As state courts have proven extremely reluctant to give any slack to the right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment, exercising the right without being arrested first has often been honored primarily in the breach. Possess a gun, get arrested and, only afterward, get cut loose provided the person possesses the requisite permits.

But an Illinois appellate court’s analysis in an opinion by Justice P. Scott Neville, Jr. challenges the “outdated” assumption.

The State argues that the discovery of the gun gave Whitlock probable cause to arrest Penister, reasoning that “the police were not required to *** determine whether he had a valid FOID card or a Conceal Carry Permit prior to effectuating his arrest.” According to the State’s reasoning, an officer has probable cause to arrest anyone engaged in an activity that requires a license, and the officer can wait until after the arrest to determine whether the arrested person has the required license. So any officer can wait outside any courtroom, arrest all persons who acted as attorneys, and find out after the arrests whether the persons had the requisite licenses to practice law. See 705 ILCS 205/1 (West 2016) (unlicensed practice of law punishable as contempt); People v. Flinn, 47 Ill. App. 3d 357, 361 (1977) (“arrest and imprisonment may be imposed for civil contempt of court”). If any officer sees a person driving a car, the officer has probable cause to arrest the driver, and the officer can find out later whether the arrested person has a license to drive.

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How cool is it that Google has this app called “Translate,” and anybody can get it right on, wait for it, their smartphone? Even a cop in Kansas.

Imagine you’re driving in a foreign country and a police officer stops you on the road. You don’t speak the cop’s language and they don’t speak yours, so a halting exchange ensues using a laptop and Google Translate. You’re not always sure what the officer is asking, and you end up agreeing to something you didn’t quite understand, and are arrested.

That’s what happened to Omar Cruz-Zamora, a Mexican native in the US on a legal visa, in Kansas last September.

Cruz-Zamora spoke Spanish. Kansas Highway Patrol Trooper Ryan Wolting did not. But Wolting had a smartphone and, boom, technology! Continue reading →

When the Obama administration placed the young children separated from their immigrant parents for unlawfully crossing the border outside “concentration camp” walls, it swiftly turned into an opportunity for human traffickers to get free slaves. That was certainly terrible and unacceptable, and something had to be done.

Children of a very tender age need to be held, comforted and cared for. But if adults in a facility provide them with the human contact they desperately need, they expose themselves to allegations of sexual molestation. At the very least, they commit nonconsensual touching, and America is better than that. Molesting the children of incarcerated immigrant parents is outrageous and unacceptable, and something must be done.

When the Obama administration created a path to citizenship, people from other nations saw the opportunity to get here, any way they could, to give their children a better life. Certainly one can’t blame them for loving their children, for wanting to provide for their future, and America offered them a future they would never find in their home nations. Despite the horrifying and exhausting microaggressions felt by those already here, America is the land of opportunity to immigrants. Continue reading →

When Mark Ossenheimer founded New York City’s Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation, he ran a tight ship. The Dean, Hector Diaz, took a stern position on discipline, and the students took him seriously. And the school thrived.

But fashions change, particularly in education where movements based on Utopian theories of behavior come into favor. And UA Wildlife was not immune.

New York was in the vanguard of a nationwide movement, spurred largely through federal coercion, to undo traditional discipline in favor of a progressive or “restorative” approach.

At UA Wildlife, meaningful consequences for misbehavior were eliminated, alternative approaches failed, and the administration responded to a rising tide of disorder and violence by sweeping evidence of it under the rug.

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Rob Rogers was brilliant at his job. But what was his job?

I should’ve seen it coming. When I had lunch with my new boss a few months ago, he informed me that the paper’s publisher believed that the editorial cartoonist was akin to an editorial writer, and that his views should reflect the philosophy of the newspaper.

That was a new one to me.

I was trained in a tradition in which editorial cartoonists are the live wires of a publication — as one former colleague put it, the “constant irritant.” Our job is to provoke readers in a way words alone can’t. Cartoonists are not illustrators for a publisher’s politics.

Rogers had been the editorial cartoonist at the The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since 1993. Back then, it was a liberal newspaper. Over time, it became less so, until it endorsed a Republican in 2011. Rogers just kept doing his job, and doing it well, provided “well” means that the stinging political satire was acceptable to the people signing his paycheck. It wasn’t. Continue reading →

A survey conducted for FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, would appear, on its face, to be pretty good news.

A new survey from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education finds that a vast majority of college students support fundamental due process protections in campus disciplinary hearings in order to ensure they are fair.

By “vast majority,” it might appear they mean “vast majority.”

Ninety-eight percent of students said they believe the right to due process in college was “very important” or “important.”

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Having long since lost Linda Greenhouse and Dahlia Lithwick to their private hysteria played out in public, the lone remaining female pundit of law was Emily Bazelon. I regret to inform you that Bazelon is gone, self-immolated in a blaze of whiteness.

Being white in America has long been treated, at least by white people, as too familiar to be of much interest. It’s been the default identity, the cultural wallpaper — something described, when described at all, using bland metaphors like milk and vanilla and codes like “cornfed” and “all-American.” Grass is green, the sky is blue and, until very recently, a product described as “nude” or “flesh-colored” probably looked like white people’s skin.

How often do white people talk about being white? Not often! So long as we aren’t hanging out with white nationalists, marrying into a family of color or chuckling over jokes about our dancing, we have endless opportunities to avoid thinking much about our own race.

When she puts it that way, it seems almost mind-numbingly ridiculous that white people don’t obsess about their racial identity by self-flagellating and rending their sack cloths. But Bazelon informs us that it’s over.  Continue reading →

In the debate between Chris Seaton and Mario Machado on the question of political correctness versus progress, there is a tacit tension that goes unmentioned. Well, until now, anyway.  Contrary to the assumptions of the unduly passionate, not everyone who rejects the accouterments of an ideology is in disagreement with certain of its goals or even methods.

As Mario argues, the imposition of authoritarian language and tone demands is not merely phony pretense, but dangerous in the ways Orwell warned us about long ago. But as Chris argues, greater civility would go a long way toward getting along. Continue reading →

Ed. Note: After two prominent intellectuals, a New York Times reporter and an award winning British media personality failed to debate the question ,“Be it Resolved: What You Call Political Correctness, I Call Progress,” former Fault Lines contributors Chris Seaton and Mario Machado attempted to succeed where four others failed. Bellow Chris’ argument.

Those who know me or read me work realize I’m no fan of political correctness. I abhor the idea of “trigger warnings” in academic syllabi. The notion that my children will be taught growing up there’s more than two genders is absurd to me. And I find it ridiculously infantile that at the start of each semester, college professors must ask students, “What is your preferred set of pronouns?”

Despite all this, today I write in defense of political correctness because it has brought us some degree of meaningful change, despite what the Perry Van Ness* polo-shirt-wearing crowd might think.

Political correctness leveled the playing field for the better when it came to groups like women, people of color and LGBTQIAAP2** individuals. It means that as much as we hate to admit it, men know it’s not okay to call a female colleague in the workplace “sugar tits” in passing. Heterosexual men and women march in the streets during Pride celebrations with people who love differently than them. Continue reading →

Ed. Note: After two prominent intellectuals, a New York Times reporter and an award winning British media personality failed to debate the question ,“Be it Resolved: What You Call Political Correctness, I Call Progress,” former Fault Lines contributors Mario Machado and Chris Seaton attempted to succeed where four others failed. Bellow Mario’s argument.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. 

–George Orwell, Animal Farm (Original Preface)

Let’s begin with stating the obvious: for some many of my fellow primates, there are some words that are just too much to bear. These words need to be diluted so that the chance of someone being hurt or “offended” becomes impossible.

Yes, these folks are fine with words either being banned outright or replaced with more antiseptic ones, at the expense of reason and the English language.  For those who have respect for language (especially those who make a living off of it, along with the First Amendment), and who don’t require they be treated like backward children, that state of affairs is something that must be addressed and corrected.  The stakes are high, amigos.

Those on the other side, who with a straight hysterical face will tell you that “words are violence,” will claim that no measure is too stiff, no punishment too severe so long as no feelings are hurt and everyone’s sensitivities remain one-hundred-percent intact.  Notice how another cherished concept of civilization – a sense of nuance and proportion – has now been thrown overboard as a result of this “movement”?

It’s not so bad that Hollywood, in part because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, has become a beacon for bullying gangs that will excoriate anyone that goes off the politically-correct script (no pun). Make one remark off-the-cuff that may offend one member of the tribe for one second, and it is off-with-your-fucking-head, amigos.  No matter how perfect or swift the contrition by the offender, their careers will go up in smoke.

Speaking of Trump, a lot of this censoring is done in the name of “things have never been so nasty, so uncivil.” Really? During the 1800 presidential campaign, John Adams referred to that fellow from Monticello, another founding father, as “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.” In 1828, Andrew Jackson’s opponent called him a murderer, an adulterer, and a pimp.  So the current political climate of naughty words does not justify these cries for civility.

Raising the sights a bit, let’s talk about academia.  A majority of students think that words are violence. One would think that a basic academic (pardon the expression) explanation would put such a foolish position to rest: “Junior, violence is blunt force that can cause physical injury. By definition, words can’t do that.” But you may get called a white supremacist or a Nazi before Junior’s rusted brain wheels start spinning.

But it gets worse, much, much worse.  The professors and the administrators – yes! those who are supposed to be in charge – have become the proverbial hostages to the students. They’re terrified of putting these brats in place, lest they be reported and lose their jobs. This is in part because they know their spineless colleagues will not come to their defense.

So what are we left with at these universities? Trigger warnings, cry-ins, de-platforming of speakers, riots. The last two usually occur when the really bad speakers come to town.  Nothing says “I’m a smart, strident, dependable person who deserves a paycheck” like breaking a Starbucks window with a sledge hammer because someone was uttering politically incorrect stuff at an event where attendance was not compulsory.  These are the professionals of our future who will enter the workforce en masse without calloused sensitivities, all because of the campaign for political-correctness-for-all.

What happens when these political-correctness warriors get off the academic teat of appeasement and are lucky enough to get a job? What will they do when their boss is a ball-buster, who also happens to have the temerity to use “incorrect” gender pronouns? Will they curl up into a ball, toughen up, or simply report it to the higher-ups in the hopes of having a competent leader thrown out?

With regards to the last question, which involves someone snitching out another for using language that’s forbidden by the tribe, the American Bar Association has joined the party.  ABA’s Model Rule 4.8(g) is full of vague, meaningless tripe that forbids lawyers to:

engage in conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law

Let’s say you finally found the right lawyer who puts you first, and is in the best position to get you out of a serious jam. This rule can be used to take his license, should anyone perceive he said something considered “harassment,” and perhaps that leaves you with lawyers who will cower should a prosecutor threaten with putting you in a cage if she doesn’t capitulate.  There you have it ladies and gentlemen, how far the termites have spread.

I will come full circle, and finish with our beloved language, and how political correctness has been used to trivialize things that cause real pain and suffering.  Freaking out because you’re facing a lifetime of banishment from this country and don’t have the coin to pay for your defense? Well, you’re not entitled to a lawyer, because the deportation process is “administrative” and not punitive. In an immigration jail and hate the conditions? How bad can it possibly be, buttercup? They’re not jails, but rather “service processing” and “transitional” centers.

You’re in prison awaiting trial, and you got thrown in a filthy hole?  Calm down, drama queen. It’s not a hole, but a “secure housing unit,” or SHU.  Facing life in prison, so you want your lawyer to pulverize the government’s parade of rats? Understandable, but make sure he only addresses him as “cooperating witness” during cross and closing argument.  Is all this progress? Very far from it.