I haven’t forgotten about this blog; just been having a pretty relaxed and awesome summer. Here’s my fall schedule
Torts MTW: 9:25 am- 10:35 am
Property: WTF 10:50-12
Contracts: WTF 2-3:10
Legal Research and Writing TRF: 11-11:50
They already told me next semester will be even more cramed: Legal Research and Writing, Con Law, Crim Law, Civil Procedure, AND Regulatory State
Tonight I’d like to share with you some (hopefully) valuable insight and idiosyncracies that I have that helped me to achieve a 4.0 GPA while in college. I don’t write these words as a nose-stuck-in-the-air-and-up-my-own-ass-at-the-same-time snob (though, I admit, it’s something I’ve worked really hard toward and am proud of), but rather as a close friend to you, dear reader. I will make them as universal as possible, because I firmly believe in the principle that anyone who wants to can learn anything worth learning if they only give adequate effort. Some majors are harder than others, granted, but I don’t seek to proffer business-specific tips, so even math majors can tune in (gulp). I also have a couple more caveats. For one, getting a 4.0, while an admirable goal, isn’t the end-all be-all of college life. You will get noticed more; you’ll find the bureaucrats treat you better and with more speed; but YOU still have to make yourself unique enough to be attractive to employers. A number on a sheet is great, but a big smile and earnest personality is sometimes better for securing gainful employment.
1. Pick your professors cautiously
This first step is a big one. We have a wonderful resource as college students. It’s called http://www.ratemyprofessor.com. This is the cornerstone of making a 4.0. In case you think I’m about to go down that path you’re thinking of, reconsider. I don’t think learning is playing a game of pick and choose who the easiest professor, or who gives the biggest curve. What RateMyProfessor CAN do for you is give you valuable insight into the nature of the class you will be taking. Are you bad at multiple choice? Do you prefer essay or short answer? There are also pitfalls listed to look out for, such as a certain tendency on a certain test, or surprises the teacher may have in store for you. Choose your professor based on what you know are your strengths as a student, not based on who is the easiest.
2. Study your professors even more cautiously
Professors are people, too. They have tics, nuances, and habits. This even applies to test-making. Does a professor like to paint broad strokes and cover lots of topics, or does she like to get down into the nitty-gritty details of each and every lesson? Write down and star anything the professor hints at that it MIGHT be on the test. I can’t tell you how many times this has saved my ass, as professors are notorious for remembering these starred points on exams. This is a key to anticipating what will be on tests. Also, this is a little clandestine, but I always try and find occasion to e-mail my professors at the beginning of the semester with an interesting question or comment. It’s sometimes just because I like them; but at other times, I’ll admit, it’s because I want them to recognize me in class and be comfortable with me as a student. A comfortable professor is a more reasonable professor. A more reasonable professor is less likely to hide things from you in the name of testing your intellectual fortitude (:p). I firmly believe, after many varied conversations with otherwise intelligent people, that this point is the most integral of the entire post. If you can accurately anticipate what the professor will test you on, then, chances are, you will get an A on the test.
3. Don’t skip class until at least after the first test
This is vital for potential 4.0′ers. The point of this rule is so you can accurately prognosticate what will and will not be on the first test (and as a result, the format of the subsequent tests). You can never really be sure about a class till after you take its first test. In the weeks leading up to the test, take note of the type of material your class is going over. Are you going to have to read the chapters? The professor will be ambiguous about what will be on the test, but think a little harder here. Has he really been ambiguous or has been expecting you to pay attention to the important points and is relying on the fact that you probably didn’t pay attention 100 percent of the time in class. I also think it’s important when attending every class until at least after the first test to be totally focused. That means leave the cell phone at home or in the car. Don’t bring a laptop; you’ll just get on Facebook. Studies show that students learn better by physically transferring their thoughts and sounds they hear onto a piece of paper. The first time you’ll learn something as a 4.0 student is the most important. Focus and learn it the first time, as opposed to having to teach it to yourself later.
