It is always easier to give advice or mandates for others than to actually do it.  I am guilty of such and I am sure that many of us are.  But, when I do it, it does not hit as hard as, say, when the President does it.

President Obama’s energy plan includes encouraging Americans to buy more fuel-efficient (e.g. hybrid) vehicles.  That’s great and all, disregarding the price of such cars and replacement parts.  But it’s the way the President presents this plan that gets to me.  For example, how he reacts to an audience member at this town meeting (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1JtIY0K_cY).  He laughs it off and replies with how this guy with 10 kids should get a hybrid SUV (again, disregarding the price tag).

But that’s not what really bothers me.

It was the President’s recent Los Angeles trip that got me to actually write this post.  President Obama was in town to go to three fundraising events. (Anyone else find it annoying that our taxes are going to fundraising events?  But I digress.)

How is this for fuel-efficiency:  President Obama flew to Los Angeles from San Francisco. Okay, not bad — we all fly.  But then you factor in the planes used to transport the President’s motorcade, the press plane, and any other plane that the advance team uses, and well, it’s a bit more complicated than your everyday Southwest flight from San Francisco to LAX.

Next, you have the helicopter that flew the President from LAX to West Los Angeles – about 12 miles, give or take.  But then you also have the other helicopters that fly with Marine One in its shell-game operation.  Plus, the news helicopters, the police helicopters, and the helicopters that scouted the President’s routes about a week before.  So, more fuel (and tax dollars).

From West Los Angeles, the President double-backed south to Culver City, this time in his motorcade … of 45 vehicles.  For security, I am also going to factor in all the local police vehicles for extra patrols and the closing of roads, etc.  And I tell you, most of those vehicles, totally  not hybrid anything.

Finally, we come to the gas that just burned in all those cars of people stuck in traffic on the West Side.  Granted, this trip wasn’t as horrible as the President’s last trip in terms of gridlock.  With gas at an average of $4.20/gallon in Los Angeles, I doubt people were happy about the extra commute time (or maybe they didn’t commute at all to avoid it completely; for those not on salary, well that’s just money lost instead of carbon emissions).

As a conservative, yes I am annoyed.  Because all of that above was for fundraising.

Yes, all of that was necessary for the President to do (keep) his job (for the DNC).  But it’s also necessary for a lot of people to keep their fuel “inefficient” cars to do their jobs and take care of their families.  So, my response to the President (and all those in his defense), get a hybrid plane.  Or a teleporter, it’s more fuel-efficient.

This past week has been an eye-opener for me when it comes to protecting the rights under the two religion clauses of the First Amendment.  You know the two I’m talking about: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause — gotta love ‘em.  How people use these clauses? Well, that’s another matter.

Bill Maher aired an eleven-year-old clip of Christine O’Donnell, the GOP candidate for a Senate seat in Delaware, in which O’Donnell said she dabbled in witchcraft. Apparently this was part of a blackmail scheme to have the candidate appear on Maher’s show.

The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment protects everyone’s right to practice their chosen religion.  Understanding this basic concept, I do not disrespect or judge the religions and beliefs of others.  In fact, realizing that I was protected by this clause, I looked into many religions to find what worked for me outside of Christianity.  This includes witchcraft, Buddhism, Taoism, and atheism.  My relationship with God, now, is stronger because of my ability to choose my beliefs. So, again, I don’t understand why O’Donnell’s “dabbling” is an issue.  What’s her position on health care reform? What will she do in the Senate, if elected?  Heck, why do I care about the Delaware Senate seat?

But apparently witchcraft is a “big” issue, at least from what I’ve observed these last few days.

When you search the term “witchcraft” on CBS News, the first page of results is filled with Christine O’Donnell. When you search for “Wellesley Middle School”, “field trip mosque”, or “Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center”, you get stories about the mosque controversy in New York.  Better yet, when you search “Christine O’Donnell witchcraft” on Google, you get more results than “Massachussetts field trip mosque”.

You’re probably asking yourself right now, “Why do you care about a field trip?  Heck, why would I care?”  Because that field trip was the worst violation of the First Amendment I’ve seen in a long time.

What happened: a group of public school kids take a field trip to a mosque, as part of a lesson about world religions; several boys on the trip participated in prayer.  No one stopped it.  (Where was the teacher?!)  This happened in May.  The superintendent of the school district apologized in September, AFTER video of the service was made public.

This is why I feel most arguments I’ve heard about “separation of church and state” and free exercise of religion are cosmetic; people are “fighting” for it wrong.  What happened on that field trip is the very thing that the First Amendment is designed to prevent, isn’t it?  Isn’t that the argument for separation of church and state?

Where is the outcry over this field trip?  Where is the ACLU?  Where are all the people who argued that “under God” should be taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance?  Where is the President?  Oh right, he’s off editing the Declaration of Independence.

Teacher-led prayer is no longer allowed in the classroom.  A “moment of prayer” law is unconstitutional because it establishes religion.  A non-denomination, non-religion specific prayer can no longer start a high school graduation ceremony.  But kids kneeling and praying during a school-sponsored field trip, that’s okay.

