requested to serve the remainder of his sentence in Saudi Arabia.  Clements denied his request due to the fact that al-Turki had refused to participate in a prison-based program for sex offenders.  Al-Turki claimed the denial was based on his tenuous association to Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was killed by a drone strike in Yemen in 2011.

The investigators working the various angles in each of these cases as well as those endeavoring to locate some relationship among them are being very tight lipped.  The bulk of the investigative resources are being applied to each of the individual cases foremost; pursuing a common thread that links them is not the primary goal.  Each of these murders is being rigorously investigating towards the aim of making arrests. 

BIGGER TARGETS THAN USUAL

Every man and woman who works in the criminal justice system, from judges, magistrates, prosecutors, sheriffs, federal agents, and local police forces is acutely aware that their chosen profession comes with a set of obvious risks and hazards.  Aside from the “on the job” dangers every law enforcement officer lives and deals with, targeted execution is not one of them.  There have been times in the annals of law enforcement history when “lawmen” were specifically targeted by various groups.  During the “race riots” that ravaged some American cities in the late 1960’s, Police Officers in places such as Camden and Newark, New Jersey, the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles and Oakland California, were the targets of gunmen and snipers.  Most recently during the “drug wars” that plagued New York City in the early 1980’s, several members of the NYPD were shot “execution-style” while others faced gun fire from rooftops while on routine patrol.  Every year members of the law enforcement community are killed in the line of duty but the incidence of obvious murders that required some measure of premeditation is very low comparatively speaking.  That is what gives these four murders so closely clustered in time and all occurring in rural locations appear to be in some fashion related or connected.  That law enforcement officers must now take into consideration that there may in fact be some sort of gang “vendetta” or ‘bounty” on their lives adds an undue amount of stress to an already high stress profession.

CAPITAL CRIMES, CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

In our Democracy each individual life is (at least theoretically) of equal value in the eyes of society and the law.  The ideal of equal rights is among the cornerstone predicates on which our country has been anchored since 1776.  Justice, in both application and accessibility, is to be afforded each American citizen in as “blind” a fashion as possible.  While “justice” is alleged to be blind, we are not.  It is difficult to find many citizens completely capable of viewing the world around them, matters of crime and punishment in as objective a manner as our Constitution prescribes.  That is just human nature.

Just as each individual is equal to every other, the lives of law enforcement officers are of no higher or greater value than any other member of society.  However, in cases where members of the LEC are killed in the line of duty, a just punishment would be the penalty of death.  Each time a MOS of the LEC is killed in the line of duty the fabric of our society becomes a bit more frayed and strained. 

Whether we realize it or not all of us live within the boundaries of an unwritten social code, a set of principles and beliefs that under-gird all aspects of our lives particularly in respect to what we consider to be “criminal” behavior.  Our social compact or covenant places a great deal of authority and pursuant responsibility on those who serve in the criminal justice system and the LEC. In our society the “Police” do not “keep law and order”; no, not by a long shot.  What does in fact keep law and order is the concept of the Police, the recognition that there are laws and there are those assigned to enforce them. It has been argued in many forums that most people do not commit crimes because they are afraid of being caught or, more idealistically, they are good, honest, decent people who easily conduct their lives within the boundaries of the law.  This is a debate that will never be amicably settled. Whatever the reasons that 90% of the population is law abiding and only 10% is responsible for 100% of all crime becomes a rhetorical argument better suited for academia than the streets of America.

We have held murder in all its varied manners and methods, guises and circumstances, in a special category of most contemptible deeds just as it has been considered the most heinous of criminal act since antiquity.  Given our social construct each time a MOS of the LEC is killed in action, we recognize the severity of the crime not because of the value of the individual Officer but rather because it is such a gross insult to society as a whole.  It is for this very reason and this reason alone that any person legitimately convicted of murdering an Officer, Sheriff, Agent or other member of the LEC, should be put to death in a timely manner.  Such state sponsored executions are not intended solely to have any deterrence value at all.  No, the execution would be a purely punitive act, the ultimate meeting of Justice in the form of the ultimate punishment.  This concept is of course among the most hotly contested and controversial issue we as a society periodically engage.  But this issue is a side issue to today’s headlines and headlines over the last eight weeks.

