Well, this is good and bad. Good for Joanne, not so good for everyone else.
The good news is that common sense finally prevailed... In our system, it really only takes one person to come to their senses... One judge, one DA, one juror is all it takes to stop this train wreck.
The bad news... First, it's a wimpy dismissal. It's one thing to say "this law is sick, we shouldn't be doing this to one of our citizens," and another thing to say "she is is the embodiment of Lucifer, I just don't have the time or money to string her up right now."
But second, his choice to dismiss leaves the law intact. As I mentioned months ago, what we really need is for a person with the means and desire to stick it out... to get convicted, have the conviction stand on appeal so that a federal circuit or the Supreme Court could get their hands on it and pound this law into submission. One of the problems with our system is that once that one person--the DA, judge, or juror--does come to their senses, the prosecution stops and the law stands. We need laws like these struck down.
I remember back when a huge, multi-million dollar bounty was awarded to the guy who bought a new BMW from a dealer, only to find out later that it had been repainted by the dealer before being sold to him. The dealer appealed that the huge award was unreasonable. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and it was the most irate I have ever heard of the Court ever being. They disparaged all involved with VERY personal condemnation, and used language I had never heard in an opinion. They said they were disgusted with the lack of professionalism exhibited by all of the judges involved and the lack of citizenship diplayed by the jurors.
That's what we need... We need the Supreme Court to say "Fuck this noise, this law needs to go and the people trying to enforce it, well, they oughta go to."
Ya know, I hope everyone remembers cases like these. Every time the subject of personal freedoms comes up, I argue pretty strongly that we ought to error on the side of liberty. And every time I do that, I hear the same criticism, that liberty is some fringe view, some extremist position. In the recent thread on profiling, the case for individual liberty was repeatedly dismissed as "ultra-left", "emotion laden", "misguided", or "lacking pragmatism." (sorry that that thread was here on this board)
Liberty is not some fringe concept, some groundswell movement that radicals from the ACLU or the Libertarian Party are trying to get whipped up just to cause problems for everyone. Liberty is a mainstream issue that effects our daily lives... That effects our ability to sell "anal intruders" in our living rooms to our friends if we so choose.
Personal liberty is not the domain of the Libertarian Party, or the ACLU, or the NRA. It is a Democrat issue, a Republican issue, an Indpendent issue... It is THE central American issue, it is THE mainstream position. The experiment of democracy, of the fundamental dominion of man over his rulers, has only just begun, we're only a blink of an eye into it so far. And already, we allow people to dismiss liberty as some foolish game that the radical extremists are trying to perpetrate against the center.
As long as there's one person left in this country who believes that liberty is a peripheral issue, there will be Joanne Webbs.
