Hate Crime or Endgame?

[peristaltor]

A few months ago, I had to go to court to help sue some poor woman. She cut me off on the freeway. Her car paid the price of her misjudgment. My employer had to sue her, though, not because she was a bad person, not at all, but because her car insurance carrier was being a douchebag. It refused to pay up for the damage her sudden move caused.

Why didn't the employer just sue the insurer? Ah, here's the thing: the carrier has no standing in court. We had to sue the driver so the judge would rule and determine once and for all that she was at fault. This ruling forces her insurance carrier to pay for 100% of the damage instead of dicking around with offers of half compensation.

I felt sorry for her, being dragged into court for an accident that happened so long ago; but that's how the legal system works.

I've been thinking about this recently as more and more people note how Bush-like President Obama has been acting lately. He decided not to release photos of prisoner abuse. Most lately, he has reversed his opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act using, once again, very hate-filled language.

I can't help but remember that this guy, unlike so very many presidents before him, actually understands the law. He knows the constitution. He knows our court system.

Most importantly, he knows that once the court rules, that ruling carries the weight of law.

So -- please, bear with me here -- he knows that if his defense of the silly, stupid and hate-filled DOMA is struck down, especially if it is struck down when his defense used as its support the same language that Bush used, that language can never be used again to support similar Acts. This takes all the arguments W used off the table as viable reasons to deny folks rights.

As per the torture photos, the court has already ruled against W. Why then would Pres. Obama use the same lame defense? He must know it has failed once, and that it is likely to fail again. Again, I'm just speculating here, but that might be the idea. Once the court repeats its ruling, he has no choice but to release the photos. Once the court strikes down DOMA, his administration has no choice but to dismantle its provisions.

And what does that gain him? Perhaps . . . everything.

Think back to when Pres. Clinton approved the Strategic Defense Initiative crap, the Star Wars boondoggle. That denied Candidate Dole a very persuasive weapon. He could not accuse Clinton of being "soft" on defense. No, Clinton didn't exactly fund the stupidity very well; but that doesn't matter. He didn't kill the project seen by so many blathering righties as essential to the defense of the realm.

The court will rule against Obama just as they ruled against W. In a few years, when the campaign gets rolling, though, no silly challenger will be able to claim the President "weakened America" or some other such crap about capitulation or whatever by releasing the photos. That political ammunition will have been taken off the table by someone else, someone who will probably be labeled an "activist" judge. The same will probably happen when the court rules against DOMA. Another hot-button right-wing staple will be denied the next 'Pube-Licken hate monger (should the next 'Pube-Licken indeed choose to monger hate -- oh, who am I kidding. Of course he will!)

This does indeed suck for everyone, myself included, who thinks DOMA sucks balls and those torture pics should be everywhere as a means of showing FAIL.

Remember, though, how heated the fringe is getting. The telly, intertubes and radio rhetoric is amping up. Sci-fi writer Elizabeth Moon (e_moon60) noted on a recent Texas drive the tone of radio call-in show hosts and participants. I highly recommend a quick glance. Scary.

This language quickly turns to action. A man in Philadelphia kills three police officers just hours after logging into a white-supremacist Web site run by a former Ku Klux Klan leader. His posts from the past show an "increasing belief in a coming economic and political collapse" brought by "a Jewish conspiracy" and overt race hatred. Dr. Tiller's killer likely, it seems, did not act alone. Heck, his killing might just be the first in a coming wave of violence against doctors. Finally, Faux News itself has members questioning whether the DHS memo on unrest in the right-wing community might be dead-on target in the wake of the Holocaust Museum killings.

The lunatic fringe is shaping into a very real and present danger to our country's continued existence. I am not using hyperbole here. These are the Timothy McVeighs of our future acting out in ways that might bring those long-threatened WMD right to our doorstep. Most of them served in the military, after all, and might be able to go all Colonel Jack D. Ripper on the country. Never underestimate the damage a lone nutjob can do, let alone one with backing.

If I'm right about these very, very unpopular decisions being tactical moves, the next presidential candidate loses the ability to use these decisions against him. Yes, he also loses the good will of his own base; politics is a crushing business of playing the odds. However, consider the worst case scenario. If Pres. Obama loses this next election, what's to stop the next president from pandering to these "people?" This loss would spell Game Over for same-sex marriage rights, and perhaps herald a return to the W policies on torture and, well, everything else. We would be then well and truly screwed.

I hope I'm right correct.