THE BEATS GO ON

As the intense investigations into these four deaths continues in locales from Colorado to West Virginia, the men and women of the LEC continue to report to work, walk their beats, man their posts, cover their sectors and enforce the laws in their jurisdictions.  They do so day in, day out often quite anonymously and they accept that. 

For as long as these particular crimes remain unsolved MOS of the LEC may be a bit more on edge, have a heightened awareness of their immediate environs  while at work and more conscious of what is going on around them in their off-duty time in public and at home.  These murders have been delivered in a cold and calculating manner in the homes of some victims and in otherwise safe and familiar surrounding for the others.  Hopefully progress is being made and apprehensions of the individuals responsible and those, if any, that may have abetted as part of a criminal conspiracy will soon be off the streets.  One way or another, the boldness and brazenness of those who’ve perpetrated these assassinations should prompt every American citizen to rethink their ideas on crime and capital punishment.

TAGS: LAW ENFORCEMENT COMMUNITY (LEC), TOM CLEMENTS COLORADO DIRECTOR OF PRISONS, MIKE McLELLAND KAUFMAN COUNTY TEXAS DISTRICT ATTORNEY, MARK HASSE ASSISTANT DA KAUFMAN COUNTY TEXAS, SHERIFF EUGENE CRUM MINGO COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA, MULTI-AGENCY TASK FORCE, THE ARYAN BROTHERHOOD, THE ARYAN BROTHERHOOD OF TEXAS, MISSOURI PRISONS, MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS, METH TRAFFICKING

LINKS:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/west-virginia-sheriff-shot-head-courthouse/story?id=18872633#.UVyiRlcr6B0

http://news.yahoo.com/suspect-idd-w-va-sheriffs-fatal-shooting-202338080.html

http://www.coloradoconnection.com/news/story.aspx?id=879064#.UVyd61cr6B0

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/21/justice/colorado-prison-chief-shooting/index.html

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/31/175819421/texas-prosecutor-and-wife-found-dead-at-home

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/us/second-prosecutor-shot-to-death-in-texas-county.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://theweek.com/article/index/242093/are-white-supremacists-killing-texas-prosecutors

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/25/hickenlooper-tom-clements_n_2949488.html

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_22911536/possible-links-between-texas-shooting-and-tom-clements-murder

http://www.ocala.com/article/20130328/WIRE/130329675

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_22830150/tom-clements-director-colorado-department-corrections-killed-his

Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2013 © All Rights Reserved

LAZINESS AND LONGEVITY LINKED

NEW RESEARCH DEFIES OLD STEREOTYPES

The new picture of health and happiness in America

(Monday April 1, 2013, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland)  In what will undoubtedly ignite a contentious debate among researchers, medical scientists, physicians and others in the health care field, the results of a recently concluded long-term study will be released later this week.  The results of the study conducted over the last 43 months by a diverse team of medical researchers and experts in fields ranging from physiology, cardiology, pulmonary medicine and kinesiology to nutrition, internal medicine and others has reportedly revealed that lazy people have a better quality of life and actually tend to live longer than their more active counterparts.  These results appear to contradict most of what has been the established medical dogma of the past 40 years.  An abstract of the complete report that will appear later this week in the renowned Journal of Aging, Living, and Dying (JALAD) was leaked to selected media outlets over this past weekend.

Essentially the results of this long-term study have indicated a very strong correlation between modest to very low activity levels and the length of one’s life.  For most of the past 50 years it has been common knowledge and accepted as medical science gospel that exercise was a key factor to living a “healthier, longer life.”  Dr. Hugh R. Stout, the lead author of the study and the Research Director of the Center for Idiopathic Epidemiology where the research was conducted, here on the sprawling campus of The National Institutes of Health, commented, “I know, I know.  We are anticipating a huge amount of blow back from the medical community and the dietary-exercise-weight loss industrial complex.  Certainly, our research debunks virtually everything they have been preaching for a good many years.”  While Dr. Stout admits his team’s results are controversial, he also is confident that “the American public will welcome the results of our work and embrace our findings.  Just letting people know it is perfectly acceptable if not actually favorable to be lazy, will add years to countless lives.”

