The Penguin and the Polar Bear

The Penguin and the Polar Bear

Once upon a time, there was a penguin.  She was, as penguins go, rather pretty.  Her flippers were slender, her form sleek.  Her feathers were dark and sleek and shone like the sun on a bright arctic morning.  She was tall and proud.  Even her gait was regal, unlike the customary penguin waddle, and when she swam, she became one with the water, coursing through it with grace and ease.  And how she loved to swim.

One afternoon, the other penguins of her waddle (that being the traditionally accepted term for a large group of the creatures) began to leave the water and head up onto the icy shore with some haste.  The penguin quickly scanned the depths for whatever it was that could have been causing such a kerfuffle and, finding no predators in the area or, really, any other reason for the exodus, chalked it all up to the overly curious nature of her fellow fowl. 

While she was admittedly prone to such things herself, she made it a point not to follow the crowd, when at all possible, and chose instead to wait awhile before heading out to investigate.  So she swam and swam, enjoying the warm (relatively speaking) summer water.  Finally, when she needed to surface for air, and to have a quick peek, she shot out and landed gracefully on the snowy bank. 

What she found there took her by surprise.  While she’d expected all sorts of strange and wondrous things, many of them fantastical, what she did not expect was to find, far off on the horizon, all the other penguins, marching away.  Startled, unsure of what was going on, she began to chase after them, thankful for the full belly of shrimp and anchovies that she’d brought along.

As the day wore on, she began to grow worried that she wouldn’t catch up and eventually became too tired to go on.  Though she was sure the rest of her waddle must be as well, they didn’t seem to want to stop.  Try as she might, though, she couldn’t make herself walk or slide any further without a quick nap.  So down she went, secure in the knowledge that she knew the direction in which they were traveling and that she would, of course, catch up with them in no time, once she was refreshed.

 *   *   *   *   *

When she awoke, her belly warmed by the sun, it took a moment for her to realize that she could no longer hear the other penguins off in the distance, calling to one another.  Getting to her feet, she began to follow in what she was certain was their wake.  Unfortunately, though there are any number of exceptional things about penguins, their sense of direction is not among them and, very quickly, she found herself lost and wandering the open white world all alone.   Worse still, it was beginning to get colder.

And, as the days passed, and the penguin became more and more despondent, it grew colder still.  Each time she laid her beak beneath her wing to rest, she shivered a little more and thought more longingly of the warmth of her friends all pressing against one another to keep out the wind.  What she tried not to think about was what her mother and father warned her became of penguins separated from the waddle come the frigid winter.  That prospect chilled her more deeply than the stiffening gales, but only a little.

*   *   *   *   *

On the fourth day, she began to call out to the other penguins, hoping that, should they hear her, they would wait and allow her to catch up.  Louder and louder she called as she walked toward the horizon, but to no avail.  It seemed she was well and truly lost.  As the day wore on, it began to snow, big, fat flakes, at first, then smaller, more multitudinous ones until, eventually, she could barely see. 

Stumbling through the blizzard, blinded by the icy storm, she tried to find somewhere to take shelter.  All around were hollows, but none that would offer any real protection from what was shaping up to be a whopper of a storm.  She began to call again, this time in despair.

Then, just as she was losing hope, she heard someone calling back.  A deep and decidedly unpenguin-like bass cut through the roar of the storm, calling for her to follow.  Though she was unsure as to what was guiding her steps, she decided that it couldn’t be much worse than the predicament in which she currently found herself, so she followed it to a nearby cave.

As she stepped into the cave and saw its sole other occupant, she found herself suddenly re-evaluating her notion of relative safety.  For, sitting on giant haunches at the far end of the hollow, was a massive polar bear.  And he was grinning.

“Hello,” he said, waving a furry paw roughly the size of her torso.

Some latent instinct kicked in, burrowing out from deep within her little penguin hind brain, and she let out a blood-curdling screech, preparing to bolt and take her chances in the elements.  When she let loose the ear-shattering burst, the polar bear’s eyes widened to the size of…very wide eyes, indeed, and he held up his paws, letting out what he would later swear was a hugely virile, extremely masculine roar but what sounded, in point of fact, much more like a girlish howl. 

