What do you think a “moral law” is in the context of community standards?  At what point are you willing to bring into question to character of another person or even consider condemning them as an immoral human being?  I suppose murder is pretty much something we can all agree is immoral but what about stuff related to sex?  Oh yes, it can be a bit hazey can’t it?

Maybe a different question.  Do you consider yourself to be a sexually moral person?  I would bet dollars to doughnuts that in many cases, even the most outwardly adamant and righteous people may have strong doubts as to their own moral integrity regarding their sexual habits or preferences.  Shucks, I can tell you until I’m blue in the face that I know exactly what I like about sex and that my opinion of my sexual habits are just rockin’ hot n’ awesome but the only person who knows if I believe what I am saying is me.  We can talk all we want but in the end, the arguments we make regarding sexual morality are either coming from a place that would be, if light were ever to shine on it, either hypocritical or notably consistent.

I could for instance condemn sex with turkeys but secretly be the worst turkey chaser this side of the two hemispheres, though I can’t imagine I rank that high…er, that I would rank that high.  Yeah…

So anyhow, believe it or not, I’m going somewhere with this.  Just let me re-rail myself.

I’m spurred on to think about this kinda thing after reading a lengthy CBC article about a certain Judge in Manitoba, one Lori Douglas.

It seems that Douglas has had a complaint launched against her detailing how her husband (Jack King, the subject of a separate complaint from the same complainant) attempted to solicit a fellah of the darker skinned persuasion (calling dark skin a persuasion here makes no sense by the way) as a sexual partner for Justice Douglas.  The story is kinda murky in a he said, she said, he said kinda way but the bottom line for a great number of people seems to be that the fellah who launched the complaint, one Alexander Chapman, included some pretty racy photos in the details.  It would seem that he was presented with pictures of Douglas in bondage play with various sex toys and so on that, according to him, made him want to puke.

The part that makes sense to me is that Chapman says King, who was representing him in divorce proceeding at the time, acted in a manner that was unprofessional and made him feel as though he was being pressured into something.  Here he was being egged on by his lawyer to have sex with his lawyer’s wife and he contends that he figured if he said no, his lawyer may have not represented him properly.  Add to that, he also contends that the judge had told him his case needed to proceed quickly and he hadn’t enough money to change lawyers and sure, it sounds like he felt trapped.  all this is good cause for launching a complaint.  To some, it may even sound like good cause for launching a complaint against Kings wife, Lori Douglas but to me it seems like a bit of a stretch.

So that’s the sensible part.  The part that doesn’t make sense to me is that whole bit about Lori Douglas’ credibility being shot by appearing in photos showing that she clearly has a taste for leather that may make a bovine shake in its hooves.  So Lori Douglas likes bondage, can I ask why this is of any concern?

From an internet message board, I pulled the following from an anonymous user.

It is exceedingly hypocritical for a Justice to get up on high and destroy people with the Sword of Justice when she herself is a transgressor of the moral law.

I don’t get that.  Who decides what a moral law is and to add to that, there’s no solid evidence that she actually did anything with the guy who has launched his complaint.  What moral law did she break if her husband tried to solicit a sexual partner for her, possibly without her knowledge?  This is either an assumption on the part of the commenter or a focus on the bondage stuff.  Again, I don’t get it.

On the website for the Montreal Gazette, another anonymous poster says:

When your personal life exposes your professional life to ridicule, humiliation or blackmail then you should not be in any position of public trust .

In other words when people know about your unethical lifestyle you become a public liability.

And your role as a public official (judge) can be compromised … and has it?

This is not hard to figure out …

This confuses me further.  Ok, so Douglas is in pictures of her with sex toys and bondage play.  If this is something that will expose her to humiliation or ridicule, isn’t that a problem that the public at large has?  I mean, it’s the public bringing her into judgment for the pictures, not her crying about how she hates herself for liking bondage right?  The commenter implies that she leads an unethical lifestyle but again, I don’t understand that implication.  Her Husband may have acted unethically, but what did she do that was so wrong?

The blackmail thing I can agree with to a point I suppose but to me, it seems that the potential for blackmail material like this is a result of general public prudishness and a propensity for rushing to judgment.  I don’t see how pictures of this sort are a commentary on her character.  I don’t have any personal experience I can assure you but I imagine people both good and bad can be bondage fans.

