I never thought the day would come that I would agree with Justice Samuel Alito and disagree with NPR. The Supreme Court on Tuesday in an 8-1 vote (Alito, the lone dissenter) overturned a law that bans the selling and creation of videos or photos depicting animal cruelty, including illegal torture, maiming and killing (NPR wrote a brief in support of banning the law). Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority, stating the law violates the first amendment right to freedom of speech and took to task the government's assertion that via legislation it can ban any category of speech it decides is unworthy of protection under the First Amendment. "The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the government outweigh the costs," Chief Justice Roberts argues. The question remains, however, as to the legal responsibility of an individual expressing and profiting from images of illicit activity: if it is illegal to torture, maim and kill animals for one's amusement, and the creation and sale of videos depicting such activities requires the illicit actions to occur by the very fact that they exist, how then can you argue that the possession or marketing of these videos is legal? Better yet, how can you reject the assertion that such actions do not in some way make you responsible for the continuance of illegal activity? Would it help if I drew a supply and demand curve?
To provide context, the 1999 Depiction of Animal Cruelty law was originally created in response to videos featuring dog-fighting matches and 'crush' videos - a type of fetish video involving women (many in high stiletto heels) stomping and crushing to death small animals such as mice, rabbits, kittens and even puppies. The case which brought the law to its disheartening end involved Robert J. Stevens, a self-identified authority on pit bulls who was sentenced to 37 months for selling videotapes showing dog fights; Stevens himself never participated in any of the dog fights - some of which reportedly took place in Japan where dog fighting is legal - but under the 1999 law, Stevens was found guilty of trafficking in 'depictions of animal cruelty.' Admittedly, I have not browsed through the endless court papers documenting the case against Mr. Stevens that may reveal details explaining the court's overwhelming decision; likewise, I have not seen any of Mr. Stevens’s videos and therefore do not have a first-hand judgment on whether the images involved animal cruelty. In an interview with NPR, Stevens claimed to be an avid pit bull lover and stated his videos celebrated the "'gladiator' tendencies of pit bulls" and he edited the footage to remove the "bloody, gory stuff." This begs the question: is dog fighting not cruel by legal definition if the animals survive and are only injured or maimed? Furthermore, does a video of a dog fight, edited to remove all graphic violence, fall short of the legal definition of animal cruelty because we can't actually see the violence and maiming that actually took place?
I believe in the legal shrewdness of our Supreme Court; one must assume the law was crafted in such a way and with such breadth - and Chief Justice Roberts argued as such - that its violation of certain first amendment rights under the law, i.e. the right to express unpopular ideas, made irrelevant its purpose in protecting the rights of animals under a previously established and widely accepted law. Dog fighting and animal cruelty is illegal in all 50 states. And yet the expression of such acts in videos and photos is not only legally acceptable, but so also is profiting from the sale of such videos? According to Roberts, “the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter or its content.” But does government have no power to close the loophole on a law that provides a haven for illegal acts to continue?
It is a unique and treasured thing in this country and most modern democracies to protect the right to speak those whose beliefs and preferences we would prefer be silenced. But why protect the right to express in video a fetish which is illegal in practice? To each their own in the bedroom, but I'm quite sure (and by God, I hope) that the sale of alleged "snuff" videos (extreme sadomasochistic pornographic videos in which one of the participants is in fact murdered during the sexual encounter) would constitute a crime, even if the person selling the videos was not involved in its creation. A severe example, but the principle is the same - the same principle that allows us to prosecute those who sell images or videos of child pornography but do not themselves engage in it.
In creating the law, the government argued the same point regarding child pornography, but Chief Justice Roberts claims that it is a “a special case” because the market for it is “intrinsically related to the underlying abuse." According to the Humane Society of the United States, the Depiction of Animal Cruelty law all but ended the market for crush videos in the immediate years following its inception; Stevens case, however, led to a resurgence of the videos online even while the verdict had yet to be decided. Now the law is null and void. It is unthinkable to imagine the uptick in production and demand for these videos now that those facilitating their sale and distribution can no longer be prosecuted.
