Handcuffed To Pole

My entry has to do with the 17 year old mentally challenged young man who was found this week handcuffed to a pole in his parent’s basement.  In the article, the boy is quoted as claiming he’d been handcuffed in the basement for months and had food rationed to him daily.  Apparently the parents locked him in the basement at first for stealing food, and once he figured out how to get out of the basement began stealing food again, thus (of course) leading the parents to handcuff him to the basement pole.  The article fails to state if the parents were arrested on site for having their son handcuffed to the pole.

The correlation I draw between this situation in this article and public policy and local politics is this:  are we really doing enough to serve those affected by poor mental health and mental disabilities?  Think about all the handicapped parking spots you see, think about all the building codes that require ramps for the physically impaired.  Now think about what resources are available for those who are mentally handicapped or have poor mental health, and on top of that, think about what resources are available to those parents, caregivers, or family members of those suffering from poor mental health?

I don’t believe that the state or the city does enough for these people.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating chaining the mentally handicapped to a basement poll, but if you’re a parent of a 17 year old mentally challenged kid, and you feel he’s out of control and are worried he may be a harm to the community, who do you go to?  Who can help?  I think about all the handicapped parking spaces designated for those with physical disabilities…I don’t think we put forth even 1/10th the resources to mentally challenged and handicapped people as we do those with physical disabilities.

Judicial Self-Restraint

Judicial self-restraint refers to self-imposed restrictions on judicial decision making, often times because a case reflects a political question or lacks standing or jurisdiction.  It allows judges to interpret the law narrowly on a micro-level rather than more general.  This leaves room for judicial activism, not having to bring closure to constitutionality questions, and answering political questions, none of which are supposed to be the primary job of a judge.  By exercising judicial self-restraint, judges allow the legislative and executive branches to develop government policy and don’t get as heavily involved in legislating from the bench.  I believe that not only should judicial self-restraint be exercised, but those judges who fail to wield it are doing more harm than good to the legitimacy of their court and to their reputation and legacy of their judgeship.

Judicial activism can be a reason a judge fails to exercise judicial self-restraint, rather than failure to exercise judicial self-restraint creating an opportunity for judicial activism.  An example of this would be Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission (2010).  In that decision, the Supreme Count of the United States ruled 5-4 (along ideological lines) that certain portions of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Law were unconstitutional.  This ruling gave corporations and labor unions the ability to spending unlimited amounts of money in electioneering.  The majority opinion of the court reminded Congress it may not jail or fine citizens, or groups of citizens, for engaging in free speech, and that because the first amendment does not differentiate media from other entities, those parts of McCain-Feingold could potentially allow Congress to limit free political speech in movies, books, and on the internet.  The dissenting opinion, on the other hand, focused more on the fairness or unfairness of elections, should corporations and labor unions be able to spend unlimitedly on elections.  I paraphrase here but one of the quotes of Stevens was, “America cannot function when its elections and constituents are being bought and sold”.  The most apparent examples of the court delegitimizing itself in this case were the fact that the decision was 5-4 (along party lines) and that there were five concurrences written along by the five conservative judges.  After losing the presidency decisively in 2008 to a liberal democrat, that five conservative judges were practicing judicial self-restraint all had different reasons for allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money in federal, state, and municipal elections was obvious judicial activism.  They lost to a liberal democrat and were mad about it.

An example of the Supreme Court failing to exercise judicial self-restraint and thereby creating policy was in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969).  In this case, the Court ended up making a ridicules rule called the “Disruption Test”, and applied it to future cases.  The idea that a State’s right to maintain order in their educational system could at times trump a child’s right to free speech wasn’t all that surprising to me.  What was surprising was that they set the bar so high for a case to meet the Disruption Test “standard” (some could also call it “failure to meet standing”) that rarely is a case ever heard where student communication & rights are in questions.  I realize the Court does not rule on hypothetical situations, but one would think they’d be more clear in their ruling in this case that it would in turn avoid many more petitions for the Court to hear cases along the same lines as this one.  By continuing to give generalized opinions that continue to invite more challenges along the same issues, the Supreme Court definitely de-legitimizes itself.

The best example I can think of where the Supreme Court has answered a political question rather than exercised judicial self-restraint was in Row vs. Wade (1973).  On a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court extended the due process clause of the 14^th Amendment and essentially created the policy of states needing to tie the legality of abortion to a particular trimester of the pregnancy.  In this case, I believe the Court had no other alternative other than to not hear the case.  Even then, however, they could have been criticized because the case was certainly ripe and the fury over the legality of abortion was one that fired up practically all Americans.  It is not the job of the Court to decide how and when an act would be made illegal; it’s the job to determine if a law on the books is constitutional or if it infringes upon the right(s) of an American(s), and today even some non-Americans.

I think often times the Supreme Court has the toughest job in all of Government; basically having to confirm or toss out a law that’s been passed and signed into law either through careful and lengthy negotiations or even through a hasty “pass it so we can see what’s in it” method.  It’s not within the bounds of the constitution for the Supreme Court to pass law, create policy or advocate from the bench.  They also have a responsibility to answer the main question of law at hand thoroughly and completely; to avoid doing so simply kicks the can down the road for the next session(s) of the Court.  In order to act responsibly and fulfill their functions of government, judges and justices much practice judicial self-restraint to ensure they’re not stepping out of bounds, either on purpose or being forced to do so, such as they were with National Federation of Independent Business vs. Sebelius (2012).   They are judges, not legislators.  It’s important they remain impartial and only rule when they must.  That’s how they preserve their legitimacy and credibility.

