Hero Profile: Hugh Thompson Jr.

This is the second in a series of profiles I'm doing on unsung American heroes.

Hugh Thompson Jr. is not your typical American war hero. He didn't duel with the Red Baron, march up Iwo Jima, or lead troops across the Delaware river. He wasn't a glory hound like more well known war heroes (I'm looking at you Halsey and Macarthur) whose actual accomplishments are heavily inflated. In fact, the actions Hugh Thompson took would not be fully recognized until exactly thirty years later. But he is one of the greatest American war heroes ever because he took one of the most courageous and daring actions ever that saved many lives.

Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson was a chopper pilot during the Vietnam conflict. On March 16, 1968 Thompson and his crew encountered a horrifying situation in the village of My Lai. They saw dead civilians lying all around the village and American GIs shooting young children at point blank range. He immediately reported this to headquarters, but nothing was done.

These killings were the work of three platoons under the command of Captain Ernest Medina. As part of revenge for the previous night's murder of one of their beloved Seargents, Medina ordered the vilage of My Lai to be destroyed. What ended up happening is that civilians were pulled out of their homes and murdered. Some were murdered while kneeling around a temple praying. A man was thrown down a well and a grenade was thrown in after him.

After Thompson's reports to headquarters went unanswered, he continued to survey the situation and saw many civilians (including women and children) lying in a drainage ditch being shot by members of Lt. William Calley's platoon, including Calley himself. Calley was also seen grabbing a two year old who was running away the scene, throwing him down and shooting him. Thompson had enough at this point and decided to do something to stop this massacre.

Thompson landed his helicopter in between the American soldiers and the remaining surviving villagers. He asked one of Calley's men to help him get the civilians out of the bunker and Calley's response was that he planned to get them out with a hand grenade. Thompson told Calley to stay there because he could do better than that. Thompson ordered a gunship to land and rescue the remaining civilians while he and his crew kept watch on the American soldiers. Later on, they landed again and rescued a baby that was still clinging to its dead mother.

The military covered up the matter, but eventually Thompson's letters to members of Congress led to an investigation. Lt. William Calley was convicted in a court martial hearing and sentenced to life in prison. He would only serve three and a half years after President Nixon reduced his sentence. Despite this disgusting act by Nixon, the news of My Lai was still a significant turning point in public disapproval for the war.

I felt it especially necessary to honor Hugh Thompson on Independence day. While he wasn't the famous leader of a battle, he represented the true idea of what it means to be an American. Lt. Calley and those participating in the massacre were putting a black mark on the name of our country and people who do that must be stopped. Hugh Thompson put his life and career on the line to rescue as many civilians as possible and report those who were responsible. In doing so, he became one of the greatest men to ever wear a mlitary uniform for the United States.

History Repeating Itself: Reagan, Clinton, and Obama

We've seen the pattern before. A candidate storms into office kicking out the opposing party in the midst of woeful economic times. The economy continues to get worse and the new president gets massacred in the midterm elections. However, by the time re-election rolls around the economy has improved somewhat and the president rolls to a relatively easy victory.

Example 1: In 1980, with unemployment inching up to 7.5%, Reagan handily defeats incumbent president Jimmy Carter. Unemployment continued to rise and reached a high of 10.8% in November of 1982. This resulted in the Democrats getting a bigger foothold in Congress with a gain of 27 seats in the House. By November 1984 unemployment had fallen to 7.2%, barely lower than what Reagan inherited from his predecessor. However, the sign of progress was enough to convince voters and Reagan's "Morning in America" campaign led to a landslide victory.

Example 2: In 1992 unemployment rocketed back up into the 7% range after being in the 5-6% range for most of the 2nd half of the 80s. This resulted in the relatively unknown Bill Clinton coming from nowhere with a campaign focusing completely on the economy and winning the presidency.  By 1994, unemployment had actually fallen, but there was dissatisfaction with Clinton's attempts to overhaul healthcare abd the Democrats lost control of congress in a landslide midterm election. By November 1996, unemployment was now so low (5.2%) that voters no longer cared about anything else. Clinton was able to run a re-election focused solely on the economy and won an easy victory.

Obama's story has many similarities to these two examples. He didn't defeat an incumbent but successfuly tied his opponent to the former President's miserable economic record (Unemployment rose from 4.2% to 8.2% under Bush's watch) and won a campaign based on an economic message. The economy continued to get worse and reached 9.8% by November 2010. This resulted in a stinging defeat for Obama's party in the midterm elections. Since then, unemployment has fallen to the current level of 9.1%.

