State senate legalizes class system

If you feel at times that there is an us vs. them society in New York state, you’re not crazy. In fact, the New York state Senate just voted to make it official.

Far too often we see laws created that apply only to the common folks but which exempts certain people in society - the lucky ones, if you will. The state itself exempts politicians and bureaucrats from having to follow the same set of rules us “mere taxpayers” have to comply with.

And now the state Senate has passed a bill making it a felony to “harass, annoy or threaten a police officer while on duty” punishable by up to four years in jail.

Senator Joe Griffo, a Republican from Rome and the architect of the law said, “Police officers who risk their lives every day in our cities and on our highways deserve every possible protection, and those who treat them with disrespect, harass them and create situations that can lead to injuries deserve to pay a price for their actions.”

I don’t disagree that harassing a police officer should be a crime. Just as harassing your neighbor or anyone else should be a crime. I just don’t understand why it should be a special crime. We already have a charge for “obstructing official business,” don’t we?

I would also agree that creating situations that can lead to injuries should carry a punishment. Although that phrasing is a bit ambiguous. It’s not nearly as ambiguous as treating “them with disrespect,” however.

Basically, I don’t see a need for this law. It is feel-good legislation designed to remind us common folk that we’re not as important as the police. It’s far too open to the interpretation of the offended officer and could be very easy to abuse.

I mean, what’s disrespect? Is this column disrespectful because I think we should all be treated equally? Some will surely read it that way. And that’s the problem with vaguely written laws which are so open to individual interpretation.

Just as the NRA likes to remind us that there are enough gun laws if they’d only “enforce the ones on the books,” I think we should remind the state senate that the bill they passed is redundant to laws that already exist - for everyone.

I’d also like to ask them to make laws for everyone - and not certain laws for certain classes of people. There’s enough favoritism that already exists in the judicial system itself without codifying it from the get-go.

What’s next? Making it legal for judges (or doctors) to drive intoxicated? Making it legal for politicians to lie under oath? Making it legal for bankers to embezzle funds?

The whole point of having the rule of law is for those laws to apply to everyone equally. Otherwise all we’re doing is creating an oligarchy and slowly creeping towards a fascist state.

Scott Leffler is just an ordinary citizen. Well, as ordinary as anyone with a Twitter account. Find him there @scottleffler. 

Obama’s subtle class warfare may work

Seldom do I put my hand up to my gaping mouth and say, “Oh my God” following a television commercial. Almost never following a political ad. But President Barack Obama’s recent anti-Romney salvo, “Firms” made me do just that.

The television commercial features former Governor Mitt Romney singing America the Beautiful in a horrible off-key voice. A series of screen posts say that Romney had jobs shipped to Mexico and China, presumably while with Bain. It says that as governor, Romney outsourced jobs to India. And it points out that he keeps his money in Swiss bank accounts and offshore in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. It ends with the tagline, “Mitt Romney’s not the solution. He’s the problem.”

Couple this with the Obama camp’s hammering Romney over his tax returns and it seems clear to me that the president wants to make sure everyone knows that Mitt Romney is not one of us. It is class warfare at its finest — or worst, depending on how you see it.

The genius in the ad, though, is that it’s designed not so much to make us fear what he would do as president, but angry over what he’s done to this point.

Romney’s people have said repeatedly that the economy is the issue and that no one cares about Mitt’s tax returns. I’d agree with them. Except …

If Obama can make people believe that one of the reason we’re in the dire straits we’re in is because of Mitt Romney (and people like him) then he can ensure that those people won’t vote for Romney. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll vote for Obama either, but in real logistical terms, any vote not for Romney is a vote for Obama and the administration’s guns know this.

Don’t be fooled — Barack Obama is not one of us, either. But he doesn’t need to convince you that he is. He doesn’t need to convince you to vote for him. Just not to vote for Romney.

When it comes down to it, the president is running against himself. This might not be the case if the GOP had found a stronger candidate, but they didn’t. The found Romney. And all the nose holding in the world won’t make him palatable with those on the far right. And it won’t make him any more likable with the left, either.

As much as I despise class warfare — I hope to be one of those 1 percenters myself some day — it can be effective. The GOP has used it effectively for years, essentially telling the middle class that any desire it has to get a bigger piece of the pie is an attempted theft from the wealthy.

For years, Democratic efforts to combat this attack has been feeble. For the first time in recent memory, they’ve found an effort that seems to work in the Obama ad.

Of course, for me the most interesting thing here is that Obama is playing offense. I’m not used to seeing Democrats play offense. Neither is the GOP.

I’m looking forward to seeing how the Romney camp responds.

Act in your own interest

Much noise has been made about a viral internet video featuring Wall Street professionals mocking protesters participating in the “Occupy Wall Street” campaign.

The video shows a hand full of well-dressed business types drinking champagne and taking photos of the protesters. Many have referred to it as “a slap in the face” of those on the streets picketing what they say are unfair market conditions that keep the rich rich, keep the poor poor and wipe out the middle class.

The war between the haves and the have-nots has gone on since the dawn of time and won’t end any time soon, but the current economic situation in the country, coupled with mass media alerting everyone to said economic situation makes it all the more heartbreaking.

While I think the Wall Street types’ actions are deplorable, I’m not in the “lynch them” crowd. From their perspective, their way of life is being attacked. In fact, from their point of view, they themselves are being attacked.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have much sympathy for them. I may even envy them, just like I imagine the protesters envy them, as well.

Most of us grew up learning that if we worked hard, we, too could have the American dream. And most of us believe that today. Some of us may have achieved that dream — with a house, two cars, a cat, a dog, picket fence, etc.

There are some people, though, who work hard every day and have less and less to show for it. In fact, right now, more Americans are slipping into poverty on a daily basis. They wish they could be drinking champagne and mocking the downtrodden. If only they could figure out a way to no longer be downtrodden.

It doesn’t help that right-wing talk radio and conservative news outlets have convinced us that the downtrodden are the problem. The people starving and homeless are what’s wrong with America, they’d have you believe. It’s almost social Darwinism. And it’s downright scary.

I’m certainly not saying storm the castle and take what you feel you deserve. That’s not what our republic is about. The revolution should be at the ballot box. But there will be no revolution if the people vote against their best interest.

Voting for someone who idolizes the rich because you idolize the rich is a path to your own destruction. Self loathing on account of your aspirations to be able to loathe the downtrodden from above is a huge mistake, to say the least.

So when it comes time to vote, vote for you or at the very least someone like you.

To paraphrase Niccolo Machiavelli, “deal with the situation at hand — not the situation you wish were at hand.” And the situation is that we’re empowering the destruction of the middle class.

Act in your own best interest. If you don’t, no one else will.