Was this last year interesting or what? Among other things, we witnessed … Clinton and Bush, Sr. joining together to promote Tsunamis relief … Hillary denying in speech after speech that she wants to be President … hurricanes and earthquakes in diverse places … wars and rumors of wars around the globe … and as Christmas draws near, the only thing liberals seem to be a’twitter over is a movie about gay cowboys that, after all is said and done, may only allow next year’s slump in boot sales to be predictable. At minimum, we certainly live in “interesting times” ... but, wait a minute ... isn’t that a Chinese curse? Maybe you should be the judge.

In the past year we saw many cheer when the evil Scott Peterson was convicted and sentenced to die for the cold-blooded murders of his wife and unborn child. When our President nominated people to the Supreme Court who might wish to protect other similarly situated helpless children, however, we were then treated to watching many of the same people angrily proclaiming the President to be an evil fundamentalist. Meanwhile, others cheered when Michael Jackson was exonerated of molesting children, while the only negative emotion I can recall resonating in the aftermath of that event was his supporters’ dismay when the Michael refused their request to join him at Neverland to celebrate by “partying down”. Then, soon thereafter, the question was raised by a decision from the 9th Circuit whether some of the activities Michael had been accused of should have even been considered wrong in the first place. After all the hubbub over Michael, that court found that parents have no Constitutional right to determine exclusively how their children are to be reared, and so also found that if the government wants to expose elementary school children to sexually explicit materials it is free to do so. Were you in Michael’s shoes, wouldn’t that cause you go Hmmmm … shouldn’t what’s good for the goose also be for the gander? Confused? Me too, but then, who am I?

Speaking of being confused, consider this recent event: how can a President who has sworn to uphold our Constitution unilaterally authorize his government to invade the privacy of his subjects without first obtaining a warrant? I know he unilaterally determined his administration’s warrantless wiretaps were constitutional, but that was only because he told us his people had unilaterally instituted some vague and unexplained “safeguards” to prevent their own abuse of the powers he had unilaterally granted them. Far be it from me to speak for our founding fathers, but isn’t that kind of government-think that the 4th amendment was written to prevent by requiring government agents to convince a judge to issue a warrant before they are permitted to invade our privacy? Silly me. I must confess, at first blush the President’s warrantless wiretaps seemed to me to be just as outrageous as if the Supreme Court were to rule some day that the Constitution allows politicians to use eminent domain to take my property away so they can give it to their buddies. Oh … you say that also happened this year? Well, Okay … I guess that must be what living in a democracy is all about.

At least last year also gave us the opportunity to export some of that democracy abroad. Of course, a few around the world may have questioned whether that’s a good thing, as they listened to us debate whether or not we will legalize torturing some foreign citizens as a means to facilitate their compatriots’ transition to our better way of life. Hey … but what are a few fingernails when compared to the possibility of exporting democratic principals like “secular tolerance” to cultures less advanced than ours. Consider the example set by France in the last year. No, I’m not talking about surrendering. They banned all religious symbols in order to encourage their citizens from different ethnic backgrounds to peacefully coexist in a spirit of tolerance. Oh yeah, I forgot … they also had ethnic riots that approached becoming a revolution this year. Well, then let’s just hope that we American’s can do better. If next year we open our borders to illegal immigrants even more than they were this past year, and at the same time accelerate our on-going efforts to remove all things having to do with God from our midst like the French tried to do, we might just be able to outdo the French … that is, if we aren’t blown up first by terrorists we have allowed to cross our non-existent borders. Also, hopefully, we can demonstrate to the world the tolerance inherent to our democratic way of life before our nation is called upon to “tolerate” an attack on Iran to eradicate the rather intolerant nuclear threat they will soon pose to Israel.

Lastly on the international scene, this year also gave us the execution of Tookie. Who could have predicted that event would result in Schwarzenegger’s name being removed from a stadium in Austria? Both here and abroad, people argued his execution was a travesty. Tookie had become a role model, they said … he should be allowed to continue living in order to steer our youth away from joining murderous gangs … like, for example, the one he had co-founded: the Crips. Again, however, maybe I’m confused, but to me the very best lesson Tookie seemed to be in a unique position to give our young people was by way of affording them a practical demonstration of the fact that if people do things like he did (i.e. murder people) they are going to be put to death. And, I thought he accomplished delivering that worthy message very well. Oh, you don’t? Well, there I go again, being simple minded. So, until next year perhaps now would be a good time for me to give it a rest, except to say Merry Christmas and may your New Year at least be as “interesting” for you as was the last one for me.

© 2005 Clifford C. Nichols, Esq.

Cliff Nichols is an attorney practicing criminal defense/entertainment law in Santa Monica, California. He may be contacted regarding this editorial at either (310) 917-1083, cliff@cliffnicholslaw.com or www.cliffnicholslaw.com and you may join his blog at www.thedailystand.com