The Cruel and Unusual Punishment of Genarlow Wilson

The Georgia Supreme Court needs to be commended for reversing the
ten-year sentence of Genarlow Wilson, deciding that it constitutes
"cruel and unusual punishment." For those who do not know, Wilson was
convicted in 2005 of aggravated child molestation. His heinous crime
was having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old when he himself was
only 17. He faced years in prison and being labeled a sex offender for
doing what comes naturally to teenagers. In a further blow to
fairness, the Georgia state legistlature changed the law last year to
make these sexual encounters misdemeanors, but did not make it
retroactive--meaning Wilson would remain in prison as a convicted felon.

This is what happens in an uptight, conservative environment in which sex is villifed in the name of religion and values: the ruination of a life. Here we have a young man who was an honor student, football star, and homecoming king, and who is now, as he observantly states, going to major in sociology "because I feel like I've been living my major." He lost two years of his youth to a misguided and deplorable attempt to control teenage sexual exploration. I am confident that more than one of the people who read these words would be "guilty" of a similar "crime."

To further illustrate how ridiculous this conviction truly was: if Wilson and the girl had had consensual intercourse, he would have committed a misdemeanor, thus facing twelve months with no sex offender status. It was the fellatio which made the charge aggravated. Up until 1998, it was illegal in Georgia even for a husband and wife to have oral sex.

And then there is the truly disturbing implication in this: that a 15-year-old girl is incapable, indeed disallowed by law, to consent to sex. There are many reasons why it is not advisable in modern society for either gender to have sex at that age, but it is condescending to unequivocally state that a teenager cannot decide for his or herself. Once again, we see the state, operating in a religious context, attempting to exert control over body and mind.

We should applaud Genarlow Wilson in the way he calmly states that he has no "negative energy" toward the district attorney who fought efforts to get his sentence reduced. After spending two years in prison for a non-crime, how many of us could say the same? If we are vigilent, and continue to fight these enemies of intellectual and sexual freedom who create repressive laws to form their perfect moral society, hopefully we will never be in a position to find out.

The Nobel Propaganda Prize

Al Gore? With monks facing bullets in Myanmar, journalists being suppressed and killed in Russia, terrorism and poverty and sickness rampant worldwide, The Man who Was Almost President is the most deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize? Of course, the prize has a history of questionable winners--for every Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela, you have Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho, and Yasser Arafat (and I do not mean to compare Al Gore to these last three in terms of moral equivalency--he is far superior).

I do like Gore, and I appreciate the passion with which he promotes his cause. He does a tremendous service in raising awareness that more attention and money need to be devoted to the environment and renewable energy sources. But on climate change he has acted irresponsibly—by playing Chicken Little. News flash: the sky is not falling. Disaster is not imminent. Sea levels are not about to rise 20 feet and swallow Florida. The end is not nigh.

A high court judge in the UK found An Inconvenient Truth to be "alarmist" and "one-sided," and to include nine key errors. Unfortunately, the most popular "documentaries" are in reality propaganda pieces (see: Michael Moore). We would be better served if they were actually careful examinations of the science and arguments on both sides, thus allowing the viewer to come to his/her own conclusion. Science is the pursuit of truth. Knowledge advances through debate and disagreement—has there truly been a debate on climate change? I do not mean if the planet is warming or not—it is. But what is the net result of such change? What can we expect? To what degree are humans responsible? How much can be attributed to natural causes? What is the silver lining? Is there anything we can actually do to stop it, or are we better off focusing our efforts on adaptation?

The key point here: climate change does not necessarily have to be bad; undoubtedly some will have to make changes to their way of life, but for others it could mean an increase in quality of life. With increased warmth, agriculture could grow in places where it could not before. Also, there will be less cold-related deaths, which far outnumber heat-related ones. What other benefits are there and, for those who will be negatively impacted, how can we use our ingenuity to offset the change? Such inquiry is unfortunately not politically correct; we are not supposed to say that an island in the south Pacific must adapt because of the Western world's use of fossil fuels. But does anyone believe that humans, overall, would have been better off without the use of oil and coal? If so, I would like to hear your argument against mankind's progress.

The judge reviewed the movie because someone objected to it being shown to children in school. The environment is a subject that kids must learn about; but when they are more scared of climate change than terrorism, something is very wrong: sixty percent of middle school children surveyed are frightened most by global warming and other natural disasters, compared to only 22 percent for terrorism. Horror films like The Day After Tomorrow do not help. They should be more scared about politicians' assaults, from both the right and left, on science--how little money is going to renewable energy research, stem cells, and space exploration, and how politicized the research is.

Instead of indoctrinating people to be in a perpetual state of fear, we should be teaching them to be more waste-and-energy conscious. And we most certainly need better science education. I have had people say to me that recent events, earthquakes, tsunamis, and Hurricane Katrina, were a direct result of global warming. Katrina was a category 3 storm when it made landfall (more powerful storms have hit the Gulf Coast decades ago). The reason it was so destructive was not climate change, but the failure of the government to adequately build and maintain flood defenses. There are many who blame every ill on global warming. How could people be so ill-informed? We must stop politicizing science and getting science lessons from politicians.

Research must lead the way to policy, not the other way around.

