2257 Rant
March 17th, 2009
I’m mad as hell and I’m going to vent about it. The draconian, unconstitutional provisions of an extremely poorly written law go into effect tomorrow. This law violates my constitutional right to freedom of expression. I take violations of my rights very seriously.
I spent most of my life working to defend the United States, first as a member of the military and later as a civilian employee of the Department of Defense. I swore an oath to defend the constitution of the United States “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” I took that oath seriously. I still take it seriously. And it seems the worst domestic enemies of the constitution are in Congress.
When I was working I kept a copy of the constitution on my desk and would bring it out during discussions about what we should be doing in different situations. Yes, I was that guy. I also kept a copy of Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer” beside the constitution and would bring it out and pass it around, especially to the younger people in my office, every time we took a war-like action somewhere in the world.
Really, I don’t think I can express how incensed I am about this violation. The law is clearly unconstitutional and I’m fairly confident that the courts will eventually find that to be the case and declare it null and void. But until then it is the law of the land. I’d like to just violate it as an act of civil disobedience, but the penalties and potential for harm to innocent people are just too extreme for me to be willing to do that. It is frustrating that there is really nothing I can do on an individual level to influence the outcome, since it is in the hands of the courts now.
This law violates the principles that make this country the great nation it is. I have spent my life defending those principles…defending our constitution. I spent the night of 9/11 in an underground military command post helping coordinate the Air Force response at a number of bases around the country. And now a bunch of assholes in Washington have passed a law that is a direct attack on the principles at the core of our democracy…on our constitution…on our rights as citizens of this great country. And there’s nothing I can do about it except rant here and wait for the courts to set things right.
Of course, one of the things that make this country great and our constitution so worth defending is the balance of powers…checks and balances…that will eventually correct this disgraceful situation.
Until this law is overturned by the courts, however, it is going to affect what I photograph and what I post on the internet. I’m tempted to say that there will be no more nudes on this blog. But, I think what I’ll be doing is just being very careful to assure that everything I shoot and post after March 18 will not contain anything that would cause the photos to fall under the provisions of this dastardly law. You have no idea how angry it makes me to have to say that. But I really don’t see a choice at this point.
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