Gaming

Contrary to my prior thought, there is a biological explanation to gambling.   I was able to find a brief description of what goes on inside the brain when gambling takes place. Serotonin and norepinephrine are chemicals emitted by the brain when gamblers gamble.  Some pathological gamblers have lower levels of norepinephrine than normal gamblers, these chemicals are secreted from the brain during high excitement activities, with a difficiency in this area the gambler will continue to seek excitement, this emulates a drug addiction. Reward in gambling produces brain activity which is similar to what occurs during drug use. This causes an  “impulse-control disorder”, which also occurs in other situations such as compulsive shopping or to go as far as pyromania.  Research has shown that use of paroxetine, generally used for OCD treatment, has proven improvement in cases of Impulse-control Disorder (“Problem Gamb.”).

Treatment for gambling is extraordinarily similar to treatment for alcoholism.  One approach is a 12-step program; which begins with the gambler acknowledging he has problem. The 12-step program has a 50% success rate. While both gambling and drug addiction are fairly easy to fall into, drug addictions can be much stronger.  Nicotine, for example gets a progressively stronger hold on the user.

Surgeon General warnings can be found on all tobacco products found in the United States, and in Europe you can find on most tobacco boxes fairly large warnings of the dangers of addiction.  Casinos are not taking enough initiative to help fight the risk of creating gambling compulsive players.  Measures should be taken to help prevent this from happening, such as finding a way to limit game-time among frequent players to monitor possible pathological gamblers.  In addition, the government must take a stronger position on this, because the machine of big business often lacks emotion, often simply seeking profits.  I believe people should be allowed to play, but it should be a privilege, not a right.  Perhaps similar to obtianing a driver’s license.  

In conclusion, through my research and personal experience, I have seen that gambling is a true addiction, with real physiological bonds.  Even though gambling is not as physically dangerous as drugs are, the dangers of gambling should not be taken lightly. Gambling is an addiction that can take someone slowly by surprise, and without their consent.  Before the gambler knows it he will be in a hole that is difficult to get out of.  There is no nicotine patch for gambling; the only way to stop is to force yourself by setting down rules and showing real discipline.

Light Rail

I think it’s interesting that Kansas City voters within a certain geographic area elected to pass the light rail initiative before there was more of a cohesive plan in place as to where else it would run to.  The two mile track from City Market to Union Station doesn’t seem, at this point, to have much benefit to other municipalities who could potentially benefit from track being laid to other municipalities, such as North Kansas City, Gladstone, the “Zona Rosa” area, not to mention Overland Park, Roeland Park, etc.  I would think the Mayor of Kansas City would have had much more collaboration and planning put into this $100 million dollar project, as out sewer system and roads are in extreme need of upgrading and repairs. 

I thought it interesting the phrasing that the City Administrator of North Kansas City used when he said he wanted “more insight” into how the track would cross the Missouri River.  Wouldn’t one think that more cooperation and semi-regional planning would have taken place, given the financial and opportunity cost of this $100 million dollar project?  Another interesting point brought up in the article is that in past years, NKC residents passed a sales tax that would have supporting the building of light rail, but it was contingent upon KCMO residents doing the same. As a result of KCMO voters turning it down, NKC’s sales tax never kicked in.  I could now see a separate policy issue for NKC that Sly James may be able to leverage.  It would go something like this – Sly: “You said if we passed it, you’d support it though taxes.  Well, we passed it.  Where’s the money?"

Killings in Kansas City

I’m writing today about an article that gives an account of the second victim in Wednesday’s deadly shooting at a rap music recording studio in the urban core of Kansas City, MO.

One of the victims was “Maestro” Mark Williams, 53. There is so far no motive for the murders and no suspects. Apparently, witnesses claim that at 12:30pm on Wednesday, “someone” barged into the studio and open fired, killing Williams first, then another man named Antonio Jones, 53. The article quotes those familiar with the Rap Studio & with Williams, the owner of the studio, as “not knowing (Antonio Jones) or why he was there.

Kansas City is off to its most murderous year in almost 20 years. Surprisingly, according to the KANSAS CITY MISSOURI POLICE DEPARTMENT DAILY HOMICIDE ANALYSIS for January 31, 2013, only 3 of the 15 murders are considered“Cleared”, while the other 12 are still being investigated. Also eye opening in this Analysis is the percentages of KCMO murders over the past 4 years that have occurred inside the urban core. The East Patrol Station in the past had never had over 2 murders thus far in January, and this year they are at 6. The comparison of murders between the urban core and the suburbs is ridicules. In the past 4 Januaries, there has been only 1 murder out of the North Patrol or Shoal Creek Patrol, and only 6 out of the South Patrol. Compare that with 35 murders in the past four Januaries within the East, Central, and Metro Patrols, and you can really see where the great majority of murder in Kansas City occurs…within the urban core. The real question is this: what’s it going to take to stop the violence?