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The beauty of the First Amendment is that it reinforces the idea that humans are endowed with free will and choice.  So, I ask those who want to fight to protect the First Amendment to think about what you’re really fighting for: is it the right or for your own beliefs?

My Twitter feed has been peppered with many references to last week’s incident involving a flotilla. Admittedly, I do not know much about all that has been said about the incident since my eyes have been (mostly) glued to my Bar Review books.  From what I’ve read, though, at least nine people were killed, the United Nations has already called for an independent inquiry & its Human Rights Council has condemned it, and there have been many protests against and in support of Israel’s actions. Is that a good summary?

My only question is: where the hell is the outrage over the sinking of a South Korean navy corvette* which killed 46 soldiers?  South Korea and the United States has already announced that the attack probably came from North Korea.  Probably. We don’t know for sure.  Why? Because no one wants to piss off North Korea.

South Korea had to send a letter to the U.N. Security Council, petitioning that they do something.  The country that was attacked had to ask the United Nations to do something. After a MONTH!  It took the U.N. how long to respond to Israel’s actions?  Less than a week.

I guess what gripes me about this situation is that South Korea remains at war with North Korea.  You would think if anything got the attention of the UN Security Council, it would be an act of aggression by a war party against its rival.  But no. They can’t be bothered.  Rather, they’re dealing with a situation where activists set sail for a place with a blockade on it, armed with weapons, and got into a fight.

We all jump on Israel’s back for what happened, while North Korea (the zit of East Asia) gets to imprison people for 12 years for crossing over the border requiring a former President to come and get those prisoners, who threaten to test nuclear weapons (that hopefully they don’t have), who puts people in concentration camps for having different political views, manned by a guy who kidnaps people so they can make him movies & spends more money on booze than feeding the people under his command,  essentially act like a baby whenever it wants something, AND gets to sink ships & kill people.

Yeah.

I know better than to hold my breath for the proper outrage.

* Edited. Original draft said a South Korean submarine was hit; it was a corvette.  It’s said that a North Korean submarine was the culprit.  h/t Akin.

Yesterday, I posted a lesson on the First Amendment.  It seems that the Mexican American students and their supporters took the advice of adding speech on top of more speech to heart.  On Thursday, 200 students walked out of the classrooms of Live Oak High School and marched to the school district headquarters.

All I can say is: Go you!

Aren’t you happy that the First Amendment (kinda*) allows you to do that?!

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One thing bugs me about the news article and what it reported about the motives about the marchers:

“The students say they want people to know they’re proud of their heritage and they believe wearing red, white and blue on Cinco de Mayo is disrespectful.”

I get how wearing red, white, and blue could be construed as disrespectful.  But, the school district cannot force people to change just because it’s disrespectful.  If that was true, I’d petition the school districts to ban Spandex from being worn. (Spandex-wearers are disrespecting my vision!  But I digress.)

I applaud you for how you’re trying to get respect, though.  You’re marching, you’re using the First Amendment for good.  You get many props for that.  There’s honor in the way you chose to get your message out.  My only message to you would be: allow others to do the same.

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* What’s with the “kinda”?  Again, Tinker allows school officials to limit free speech if that speech disrupts school operations.  Walking out of the classroom (and essentially skipping class) is a major disruption – more so than a “fight”.  The school officials could punish these kids for their walk-out without violating the First Amendment.  Furthermore, each of those students could be detained by a police officer for skipping school, since they are breaking the compulsory education laws of California.  But, given the state of things surrounding this entire controversy, I doubt any of these students will be punished.

Really think about that.  Now, compare that to the shirts.   Regardless of what you may think about wearing the American flag on Cinco de Mayo, what happened to the Live Oak Five was just wrong.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof[.]“

It’s First Amendment Day. Not only because of the fall-out from the Live Oak Five, but because today is the “National Day of Prayer”.   All we need now is government censoring of the press …

The National Day of Prayer is established by statute:

The President shall issue each year a proclamation designating the first Thursday in May as a National Day of Prayer on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups, and as individuals. 36 U.S.C. § 199.

In my opinion, this statute does not pass the Lemon Establishment Clause test (Prong 1: “The statute must have a secular legislative purpose”).  This is not to say that the government is establishing a religion.  At most, this statute assumes there is an underlying belief in “God” (or other supernatural deity) who people “turn to in prayer”.

From my perspective of the world, belief in God does not equal a religion.  Yes, belief in God is a fundamental belief in many religions, but it’s not religion in and of itself.  (If it were, why haven’t the world’s religions merged already?)  I can believe that God exists and has brothers and sisters that are in charge of their own universes.  Is that belief a religion?  Religion, to me, is more than that.

But I understand that there are those in the world who do equate the acknowledgment that God exists as being religious, thus, the government should have nothing to say on the matter.

It’s been a constant struggle between two sets of people:  those advocating for complete separation of church and state and those who don’t mind religion being mentioned, as long as one religion isn’t favored over the other.  From the cases I’ve read regarding the Establishment Clause, it really is a toss-up on who wins on a certain issue.

Continued…