Does this mean victory is a certainty for Obama? Not at all. There are many things that could happen between now and November 2012. Who knows what candidate the GOP will pick. Unemployment could go back up to the 10% range. Obama could commit a major gaffe in the campaign or there could be some sort of foreign policy disaster. The likeliness of any of those events are up for debate. I just mention this to show that the conditions aren't quite as bad as they may seem. In fact, Obama's current approval rating (46%) is higher than Reagan (45%) and Clinton (37%) at the same point in their presidencies. Couple that with the GOP's tendency to overreach lately (Christine O' Donnell, Sharron Angle) and Obama could be in position for an easy re-election victory that would surprise people who don't remember their history.

Hero Profile: Judge James Horton

I don't want my blog to be completely negative and always filled with complaining about everything the Republicans do, so I've decided to start this little segment where I profile individuals who I consider to be true heroes. The goal of this will be to shed light on some historical people that may not be very well known to the public at large. I plan to make this a weekly feature.

My first profile will be about Judge James Horton. In 1933, Horton was a circuit judge in Scottsboro, Alabama. He had one year left in his second term, but the popular judge was not expected to face a serious election challenge.  Everything changed when the second trial of the "Scottsboro Boys" was assigned to his courtroom. Horton's actions during this trial essentially ended his legal career, but also made him one of the finest men to ever step foot in a courtroom.

The Scottsboro Boys were nine African-American teenagers who were accused by two white women of raping them on a railroad car. In 1930's Alabama, this pretty much guaranteed a conviction and that's what happened in the first trial. With hopelessly inadequate counsel representing them, they were quickly convicted and sentenced to death (except for 12 yr old Roy Wright, as one minister on the jury refused to sentence the youngest boy to death). The verdicts were appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned them due to inadequate counsel.

The second set of trials were now receiving tons of publicity and there was hostility among local citizens. One of the first great acts Judge Horton undertook was on day three of the trial after hearing reports of an planned lynching of the defendants. He issued a strong and passionate warning to any potential lynchers. Here are some excerpts from his statement:

"Any man or group of men that attempts to take charge outside of the law, are not only disobedient to the law, but are citizens unworthy of the protection of the State of Alabama, and unworthy of the citizenship which they enjoy.  I say this much, that the man who would engage in anything that would cause the death of any of these prisoners is not only a murderer, but a cowardly murderer, and a man whom we should look down upon with all the contempt in our being;"

"I am speaking with feeling, and I know it, because I am feeling it.  I absolutely have no patience with mob spirit, and that spirit that would charge the guilt or innocence of any being without knowing of their guilt or innocence.  Your very civilization depends upon the carrying out of your laws in an orderly manner."

"Now, gentlemen I want that understood, and I will say this much; if there is any meeting in this town where such matters are discussed, where such thoughts are brought forward, the men that attend such a meeting should be ashamed of themselves; they are unworthy citizens of your town, and the good people of this town look down on them. "
This pretty much ended any discussion of lynching, but the media circus was still alive and the trial had many twists and turns. One of the accusers, Ruby Bates, showed up as a surprise witness and recanted her story. Furthermore, a doctor came up to Judge Horton in private and said the physical evidence exonerated the defendants. The doctor refused to testify, worried that doing so would destroy his practice. Still, Judge Horton made sure to pay great attention to the testimony of the prosecution's doctor and that of Victoria Price, the other accuser who had not recanted her story.

Despite questionable physical evidence, one of the accusers admitting the story was made up, and dubious testimony from the other accuser, the jury still came back with a guilty verdict. The defense motioned for the verdict to be set aside because there wasn't sufficient evidence to convict. This is a standard motion that is rarely granted, and there was little hope that a judge would grant such a motion when the entire state of Alabama was convinced of the boys' guilt. Everyone was shocked when Judge Horton did just that (in a ruling that carefully laid out the evidence and left no doubt of the boys' innocence), sparing them of a death sentence and ordering a new trial to take place.

There was a third set of trials under a less favorable judge and the defendants were convicted again. However, the Supreme Court once again overturned the verdicts because African-Americans had been denied the right to serve on juries in Alabama. None of the defendants were ever found not guilty by a jury, but all eventually were paroled, escaped or had charges reduced. In 1948, one of the older boys Haywood Patterson escaped to Michigan and wrote a book about his experiences. When the book was released, the FBI arrested him but the Michigan governor refused to grant extradition back to Alabama. In 1976, Alabama governor George Wallace (in his attempt to appear more moderate on race relations) pardoned Clarence Norris, who was the last living Scottsboro Boy.

