Dumbfuckery du Jour

Due to the vagaries of Aunty Flow, watching really awful but funny movies with Drew Barrymore, and working on whittling down ye olde book list, I haven't paid much attention to pollyticks tonight.  But I've been thinking of an old incident from several years ago. A friend of mine who worked tech support was listening to a coworker on a call.  A man was screaming at him that his computer had just turned off for no reason, he'd lost all his work, blah blah blah.  The tech, doing what techs do, told him they'd better start with the basics, and check the connections to make sure the power cord hadn't come loose.

"Hang on," the man said. "I'll go get a flashlight."

"Flashlight?" the tech said.

"Yeah, the power went off and it's too dark to see."

The tech sat there for a moment staring at my friend, then gave the customer a return authorization number for the computer, along with detailed instructions on how the computer should be packaged for shipment, finishing with, "You're too stupid to own it."  He then walked into the manager's office and quit.

I tell you this story because I'm reminded of that man, who couldn't understand that a power outage might indeed cause a computer to shut off, and what reminded me was this:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) doesn't want Faisal Shahzad, the suspect in the failed car bombing in Times Square, to be Mirandized. Neither does Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.).

"Did they Mirandize him? I know he's an American citizen but still," King said.

"But still"? What does that mean, exactly?

That means that Rep. Pete King doesn't understand the Constitution.  You see, the suspect in question isn't some hapless enemy combatant (or funny-looking local mistaken for same) yanked off a supposed battlefield somewhere.  He's a motherfucking American citizen.  There is no "but still."  He's an American citizen, full stop, with all of the rights and responsibilities that entails.

Let me just summarize a document that used to be important to this country but apparently no longer is:

• Fourth Amendment: guards against searches, arrests, and seizures of property without a specific warrant or a "probable cause" to believe a crime has been committed. Some rights to privacy have been inferred from this amendment and others by the Supreme Court.
• Fifth Amendment: forbids trial for a major crime except after indictment by a grand jury; prohibits double jeopardy (repeated trials), except in certain very limited circumstances; forbids punishment without due process of law; and provides that an accused person may not be compelled to testify against himself (this is also known as "Taking the Fifth" or "Pleading the Fifth"). This is regarded as the "rights of the accused" amendment, otherwise known as the Miranda rights after the Supreme Court case. It also prohibits government from taking private property for public use without "just compensation," the basis of eminent domain in the United States.
• Sixth Amendment: guarantees a speedy public trial for criminal offenses. It requires trial by a jury, guarantees the right to legal counsel for the accused, and guarantees that the accused may require witnesses to attend the trial and testify in the presence of the accused. It also guarantees the accused a right to know the charges against him. The Sixth Amendment has several court cases associated with it, including Powell v. Alabama, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, Gideon v. Wainwright, and Crawford v. Washington. In 1966, the Supreme Court ruled that the fifth amendment prohibition on forced self-incrimination and the sixth amendment clause on right to counsel were to be made known to all persons placed under arrest, and these clauses have become known as the Miranda rights.

Now, that bolded bit came about because in another era, some folks got the idea that these rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights were matters of convenience, to be invoked only by those with a good civics education.  Alas for the "rights for me but not for thee" crowd, even those American citizens who either a) didn't get a decent education or b) didn't pay attention get to invoke their rights, and have the right to know about said rights.  Period.  End of story.

So, Rep. Pete King and Sen. John McCain, here is your return authorization number: 27746537.  I want you to pack up your belongings, ship them back to your respective states, and resign your positions immediately.  You're too fucking stupid to govern.

That goes for your good buddy Lieberman, too:

This morning on Fox News, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) suggested that Congress should perhaps create a process to strip “American citizens who choose to become affiliated with foreign terrorists” of their citizenship and, therefore, their Miranda rights. It’s unclear how this would be accomplished, however, since such a process would also presumably involve some sort of due process...

This sort of shit should make you immediately ineligible to hold public office, now and forever.