New Poker Notes post. Losing hands this time.

Update:
Chad Reese's article appeared in the Sunday Herald-Leader on the front page of the Opinions section.

In other news, I made an update to Poker Notes.

Kudos to Chad Reese for resigning after Keith Smiley's decision not to explain the editorial cartoon by Brad Fletcher in last Friday's Kentucky Kernel. Smiley, the paper's executive editor, chose to go the route of profuse apology and retraction after the cartoon was protested on Friday afternoon. Smiley indicated that he thought the message of the cartoon was lost in its offensiveness. Fletcher also apologized for the cartoon saying that he had not realized how offensive the images were.

I haven't seen the cartoon, but from its description and my understanding of the events and culture surrounding it, it rather poignantly posits the idea that even though traditionally white fraternities are beginning to integrate and to work with traditionally black fraternities, they're doing so very selectively, and minority Greek students are still viewed by many Greeks as second-class.

Though some students are protesting the cartoon because they find it racially offensive, its point has nothing to do with that. It is a very racially charged cartoon, but since when did bringing up the issue of racism make you a racist? The real question is how legitimate do the traditionally white fraternities and sororities make minority students feel? One letter to the editor of the Kernel defined the current actions of the traditionally white Greek organizations as "tokenism."

I have no doubt that Brad Fletcher, the law student, is in fact not a racist. If anything, he has an axe to grind with the Greek system, but from what I saw during my time at UK, admittedly a few years back, his views might be justified.

Regarding free speech, a certain small-town newspaper editor declared this week in his opinion column that although he supports free speech, he thinks that sometimes it's carried too far. He also feels that we take the idea that their should be separation of church and state too farm, and that freedom of speech should include freedom to speak of (or for that matter to) God during state-supported activities. I completely disagree.

I believe that free speech should include anything that does not effectively cause harm to others. For instance it should be illegal to conspire to commit a crime, or to specifically induce another to commit a crime, or to create such disturbance that public safety is threatened. That's as far as I will go. Like the editor, I have certain things that I hold sacred too, and the First Amendment is a big one. Any abridgment, including against things that most of us find offensive, is one more step back toward the days of totalitarianism. Many of you have heard of the flag-burning amendment. It's an actual amendment designed to specifically abridge the First Amendment. It's unconstitutional to make such a law, so they're actually trying to write the abridgment to the First Amendment right into the Constitution. How can patriotic Americans support such a thing? It seems they want to save the flag but burn the Constitution. Such an attitude is jingoist at best and treasonous at worst.

As for separation of church and state not being part of the Constitution, it certainly has some pretty specific language about Congress enacting no law respecting the establishment of a religion. Legal scholars have interpreted this to mean that we should not allow religion to play a role in any level in the hierarchy of our legislative bodies. It wasn't too long ago that I was naive enough to think that this was a universally accepted good idea. As soon as one religion is allowed to exert a hold over a law-making body, then differences begin to be made about how we treat members of different religions under the law. This may sound like a fine thing when your own religion holds sway, but what happens when it does not? I believe in slippery slopes, and I believe that mixing religion with politics could lead to an oligarchy where only members of one religion are treated as first class citizens. That's why we don't talk about God in an official capacity.

Hillary Clinton and others have signed an addendum to a bill urging the president to name the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (a large part of Iran's military) as "specially designated global terrorists" for supplying Iraqi Shia insurgents with military grade weapons. Calling Iran's military terrorists is absurd. The people they are helping are not terrorists. They're an opposing force, yes, but not terrorists. It only weakens the further the credibility of the global war on terror when we go around calling everyone who fights against us a terrorist. To get stability in the Middle East we have to stop pretending they're only second class countries with second class citizens.