4. Study smarter, not longer
This is easier said than done. If you want grades to take over your whole life, then maybe this rule doesn’t apply to you. Unfortunately, no successful person put all his eggs in one basket, so I’ll assume you want to have a little free time to do other things things than have your nose stuck in the book. Therefore, let me offer some advice that has worked for me. I’ll leave it up to you which tips you wish to follow.
First, if it’s class with an accompanying textbook that the professor uses, read the chapter BEFORE coming to class. You’re probably saying, “So what, genius, is this your big tip? I get this all the time from my profs!” Well, that may be but in this case there are certain indirect benefits other than just being able to say you’re prepared. It means, as is often the case with books that the professor bases tests off of, you don’t have to rote memorize the chapters over and over again come test preparation time. Why? You’ll have your 4.0 curiosity peaked (or at least you can pretend to be interested 
) by your initial pre-reading of the chapter. Then, using your focused mind we discussed earlier, when you study the material in class, it will cement itself in your mind (and your notes too!). You won’t have to go home and think, “What the hell did I just learn?” You’ll have a firmer grasp of the material, and this effect will snowball, giving you more confidence in test prep and test day itself.
Another tip I have for you is to sit down around 3-4 weeks into the school semester and assign priorities to your classes. Only you can know the work load you are comfortable with, but by around a month in, you should have a firm grasp on which classes will be the hardest and which will be the easiest. Which can you shift some of your valuable study time out of and into a more difficult subject? Can you find ways to streamline your homework/busywork/group projects so that there is little downtime and lots of efficiency involved? I was always able to find ways, with a bit of ingenuity, which we all have.
5. Abide by the 5/2 rule
A very wise professor once taught us the 5/2 rule and I decided to follow it, to much success. If at all possible, work like hell for 5 days out of the week, and then forget all about school altogether for the other two. Party it up, go out with your friends or significant other, go to church, go traveling, just get the hell out of the books and RELAX.
Using these five simple rules, I think anyone can be well on their way to achieving a 4.0. Just try it for one semester and stick with it. You’ll find many of the principles intertwine and it gets easier with time. Moreover, you don’t have to sacrifice a social life, a girlfriend, or a church group to get a 4.0. I don’t get the impression that many people, upon meeting me, would think, “hey that guy’s probably a nerdy 4.0 student!” That doesn’t come until you get to know me, later haha 
You don’t get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.
- L. Ron Hubbard, “founder” of Scientology
Figured I’d actually post a law school article on here, given that it’s the intended purpose of the blog I borrowed parts of this from my article on www.schoolishard.com (very great site, check it out) and the part I wrote for the Honors Handbook at my university. Enjoy!
Applying to Law School
So you’ve decided to go to law school. The first thing you should do after taking that important step is to realize how important your Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) score is to your overall acceptance chances. The LSAT is often called the “great equalizer” because it levels the playing field across majors and schools in order to more objectively evaluate your chances of success in law school. The LSAT score is by far the most important factor in the admissions process, followed by GPA, and then a personal statement, soft factors, letters of recommendation, etc. Often, students fret about their undergraduate school when deciding to apply to the more prestigious schools, but it isn’t considered very important, unless it’s giving the edge to a student with the exact same other stats as another qualified applicant. The LSAT, therefore, is something to be taken seriously and adequately prepared for.
The LSAT is administered the first Saturday of every February, June, October, and December. If you want to start law school in the fall semester, you should take the February, June, or October test of the year before the year you want to start law school. The December LSAT generally reduces your chance of acceptance because so many applicants have already applied by the time December LSAT test takers can submit their fully completed applications. So, go ahead and go over to www.lsac.org and sign up for a date of your choice. The cost is $125 so be prepared to pay for that. While you’re at it, familiarize yourself with LSAC’s website because you will have to pay an additional $125 dollars for the LSDAS service on that website, which streamlines the application process, allows electronic applications, and takes care of sending in letters of recommendation and transcripts for you.