As for Judge Horton, he had been elected to the bench by comfortable margins in his first two terms, but was soundly defeated in his re-election bid this time around. He knew this was a very likely outcome before he made his decision, but was always strongly convinced he did the right thing. He had previously instructed the jury that they should do their duty "without fear or favor" and made sure to live up to his own words. The doctor who refused to testify was no doubt a good man and at least tried to do something. However, this is what separates great men from good men. Horton was willing to take the step and risk his career, while the doctor was not.

There have been many great men in the legal profession over the years. Names like John Marshall, Clarence Darrow, Thurgood Marshall, John Adams, and many others. James Horton belongs on that same list. His speech to the lynchers should be burned into the minds of all those who prejudge the guilt of a person, and his courageous decision to set aside the verdict should be a lesson to all of us in standing up for the right thing no matter the consequences. James Horton is an American hero because he sacrificed his career to save the lives of nine innocent teenagers.

No Taxation Without Representation

In the United States of America, there currently exists a group of people that are treated like second-class citizens. I'm talking about the residents of the District of Columbia. They are currently the only people in the country that pay full federal taxes, but do not have representatives in Congress that get to determine the rate of those taxes. Sadly, the only reason it hasn't been corrected has been pure partisan politics.

Given the nature of our nation's founding, this is an egregious violation of one of our most sacred beliefs. The phrase "No Taxation Without Representation" was a rallying cry during the American Revolution. It was the principal upon which the Stamp Act was rejected and the Boston Tea Party took place. The colonists did not believe that taxation could be applied to people that had no representation which could protest or alter such taxes. So how come more than 240 years later we are still letting this happen within our own country?

People that are against voting representation for Washington D.C. residents will tell you that the district was set up this way back in 1789, and they're right. The initial concern was that no state have police or funding power over federal employees. But today it would be pretty easy to let DC have full representation and governance, while retaining independent congressional control of all governmental buildings in the district. Under this system no state, not even the new D.C. could put pressure on federal employees.

It doesn't really matter how the district was set up in 1789. Things have changed since then. The constitution has been amended twenty seven times over the ensuing years. In 1961, the twenty-third Amendment was passed, giving the district three electoral votes in the presidential election. The world didn't end. The sky didn't fall. Our republic still stands. And now it's time to pass a new amendment, giving the district full voting representation in Congress.

There have been recent attempts to pass a bill called DC Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act. It would grant the district a voting representative in the House, but not in the Senate. To placate Republicans (who know the extra seat would be occupied by a Democrat), the proposal also calls for an extra seat being given to Utah. This is political partisanship at its worst. The District of Columbia deserves the same voting rights as any state, and to refuse representation for political reasons is disgraceful.

There are 601,723 citizens in the District of Columbia. This is 33,423 more than the state of Wyoming, which has two Senators and one Representative. Other states like Alaska, North Dakota, and Vermont have less then 100,000 more residents than the district. All of these states have two Senators and one Representative. Why do the citizens of these states deserve more rights than the citizens of our capital city?

The District of Columbia deserves full voting representation immediately. They should have the one Representative and two Senators they would be entitled to if they were a state. There is no sound logical or ethical argument against giving them their due representation. And that representation should not be contingent on adding representation for another state. If you're going to make them pay full federal taxes, then they should get an equal vote on those taxes and they should get it now.

Thoughts on Dr. Jack Kevorkian

 

Dr. Jack Kevorkian passed away earlier today. He's certainly a controversial figure and maybe wasn't the best poster child for the assisted suicide cause. I tend to think he was right, even if some of the accusations about his methods make me uncomfortable. There are reports that some of Kevorkian's patients were not actually terminally ill. This is a bit troubling especially in conjunction with the fact that he certainly seemed to rush in many cases to have the assisted suicide performed. A report discovered that many of Kevorkian's patients were killed within 24 hours.

The problem with this is that for someone who is not terminally ill, they could be undergoing a temporary desire for death, something that could be overcome by counseling or referrals to other doctors who could assist with problems. While I think an individual has the right to die on their own terms, I'm not sure I feel comfortable with it being legal for someone to perform an assisted suicide for a non-terminally ill patient since it leads to some of these problems. At the very least, guidelines would need to be put into place to make sure physicians were more thorough than Kevorkian was before going ahead with it.

Kevorkian did shed some light on an important subject. Terminally ill patients should have such an option in order to escape the terrible pain of a long, slow death. Since he gained notoriety, three states (Oregon, Montana, Washington) have passed laws allowing assisted suicide (the Oregon law does have limitation as I mentioned above). In the end, I believe Kevorkian's heart was in the right place, even if I don't agree with everything he did.