At the sound of it, the penguin’s own shriek quickly devolved into a laugh which, given the shock of the encounter coupled with the stress of the few preceding days, had more than a little touch of hysteria.  Even as she did so, though, she made a break for the mouth of the cave.

“Wait, wait,” the bear rumbled, “you can’t go back out there.  You’ll catch your death in that kind of weather.”

She turned and looked him squarely in the eye and replied, “And if I stay in this cave with a polar bear, you won’t have to catch your next meal.”

The bear raised a bushy eyebrow.  “I am not that sort of bear.”

The penguin snorted, crossing her flippers and taking not a single step further into the cave.

“Honestly,” he said, “I’m not.  I’m fish only.  Well, and the occasional slow-moving seal,” he added, licking his chops a little.  “Anyway, if I were that kind of bear, wouldn’t I have pounced the moment you walked in?”

“Hm,” she clucked, obviously not buying it.  Despite her every penguiny instinct telling her otherwise, she found the bear a little disarming, sincere even.  She was beginning to think that he may just be a very clever bear when she happened to glace over to see him batting happily at the errant snowflakes that made their way in on the breeze.

“Say I do believe you,” she began, holding up a wary flipper, “and I’m not saying that I do, mind you, but if I did, I’m not sure why you brought me in here, if not to devour me whole.”

The old bear shrugged his shaggy shoulders and replied matter-of-factly, “You seemed like you were lost and alone out there.  I don’t think anyone deserves to be lost and alone.”

The words were so simple, spoken so honestly, that they very nearly brought down the walls the penguin had, without realizing it, constructed around her tiny penguin heart to keep out all the fear and loneliness that had begun to slowly fill it since she awoke that first morning, away from everything and everyone she’d ever known.  She began to cry.

Before she could stop him, the bear reached out and scooped her up into his giant arms.  She knew she should be terrified, but they were warm and fuzzy and welcoming, so much so that she burrowed down into them until she could hear nothing but the thump-thump-thump of his big bear heart.  And it was that rhythm, when the tears finally stopped, that carried her off to sleep.

*   *   *   *   *

The little penguin who had fallen asleep to a heartbeat woke up to a most unfamiliar, but somehow soothing, rumbling.  She squirmed her way out from beneath what seemed like a small mountain of warm, white fur to find the bright sun streaming into the cave, no hint of the storm left except in the blanket of fresh, powdery snow on the world outside, though it took the eye of one who’d lived in the arctic to recognize the difference.

As she waddled over to the mouth of the cave to look out on the world, hoping a little that she would see her waddle somewhere out there, the bear turned onto his back with a huff.

Turning back to him, she said, cheerfully, “Good morning.”

He pried open one dark eye, glaring a bit, then shut it again before giving a yawn for the books and sitting up.  “And to you.”

“Do you live in this cave?” she asked conversationally.

“I do for the moment.”  He leaned against the cool cavern wall, yawning again.  “We polar bears tend not to stay in one place for too long, except during the colder months, which we prefer to simply sleep through.  Hence,” he gestured, “my new home.”

At the mention of the cold times, the little penguin’s heart seized up a bit.  She didn’t know what she would do out there, especially if there was another storm.  Penguins who didn’t have their waddles to keep them warm…She shivered.

“What’s wrong?” the old bear asked.

The penguin swallowed, her tummy in knots.  “I wasn’t just lost in a storm when you found me,” she said, “I’ve been separated from my waddle.”

The bear’s huge brow came together, confusion in his eyes.  The penguin sighed.

“That’s what we’re called, we penguins, when we’re all together.  A waddle.”

“Ah,” said the bear, obviously incredulous but willing to go along with it, anyway.  “But you’ve lost yours?”

The penguin, a lump in her throat, just nodded a little.

“And you’re worried that you won’t be able to make it out there without them?”

She nodded again.

“Well,” he broached, “perhaps we can help one another out.”

She cocked her head to the side, not following.

“I’m about to seal myself up in the cave here, to sleep away the cold times.  Maybe, if you like, you can stay here with me?  I admit that I’m no substitute for a…waddle of penguins, but I keep plenty warm and I’m sure I wouldn’t mind sharing some of that.”

The penguin shook her head.  “That’s a very generous offer, very generous, but I couldn’t possibly put you out like that.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t be, not at all!” the bear grinned.  “I haven’t mentioned your part of the bargain.”

The penguin looked at him skeptically.

“When I wake up from my long naps, I’m generally quite ravenous…” he began before being interrupted by an appalled penguin squeak.  “No, no!  I’m not suggesting…”

“What exactly did you mean by that, then?” she squawked indignantly, her sleek feathers ruffling.  “I won’t be your breakfast!”

“Of course not!” the bear said quickly.  “I told you I was a strictly anti-penguin eating bear.  I just thought that maybe, when the world starts to warm again, you could just start stockpiling a few fish for me.  That’s all.  Besides,” he added with another bearish chuckle, “you’d barely be a snack.”

“That,” she said, smacking him with a flipper, “is not funny.”  But she smiled, all the same, suddenly feeling a little less alone in the big white world.

*   *   *   *   *

And so it went that the polar bear sealed up the cave, save for a tiny, penguin-sized hole in the door, so she could go outside, should she have the urge, and another in the ice at the far end, so she could go for a swim and fish through the winter.  Then, with very little ceremony and little more than a good night, he laid down to sleep.

In all her life, the penguin had never seen anyone sleep so soundly.  He rarely moved, except to shift position, and made no sound save for little chuffs and snores now and then.  And she swam, catching fish and passing the day watching for her waddle.  At the end of each day, she would make her way back into the cave and curl up beside the big old bear, who would, very gently, wrap his big paws around her, making a nice, comfy bed.

Time passed and each day she would wake, swim for a while, then head back out to watch the horizon.  The days grew shorter and shorter, colder and colder, until, eventually, the sun stopped coming at all. 

And then it got colder, so much so that, eventually, she didn’t leave the bear’s side except to fish.  She’d heard about the long night, but never experienced it before.  The world without the sun made her little heart heavy and she was afraid she might, in the darkness, miss them, if they came back by.  Being with the bear, though, kept the cold at bay, both in the cave and in her heart.

Then, just when she thought the night would never end, it did.  She opened her eyes and saw the first rays of the morning sun peeking through her doorway.  She jumped to her feet and ran out to greet it, dancing merrily in the warming rays.  Then she remembered her part of the bargain she’d made with the polar bear and got to work. 

Every day, when she returned from getting her breakfast, she would put aside a fish or two for him until, when he finally began to stir, yawning fitfully with a smacking sound, there was quite the pile indeed.  His nose seemed to wake first, sniffing at the air before he opened one eye, focusing first, very briefly, on the fish, then on her.

“Good morning,” she said with a smile.

“Good morning to you, too, miss penguin,” he said.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked, knowing that he had, but being polite, all the same.

“I did,” he said, somewhat impatiently, his gaze travelling inexorably towards the fish with growing frequency.  The penguin giggled.

“Go ahead.”

“Thank you,” he grunted, getting to his feet and making his way over to the pile where he proceeded to gorge himself happily.

When he finished, he leaned back with his big paws on a slightly distended belly and gave her a satisfied grin.

“That was wonderful,” he told her with a little hiccup.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” she replied sincerely, waddling over to sit beside him, enjoying his warmth, as, while the sun may be it out, it was still awfully chilly. 

They sat that way for a long time before either of them spoke, simply enjoying one another’s company.  Then they began to talk.  She told him all about the long night and then her family and friends.  He told her about his own family, who had been lost long ago.  When he spoke of them, of his mother, father and brother, there was a sadness in his voice that very nearly broke her heart, so she cuddled up a little closer.  It seemed to help.

More time passed, and the world grew warmer as they got to know one another.  The bear unpacked the door and they went out wandering, the little penguin riding on his broad back so that she wouldn’t get lost again and could always find her way home. 

Finally, one morning, she awoke to find him already awake, standing in the mouth of the cave, staring off at something she couldn’t see off in the distance.  Just as she began to ask what it was that had him so rapt, she heard it, the distant but unmistakable voices of other penguins. 