What is an ideal time for adequate LSAT preparation? The popular opinion is 3 months, which is what I did, so this guide will be based off that time frame. You don’t necessarily have to be unemployed and devoting 40 hours of your week to this, but it does help if you do it during the summer, or when school isn’t that important to you, because you do need to commit 20+ hours a week for this plan to be effective.
Ok, now make a trip to your local bookstore or online store and order the Powerscore Logical Reasoning, Logic Games, and Reading Comprehension Bibles. Don’t waste your money on any of the crap out there such as the Princeton Review books, Barron, LSAT for Dummies, etc. The Powerscore Bibles use actual LSAT questions as a basis for their study guides, while some of the other companies, because they are cheapskates and don’t want to pay LSAC to use their material, do not. Now, for your last study material purchase, buy 2 or 3 of the Books of Ten Official LSAT Practice Tests. Your total investment here is about $200, but it’s completely worth it for the potential scholarship money, and chance at a better law school.
Your first month should be spent in intense study of the Powerscore Bibles. Spend about 3-4 hours a day and 5-6 days a week. It’s hard to go into the specifics in an article of this length, but you should acclimate your brain to the types of questions that will be asked on the test. Most importantly, you must recognize that the makers of the LSAT are concerned with testing your logical reasoning. The most important difference between someone who does well on the LSAT and someone who doesn’t is that the person who does can recognize that, behind all the questions about biochemical capacitors, Pacific Ocean fish larvae, and subcutaneous cell membranes, is a definable, logical structure with the same logical fallacies, inconsistencies, or missing links over and over again. To put it simply, concern yourself with construction, not content.
The next month and a half you should begin taking your official practice tests at a rate of three per week. Try and take them early in the morning and make sure you simulate the test conditions. For the first couple of weeks, I think it’s important to stretch the time constraints beyond 35 minutes so you can practice each type of question and identify the methods you’re going to use to answer them. Slowly bring the time constraint down to 35 minutes over the course of the month and a half and if you want to take it down to 33 minutes or so, that’d be a good idea in case you go slower on test day. One last point to consider: on the actual day of the test, there will be one experimental section that doesn’t count as part of your score. It is used to test future potential LSAT questions. It will be one of the first three sections of the test, so you may want to insert a random section into your practice tests, if you like, in order to simulate the test even further, though it might not help all that much since you’ll know which is the experimental section in your practice but not in the actual test.
The last couple of weeks should be intense. Cancel social engagements. Explain to your significant other how important it is. You should take one practice a day for this last leg. If you run out of tests, go back to your old ones and circle all the answers so you don’t know what the right answers are, and go over it again. Make sure you are adhering strictly to the time limits, and have adequate testing conditions. If you have a friend who has study plans, you could go to the library with him or her and tell them to occasionally make annoying noises, drop their pencil, or sneeze in order to simulate the test. Two days before the test, take two practice tests and then go hang out with your friends, do something relaxing by yourself, or just get some sleep. The day before the test, don’t study at all. Take the opportunity to watch a movie, eat a good meal, or do something else fun. Forget about the test and just relax. Get an early night and set two alarms.
If you have taken my advice seriously, then you will do well on the LSAT, which is the hardest part of the law school application process. There are no real prerequisites for law school, as in other professional schools. You can be any major you want to be; in fact, law schools prefer diversity of undergraduate backgrounds. Simply keep up a reasonable (above 3.3) GPA and you will be able to, with a good LSAT score, get into a program of your choice.
Two weeks after you take your LSAT, you will receive your score electronically. At this point you can begin to fill out applications for law schools. Luckily, the LSDAS website (mentioned above) has electronic applications for nearly every accredited law school in the United States. You must request your college transcripts and letters of recommendation be sent to LSDAS by your college, but you can reuse these forms electronically over and over, which makes what could be a cumbersome time-consuming process very quick and easy.
The deadline for most law school applications is February 15th. However, many students start sending in applications as early as October. Therefore, it would inure to your benefit to be as prepared and expedient as possible when applying, because law schools do not wait for the deadline to decide on acceptance or denial of applicants.
I strongly urge you to reconsider law school if you do not get at least a 160 on your LSAT. This is a very achievable goal for most Honors students, but law school is a tremendous financial burden. It is a grim outlook, but the average median salary for an attorney who does not graduate from a top 30 or so law school is not worth the amount of debt you will almost invariably put yourself into in the process. Do not go to law school if you do not either receive a full scholarship from a lesser university, or get into a top 30 or so one.
That being said, law is a rewarding career, both intellectually as well as financially. Don’t be afraid of a little investment in your future, as it will most assuredly pay dividends, provided you take the proper steps to place yourself in a position of opportunity. Law school is an exciting and challenging place, which teaches you an entirely new way of thinking. I hope to see you in court one day!
Gutentag,
Tonight let’s drift away from the spiritual and talk about another subject near and dear to my heart: the financial. On everyones’ lips and minds nowadays is the current economic crisis. As a finance nerd, I love to hear different peoples’ opinions on the matter, so here’s mine.
Lenders
Lenders are probably the biggest culprits, in my opinion. Faced with increased capital to lend due to low interest rates, mortgage originators decided that it would be fine to lend to people who would not normally qualify for a loan, and are at a higher risk of default, which hurts both the borrower and the originator. This may or may not have been spurred by the Community Reinvestment Act, a1977 statute that encouraged banks to cater to all segments for loans, including poor and low-income people. This also may have contributed to an overall decline in the amount of government regulation, culminating in the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which says commercial and investment banks can consolidate. Nobel Prize economist Paul Krugman states that Gramm (probably well known to you as calling America a nation of whiners) is the father of the current economic crisis due to his sponsorship of the bill. Said consolidation probably also encouraged otherwise safe commercial banks to try their hand at the nasty world of speculation.
Borrowers
Lest no stone be unturned, let’s not forget about borrowers, especially homeowners. We are notoriously instant gratification-oriented here in America. It’s not so much greed, as an earnest desire to as soon as possible fulfill that American Dream we all so hold dear: single-family home, white picket fence, two-car garage, bonus room, and plasma screen tv. As such, in conjunction with the aforementioned bank lenders, many of us took out mortgages on homes we could not afford. The most egregious of these offenders are so called subprime borrowers. This term was coined by the media, but it basically means that banks are willing to lend to people they would not normally lend to, people who do not meet the “prime” standard of borrowing, hence the term “subprime.” What both these borrowers and lenders had in mind was a tasty dose of market appreciation, which would drive their new home values up, and by the time the subprime loans reset, the mortgage could be refinanced and some equity could be taken out of the house for other spending. I should point out two deceptive practices that, nonetheless, are perfectly legal, yet I doubt 25% of borrowers understood the terms when they signed up for their loan.
Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM): ARMs are absurdly deceptive on the surface, but again, it is a relatively simple concept. A mortgage payment consists of two parts, a payment on the principal of the loan and the interest derived from the interest rate charged for the loan. All ARMs have a low fixed-rate mortgage, usually for a period of two or three years, whereafter they “float,” or change up and down based on an index (usually a bank prime rate or something similar) plus a margin. What people don’t understand is that, as a basic tenet of finance, as prices fall (as I will point out later), corresponding interest rates rise. And when interest rates rise, no equity is being created in the house, and the ARM will go up, increasing the mortgage payment by the borrower. In a period of volatile frightening price drops, many borrowers simply are unable to meet their payments, largely due to their ignorance of the finances involved. Another kind of adjustable rate mortgage is where the borrower only pays the interest for an initial trial period. Then, after the period ends, the payment increases dramatically. Often, borrowers are enticed with “no money down” loans, which do not require a down payment but have a higher interest rate. The net effect of these disasterous borrowing and lending policies was the largescale default of the subprime housing market recently.
So?
So! The most pressing issue is, of course, how do we prevent such a thing from happening again? The United States is notoriously short-sighted; after all, we just had a technology bubble at the beginning of this decade! I firmly believe that fundamental change must come to the American layman in the form of financial education. Congress is hamstrung and is so bloated with corruption due to sponsorship from corporate America that we musn’t depend on new legislation to save us. Therefore, I think the most prudent idea that I have heard is to make “Finance 101″ a necessary course for graduation of high school. Think about how many times you listened to the same old story of the Pilgrims, solved the same old slope of a line, or rote memorized the parts of the body (rote memorization is a topic I will return to at a later date – it’s a large part, in my opinion, of the reason why Americans are generally stupid). One of those times should be replaced with a finance course. “But I learned how to balance my checkbook in that one class!” you say. I’m afraid simple accounting just isn’t enough to train a new wave of financially literate individuals. Present on the syllabus of my “dream” finance 101 course would be:
I think the course could be made out to be fascinating, especially if it were framed as “get your grasp on money young” or “beat your broker” or something of that kin. It certainly beats Pre-calculus for me : )
Hope you enjoyed the read and found it informative!
peace
dst~
One P.S. My brother and I are undertaking a 30 day No-Carbonated Beverages challenge until June 26th (one month). I’ll keep you abreast of how it goes.
There has been a lot of theological debate over the past year over Barack Obama’s supposed faith. Is he a Muslim? Is he the Antichrist (which would presumably induce evangelicals to vote for him in order to hasten the rapture )? Is he secretly an atheist? I joke around with people, and say that Obama is secretly an agnostic; it is known that he at least was agnostic in college, and his father was a blatant atheist, while his mother, though spiritual, never pursued any type of faith either. However, having recently studied some of his books, talks on the subject, and the recent speech he gave at Notre Dame amidst controversy, I am convinced he is indeed a Christian; in fact, probably the most desirous type of Christian to me as a non-believer. Let me tell you why:
I think it’s first best to address the issue with some media; so please watch these two relatively short videos at your leisure; armed with this knowledge, you will be able to follow along with my logic wonderfully.
First, a clip from a speech Barack Obama gave before he was even thinking about running for President (well, he’s ambitious as hell so he probably already was):
It’s a part of a five-part series he gave at a religious conference. Watch the whole thing if you have the time.
Next, I’d like to share from you a quote, from The Audacity of Hope, in his chapter entitled “Faith.” This is a truism that I feel far too few Christians ever understand:
“What our deliberative, pluralistic democracy does demand is that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific values. It requires that their proposals must be subject to argument and amenable to reason. If I am opposed to abortion for religious reasons and seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or invoke God’s will and expect that argument to carry the day. If I want others to listen to me, then I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of ALL faiths, including those with no faith at all.
For those who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do, such rules of engagement may seem one more example of the tyranny of the secular and material worlds over the sacred and eternal. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Almost by definition, faith and reason operate in different domains and involve different paths to discerning truth. Reason- and science- involve the accumulation of knowledge based on realities that we all can apprehend. Religion, by contrast, is based on truths that are not provable through ordinary human understanding, that “belief in things not seen.” When science teachers insist on keeping creationism and ID out of their classrooms, they are not asserting that scientific knowledge is superior to religious insight. They are simply insisting that each path to knowledge involves different rules and that those rules are not interchangeable.”
With these two fragments in your mind, let us continue. I’m a firm believer in private and personal faith (or lack thereof). I’m also a big believer in the First Amendment, be it Scientologist or Christian Scientist. What I’m not a fan of is legislating morality. If ever I am in a position to legislate or hand down judicial decisions in my legal career, I hereby affirm to adhere to what I will call the Law of Universal Appeal. That is, the laws governing our pluralistic society must be structured according to our multivariate backgrounds and beliefs.
For example, let’s discuss gay marriage. The government offers substantial legal and financial benefits to those couples who decide to apply for a marriage license. In the New Testament (for as we all know, OT doesn’t apply or Red Lobster would go out of business) there are a couple verses condemning homosexuality (never mind that the protagonist of the Bible, Jesus, is curiously silent on the matter). Thus, evangelicals are opposed to same-sex marriage on religious grounds. Fine, believe however you want, but does this stand up to the Law of Universal Appeal? No, it does not. There are many religious (and a-religious) people in this country who find no universal consensus on opposing same-sex marriage (in fact, recent Gallup polls show a plurality of Americans support same sex unions). Thus, if a universal legitimate reason for denying homosexuals marriage rights exists, then evangelicals must use this reason in legislating and not the words of the Bible.
Another tenet of “Barack-tianity” is broad sensible agreements. All of us, no matter pro-life, or pro-choice, want to reduce the number of abortions. Thus, funding in the matter should go towards sensible sexual education, condoms, birth control, abstinence (at times). However, would banning abortion entirely really promote women’s safety? How many more women would die from back-street abortions if abortion was outlawed entirely? This is where Obama is able to reconcile his faith with his politics. Many Roman Catholics were up in arms recently because President Obama spoke at Notre Dame’s commencement, being openly pro-choice. Never mind the wanton hypocrisy, since President Bush was there a few years back, the most trigger-happy executioner in the history of Texas (Catholics morally oppose the death penalty). Yet, Obama addressed the issue directly in his speech, relating some of the very same principles I talked about in this topic. This is a man with firm conviction in what he believes, and who understands the LINE that must be between church and state in this country.
Not that I or Obama believes there is no place in this country for faith. A recent poll showed that 95 percent of Americans believe in some form of God. It’s obvious that faith will permeate into our society no matter what I or anyone else thinks about it. With this in mind, we, no matter our beliefs, should use those beliefs to collectively begin the large project of American renewal. Churches who offer soup kitchens, send foreign aid to the troops, and promote healthy rejuvenation of ex-cons warm my heart. So do secular progressives raising money to combat AIDS in Africa. Such broad-based latticeworks of believers from many different faiths and backgrounds both promotes our general welfare and extinguishes grudges from what is a very bitter topic to some. Believers in Christ profess that good works for the sake of saying you did good works won’t get you into heaven; and so what? No one disagrees with that; in fact, I agree that if there is something out there, you’re going to have to at least have a little bit of the ole’ faith thing if you want in. But that’s beside the point – these good works can come from the heart, no matter your religious persuasion or conviction. These bind us together as Americans – remember right after 9/11- what happened to that feeling of come-togetherness in our society? I think people of all faiths (and no faith) can regain this sense if we all just realize that, despite how different we are, we’re all in this thing together.
I love Heinlein. Check out Stranger in a Strange Land for an awesome science fiction tale.
There are few things I love more in this life than a fine cigar. A cigar is many things: It’s a conversation starter, a conversation facilitator, a memory jogger, a memory maker, a mind relaxer, and a mind stimulant all at the same time.
Once, when I was younger, I smoked a long cigar with a friend late at night, and when I stood up I was the most depressed I’ve ever been in my entire life (which is rare if you know me). Yet, ever since that day, any time that I smoke a cigar, it evokes such memorable feelings that I feel it’s a habit I will be hard pressed to give up.
I think it’s because smoking a cigar is something you NEVER do alone. I am an introvert, but if you smoke a cigar with someone, you consider them a close friend. The act in and of itself so encourages deep conversations that surely any health problems are outweighed by the additional years you will live out of sheer happiness. When you smoke a cigar with someone, you don’t discuss the banalities. You discuss the future.
You immediately become contemplative when you smoke a cigar – perhaps it’s all imagery but it exists nonetheless. You want to reveal your secrets to someone you smoke a cigar with. I would even go so far as to call the process intimate.