New Details on the Jena Six Case

This, from the Associated Press:

"-The so-called "white tree" at Jena High, often reported to be the domain of only white students, was nothing of the sort, according to teachers and school administrators; students of all races, they say, congregated under it at one time or another.

-Two nooses - not three - were found dangling from the tree. Beyond being offensive to blacks, the nooses were cut down because black and white students "were playing with them, pulling on them, jump-swinging from them, and putting their heads through them," according to a black teacher who witnessed the scene.

-There was no connection between the September noose incident and December attack, according to Donald Washington, an attorney for the U.S. Justice Department in western Louisiana, who investigated claims that these events might be race-related hate crimes.

-The three youths accused of hanging the nooses were not suspended for just three days - they were isolated at an alternative school for about a month, and then given an in-school suspension for two weeks.

-The six-member jury that convicted Bell was, indeed, all white. However, only one in 10 people in LaSalle Parish is African American, and though black residents were selected randomly by computer and summoned for jury selection, none showed up."

Protesting injustice is the responsibility of all Americans, but the above facts further illuminate how embellished this controversy is.

Mr. Moore, I Remember Whom You Slept With

From my archive (8/10/06), the hypocrisy of Michael Moore:

In his most recent letter on his website entitled, "It's All About Who You Sleep With...A Cautionary Note from Michael Moore," he writes the following:

"I realize that there are those like Kerry and Edwards who have now changed their position and are strongly anti-war. Perhaps that switch will be enough for some to support them. For others, like me -- while I'm glad they've seen the light -- their massive error in judgment is, sadly, proof that they are not fit for the job. They sided with Bush, and for that, they may never enter the promised land."

Anyone remember whom Moore supported for president in 2004? That's right--it was Kerry/Edwards. Matter of fact, when I went to his rally in Boca Raton, he insulted those who were not supporting Kerry, even if their candidate of choice was anti-war. Michael Moore: pro-choice for abortion, not so for elections.

Why are Kerry and Edwards not "fit for the job" now? Why can they "never enter the promised land?" Moore had no problem fighting to make sure they won the presidency two years ago, and insulting anyone who disagreed with him. Has Moore now "seen the light" and recognized that it was a mistake to insult those who stood resolute in their desire to vote for someone who opposed the war from the beginning? If so, he doesn't say so in his letter. Many argue, and I don't think I'd disagree, that he actually did more harm to Kerry than good, because the last person Kerry (who had his own issues with straightforwardness) needed to be associated with was a hypocrite. If Kerry and Edwards were good enough for Moore in 2004, then he shouldn't denounce them simply because, with Joe Leiberman's loss to Ned Lamont, it's politically expedient to do so now. However, I'm not surprised--he did the same thing by supporting Ralph Nader in 2000 and then quickly jumping on the Nader-bashing bandwagon.

Any future candidate who receives Michael Moore's endorsement should be wary.

Judging the Jena Six

Yesterday, thousands marched in protest in Jena, Louisiana, holding signs which read: "Free the Jena 6." The Jena six are black high school students who are accused of beating up a white student. They were initially charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy, but these charges were later lessened. The outrage rests upon the perceived injustices between the punishments of these students and—here is a key point—three white students (of which the beaten teen was not one) who committed the vile-but-not directly related act of hanging nooses from a tree at their school and suffered only brief suspensions for this incorrectly labeled "prank." The case is more complex than this quick summary, and there is enough evidence to convince me that there is definite racism in Jena. However, that doesn't mean that the rhetoric being used in the Jena march is not absurd.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, that squeaky-clean purveyor of right and wrong, fairness and equality, proclaimed the Jena demonstration the beginning of the 21st century civil rights movement. (What exactly delineates this civil rights movement from the 20th century one, I'm still unclear on--but perhaps Sharpton will illuminate us at his next grandstanding event.) Sharpton's reverend-in-arms, Jesse Jackson, was also there to issue (or, in his case, mumble) his own proclamation: "There's a Jena in every state." I can't say for sure, but he may be right about this--I googled "Jena" and "Florida" and guess what--it exists!

Jackson has a knack for symbolic hyperbole, but do he, Sharpton, the marchers, and the millions of Jena six supporters have a point?

Let's return to the first sentence of this piece: the marchers are demanding that the Jena six be freed. Should they be? Well, did they commit a crime? Why, yes, they did. Unless the protesters think that six people ganging up on a person, knocking him unconscious, and badly bloodying and swelling his face is not a crime (it's claimed but not proved that the teen was uttering racial epithets against the Jena six, but understand—words alone do not give anyone the right to violence). Let's be clear. The victim of this case is the beaten teenager, not the Jena six.

The lost logic which I see the protesters following is this: because three white students committed a foul act symbolizing racist violence (but not violent in itself) and served only brief suspensions for it (and they definitely should have suffered more), this excuses the violent act committed by six black students against a white one and thus they should be freed. No, sorry. Whatever mistake made in punishing the white students does not bear on the black students. The incidents are separate. What does it say about our legal system, and our civilized society, if someone can get jumped and beaten unconscious and then millions of people demand the release of the aggressors?

This incident is not one of race. It's one of justice. Free the Jena six?

Absolutely not.