Jumping up, she raced to the door and saw, not very far off, a huge line of penguins walking back in the direction from which she’d come.  Her heart leapt up into her throat and she gave an excited squeal, calling out to them.  She looked over at the bear, who’d said nothing.

“I was just about to wake you,” he said.  “I heard them early this morning.”  He turned his head toward her.  “Are they yours?” he asked.

She nodded, finding her throat suddenly unable to squeeze out any words.  Inexplicably, her heart was torn.  She wanted to run to the other penguins, to rejoin the waddle, but, at the same time, she didn’t want to leave the bear behind. 

Then, because she was never one to willingly give up someone she loved, and she did love the big old bear, she said to him, softly, “I love you, bear.  Come back with me.  I’m sure that you could be one of us.”

He looked at her for a long time, and she saw all sorts of things cross his furry face, from sadness to hope to a tiny touch of fear.  “But what if they don’t want me?” he said.

She nuzzled him with her beak, speaking into his thick white coat.  “How could they not?  Silly bear.”

And that, as they say, was that.

*   *   *   *   *

So the penguin and the polar bear, whose long strides could more than outdistance those of even the swiftest penguin, caught up on the very next day with the waddle.  After a bit of initial hysterics, for which penguins are, among all the artic creatures, notorious, she began to sell them on the idea of their newest, hairiest member.  After all, how many waddles can say that they have one of nature’s most perfect predators on their side?  And besides, he was, when it came down to it, very much like a penguin, wasn’t he?  He was white and black and loved both fish and swimming.  What more could you ask for?  She was very persuasive and they agreed, on a trial basis.

As they all walked back to the shore, the other penguins, being even more good-natured than they were prone to hysterics, if that were possible, warmed to the idea and, by the time they got to the ocean, had officially adopted the polar bear, especially the brand new little ones, who seemed to take great joy in clambering all over him and cuddling beneath his chubby mounds of soft, warm fur.

So they spent a warm, wonderful season together, the penguin and the polar bear and, when the days began to grow shorter and the other penguins began to leave, they made a decision that, while it saddened the others, was eventually deemed very prudent and wise.

They followed the waddle as far as their cave, where they decided they would stay for the cold months, as they had the year before, just in case any other penguins were accidentally left behind and needed a bit of rescuing, as she had. 

They did the same the next year, and the year after.  And, as time passed, they did rescue a penguin or two who, for whatever reason, had missed the proverbial boat.  And those penguins would, every once in a while, decide to do the same until, many years later, there was a whole network of penguins who elected to stay behind and watch the road, just in case.  And each of them, down the years, would tell anyone they spent the cold months with the story of that first penguin and her polar bear, who, of course, lived happily ever after.

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Lifetimes

Deep brown eyes, Mahogany hair

She carries the scent

Of a bookstore I once knew,

Of incense and coffee,

Ageless words

And the exhilaration of possibility

In a blue dress and inquisitive gaze

That carry me,

Backwards and forwards,

Through lifetimes lived

And to be lived.

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What the Founding Fathers Probably Meant: Part 7

Amendment Six: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”

The sixth amendment, clearly and pretty thoroughly, sets forth the entire basis for our criminal justice system.  It logically follows the part of the fifth that guarantees no citizen will be brought up on charges without solid evidence to back them up by outlining what happens when the case is found to have merit.  These are the guidelines that the founding fathers meant to be our legal compass in all matters of jurisprudence.

First, we’re guaranteed the right to a speedy trial.  The founding fathers were clever guys.  They realized, right off, that there was a huge end-run around the whole bit in the fifth about not being incarcerated long-term without a conviction.  You just arrest someone and take fifteen to life to get around to seeing if there’s any real crime there. 

The problem that they didn’t foresee is that we’re very, very fond of putting laws on the books and horrible at taking them off.  Whether it’s because we’re too willing to hold on to tradition or, much more likely, politicians, like the rest of us, don’t want to seem like idiots when a decision they’ve made turns out to be total crap, this tendency to keep things on the book after their efficacy has run its course has led to endless email forwards and a justice system so backed up that its considered a speedy trial to get a court date the same year you were arrested.