I think many people (me included) derive their happiness from the little things more than the big ones. Stealing a kiss from a lover as you say goodbye. The dusty wind at a little league game that you go to for no reason. Enjoying a cup of tea on your patio as a storm rages around you. A cigar with your dear friend.
<3
peace,
dst
Probably one of my favorite novels of all time is Orwell’s 1984. I first read the book immediately after graduating high school, and I recently finished it again, deciding it needed to be my first book post-undergraduate as well. If you aren’t well acquainted with the novel, let me offer a brief synopsis (though I urge you to read it at the earliest notice).
1984 is set in a dystopian hypothetical future (the book was written in 1948, as Orwell lay dying of tuberculosis) where the State (or Party, in this case) exerts oligarchical authoritarianism on the unsuspecting (or unwilling to be suspecting, as I will discuss later) public. Despite the widespread poverty and perennial warfare present in the society, Party members are taught the art of doublethink, which means simultaneously accepting as correct two different mutually exclusive beliefs. For example, employees in one Party job are routinely ordered to modify past predictions, speeches by the leadership, and other forms of media to make it seem as though the Party is inviolable and all-knowing. Nevertheless, the society is so cowed by the art of doublethink that they can accept these corrections as routine and in fact, any errant thought is dismissed as a figment of one’s own imagination. Thoughtcrime is the most heinous act in 1984 society, a crime most assuredly found out and punished by torture and eventual death at the hands of the Thought Police. There are two-way television screens in every location imaginable, hidden microphones, psychological experts that analyze facial responses, and children who are trained at a young age to betray any thoughtcrime-ish acts by their parents to the authority.
It’s no surprise that Orwellian is an adjective that has penetrated into the American vernacular, used to describe any such behavior or action by the government similar to the ideas in 1984. Since 9/11, the United States government has become disgracefully more and more like the party of Big Brother. Smelling the winds of opportunity derived from our absolute fear after that fateful September, a spineless Congress passed the Patriot Act, which reads like a direct contradiction of the right to privacy afforded to us in many of our Constitutional amendments. Warrantless wiretaps, no-fly lists, SPYING on our own citizens, torture, lies, deceit, entering into a war which has cost thousands of brave American soldiers’ lives under false pretenses. We certainly have a right to be worried; terrorism is a very real and scary threat, but ultimately at what expense? Are we as a nation really so ready to give up the freedoms we fought and died to form this country for, in exchange for a little more promised security?
Hand in hand with this decrease in freedom is a decrease in civil liberties afforded to others. Whenever I think of torture, I inevitably come back to one idea of mine. The proponents of torture are largely conservatives, who are often religious and militaristic. One man they admire (as do I as well) was at one point spit on, verbally abused, beaten to within an inch of his life with a multi-tailed leather whip, accused of crimes he did not commit, forced to carry a heavy slab of wood up the side of a mountain whereupon he was summarily stabbed with nails in his hands and feet and hung, unable to breathe until he was dead. Of course I’m talking about Jesus, but how does that description not sound like torture to you. Such cognitive dissonance is extraordinary!
“Wait, wait! Waterboarding isn’t torture!” you say. But consider the past century or so in the following Washington Post article, in which the United States metes out various punishments, including forced labor and even death to various waterboarders. Why is it any different since we do it?
After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: “I was given several types of torture. . . . I was given what they call the water cure.” He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. “Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning,” he replied, “just gasping between life and death.”
Nielsen’s experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan’s military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding.
More recently, waterboarding cases have appeared in U.S. district courts. One was a civil action brought by several Filipinos seeking damages against the estate of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The plaintiffs claimed they had been subjected to torture, including water torture. The court awarded $766 million in damages, noting in its findings that “the plaintiffs experienced human rights violations including, but not limited to . . . the water cure, where a cloth was placed over the detainee’s mouth and nose, and water producing a drowning sensation.”