In Justice Alito's dissent, he stated the court’s decision in practice only served to protect "a depraved entertainment;" Chief Justice Roberts counter-argument stated that the law was so broadly written that it would make it illegal to sell hunting videos in the District of Columbia where hunting is illegal, and "the demand for hunting depictions exceeds the estimated demand for crush videos or animal fighting depictions by several orders of magnitude.” But then why declare the entire law unconstitutional? In the NPR interview, the executive director of the Professional Outdoor Media Association, Laurie Lee Dovey, claimed it was unlikely that the government could write a law that prevented animal cruelty without infringing on the rights of hunting and fishing fans: "We must in America rely on our First Amendment rights to speak freely and to discuss things that are not comfortable to discuss. That's what makes us America." Call me un-American, but I find it unfortunate that the brutal, fatal crushing of a kitten by stiletto for someone’s amusement is considered akin to something "not comfortable to discuss."
No doubt, it is always invigorating to see the process of checks-and-balances of power at work. I make no claims of being a lawyer or a legislative expert, and even in instances of disagreement, I intrinsically want to trust the judgment of the court to be constitutionally sound. Perhaps the issue is that Mr. Stevens should have never been convicted in the first place under the Depiction of Animal Cruelty law, which has now led us to its unraveling today. Perhaps the Supreme Court should have recognized, as Justice Alito described, the practical intent of the law, "not to suppress speech, but to prevent horrific acts of animal cruelty." Perhaps Congress should have taken more care to craft legal constraints and exceptions to the law that would appease hunting enthusiasts and survive first amendment scrutiny. Chief Justice Roberts wrote, "The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the government outweigh the costs," adding that “our Constitution forecloses any attempt to revise that judgment simply on the basis that some speech is not worth it." I can't help but find it interesting that a law Chief Justice Roberts found so "alarming" in breadth passed in the House 372-42 and in the Senate by unanimous consent. Perhaps, to the contrary, Congress found the protection of animals from such useless harm so obviously worth it.
*H.R. 5092., a narrower law written "to end the intentional crushing, burning, drowning and impaling of puppies, kittens and other animals for the depraved purpose of peddling videos of such extreme acts of animal cruelty for the sexual titillation of viewers" was introduced on Wednesday by Reps. Elton Gallegly, R-Calif., James Moran, D-Va., Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and more than 50 other Representatives. I encourage everyone to reach out to your Congressional representatives and Senators to show your support for this statute, or contact the Humane Society of the United States to see how you can help stop animal cruelty.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Team Ladies
Gratitude is required here. I am blessed to currently work with two phenomenal women, both of whom were educated at top universities, bring countless years of public service, exhibit measured ambition and admirable tolerance, and above all else, provide a reliable stream of constructive support. My appreciation here is immense if only because my experiences with female colleagues and leaders prior to now have been less than similar, if not quite the opposite. And as of late, I've begun to hear similar stories from my girlfriends and other female colleagues of women actively defeating one another in the workplace. I sat and listened yesterday as a friend of mine from my professional network - a bright, industrious, and bilingual 28 year old - shared the story of her most recent transition from one company to another. She wooed over her new (male) boss and lamented over the stress of her previous position as a member of a small team where she held seniority (by hire date only) over a woman slightly more than 10 years her elder. Rather than collaborate on creative efforts, cooperate on projects and even meet her basic job expectations, which included assisting on major projects, this woman was unresponsive to my friend’s requests for assistance and lackadaisically partnered on projects that she did not lead - and yet demanded full credit. The woman went out of her way to dismiss an article in a regional industrial trade journal praising my friend's accomplishments in the field (and exposing her undeniably good looks) and took great care to ignore any other professional and even personal successes my friend experienced while with the company.
Perhaps it was an age issue - people don't like answering to those perceived with less experience - or even an over-hiring issue. But as a woman, I was discouraged by her story nonetheless. Feminism is at tricky thing; it's a movement based on such a profoundly important and honestly simplistic concept - gender equality - and yet like all things philosophical, it has given way to such a wide range of both generational and individual interpretations that its definition is really fluid depending on your perspective. Marxism isn't Leninism isn't Communism, so to speak. I would venture to guess that most women aren't entirely sure what it means to or for them, but at the very least, I personally had assumed it was a concept that united women. Despite popular misconceptions to the contrary, feminism is not intended to pose women against men, but one would think it definitely wasn't meant to pit women against women. Religion and class and race aside, we must share some experiences as females that endear us to one another and therefore we should naturally want to hold each other up, champion one another's successes. And yet stories like my friend's continue to surface.
In one of the worst years of my life, I spent endless hours a day assisting a woman who referred to me only as "Doll" or "Girlie.” On one of the worst days of the worst year, she brazenly slapped me on the butt in the presence of two of her male counterparts. And no, in case you're asking yourself this, we didn't just win a hockey game nor did we work in a locker room. Something about belittling me empowered her; it was as if there was only room for one successful female in a male-dominated office, and there certainly wasn't room for someone younger and (pardon the narcissism) more ambitious than she.
What is most troubling about this anecdote is that this woman was successful in her field and had years of experience from which I could have learned or benefited from and in turn, contributed more positively and effectively to her office and operations. She had the opportunity to mentor me and extend her personal impact on the organization far beyond her retirement by cultivating in me the professional and subject-matter knowledge that had lead to her own success and helped support many of the great successes of our department. She could have been a trailblazer; she chose to be an obstacle.
An interesting fact that many - and not just women - lose sight of in the professional world is that like love and oxygen, success is not a finite good. There is plenty for everyone and my consumption of it does not in any way negate or diminish yours. And in fact, supporting one another and lending to others' success serves as an exponential factor in your own: expanding your network of reliable and trustworthy colleagues; building a reputation as a collaborator and team player; enjoying the benefits of learning from someone with more experience or a fresh perspective. And for women like me who work in a field historically reserved for men, the professional benchmarks set by other women set a new bar - and a new baseline - for females going forward in terms of what we can accomplish. My current boss, my co-worker and myself - we refer to ourselves as 'Team Ladies.' And we conduct ourselves as a team in business. When you trail blaze three-deep, you cut a far wider path for those to follow.
This isn't a sweeping plea to raise through the ranks all the females of the world simply because we all share the gift of reproduction; as I said, feminism is about equality, and aptitude and acumen shouldn't be overlooked. But a challenge to my fellow females out there: next time you have a female-colleague who is being promoted and garnering professional accolades, perhaps drop the indulgence in that healthy dose of schaedenfreude and instead, shake her hand and ask her how she did it. Take your new intern to lunch and share the tricks of the trade. Praise your colleagues and engage their know-how in completing a new and exciting project. Sharing your achievement doesn't seem half bad when you've doubled the results.
Suit up. 'Team Ladies' is recruiting willing and able players.
Perhaps it was an age issue - people don't like answering to those perceived with less experience - or even an over-hiring issue. But as a woman, I was discouraged by her story nonetheless. Feminism is at tricky thing; it's a movement based on such a profoundly important and honestly simplistic concept - gender equality - and yet like all things philosophical, it has given way to such a wide range of both generational and individual interpretations that its definition is really fluid depending on your perspective. Marxism isn't Leninism isn't Communism, so to speak. I would venture to guess that most women aren't entirely sure what it means to or for them, but at the very least, I personally had assumed it was a concept that united women. Despite popular misconceptions to the contrary, feminism is not intended to pose women against men, but one would think it definitely wasn't meant to pit women against women. Religion and class and race aside, we must share some experiences as females that endear us to one another and therefore we should naturally want to hold each other up, champion one another's successes. And yet stories like my friend's continue to surface.
In one of the worst years of my life, I spent endless hours a day assisting a woman who referred to me only as "Doll" or "Girlie.” On one of the worst days of the worst year, she brazenly slapped me on the butt in the presence of two of her male counterparts. And no, in case you're asking yourself this, we didn't just win a hockey game nor did we work in a locker room. Something about belittling me empowered her; it was as if there was only room for one successful female in a male-dominated office, and there certainly wasn't room for someone younger and (pardon the narcissism) more ambitious than she.