Clipped from the National Post’s website, ‘MIKEMURPHY’ this one:

We have many women getting the benefit of these appointments not because of ability but more because of their gender. This one is a classic example. She is unfit to sit in the bench and perhaps will be the first in Canadian history to be removed by the Judicial Council, if she does not resign in infamy first. The cream does not always rise to the top when gender politics is involved. Many of these female lawyers are also active feminist ideologues whose judgment would indeed be impaired when dealing with gendered issues such as family court. Not one of them will say yes it will interfere with their judgment – but it will.

Why is she unfit to sit on the bench and who on earth ever mentioned anything about her being of the no penis club?  What does that have to do with this???  Oh, and of course we obviously can’t forget to throw in the feminist ideologue bit.

Really?

Perhaps the only thing people harping on this poor woman have is that she may have known that these pictures were out there and potentially answered in the negative to a question all people apply for judgships are asked.  “is there anything in your past or present which could reflect negatively on yourself or the judiciary, and which should be disclosed?” Without even actually knowing how she answered, I guess we can assume she simply said no but again, we don’t even know that much but assuming we did and she indeed said ‘no’ in reply, the argument seems to go that since this attempted hook up, pictures included, happened before Douglas was appointed to her judgeship, she knew about it and should have disclosed it to the panel that was evaluating her eligibility to be a judge.  Even if this is indeed the case, since a confidentiality agreement had been signed with Chapman, doesn’t that mean the situation would be null?  Certainly she can’t be the only gal or guy who’s attained a judgeship that likes leather right?

Ah, it just all seems like such an overblown issue to me.  Chapman receiving unprofessional legal representation and being pressured is definitely a cause for complaint but all this sex stuff?  Can you say non-issue?

Up to this point, Justice Douglas has temporarily stepped down taking up administrative duties while this complaint works its way through the system.  Chapman has been ordered to return the racy photos he has apparently kept in his possession as evidence for his complaint.

Since I posted that bit about 9/11 conspiracies being a lot of hooey and here say, my in box stopped beepin’ n’ boopin’ at me with very much regularity.  I mean shucks, as far as blog traffic goes, this ain’t no grand central station.  I do however get a gem from time to time that starts an interesting exchange or just incites a chuckle from yours truly but this one I thought was actually quite an interesting and earnest kind of e-mail and with the permission of the e-mailer, I’ve decided to post it here and my thoughts following.

Not that I would normally ask permission.  Whatever lands in my inbox is mine but yeah, I figured I would be polite on this one.  as follows, this email message from Barry.

Hi Zach.

I came across your blog on Google and started reading through some of your previous posts.  At first, I thought maybe you were a big C conservative but looking further, I think it’s pretty clear that you’re actually an anarchist or purist libertarian.

I’m wondering how your views are formed because they seem pretty unrealistic.  Anarchy is lawlessness and chaos.  That’s far from anything that could be described as a paradise.  Is Somalia really where we want to end up?

Firstly Barry, thanks for the e-mail.

What strikes me first off is that you mention Somalia and despite it having been described as an anarchic “state” of some sort, it’s actually anything but.  Somalia is run by warlords who exert coercive power and abuse those they lord over.  Anarchy is simply society without leaders.  While anarchy may include localized structures of law, the principles of anarchy generally preach that violence and coercion are antitheses to the notion of a working society devoid of coercive or centralized leadership.

A popular misconception of anarchy is that a lot of Molotov Cocktails are involved and that generally, anarchists want to simply run around causing damage to property because property is somehow evil.  Well, depending on what type of anarchist you talk to, property may actually be held in the highest regard and damaging what is not yours is generally looked down upon by most rational types anyhow.

This bring me to another point.  Anarchists are in fact so organized in principle that they even have a number of different sub-groups.  Not all anarchists are the same.  While I’m not sure exactly what label applies to me, (it’s probably a mix) I suppose anarcho-capitalist would be close.  I like the idea of commerce and the free flow of business but as well, I like the cooperative principles of anarcho-syndicalists.  As an anarcho-capitalist, I see value in businesses profiting and anarcho-syndicalists see value (as I do) in eliminating a top down management structure opting instead for consensus based management where all workers have an equal voice and vote.  I could get into this much more but suffice it to say, anarchy is not simply about casting aside the notion of organized society; rather, it’s generally about casting aside the notions of coercive central leadership and violent enforcement of laws.  Anarchy is the epitome of self reliance, responsibility to yourself and others, ethical living and freedom of the individual.