I think 1984 has a very apropos quote which pertains to those who were recently in power until this year. Did Bush really hear a calling from God to invade Iraq? I doubt very much that if God exists, he both wished the destruction of thousands of Iraqis and Americans, as well as missed out on the whole weapons of mass destruction thing. No, what I really think is that
“We seek power entirely for our own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power … Power is not a means; it is an end. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?”
I understand the fear many have over another terrorist attack in the United States. I have that fear as well. I also love my country very much, which is why it pains me to see it go to such extremes under such dubious circumstances. What actionable intelligence have we gleaned that could not possibly have been gotten without such an outright rape of civil liberties? Further, what message do we send to the rest of the world, who we desperately need as our allies in this War on Terror, when we commit such acts? Hell, what do potential terrorists think when they hear of a family member or friend who was tortured by the United States? Does this really quell their rage against us, or only exacerbate it? Think on it.
peace
dst
Greetings,
My name is Dustin Timblin. I’m a 22 year old finance graduate of Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, TN. I will be attending Vanderbilt Law School in the fall to pursue a degree in law. The purpose of this blog will be threefold:
1) to provide commentary for interested parties on the content of attending law school
2) to provide an outlet away from the gobbledygook of legal writing
3) to occasionally allow me to stand on my soapbox and speak my mind
A couple notes about me would, I suppose, help to understand where I’m coming from:
I think deep down I like to write, but I become frustrated because I know I can be flowery and needlessly wordy at times. I’m a heavy user of dashes, which I’ve been told is blasphemy in blog writing-but hey-they’re just so damn useful! I nevertheless value the written word; I’m a voracious reader and I hope to proffer some useful commentary and book recommendations for anyone interested.
I’m unabashedly socially liberal, but I think I see myself as more moderate economically, as a result of a libertarian-inclined faculty at my university. I voted for Barack Obama, but I would consider voting for a more centrist Republican who I saw as open-minded and intellectual (plus he/she’d lower my taxes when I’m a rich lawyer!).
Finally, regarding faith: I debated whether to post this since it’s so irregular an opinion around my parts, but if you know me, you realize I talk about it all the time. I consider myself truly an agnostic. I don’t rule out the possibility of God, nor do I fully say he does not exist. I’m a creature that’s ruled by my brain first and foremost, often to the mutual exclusion of my heart. I don’t think that I would make a very good attorney if I didn’t want to see non-circumstantial evidence, proof, facts, etc before I believed in so strong a cause. A friend and I were discussing this last night; she made an insightful comment, something to the extent of, “Belief is something that comes from an experience, not a book.” I profoundly agree, and I have to admit plainly that I have had no such experience. Please, no comments like “wellz, ur heart has 2 be open!!” and the like. Believe me, I would love nothing more than to have such a spiritual experience and I’ve kept an open mind all my life towards such things.
One of the biggest problems I have with religion (I’m referring to Christianity, since that’s what I grew up with, but the same argument would apply if I were in India) is that I have heard no real definitive argument as to why one God is more valid than the other. Simply showing me a Bible verse, or quoting the Koran, or talking about a remote miracle just doesn’t cut it for me. A good friend of mine expressed it perfectly once. He said, “Religion seems like the ultimate game of Russian roulette.” How can we begin to possibly understand the validity of one divine being (or none at all, frankly) over another when we are so UTTERLY influenced by our environment as children? Can a devout Muslim (who believes in the same God as Christians, by the way) grow up his entire life in Indonesia, going to a mosque, learning the Koran, receiving advice, instruction, and teaching from his adult peers and society tailored based on Islam REALLY go to hell if a Christian missionary tries but fails to convert him? Moreover, would you, as a Christian family, want a strange Muslim from Indonesia coming to your school or neighborhood in an attempt to convert your child to Islam? These are but a few of the issues that constantly run through my mind as I think about God.
That’s enough bloviating for now; this is just the intro post after all
Peace
dst