The researchers are confident that the rigorous methodology employed throughout the almost four years of active research where they studied, in depth,  the habits and health of over 47,000 male and female participants across all  demographic groups in 5 states, will help curb the initial wave of criticism they are expecting from the mainstream medical community, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and gyms, spas, and sportswear retailers to name just a few of those with “a vested interest in the status quo” added Dr. Stout.

Beginning in the early 1970’s and the “jogging craze”, the concept of personal health and fitness has blossomed into a multibillion dollar a year industry and has also been among the primary tenets of modern medicine.  From the days of the fitness industry’s infancy the stress on aerobic exercise several times a week as a means to control everything from resting heart rate, blood pressure, body composition and weight has become part of our society.  Many companies today offer their employees modest discounts on their health insurance premiums if they participate in “wellness” programs either on-site at their work place or somewhere else.  Also, cigarette smoking has decreased by over 75% since it was first strongly linked to various malignant diseases, emphysema, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), hypertension and halitosis, which has added dramatically to the overall health of the American public. 

But what has been miscalculated and perhaps even under evaluated is the quality of a person’s life as measured by such devices as the Life Quality Index (LQI) and other metrics that are designed to measure an individual’s overall contentment, stress level, socialization, and other components more subjectively assessed said Dr. Harrari al-Bezbhahl who spearheaded the segment of the study that analyzed a person’s happiness. Dr. al-Bezbhahl continued, “The laziest people we studied were beyond doubt the most content.  It seems that those individuals who are very concerned about their health and weight, their appearance and attractiveness live with a level of stress that is very counterproductive to their actual health.  Since lazy people tend not to worry about such concerns, they live with far, far less stress and that translates into a better quality of life and a longer life, too.  The detrimental effects of stress on the human body are well documented.  Remove sources of stress and people become healthier and happier.  It just that simple.”

Obviously even these leaked aspects of the study are already stirring controversy among doctors who have seen the abstract.  Dr. Carol M. Buetol a Professor of Wellness and Preventative Medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore commented, “This study cannot be taken seriously…I mean, really??  Everything I have read so far about this research tells me the results are beyond suspect.  I am curious to read the full report and examine closely the methodology they used.  All I can say at this point is that it seems like a big load of horse shit to me.”  Dale Kyle Furnstead, the inventor of trail mix, was reached at his mountain retreat in Golden Colorado earlier today and noted, “What a person eats does matter.  How much a person exercises does matter.  A person has a great deal of control over their health and this NIH study seems to me to be kinda nutty.  But, since I have made my living being kinda nutty in my own way, I suppose I’ll just have to wait until I get the next issue of JALAD.”

Segments of the economy that stand to benefit tremendously from these research results include the fast food retailers, snack and junk food producers, bakeries, diners, sandwich shops, ice cream parlors, beer and alcohol marketers and the grocers of America.  Kevin O’Beese, President of the Council of Deep Fried Food Vendors, a Washington DC based lobbying and advocacy group, was noticeably pleased by the results. In a gracious mood in his well-appointed office on K-Street, between bites of Beef Jerky and onion rings commented, “It’s about time science has caught up with what most people have known all along.  All this fitness and working out stuff has been just a big crock of shit.  It has been a concerted, deliberate effort by the Left wing Liberals in the Democrat Party to make people feel guilty if they smoke, don’t work out, are a bit chubby and don’t really want to spend any more time sweating than they have to.  It has been fueled by the Hollywood elites and the clothing, cosmetics and health food industries all of which have a fascist-socialist-communist influence.  Hell, I’m lazy and damned proud of it.  I’m what America is really all about.”

Other segments of the economy have greeted the news of this study’s results impending publication quite differently than those such as Mr. O’Beese.  Rex Burrlap who owns and operates a chain of high-end gyms and fitness centers from Florida to Maine was visibly angry when interviewed.  He commented, “This is crazy, right?  Is this some sort of joke?  This research actually proves that lazy people are happier and healthier than folks like those who work out in my gyms and fitness centers?  Impossible.  I cannot believe it…I won’t believe it.  I mean, personally, if I don’t work out vigorously for at least 3 hours a day, every day, I feel like a slug.  I am happy.  I watch what I eat and am very content with my life.  Just ask my therapist, my psychiatrist or my yoga guru.  They’ll tell you.”

