Sometimes, right wingers can be funny, albeit in a deeply spine chilling scary way. The other day I saw some guy on a panel show mention Joe Francis. He said something to the effect of, “Yeah, they’re really putting the screws to that guy, but then again he’s a smut monger so I really don’t lose much sleep over it.”
There is sometimes an understandable urge to for people to throw away all notions of civil rights when they find a decent reason for it. You know, the people who take Dirty Harry movies a tad too seriously. And after all there’s the occasional time where Al Capone is running rampant and no one can figure out a legal way to take him down, but these impulses always lead to incredibly ugly abuses. God help you if you ever find out what those laws are really there for. As it is enough people have already seen enough episodes of 24 that they think that torture is and should be standard operating procedure.
A couple things I’ve heard about the Francis case seem extra odd to me.
1. They put him in a cell and kept the lights on 24-7. How is that ever ok in a civilized country? Were they afraid that he’d surreptitiously lure underage women into his cell and start videotaping them?
2. Apparently, a judge ordered him to settle a civil suit, and eventually ordered him to settle it in 24 hours. How is this kosher? Don’t you have a right to a day in court? How exactly can you settle something fairly with someone when they know that if you don’t come to an agreement in 24 hours you’ll be going to jail. Doesn’t seem like a very optimal bargaining circumstance.
Then again his big mistake was actually ever going to Florida in the first place. Face it, that’s a state that’s still in the 17th century. Evolution hasn’t completely taken hold in that state. Jim Morrison, 2 Live Crew, George W. Bush, crocodiles that are more educated than the general populace. Really, it’s time to disband that franchise. If you want to keep the flag the same, make California into two different states, because Florida has to go.
