The Firing of Juan Williams: Liberals & Neo-Cons Two Peas in a Pod. They Only Favor Free Speech of Those With Whom They Agree.

Juan Williams is a reporter and commentator for NPR (National Public Radio). He also tries to provided the "balance" on Fox News Network presenting the so called "Liberal" side of the Fox equation.

The other night, Bill O'Reilly was discussing whether or not America had a "Muslim Problem." (If we do it is in great part O'Reilly's fault. He went on "The View" last week and announced that "Muslim's killed us on 9-11." In reality it was 21 Muslim fanatics and their murderous handlers abroad) Williams was his guest. Williams said the following:

"I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot," Williams continued. "You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

Of course all the usual suspects (NAIR, Andrew Sullivan, and NPR brass) all started hand-ringing and accusing Williams of being prejudiced. Then in the expected second act, the NPR Brass fired him. Why? Because he had the temerity to express in words that he feels fear when he is placed in a situation where people of a certain background have in the past created havoc.

Sorry guys you are wrong.

I sent the following letter to the NPR Obudsman. I reprint it in full below.

To whom this may concern:
You and your organization have seen the last dollar you ever will from me. Are you all a bunch of crazy people? I am a Criminal Defense Attorney and a Civil rights lawyer.I have news for you. I represent thugs, gangsters, and the seriously deranged individuals. I walk the streets of ghetto neighborhoods and I am often in dangerous places around people who do not look like me.

I represent Muslims and Sheiks and all types of religious, ethnic and sexual orientations. I also represent gang members from Bikers, to Russians to Spanish (el Salvadorian and Mexican) to Italian and Albanian. I do not consider myself to be prejudice.

That said, I also see people who dress in a certain way or are in certain places and I feel nervous. It isn't prejudice, ITS SMART. Being aware of your surroundings is important. Being on guard when you are the odd person out is wise. Neither Juan nor I am advocating doing something stupid like not getting on a plane or leaving a restaurant. It was a true and natural reaction to what is going on.
If I walk into a Mosque I am not afraid. I am not unwilling to speak to a Muslim or anyone else. I am aware and a bit anxious when I see people wearing gang colors. I watch what they are up to. I observe more. I see a bunch of kids in the mall and they are dressed like Gangstas I watch them more, I look for behaviors like their creating a scene while another steals something. It happens occasionally. I see a bunch of Muslims speaking in foreign tongues and I watch them. I worry that maybe this is the next shoe bomber. I don't report them to security but I watch. It is the right and smart thing to do. It doesn't uncover deep seated prejudice. This didn't happen before 9-11-01. It isn't a deep seated fear. It is not something that happens in restaurants but it happens on trains buses planes. Around synagogues too.

Firing Juan Williams was a terrible error in judgment. I agree with the commentator that describes liberals as all for freedom of speech as long as they agree with it. You are no better than tea party activists. I am a libertarian. When I have the money I have donated to Public Radio stations in NY and to Public TV. I want more than one opinion. I don't want dishonesty. Williams is NOT the only person of reasonable mind who feels this way. His expression on O'Reilly was how he felt. It gives permission to others to admit their fears and to address them.

Juan Williams is not the problem. He is a solution. Frank discussion and truth are the ways to address the issues and pretending that people who are intelligent do not harbor fear because of the situation is a good way to be sure the underlying issues are never addressed.

Look Out!!! : A Rant!!

Whenever an idea to "reform" criminal law comes down, there is an abject hue and cry from the defense bar, not because we don't want to improve the system, but because we see every "reform" as another way for the crazy people on the other side of the reform to screw with the wheels of justice. Not to mention what they want to do to our clients.

The newest salvo comes from Ohio, the land that gave us US v. Larry Flynt.

Take Megan's law. A registry where police can better keep track of people who are accused of sex crimes after release from prison. Defense counsel says no. It will be used to give the information to others. They will come and stalk people who have paid their price to society. It will include too many crimes that have nothing to do with sex but have to do with genitalia like prostitution or public lewdness or urinating in public. It will lump people who commit crimes against youngsters with people who have a fight with their girlfriend or who have sex with a minor when they are only a year or two older than the minor.

We are told we worry to much about the defendant's and put innocent victims at risk, then within a few years all our chickens come home to roost.

Now from Ohio, we have the newest in Fall colors, SEX OFFENDER GREEN. That's right, if you've been convicted of any level 3 Megan Law Crime, or you are related to anyone who has been convicted of such crime, or you borrow that car, everyone in the neighborhood, infact everyone on the highway will know it.

Well what's the matter with that? Well for starters less than 1% of all level three sex offenses take place between strangers. In fact most of the time it takes place within families. So now you put family members at risk. At risk for what you ask? How about crazy people who are peeved that the car owner didn't get life or death for their sentence and decide to take it into their own hands. How about the kid who goes into the movie in his dad's car. Can't wait to see the look on his date's father's face!! Or the guy who finally finds a job, works and then comes out to find his car demolished by vigilantes. You know, after a while, enough is really enough. Especially when it is clear that IT DOESN'T HELP!!

It is a vicious cycle. Politicians can't help but pander. It is in their makeup. They can't help but take advantage of a constituency that has a little voice, to make a bigger constituency happy. They are too weak of mind, or morals, to say "we will not abuse one group for another." And so we get:

Genarlow Wilson, locked up for 10 years for having oral sex with a girl 2 years younger than he.

Dopey politicians who want to declare prostitution which is a crime between consenting adults a sex crime.

Even dumber yet there is a politician who wants to make urinating in public and other public lewdness a sex crime.

Then we have even more lilied liver idiots who are gathering the homeless sex abuser
and herding them into trailers and moving them from place to place so nobody has too many of them in the neighborhood. Here's an idea, if you don't like the neighborhood, take a second job, make more money and MOVE. Don't tell a person who has made enough money to live somewhere that he can't live where he wants.

I would love to find a person who has been banished by some stupid anti sex offender zoning statute to sue the rear off some idiot county for a violation of his fair housing right.

We have kids going to jail for showing Playboy magazine to a younger kid. I'm not talking showing a centerfold to a 5 year old by a 19 year old, I am talking about a 16 year old showing a centerfold to a 14 year old. Hell the same kid is watching "R" rated movies on cable and on the internet. He is seeing as much as he wants to see. But if we have the chance to make it a sex crime... well then who cares.

How is it, that when 17 year old Genarlow Wilson has consensual oral sex with a 15 year old he is some crazed sex offender and treated like an adult, but when 24 year old Monica Lewinsky has oral sex with Bill Clinton she is some kind of Ing'enue.

Maybe it is my mood, but what we as a general public do not know about sex offenders could fill a book. So we listen to the potbangers and let them work us up into a mass hysteria until the people who do know about these things get tired of shouting over the masses. We mess it up really bad and then we wonder how we were lead astray. We ask no questions. We accept the garbage we are fed and then wonder why we are screwed up.

Oprah Winfrey says sex offenders can't be reformed! Great, who the hell gave Oprah a PhD. in anything besides eating? She was abused, so she is an expert? I had appendicitis and had an appendectomy, does that make me a surgeon?
We ignore what we don't want to hear. Instead of asking our own questions we just accept the pap that we are fed and then wait for more.

The Internet has more information on it than any library I have ever seen. We can get our answers right hear with the help of Google or Yahoo. But we won't. We will use it to listen to music, write a report, and watch a video, and then think we are all technological. Until we add the ability to reason critically, and to use the Internet for something other than porn and politics, all we have is a more expensive TV.

Where Are The Stars? How Long Should A Kid Spend In Jail For Getting A Blow Job?

Genarlow Wilson was a High School athlete of some reknown, when he and a couple of buddies got a few High School girls drunk and then filmed them providing oral sex. There was no question that the girls were under age 16, and that Genarlow was over 16. There is also no question that the girls consented to the act although it was probably easier to overcome their sense of propriety thanks to the alcohol provided by the boys (though accepted and consumed by the girls.) For these "crimes" Georgia has sentenced Genarlow to TEN YEARS IN PRISON. Had they had sexual intercourse he would have faced but one year in jail. Go figure.

I have blogged about the case before here. A ton of the Blogosphere has blogged the case too not the least of whom are Professor Volokh and our friend Professor Berman.

Berman asks an important question. Where are the stars who usually rally around these cases? Prof. Berman recieved two interesting responses to his suggestion that the stars come out for Genarlow. One suggested that because he acted like a cad, most of Hollywood is afraid to come to his aid. Unfortuately Hollywood has created the beast. Genarlow is simply acting like the idiots he sees on MTV, E! and even on the big three.

I have been interviewed on the subject in Newsday recently and on CNN but I truly believe that the culture of reality TV and the easy access to fame(YouTube, MySpace) make it "acceptable" in the teenage mind to be part of a life that makes most adults shutter.

While it is just like teens to push the envelope, the push has become stronger now that the Internet and TV is there to tell each of them where the line in the sand is drawn. (How's that for metaphor mixing?)

Anyway, the need for parents to increase their vigilance is even higher now. We have gone beyond the need to snoop into one's diary. We need access to web addresses and to passwords.

As for the original part of the post, maybe the guy who owns "BangBus" or "Girls Gone Wild" should be kicking in to the defense fund here. After all, was what these kids did, any different from what those two companies extol??

Is This The Right Way To Teach Kids To Do The Right Thing?: 17 Year Old Gets 10 Years For Having Consensual Oral Sex With A 15 Year Old.

Three of the Internet's most respected and well known Blawgers have called for the Georgia Board of Parole and Pardons to pardon a Seventeen year old boy who had consensual sex on camera with his Fifteen year old girlfriend. Howard Bashman (How Appealing), Prof. Eugene Volokh (The Volokh Conspiracy) and Prof. Douglas Berman (Sentencing Law and Policy Blog) are all calling on the Georgia government to change the sentence of this kid. Especially since the Georgia legislature changed the law under which he was convicted so that he would have committed a misdemeanor instead of a felony and could only been sentenced to a year, had he committed the crime in 2006.

I am sure that I have a number of opinions on this issue but I encourage you to look at the stories in the press about this case and to read the comments on Volokh and Sentencing Law Blog before answering the above question. Then click on the comments section below and let me know what you think. It is that simple. I will have more on this case and this decision by the Georgia Supreme Court in the near future, after I have learned more about it and after I see how you all weigh in on the matter.