A PARADIGM SHIFT

After a generation of being told what we must do and not do to live healthy and happy lives, it seems Americans are ready for a change.  A majority of the study participants in the age groups of 15-23 years old, 24-34 years old and the 35 and above age group said they were “tired” of feeling as if they had to “do something” to change the way they look simply because “society” was sending them signals particularly about their weight and physical appearance.  The research clearly illustrated that those participants who admitted to “sitting in a chair watching a football game” made them feel better about themselves (71%) were represented overwhelmingly when compared to only 3.7% of the participants who claimed “running, jogging, or walking on a tread mill” gave them comparable good feelings.

In a series of double blind experiments where the a selected number of study participants were housed in a closed environment that was under closed circuit TV coverage 24/7, the residents chose to eat food items such as cheese dogs, spam stew, chili, French fries, burgers, pizza, banana splits, pie a la mode, salami, bratwurst, assorted candies, cupcakes, fondue, and anything that was deep fried, twice baked, stuffed, or smothered in Velveeta instead of lettuce, baby carrots, quiche, granola, white rice, steamed beets, kale, or Kiwis.  As many times as this experiment was conducted the results never varied beyond the statistical margin of error which was miniscule.

Arnold Zyzmanski a Professor of Modern American Society and Culture at Stanford University found the results of the NIH study “very interesting”.  He commented, “laziness is as American as the recliner, as much a part of our culture as the automobile, as much a part of our lives as convenience stores.  I hope people take this research seriously because I believe once society gives us all the approval to be lazy, we will have much less violence and tension among us and we will just be a happier country.”

Zyzmanski added that Bill Gates, one of the greatest intellects of his generation and one of the people most responsible for the technological culture we enjoy today had once famously said, “Whenever I have a difficult task I always assign it to a lazy person.  I know he will find the easiest way to do it”.

TAGS: NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH (NIH), LAZY AMERICANS, HAPPY AMERICANS, HEALTHY AMERICANS, LAZINESS AND LONGEVITY, CONTROVERSIAL STUDY, APRIL FOOLS DAY, SATIRE, HUMOR

Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2013 © All Rights Reserved

SUPREME COURT & “GAY MARRIAGE”

RIGHT WAR, WRONG BATTLES ?

JUSTICES SEEM UNSURE OF JURISDICTION

Narrowness of cases may derail push for GLBT equality

(Wednesday, March 27, 2013.  SCOTUS, Washington, DC)  As the second of two days of oral arguments on cases regarding “gay marriage” have come to an end here, we all might be in the process of learning an advanced lesson in civics.  While public support for the rights of homosexual, bisexual, and transgender Americans is at an all-time high across all demographics, the Supreme Court may not be able to rule on the “merits” of each of the cases argued but rather may be forced to dismiss them due to legal technicalities and the strict criteria the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) demands of the cases it will or will not hear.  It seems that the two cases presented today and yesterday may not meet the rigorous standards to satisfy the Justices that these cases should have been brought before them at all.

Typically a case that makes its way to the Supreme Court has been fought in lower courts for many years.  Cases that meet the standards the Supreme Court operates by are indeed rare considering how many cases the lower courts from the District, State and Federal levels are argued annually.  Virtually all cases that have the longevity and represent issues that demand new legal precedent as only a ruling in the Supreme Court can provide are matters that apply to a broad segment of the populace or have far reaching ramifications for society.  Often cases languish in the lower courts for years and go through a byzantine labyrinth of appeals, motions, further appeals, rulings, stays, and injunctions only to become trapped in a circuitous route from one judicial level to the next and back again.  And, actually, this is how it should be.  The Supreme Court opts to hear only 40 to 60 cases per session and that is but a miniscule fraction of those they have to choose from.

What has become apparent from the oral arguments and, more importantly from the questions the Justices have posed to the attorneys on each side, is that both of these cases may be too narrowly focused and may not be suitable to be heard by SCOTUS at this point.  The proponents of the matters at hand may have gotten somewhat ahead of themselves.  In their eagerness to have the Supreme Court rule on their cases and address the broader by implication legalities, they may have taken cases that are too weak to survive the rigid scrutiny the Supreme Court is uniquely vested with to render judgment.  This may be a case (actually two cases) where the right war is being waged but these 2 individual battles may not be broad enough.