The second bit is that you get a public trial.  Back then, it was meant to assure that the proceedings went down without a hitch or any misconduct on the part of those running it.  It made perfect sense.  Nowadays, though, when the misery of others has become our greatest joy, watching the court system in action has become a spectacle and, it could be argued, one which does more harm than good.  A fair middle ground would be to keep it truly as they intended.  Allow the courtroom to be open to the public, but not the media.  That way, you don’t end up with mistrials because the jury saw a newspaper or television show where their favorite celebrity provided their opinion for them.

Speaking of juries, the right to a trial by jury was one of the absolute most important to the founding fathers, and early Americans, in general.  It was actually one of the biggest reasons we went to war with England to begin with, when they decided to start taking those who broke importing laws (see smugglers, rampant in the colonies) to Nova Scotia for private trials.  Wanting none of that, and rightly so, they laid out that you get a trial in the area where the crime was committed, unless extreme circumstances warrant otherwise, with your guilt or innocence decided by the average citizen.  I will forego any assumptions regarding the qualification of the average American these days to make an informed decision.

Next up, you have to be informed, right off, of the crime of which you’re being accused.  I realize this seems like a no-brainer, but think back once again to the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay.  The Patriot Act suspended this by saying you could be held indefinitely on suspected terrorist activities.  That’s it.  No specific charges.  Imagine sitting in your house, writing a blog entry, and having men with guns burst in and arrest you without telling you why.  How horrifying would that be?  That’s what it was like during the colonial period, before these rights were laid out, as many a revolutionary discovered.

When you are brought to trial, with an empaneled jury, you have the right to face your accuser.  This one has been one of the big, deep controversies of our justice system almost since its inception.  While it’s necessary, in order to prevent that whole fabrication of evidence thing (I heard it from a little bird that you have a freezer in your basement where you do unspeakable things to cats, what say you?), it’s created a real problem with the system.

Volunteering for a sexual assault agency, one of the hard truths you learn about trials for those brought up on rape charges is that the victim, because of this tenet right here, has to go into the courtroom to testify, looking into the eyes of the person who hurt them so gravely again.  While it’s liberating for some, it’s incredibly traumatic for others.  What’s worse, while we guarantee this right to the accused, the victim is allowed little or no support in the courtroom while it’s going on.  Something’s obviously not right there.

That being said, as the defendant, you’re allowed witnesses to support your statement.  Again, you being allowed to put up a cogent defense would seem like a gimme, but it wasn’t always the case.  Old trials, even those with a jury, as they were at the time in Britain, were often just a parade of evidence against the accused until the jury had heard enough.  This made sure that couldn’t happen.

Finally, in order to make sure that you don’t need a juris doctorate to make sure your own case is running as it should be, they added that you would have a lawyer, even if you couldn’t afford to pay for your own.  Defense attorneys, despite their reputations, are actually incredibly necessary to keeping the court system honest, though one could argue that they’re part of the problem, too.  I just won’t, because that’s a whole other article, right there.

So the fifth and sixth amendments guarantee you the right to keep your mouth shut about what you’ve done, the right to legal counsel to guide you through the process, the right to a speedy trial…any of this sounding familiar?  It should, as you’ve heard it a thousand times on any procedural show.  The Miranda Rights were created in 1966 to make sure that everyone, even the most backwater, out-of-touch person, would be aware of the rights laid out here.  The Supreme Court decided, and rightly so, that they were that important, and reasonably so.