What is most troubling about this anecdote is that this woman was successful in her field and had years of experience from which I could have learned or benefited from and in turn, contributed more positively and effectively to her office and operations. She had the opportunity to mentor me and extend her personal impact on the organization far beyond her retirement by cultivating in me the professional and subject-matter knowledge that had lead to her own success and helped support many of the great successes of our department. She could have been a trailblazer; she chose to be an obstacle.
An interesting fact that many - and not just women - lose sight of in the professional world is that like love and oxygen, success is not a finite good. There is plenty for everyone and my consumption of it does not in any way negate or diminish yours. And in fact, supporting one another and lending to others' success serves as an exponential factor in your own: expanding your network of reliable and trustworthy colleagues; building a reputation as a collaborator and team player; enjoying the benefits of learning from someone with more experience or a fresh perspective. And for women like me who work in a field historically reserved for men, the professional benchmarks set by other women set a new bar - and a new baseline - for females going forward in terms of what we can accomplish. My current boss, my co-worker and myself - we refer to ourselves as 'Team Ladies.' And we conduct ourselves as a team in business. When you trail blaze three-deep, you cut a far wider path for those to follow.
This isn't a sweeping plea to raise through the ranks all the females of the world simply because we all share the gift of reproduction; as I said, feminism is about equality, and aptitude and acumen shouldn't be overlooked. But a challenge to my fellow females out there: next time you have a female-colleague who is being promoted and garnering professional accolades, perhaps drop the indulgence in that healthy dose of schaedenfreude and instead, shake her hand and ask her how she did it. Take your new intern to lunch and share the tricks of the trade. Praise your colleagues and engage their know-how in completing a new and exciting project. Sharing your achievement doesn't seem half bad when you've doubled the results.
Suit up. 'Team Ladies' is recruiting willing and able players.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
What DO Americans Value?
The other day I heard Newt Gingrich in a speech referring to the Obama administration as "secular socialist" and claimed Obama the "most radical President in history." In another interview, the former Speaker of the House railed on democrats and even the former firm of Attorney General Eric Holder for representing 17 alleged terrorists pro-bono, accusing them of 'defending terrorists' - apparently instead of 'defending Americans.'
Apparently justice has perfect vision. And it's racist.
Gingrich went on to disparage the administration for wanting to raise taxes in the current economic crisis, forcing American companies to become less competitive relative to Chinese businesses...because apparently it's never okay to raise taxes; wars will fund themselves and competitive innovation isn't one of the fundamental principles of capitalism. And these remarks don't even touch upon the healthcare debate, which I have somewhat refrained from up to this point at the risk of delving into something I can barely decipher myself. But I can't help but cringe at what has seemingly become an acceptable response to bi-partisan legislation, i.e. at best, name-calling and at depressingly worst, death-threats.
At the risk of speaking in hyperboles (which only seem appropriate and measured in response to Former Speaker Gingrich's remarks), since when did American values include abandoning our fellow citizens to fend for themselves in an emergency room, everyone is guilty before proven innocent, justice only for those people we like, pretending obscene government debt isn't just as bad for the economy and small-businesses as minimal tax increases, healthcare only for the healthy or the rich, and an expectation of idyllic democracy, in which all pieces of legislation will be mutually and happily agreed upon in perfect harmony among all the key players?