RIGHT MESSAGE, WRONG MESSENGER

Borrowing an analogy from partisan elective politics a Party sometimes is in sync with public opinion in the majority of the issues pertinent to that election cycle but, for whatever reasons, they have nominated a sub-par candidate to be their standard bearer.  With anti-Viet Nam War sentiment running high in 1972 the Democratic Party chose Senator George McGovern as their presidential candidate.  His campaign theme of ending the protracted costly unpopular war in Viet Nam was a message that resonated with most voters yet the Senator proved to be a poor candidate, a man not fully up to the challenge of conducting a tough national campaign.  Despite being right on the major issue of the day, McGovern lost in an embarrassing landslide.  Just a quick glance back at the last 50 years of presidential politics and one can see how often this has been the case.

It is becoming clear that the two cases now before the Supreme Court may not be the right cases.  Yes, they each represent the “right thing to do” and the nation is obviously supportive of the core issue which is equality.  Couched in the terms of equal rights it is difficult for most main stream Americans and even those at the fringes to find a reasonable argument to justify denying equal rights to gay and lesbian couples.  After all, they seek nothing more than that – equality.  They want to have all the rights, benefits, responsibilities and burdens under the law afforded to them just as they apply to non-same sex married couples.  They do not want a “second class status” when it comes to marriage.  And they should not have to settle for anything less than the full and absolute extension of the rights and obligations all married couples are party to in America.

Some of the questions posed by the Justices over the course of the oral arguments indicate a split in the Court where, as he has many times before, Justice Kennedy may be the swing vote and therefore the deciding factor.  His line of questioning on Tuesday revealed that he does see some “injury” (in the legal sense) incurred by the children of same sex couples and this single repercussion of withholding the same rights opposite sex married couples enjoy may be his overarching concern. 

But the problem appears to be that the Court does not see these cases as sufficiently meritorious to warrant their consideration.  This could be a setback for the GLBT community but only a temporary one.  Actually of the two cases in question here the case argued today which seeks to repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act seems to be the more sound.  The Justices questions to the litigators on each side of the aisle strongly hinted that they may see that issue possessing just the scantest cloak of constitutionality.  However, the peril inherent in this case is that the Court may simply find the DOMA unconstitutional and divest themselves of authority thereby sending the question back to the states to be decided by public referendums by the voters of each state.  There is some shaky territory between the DOMA which is a federal act and the ability of each state to decide the matter individually.  Left to their own parochial politics and political devices it is possible that each of the 50 states will draft 50 different versions of the DOMA or a bastardized initiative.  This would also be a setback for the “cause” as a whole.

IT’S NOT SPLITTING HAIRS:

EQUALITY FOR ALL

As is so often the case the pundits, prognosticators and self-righteous, self-appointed guardians of our “American Values” find themselves on the wrong side of public sentiment and the wrong side of history.  No matter what the Supreme Court decides, if they decide anything substantive legally or not, the inevitability of equal rights for same sex couples is undeniable.  Historically in our past we can identify several pivotal, seminal points in time where the public opinion outpaced the laws of our land.  Progress in some of these fundamental issues was a slow, often bloody slog through the mire of prejudice, ignorance, and bigotry.  Opponents of change could readily drape themselves in their own armor of “moral certitude” which proved to be only self-evident to them.  Our history has demonstrated time and time again that justice trumps the demonetization of groups; that truth can overwhelm the shallow, false, and fear-mongering tactics of those standing in the way of progress. 

Looking back we see in stark relief how many sorrowful instances of the “old guard” futilely clinging to their biases and hatred were thwarted by the cresting wave of humanity and our innate sense of justice and equality for all.  Yes, it has been an often rocky road.  The march forward has at times been but a crawl by brave individuals who were the vanguards of a core belief that sought to have our Constitution applicable without exception.  Our courts have sometimes been complicit in denying our “inalienable rights” to some; aggressively contemptuous of the concept of equality under the law at other times.  Yet, despite the obstacles various movements have reached the proverbial “tipping point” and the weight of the collective conscience has prevailed.  And we have become a better nation, a better people because of those leaps of faith.