I might be one of the first to acknowledge that anarchy really isn’t realistic today.  On that count, you’re likely right but my ideals are not to simply convert society tomorrow.  It’s my hope that when these ideas are discussed and if people can be convinced that they are rational ideas, some day, an anarchic society may in fact be formed and if it were, I would seek to take up residence there as soon as I possibly could.  Canada could not be converted tomorrow to anarchy for instance.  It would be as foolish to think that as it would be to think that communist China could drop its bureaucracy in favour of a leaderless society.  No, the population at large first needs to understand anarchy, understand its value and then make a conscious social move toward it.  Anarchy is not a change that can be “instituted” in any way, it’s simply a social development that can’t be forced.  heck, if it were forced, it wouldn’t actually be anarchy.

How are these views formed?  Honestly, I think it’s just a natural progression for myself.  I bounced about from calling myself a conservative or a socialist…and I just wasn’t sure.  When I figured I was a small L libertarian, a discussion about the role of the state had be blurt out that “the fool” I was debating with “was just preaching rank anarchy!”  His response was that absolutely yes he was and he then reiterated his argument as to why.  For me, this was a real turning point.  I had constantly tried to figure out how to draw a line as a libertarian in regard to how big the state should be allowed to grow.  I was of the opinion that of course, the role should be minimal but I couldn’t get rid of the nagging thought that if the state is given any monopoly on power, even the power to make laws, then it could grow and grow until it became as large and overbearing as anything we have today.  I eventually saw that the problem was not the state itself but rather people like me who bought into the idea that indeed, we really do need a government.

I am firmly of the view that in fact we don’t need a government, we simply need to be an intellectually honest and ethical society.  Are we such a thing today?  No, I don’t think we’re even close but can we get there?  I think that if we survive as a species over the long term, it’s all but inevitable.

Thanks for the e-mail Barry.  I really enjoy getting this type of correspondence in my inbox and I do wish I got it more often.  For anyone else, you can always e-mail me via the address posted on my contact page.

I stopped chuckling about this kind of stuff a while back.  Now it`s just ridiculously sad.

At the Dime A Dozen blog, Robert Jago has posted an incredible demonstration of how fits of hysteria, caving to baseless fears and basically letting racially motivated arguments meant to promote fear and hatred be your basis for arguments on social policy will shred your credibility.

Go head, click the link and have a peek.  You might be like me and be tired at laughing at rank stupidity and instinctive love of hegemony…but still, it’s worth a look.  Myopic mental midgets, avert your eyes.

I have a constant fear and being a step dad doesn’t help to ease that fear.  It’s a fear that I’ve actually had since I was a small boy which makes it all the more irrational but such is life.  I have lived with a fear of this thing for almost as long as I can remember being alive and while perhaps not as irrational today as it was during my childhood, it is as ever present as one could imagine.

I fear being labelled in the public eye as a rapist, a child molester or any kind of sexual offender.  Beyond financial losses, physical harm to my person or any other type of spurious assassination of my character, I sincerely fear being labelled in the public as a sexual deviant as perhaps the worst thing that could happen to me beyond death and should this thing ever come to face me, I can’t help but wonder if I would wish for the latter.

It is perhaps with this in mind that while I have yet to voice any kind of opinion regarding WikiLeaks, their public face Julian Assange or their choice to release a large sum of unedited, classified American military documents that has endangered a great many people, I can perhaps sympathize with Assange’s recent ordeal handling charges of rape and molestation.  Assange has been, without trial, cast into the public sphere as a rapist and even if only just for a few hours, the damage has been done and certainly there are people now in the world who will think for certain that this man is a sexual deviant, more so seriously, a violent one.

In a recent story I saw on Saskboy’s twitter feed, a story about Assange being cleared of the charges that resulted him being labelled as a rapist.  It’s important that stories like these are published if some one’s reputation has been tarnished but this story is in fact terribly incomplete.  In part, it reads,

Assange — who has denied both accusations — is still suspected of molesting a woman on Aug. 13, but molestation is not a sex crime under Swedish law

I begin to wonder why on earth molestation wouldn’t be a sex crime.  Certainly when a detractor with their own biases sees this, molestation is nearly as bad as rape if not equally as bad depending on what molestation may mean.  So again, I wonder why on earth molestation wouldn’t be a sex crime in Sweden.

And so it goes that translating Assange’s criminal charges remaining (still yet to be tried in any court) may have been a second priority for English speaking journalists.

Assange has been charged with something including the word Ofredande which literally translates into molestation/harassment.  The reason this isn’t a sex crime is because it’s possible that this type of thing is merely a charge of harassment which could be anything from inappropriate comments to being overly persistent when some one denies your advances.

I’m not here to defend Assange but I think (especially in regard to this type of subject) that a person’s public character is not something to be dealt with in a flippant fashion.  being publicly named in the media when you have yet to face thr courts can be devastating to one’s public character and things like this foggy translation and non-specific wealth of “details” don’t help matters.