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The Speaker

“The world is being torn apart by nothing more than fear.”
            Those were the first words I ever heard him say.  I’ll never forget that day.  It was on my grandparents’ old TV, from my bedroom in the rundown little trailer park where I grew up.  I was supposed to be doing homework, but I was really just drifting off into one fantasy world or another, staring at the pages of my algebra book.  I was home alone, so I had the news on in the background because I was scared of the silence and the old set only caught the one channel.  I was only twelve years old, so I didn’t know what it was I was afraid I’d here were it too quiet, but, like he said, fear is an irrational thing.
            He wasn’t much to look at.  He as a small guy, not too thin, but you could tell he never played sports or anything.  And he was younger than you’d have thought, once he started talking.  His hair was a little unkempt and just a couple of shades too dark to be called mousy.  The one thing about him that stood out, though, was his eyes.  It wasn’t that they were a strange color or anything.  They were just that blue that looks like new denim.  But there was something in them that, when he spoke, held you there, almost like if you stared long enough or hard enough, you could see through them to a world that wasn’t as messed up as the one he was talking about.
            His voice didn’t stand out much either.  He wasn’t what you’d have called a born public speaker.  He wasn’t a Kennedy, or even a Reagan.  It wasn’t a deep, resonating voice, which would have looked funny coming out of him anyway.  There was nothing special about it.  It wouldn’t have been one you could’ve picked out in a crowded restaurant.  But somehow the gravity of the things he said carried in that voice, in the sometimes halting way he said things, not with the calculated pauses of a politician, but the genuine loss of someone aware that he was trying to find a way to put words to something bigger than himself.
            They asked people in my grandparents’ generation where they were when Kennedy was shot.  In my parents’, it was where they were when the towers fell.  Looking back now, to what seems like so long ago, I think that, should there ever be a question that defines our generation, it’ll be where we were the first time we heard him.  I was twelve, in the back bedroom of my mom’s old trailer, and I’ll never forget those words.

            “The world is being torn apart by nothing more than fear.  Lots of people will tell you that fear isn’t as pressing a problem in the world as hate, or anger, or pride.  But those are all just symptoms of the greater ill.  We hate because we don’t understand, which scares us.  Sometimes, it’s because we do understand, and that understanding places what we fear too close to us.  Anger, righteous or not, is only the fear that something will happen again, that something we loved will be lost again and that we will be left alone.  And pride…Pride is the most insidious of them.  Pride is the simple fear that we might be wrong, that we may face judgment in the eyes of other who have no right to pass it.  It is the fear that what we believe to be true will be made false and that we will have to start over again down a path which can never be finished.
            “Fear is irrational.  It drives us, in any of its forms, like almost nothing else can.  It clouds our minds.  Nothing can exist in its presence.  It devours like a fierce flame, burning away things like reason, mercy, empathy, and understanding, all of which are the keys to its undoing.  We very often embrace it for that very reason, because it allows us to keep from feeling sadness, guilt, or pain, but forget that it also eats away at joy, love, and peace.  We wield the flame, lashing out with it, unaware that, when it fades, as it must, those dark things will still be there, compounded further by the atrocities of our actions.”
            “Think about how often, every day, you are faced with the choice to give in to fear and choose to willingly.  People rally in their homes against the oppression of things like churches, governments, and a corporate culture which grows fat on the suffering of those it claims to feed.  But when they walk out into the streets, their voices are quiet.  They watch as their rights are eroded away, as those around them are subjugated, mumbling that it isn’t their problem and pray that it never, and this is the greatest tool of those who would seek to oppress, falls on them to become the ones who must stand up for what is right.”

            Those words reached out to me through that tinny speaker and held my heart tight long after they faded.  It felt like I was too young, too small too understand them.  It wasn’t until years later that I would realize that my age had nothing to do with it.  He was right.  Fear was how we were being kept in check.  Those in power, those truly in power, made every one of us feel the way I did that night, as I lay in the dark hours later, still dwelling on the things I’d heard.  The message was simple enough for a child to understand because it had to be.  We were all children, then, and it wasn’t until we were forced to face that fact that we could start to change it. Read more!

What the Founding Fathers Probably Meant: Part 6

Amendment Five: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

Almost everyone who’s ever seen a courtroom drama is aware of the protection this one grants from self-incrimination.  But the fifth amendment, the largest in The Bill of Rights, encompasses all sorts of things and probably should have been broken into multiple amendments, but if that had been the case, there wouldn’t have been an even ten and Franklin was all about the round numbers.  So we’re left pulling it apart, as no piece of it is any less relevant, even today, than the others.