SUPREME IRONY

Our history as a nation is punctuated by times of codified “constitutional”   discrimination, limitation of rights, and even compromised worth as a human being.  Our Supreme Court has some very dark chapters written in to its history.  There were times that the SCOTUS established systematic denial of basic human rights based on their twisted convoluted distortion of our Constitution.  Slavery was the law of the land; “blacks” were not eligible to vote just as women had been denied that right for generations.  Forced integration in the form of “busing”, and in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor Japanese- Americans were interred in concentration camps.  The Alien and Sedition Act and Dredd Scott are two of the most infamous Supreme Court decisions ever rendered. 

The most recent instance of the Supreme Court rendering a dramatically erroneous judgment was in 2000.  In what will go down in history of one of the worst decisions ever made by SCOTUS, one with such far reaching ramifications that it literally changed the course of history was in Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 wherein the Court summarily ended the Florida recount of presidential votes and handed the presidency to George W. Bush.  The rest, as they say, is history.  The eight years of the Cheney/Bush Administration will be forever defined by its series of epic failures domestically and internationally.  That single Supreme Court decision, a blatant foray into electoral politics at the highest level virtually arbitrarily determined that George W. Bush should be the President of the United States.  The global repercussions of those dark eight years will reverberate for generations to come.  But that is another story for another time.

There has always been a measure of irony in the often contentious relationship between our Republic and her highest Court.  As is the case in every courtroom in the land when a decision is rendered there is always one party pleased while the other feels defeated. Throughout our history aggrieved parties have looked to the Supreme Court for legal recourse; disenfranchised have sought justice, and many of the most famous cases have set precedent in equality.    Many have chastised the Court for finding constitutional bases for matters that may appear to far exceed that brilliantly written document that is the spine of our society.  Some of been critical of the Court for not being more receptive to their cause, for “interpreting” the merits of their case along the narrowest of constitutional confines.  The SCOTUS has not always reflected public sentiment or even majority opinion but that is as it should be.

Our tripartite system of government with three distinct and separate branches has stood the test of time although there have been moments when it may have appeared to be shaken to its core.  Still, the balance of powers between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches works; it is that simple, it does work. 

AND NOW WE WAIT

The oral arguments are over, now we must wait to see what the Justices will decide.  Court observers predict there may be decisions reached and announced sometime in early June.  It will be interesting to see just how this divided Court views the issue of same sex marriage and equal rights for those who seek to become married or have already been married in one of the 8 states that have already legalized such unions.

It would be a shame if these were not the cases that should have been brought before the Court at this time.  That the legality of same sex marriage is inevitable is not the matter; when there will be federal law, federal protection for same sex couples is the looming question at this time.

We can only hope that the merits of these two cases will be considered and that a majority decision will rule against California’s Prop 8 and DOMA.  The time has come.  The majority of Americans see this as central to our core beliefs and to the word and spirit of our Constitution.  Equality for all is as defining a concept for America as any other single virtue.    Let us hope the Court reaches a consensus that affirms our most highly ideals that indeed, all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

TAGS: SUPREME COURT, SCOTUS, CALIFORNIA PROPOSITION 8, DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT (DOMA), ORAL ARGUMENTS, EQUALITY UNDER THE LAW, SAME SEX MARRIAGE, EQUAL RIGHTS, GAY/LESBIAN/BISEXUAL/TRANSGENDER (GLBT) COMMUNITY, PUBLIC SUPPORT, PUBLIC OPINION FAVORS SAME SEX MARRIAGE, COURT UNSURE OF MERITS, JURISDICTIONAL ISSUES

Tuesday March 26, 2013: California’s Proposition 8: Oral Arguments

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/us/crowds-camp-out-for-supreme-court-reward.html?hpw

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/opinion/the-california-marriage-case.html?ref=politics

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/us/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage-case.html?ref=opinion

http://www.newser.com/article/da58uol00/excerpts-from-supreme-court-arguments-about-california-gay-marriage-case.html

Wednesday March 27, 2013: Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA): Oral Arguments

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/27/supreme-court-doma_n_2952611.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/on-the-second-day-supreme-court-considers-doma/2013/03/26/331bb5ae-966e-11e2-9e23-09dce87f75a1_story.html?hpid=z1

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/breaking-news/2013/mar/27/latest-updates-supreme-court-weighs-gay-marriage-d/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/27/high-court-told-wait-different-gay-marriage-case/

Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2013 © All Rights Reserved