So corporate America will have to pay slightly higher healthcare packages, but small businesses will have credits to provide some type of healthcare to their employees. Your 23-year-old child will lose insurance for the next six months while you wait for the new benefit for adult-dependents to kick-in, but at least your child will have healthcare again, which he or she wouldn't have had a year ago. The insurance premiums for supplemental insurance will be hefty and take a long time to procure, but you can procure them. Is it a perfect bill? Of course it's not. It's messy and complicated and probably really screwed up in so many ways, but it's no doubt a step forward if only because we just passed a piece of legislation on HEALTHCARE - a bill being dismembered and tugged at and manipulated by insurance companies and doctors and malpractice lawyers and corporate human resources and parents of college kids and unemployed parents of infants and fully-insured employed individuals with a completely uninsurable disease. It passed! We all aren't getting exactly what we want, but I for one, who will likely pay a higher insurance premium next year, can't help but feel better about the fact that someone out there who doesn't have insurance will have it soon enough. And access to better healthcare for more means a healthier, more productive society - and at the sake of reinforcing Mr. Gingrich's secular socialist label, I have always been under the impression that Americans took care of one another. In the midst of monumental moments in our history, we have united and lifted one another up, but why not today? Why not every day? Some national tragedies are on-going, daily affairs.
A vibrant democracy, by definition, isn't clean cut. It means passing a less-than-pretty bill that may only significantly impact a select portion of Americans now, but moves us one step closer to a healthcare system with a baseline more acceptable for a leading industrialized nation. It means defending could-be terrorists because we believe, as humans, in the basic right to a fair trial by your peers - to be proven guilty, not assumed so. These are the values that make us exceptional, even in - or rather, especially in the moments when they are difficult to live by.
Apparently justice has perfect vision. And it's racist.
Gingrich went on to disparage the administration for wanting to raise taxes in the current economic crisis, forcing American companies to become less competitive relative to Chinese businesses...because apparently it's never okay to raise taxes; wars will fund themselves and competitive innovation isn't one of the fundamental principles of capitalism. And these remarks don't even touch upon the healthcare debate, which I have somewhat refrained from up to this point at the risk of delving into something I can barely decipher myself. But I can't help but cringe at what has seemingly become an acceptable response to bi-partisan legislation, i.e. at best, name-calling and at depressingly worst, death-threats.
At the risk of speaking in hyperboles (which only seem appropriate and measured in response to Former Speaker Gingrich's remarks), since when did American values include abandoning our fellow citizens to fend for themselves in an emergency room, everyone is guilty before proven innocent, justice only for those people we like, pretending obscene government debt isn't just as bad for the economy and small-businesses as minimal tax increases, healthcare only for the healthy or the rich, and an expectation of idyllic democracy, in which all pieces of legislation will be mutually and happily agreed upon in perfect harmony among all the key players?
So corporate America will have to pay slightly higher healthcare packages, but small businesses will have credits to provide some type of healthcare to their employees. Your 23-year-old child will lose insurance for the next six months while you wait for the new benefit for adult-dependents to kick-in, but at least your child will have healthcare again, which he or she wouldn't have had a year ago. The insurance premiums for supplemental insurance will be hefty and take a long time to procure, but you can procure them. Is it a perfect bill? Of course it's not. It's messy and complicated and probably really screwed up in so many ways, but it's no doubt a step forward if only because we just passed a piece of legislation on HEALTHCARE - a bill being dismembered and tugged at and manipulated by insurance companies and doctors and malpractice lawyers and corporate human resources and parents of college kids and unemployed parents of infants and fully-insured employed individuals with a completely uninsurable disease. It passed! We all aren't getting exactly what we want, but I for one, who will likely pay a higher insurance premium next year, can't help but feel better about the fact that someone out there who doesn't have insurance will have it soon enough. And access to better healthcare for more means a healthier, more productive society - and at the sake of reinforcing Mr. Gingrich's secular socialist label, I have always been under the impression that Americans took care of one another. In the midst of monumental moments in our history, we have united and lifted one another up, but why not today? Why not every day? Some national tragedies are on-going, daily affairs.
A vibrant democracy, by definition, isn't clean cut. It means passing a less-than-pretty bill that may only significantly impact a select portion of Americans now, but moves us one step closer to a healthcare system with a baseline more acceptable for a leading industrialized nation. It means defending could-be terrorists because we believe, as humans, in the basic right to a fair trial by your peers - to be proven guilty, not assumed so. These are the values that make us exceptional, even in - or rather, especially in the moments when they are difficult to live by.
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