As you climb a mountain, you simultaneously get closer to the peak and further from the valley. Such is the case when you side with the cause of freedom over justice (or vice versa). The more one errors on the side of freedom, the further away one gets from justice.

I think today's Supreme Court ruling is an example of this. The ruling is telling government (and society as a whole) that it is not necessarily unconstitutional to display the ten commandments on governmental property. They were a little vague as to how one comes to the conclusion as to when it is a appropriate, but the message is essentially that the people (if they so desire) can come together and freely display their religious symbols as long as the symbols 'honored the legal history of the nation'. But what of parity?

Is this ruling fair? Is it just? Well clearly it is not just. If you are Muslim, or a person of a different faith other than Christianity, it's not fair that the freedom of the majority (or powerful minority) can place their religious symbol (while implicitly leaving out other religious symbols). So the Supreme Court has errored on the side of freedom at the cost of justice. The freedom for the majority to enact legislation that is not justice for all.

So the question you have to ask yourself is:
'Is Justice for all something you are willing to give up for the freedom of the majority?' I for one agree with the decision of the Supreme Court (although I strongly oppose putting religious symbols on governmental property). Freedom should be paramount.

Freedom may have won today, but justice won the victory of the millenium last week.

In his second inaugural address, our moronic president said something that was not moronic. He said "There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom."

What is a tyrant? What is freedom? What do these things mean to you? To me, a tyrant is any person of power who attempts to destroy freedom.

Now I know our folksy president was really talking about Iraq and how the United States must spread freedom throughout the world (read that the Middle East). But what freedoms do YOU take for granted? How about property ownership (perhaps the most sacred right of a free society). Well, we lost that today thanks to the Supreme Court. The government now has the right to give you "Fair" value for your property, then bulldoze it and put up a shopping center. This SUPER-eminent domain means that no one is safe. if your local government can get more tax revenue for your dumpy house, you will be homeless. Oh, and we are just about to take a step to LIMIT freedom in our most sacred document, the Constitution.

Maybe it's time we took a good look around this dump and see why the hell it's so great because I'm having trouble with that one lately.

I'm making my way through De Tocqueville's Democracy in America, and I'll leave you with an eerily relevant passage i read today of all days:
"The county and township are founded upon the same idea, namely that each man is the best judge of his own interest and the best able to provide for his own private needs."

Ok, I see this all the time and it drives me absolutely insane. I will offer this up to anyone, anyone at all, who is scheduled to appear on any kind of late night talk show. Once your segment is over, please (for the love of all that is holy) DO NOT GET UP!

How is this lost on these people? Have they never watched a talk show before? You don't frickin get up like you are running off to pick up a dozen eggs at the grocery store when your segment's done. You wait there, lean in and make awkward small talk with the host. You may have written an engaging piece of non-fiction linking Iran with Al Qaeda and terrorism in general, but so help me, I'll slap you upside the head if you don't STAY DOWN 'till we reach a commercial.

The more you know...
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I'm sorry, but did you say NOT guilty? Seriously? I didn't follow this case too closely, but can't we split the difference and put this guy on some island by himself for the rest of his life or something? Maybe the island of Dr. Moreau.

Turns out John Kerry is just as big a dumbass as Dubbya (actually I think Bush had a higher GPA than Kerry by 1 point or something). In other new, there's no way John Kerry got girls in college.

Being young and naive as I was, I believed most everything I was told about our country. The propoganda I ate up as a youngster was as good to the United States as it was bad (or at least untrue) to the rest of the world. I didn't know other countries had roads until grade school. Those backward nations needed to have our ways because our ways were right (white man's burden much?)

You are probably thinking, 'So what are you saying you left-wing, pinko, commie bastard?' Well, all I am saying is that the stuff we tell ourselves about ourselves is a bunch of bull. We are not the best country in the world (if we were, why do we rank so low in education?) We are not the most free nation in the world (I haven't been to Amsterdam, but I hear stories). But there is one thing that the United States does have going for it. And that is, its potential to be the greatest civilization ever.

Even in our best times, we were racist or slave owning. Even in our greatest triumphs, we are scarred by hypocrisy and cockiness. But its certainly true that we have been given (taken) a huge nation with a great, pragmatic governmental system. Let's just hope that we get our act together and not continue to take steps backward. And for those hoping to live in a liberal country where everyone has equal rights and religion does not dictate policy, you will have to wait a while. But like everything else evolutionary, it's not a question of 'if', but 'when'.

So it was revealed this week that some guy I've never heard of is actually the legendary 'Deep Throat'. Huh, go figure. Just so we can tie up other lose ends from the last century, is it ok if we assume that this dude killed the Lindbergh baby, faked the moon landing, and beat Geraldo to Al Capone's vault? Super.