It begins by stating that no person shall ever be tried for a crime without first being indicted by a Grand Jury, except in the case of military tribunals, as soldiers fulfilling their duties were, by necessity, held to a different standard during times of war.  This was important, given that the idea was to create a nation of relative equals, which is to say with no ruling class, so that no one would be able to be brought up on charges without sufficient evidence that a crime was committed.  That way, those in power couldn’t just have their political enemies, say, hanged in the streets for no reason other than because they didn’t like what they had to say.

Moreover, it established the controversial notion of double jeopardy.  The idea was that the prosecution only got one shot to prove that a person was guilty.  If they didn’t meet their burden of proof, the defendant got off scott-free and couldn’t be brought up on the same charges.  Back in those days, that was fine, but as technology advanced and we discovered things like fingerprints and DNA which could, even decades after an acquittal, prove beyond the shadow of a doubt the guilt of someone who had gotten off before said technology was available, we found ourselves constricted by an inability to nail the bastard.

On the other hand, it did, and does, serve a very valuable purpose.  It was included just behind the right to protection from false prosecution because it prevented those in power from taking shot after shot at someone who opposed them on the grounds of a piece of new evidence that just happened to show up and fill the neat little hole which the prosecution couldn’t fill before, wasting the time and money of all involved, including the court system itself. 

It has become such an issue amongst the judicial circuit that there’s currently debate over whether or not to amend the clause to include extraordinary evidentiary findings after an acquittal has been handed down.  This is another case where the founding fathers couldn’t have seen the science coming, but where we need to let go of the word in order for the spirit to continue.

The third clause is the one everyone knows.  You can’t be forced, through any means, to testify against yourself.  Why is this necessary?  Again, it goes back to the British in the colonial era being total jackasses.  If a political dissident was brought forth for a charge of which they were actually innocent, they could be coerced, through threats or actual violence, into admitting that they’d done it.  It happened.  Often enough that the founding fathers felt the need to protect us from it.  It’s why a statement attained through any sort of coercion is inadmissible.  Over the years, that protection has become even more stringent by putting into place a number of more specific guidelines for law enforcement to follow, as they were smart enough, in the past, to realize that violence wasn’t the only way to get someone to break.  They could also deprive them of sleep, food, water, bathroom breaks and all the other things that can cause someone to eventually lose the ability to think clearly. 

The second part of that clause is the one that protects us from being punished, having our assets frozen or being imprisoned indefinitely without due process.  This is what’s caused the huge controversy over Guantanamo Bay.  Those arrested under the provisions of The Patriot Act, many of whom without sufficient evidence to warrant a real trial, were denied, some for nearly a decade, their right to due process.  Instead, we just stuck them in prison to wait for a trial that may never come. 

While we’re doing things to make that right now, it shows how important the right to due process is, even for the bad guys, because, as the founding fathers knew and so many of us seem to forget, who the bad guys are is incredibly subjective.  While we see the founders of our nation as heroes, a lot of the world saw them as disloyal insurgents.  It’s all about perspective and the founding fathers understood that very clearly, having been on the wrong end of it.

Finally, the last clause, which seems only sort of relevant to the rest, stated that the government couldn’t just come and seize your land without giving you due compensation, thus creating the concept we now know as eminent domain.  So if the government decides that it wants to build a highway through your house, they can’t just kick you off your land.  Instead, they have to pay you fair market value as determined by a set of guidelines.  Unfortunately, the estimates for what something’s worth according to eminent domain is about as fair as the blue book value of your car, which drops thousands the moment you drive it off the lot. 

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A Thought: On the Repeal of CA's Prop 8

It's the unfortunate nature of humanity en masse that it is rarely without personal bias that would infringe upon the rights of others. It is the fortunate nature of our country's government that provisions were put in place to compensate for it.

But it goes against the will of the majority? 

The problem with that thought process, though, is that the government represents ALL the people. There was a time when the majority was against the repeal of slavery, the suffrage of women and ethnic minorities or, perhaps most relevant, t...he legality of interracial marriage. Because the majority of the science backs the fact that homosexuality is a hardwired genetic predisposition, same as heterosexuality, exclusion of gay couples from marriage is the same as excluding any other person based upon something over which they have no control, such as race, heritage or socio-economic background.

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