Think what you may of Assange and his organization but to accept that some one’s character be so terribly tarnished on speculation is at the very best, malicious and barbaric.

Goodness gracious. With such an ignominious past, one has to Wonder if the Royal Canadian Mounted Police will ever be able to cobble together their image in any kind of manner not resembling the progress made by a slug attempting to crawl across a salted cracker.  A couple of stories as published in Macleans (and picked up by basically no other media outlet at all) tackle the issue of Vancouver’s safe injection site, Insite, with a relatively new perspective.

If you’re not currently aware, Insite is a facility in which injection drug users are allowed to inject drugs under the supervision of a nurse.  the site operates under a legal exemption established by the former federal Liberal government.  The current Conservative government has made clear that it opposes spending federal money on Insite and for the record, I do as well but not because Insite fails to work.  In fact, Insite is incredibly effective.  I simply think it should be funded locally by a community that cares rather than by a federal government.  Anyhow, despite being opposed to spending money on Insite, the Canadian courts have so far made clear that the government does not have a legal right to close the facility.  Again, while this is something I don’t agree with in principle, I am none the less a supporter of the facility and this is all something of a discussion for another time.  What’s interesting in the here and now regarding Insite is that the RCMP are being implicated in scandal yet again.

In the first story linked above, MacLeans writer John Geddes details the genesis of how it came to be that the RCMP stood fast in its opposition to closing the safe injection facility despite a great deal of evidence suggesting that the centre was successful in achieving its goals and was a positive impact on the area in which it was placed.  The second story explains it clearly because some people obviously don’t understand it despite the column being pretty darned clear.

In the beginning, the RCMP had railed against the safe injection site as an enabling force in the community that would encourage injection drug use and the tune today is still much the same if you can find an RCMP spokesperson brave enough to actually play it.  Most of the fiddling these days is done by the political wings of the asylum though and there may be a very disappointing reason for that rather than politicians simply being better suited to speak publicly on issues of this nature.  Nay in fact, it is not a mere possibility but it would seem as a result of this story in Macleans that the RCMP was in fact completely prepared to recant and acknowledge that Insite was supported by all of the evidence.  Beyond that, it’s even possible that the RCMP was ready to admit that of the four studies commissioned at the behest of the mounties, the two that made a case against Insite did not meet conventional academic standards and were not credible studies from which to draw conclusions.  This wouldn’t have been a surprise seeing as both studies were from questionable sources, one of them actually being produced by Colin Mangham, research director of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada. The DPNC was founded by former Conservative Member of Parliament, Randy White, a man with a reputation for specializing in drug policy and maintaining a fanatical opposition to legalization or harm reduction practices in society.

Again though, this is another tangent. There is an issue here that goes far beyond the politicization of scientific studies and instead brings one to wonder how badly compromised our police are since they themselves have obviously been politicized. The issue here is not the dubious research; falsehoods are easily countered by the truth for any one who is willing to take a moment to consider all the information objectively. No, the greater worry here in that just as the RCMP were about to recant and some out to announce that they would no longer be condemning Insite, an order from somewhere at the top quashed the very notion of the RCMP acting honourably and with transparency.

While no one yet knows (though we will eventually) whether the order came from outside the force or from the top brass within the organization itself, the situation is clear.  The RCMP was about to admit that research that amounted to nothing more than a fishing expedition for anti-injection site information was not endorsed any longer by the RCMP.  The RCMP was about to deal an embarrassing and powerful blow to the government of the day and to others who oppose the safe injection site and this was all dashed by a decision that seems as though it could only have been political.  One of the best weapons anti-drug warriors have is that the police almost always seem to stand with them and this was about to be ripped away; a small victory for proponents of Insite and simmilar policy directions.

Of course, top cops aren’t talking but some one certainly knows who told who to do what and while it is perhaps entirely reasonably to demand an accountable and transparent action from the national police force of our land, I don’t think it is really expected.  In my eyes, our police have, at so many levels, been horribly tarnished in their image.  This type of thing only serves to further entrench my view that police can not be trusted and the only reason I’ll ever call them to defend me is because by law, there are no other options available.  As laid out in both articles above, it is clear that the RCMP had preconceived ideas regarding Insite, sought out research meant to specifically bolster those ideas, were ready to recant and admit that those ideas were wrong and then clammed up at the behest of an as of yet unknown source at the top.

I don’t know how some of you do it.  I really do think it would be just wonderful to be able to trust police but I can’t and I honestly don’t know how some of you can do it.