Why I Oppose Florida's New Drug Testing Law

Florida Governor Rick Scott (pictured above) signed a bill into law requiring welfare recipients to undergo a drug test before they receive their benefits. They must pay for the drug test themselves, but will be reimbursed if they pass the test. Positive tests will result in a one year ban from welfare and a second positive test will result in a three year ban. I think this is a horrible idea for a number of reasons.

This is yet another chapter of the War on Drugs, a miserable failure that has wasted tons of taxpayer dollars for decades. For some reason, our government has decided that the best way to attack the drug problem is to punish users instead of treating them. I see it differently. I don't view drug addicts as losers. I consider them victims of dealers/traffickers and the best way to deal with the problem is treatment instead of punishment.

I've seen the toll drug addiction takes on people and the struggle it takes to get clean. I think cutting off assistance to these people will only make things worse. I mean, where will these people go when they lose their benefits? They will go back to the streets, continue their drug habit and probably use crime as a means of getting it. If anything, this will lead to a worse financial problem for Florida as it will likely lead to an increased prison population. I'd rather the government look for ways to help people break the cycle of addiction than just blindly cutting them off and hoping the problem goes away.

Everyone receives some kind of government benefit in one way or another (financial aid, government highways, corporate bailout money, etc.), so Gov. Scott's argument that this protects the taxpayers from supporting drug addicts doesn't pass the smell test, because if that was the real goal then he'd have to drug test everyone in the state and deny them of whatever benefits they are receiving. When Michigan passed a similar law in 2003, a federal judge used similar reasoning in striking the law down as an unconstitutional violation of the 4th Amendment. The ACLU has filed suit and hopefully the same result will happen in Florida.

What I do find highly offensive is this is just another case where people at the bottom are being attacked. Ever since the 2010 midterm elections, conservatives have made it their mission to target teachers, unions, immigrants, the unemployed, people on welfare, and even 9/11 rescue workers who needed medical assistance. Yet the rich CEO's, bankers, and real estate lenders who used corruption to line their pockets and contributed to the country's economic collapse have largely gotten away with no punishments whatsoever. If there was any law requiring business owners to submit to drug tests, I guarantee you the conservatives would be up in arms and the tea party would be holding massive rallies condemning the law.

Another problem with the bill is that people are expected to front the money for the drug tests (expected to range $10 to $25). That may not seem like alot, but it certainly is for someone on welfare who needs every dollar they can get to feed their family. Sure, people get reimbursed if they pass the test, but waiting for a reimbursement isn't necessarily feasible for people on welfare. I suspect the real reason for this is Governor Scott and the GOP hope people (whether drug users or not) won't be able to come up with the money or won't want to undergo blood/urine tests, thus reducing the welfare rolls and making him look like a fiscally responsible hero.

Alot of this comes from a seriously warped view of what people on welfare are like. The stereotype is that they are lazy, don't want a job, keep having kids, and waste their welfare money on drugs and other frivolous items. There's no doubt that there are people like that. But there are many people that are trying to do their best in an awful situation and climb out of the depths of poverty. In fact, a pilot drug testing program in Florida found that the number of welfare recipients testing positive did not significantly differ from the population at large.

I hope the ACLU is successful and this new law dies in the courts, not because I think people should be able to use taxpayer money to supplement their drug habit, but because I think there are better ways to fight the problem - treatment, education, job placement programs. All of these are better solutions to the problem than requiring poor people to provide blood/urine samples to receive money they desperately need to live on.

Beginnings: The Definition of Liberal

I've been pondering starting a political blog for a while now, but just never got around to it. This is somewhat of a scattershot attempt to finally get one under way. I don't know how often I'll post. The content may range from long editorial pieces to short rants. At some point it may develop into a more organized and cogent political journal. For now it will be a place for me to complain about the latest political annoyance without constantly annoying my friends on Facebook.

As you can guess by the blog title, I am a liberal, and a proud one at that. The term has become negative over the last couple decades, a development that is really unfortunate especially since conservative has not received the same treatment. I think the left needs to take that word back After all, as Matt Santos pointed out on The West Wing:

"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things ­ every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator. Because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor."

It's doubtful that many real life politicians will have the courage of a Matt Santos. Most Democrats running for office seem to spend half the campaign demonstrating as many ways as possible that they are not a liberal, but a moderate. Even on a smaller scale, many people are afraid of what people will think if they admit to being a liberal and instead claim to be a moderate, despite supporting almost every single leftist position. At some point, this has got to stop. Like Matt Santos, I wear the term as a badge of honor and I urge other liberals to come out of hiding and do the same.


I'll end my first post with the following image that provides a perfect definition of a liberal: