DOMA and such

Hooray!  Blogging time!


Yesterday, SCOTUS issued its decision on section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (defining, for the purposes of federal law, marriage to be between one man and one woman).  I feel like most people who are impacted by this case only care about the results, or are in such a public position that they are almost required not to dissent.  Take George Takei, for example, who posted on his Facebook that he was happy DOMA was struck down 5-4.  Even if he doesn't agree with the case's results, because he is married to a man and in a public position, he's almost required to be happy.  Let's recap the events leading up to US v. Windsor so that you can understand why I believe that Takei (and many other people) should be unhappy.

1. Windsor's legally married wife passed away, leaving Windsor her entire estate.
2. Windsor paid nearly $400,000 in estate taxes to the federal government, because her marriage was not recognized as a result of DOMA.
3. Windsor challenged this in a district court.  The Attorney General did not defend the case, citing that the executive branch found DOMA to be unconstitutional.  The district court decided in favor of Windsor and ordered the United States to refund the taxes, plus interest.  The United States did not.
4. The BLAG (which was defending the case for the US) AND the justice department (which was not defending the case) both appealed to the 2nd circuit.  Again, the case was decided in favor of Windsor, and again, the United States refused to refund the taxes, even though they agreed with the ruling.
5. The solicitor general (representing the United States) petitioned for the case to be brought before the Supreme Court.  Keep in mind that the BLAG has been defending the United States and the Department of Justice has been instructed not to defend DOMA's constitutionality.

So what's my point?  People in high places wanted a case dealing with DOMA to come before the Supreme Court.  If Windsor had gotten her refund, this never would have gone to the court of appeals.  It never would even be considered before the Supreme Court.  This whole case was a charade.  It was artificially pushed onto the national stage, and the dissenting opinions note this.  This is not a "victory at any cost" situation, and I think that it should have been done right.

What do I mean?  I mean that this should be a 9-0 decision.  You cannot believe how angry I was when, listening to the oral arguments, Scalia asks Windsor's lawyers, "Do you find a federalism issue with [DOMA]," and the lawyer answers, "No" (paraphrasing).  If they had gotten into arguments (this is perhaps outside the purview of the case) on federalism, I really think that it would be easy to show that DOMA doesn't stand up.  It forces residents of the same state with the same marriage license to be treated differently under federal law.  It forces federal agents in that state to treat marriages differently.  I feel that should be a clear infringement of states' rights.

Let's look at the merits brought up in the majority opinion.  They argue that DOMA was enacted in animus, bringing up the House report on the bill.  To be sure, there are some legislators who did vote yes because of hateful and bigoted opinions, but the majority only argues that DOMA was enacted in animus.  Regardless of how the bill was enacted, the effects of the bill are demeaning and prejudiced.  In cases looking at the separation of church and state, a law can be found unconstitutional if either the motivation or the effects of the law promote a religious doctrine, and I assume the same would hold in equal protection.  Why didn't they present arguments for the effects?

I find it interesting that, yes, while I'm happy with the result of the case, I am angry at how it was reached.  In fact, were I sitting on the Supreme Court, I would have voted no.  There's no point to the court case.  There is no disagreement.  Everybody knows what the right thing is to do, so do it and don't ask for the Supreme Court's opinion.

Some will rejoice in today's decision, and some will despair at it; that is the nature of a controversy that matters so much to so many.  But the Court has cheated both sides, robbing the winners of an honest victory, and the losers of the peace that comes from a fair defeat.  We owed both of them better.
-Justice Scalia

And therefore, I agree in part and dissent in part.

Guns in Schools (and elsewhere)

I'd call this a treatise, but I'd feel a little arrogant.  Let's get to it, shall we?

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

 We can argue about the meaning and interpretations of this for years (and in fact, we do).  But I think most people can agree on the purpose of the 2nd amendment.  One way to look at our government is that it's a system of checks and balances so that no one person or group will have complete control over the country.  The 2nd amendment can then be viewed as a check on the government's power; an ultimate check on the power of the government.

Now, if we were serious about starting a revolution against the United States government, my first thought is that it would be crazy for us (even if we all had assault weapons), to try to fight the US military without tanks.  Recent history has shown us though that an insurgency is the most effective way to fight a standing army.  In both Gulf Wars, the coalition forces very quickly gained air superiority over Iraq, and then any army forces left were quickly demolished.  The truth nowadays is that putting yourself in a tank is akin to painting a target on yourself.  We would be crazy to start a revolution and use tanks.

While the ubiquitous weapon for insurgents in the Middle East (and elsewhere) is the AK-47 (definitely an assault weapon), I have no doubt that they could create an effective insurgency using weapons like the M1 Garand, a WWII-era semi-automatic rifle.  Maybe not as effective, yet effective nonetheless.

Interesting thought experiment: is it possible for a mass (school, theater, etc) shooting to happen in 1776? Of course, but the only way would be to grab 15 of your buddies and convince them it's a good idea too.  Or you could bring 15 loaded muskets.  My point here is that it's much easier for one person today to do something crazy than it was in 1776.  Perhaps (pure speculation) we thought that, since groups tend to be more rational than individuals, the killing capacity of a gun was a reasonable check on the people's power to keep arms.  Just a thought.

Anyway, let's get down to what I really wanted to talk about:

Every teacher in America should carry concealed weapons. (8 people like this)

This showed up on my Facebook newsfeed this week.  I wanted to respond to this from a teacher's perspective.  Let's make a list of why this is a bad idea.

1.  Teachers can be crazy too.  If every teacher had a concealed weapon, I would guess that we would see this headline at least once a year: TEACHER DRAWS GUN ON CLASS TO GET THEM TO SHUT THE FUCK UP.  Perhaps a TEACHER DRAWS GUN TO BREAK UP FIGHT; STUDENT SHOT.  We may even have a TEACHER EXECUTES PROBLEM STUDENTS.  When n increases, the highly unlikely becomes highly likely.  If one in a million teachers is this crazy, we'd still expect 4 of them to have incidents like this.
2. It undermines the student-teacher relationship.  What people like Salman Kahn (and those frakkin' learntobe.org ads...) don't understand is the importance of the relationship between a student and a teacher (ok...maybe Kahn gets it, but people who propose that his program can replace schools don't).  Every year I work hard to build relationships with my students, to get them to trust and respect me (and my authoritah).  Once those relationships are built, they can learn the curriculum much better and I am transformed into a life coach and I become a roll model for my students.  That is so much more important than teaching them the quadratic formula.  I go to work every day because I love my students.  If I were carrying a gun, I am no longer forced to earn my students' respect; they are extrinsically motivated to respect me.  Intrinsic motivation is much better.
3. Teachers are not, and do not have time to be, trained to react in an emergency situation.  I have no idea how long cop school is, but it might be a month.  Sure, most teachers could put in the time over a summer, but that's for the initial training.  Cops apply their training every day, which keeps their training fresh.  Teachers don't have the time to put the kind of daily training you need in order to be the "good guy with a gun"
4. Walls don't stop bullets.  I've been told the first rule of discharging a firearm is to be sure of your target and beyond.  Earth is really the only good natural material that will stop a bullet (ever wonder why indoor ranges have a dirt wall in the back?).  If I'm at school and we're in lockdown due to a shooter, teachers having guns is just going to result in lots of stray bullets which are going to hit kids (remember the part about the training?  My aim is pretty bad already without the adrenaline rush of an emergency situation).
5. Kids steal things.  I know a teacher who got the mounted projector stolen from her room twice.  And her wallet stolen once.  They don't need an opportunity to steal a gun.

As a result of the Sandy Hook shooting, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I would do if my school were in a similar situation.  Whether or not I had a gun would not change my action, or the likely outcome of my action.

Unless by concealed weapon he meant sword-cane.  Everyone knows sword-canes give you super-speed and general boost to your badassery stat.

And yes, my birthday is coming up.