Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

This is from a brief interview I did this afternoon:

Do you feel the current piercing laws and regulations break the rights supposedly granted upon us by the first amendment?

Most of the piercing laws are there to ensure that studios act at a minimum safety level (proper contamination control, sterility, and so on), as well as placing some minor restrictions based on customer age. I don't believe either of these types of laws is contrary to fundamental rights and assuming they are come to rationally and with the input of the body modification community I support them.

That said, there are a number of public schoolboards that have placed restrictions on their students' rights to pursue body piercing (as is considered fully legal under state and federal law). Because these restrictions stem from personal bias and politics, they have no place in setting the laws of a public school. While schools do have a responsibility to act in loco parentis, they do not have the right to overrule the parent's or the student's rights.

It is important to note that regulations of the type I've just mentioned have been shown to be unconstitutional when taken to court. The Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines (393 US 503) that students had the right to dress and appear as they chose. The judges wrote, “it can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

Do you think minors should be able to have piercings done without a parents consent, or a parent present?

I believe that naming 18 as the minimum age for all piercings is ludicrous — piercing requires dramatically less maturity than driving a car, which we've agreed is allowable at age 16. That said, there should be an age before which parental consent is needed to protect the youth; I would propose that age is somewhere between 14 and 16.

Is denying a person their piercing denying them who they are (thus going against what our founding fathers wanted in a free nation)?

I can't tell you that it always is, but what I can tell you with full certainty is that it sometimes is. Freedom doesn't just apply to the “average” person — it must also protect the exceptional and even the unique.

Do you agree that having to be 18 for piercings is the same as having to wait to buy cigarettes; or to vote? It's something everyone must wait for thus making it fair.

First, I can't see how forcing people to wait for anything makes it more fair. It's also not the same as the two examples you mentioned — piercing is no where near as dangerous as cigarettes, nor does it require the maturity and education voting should require. All forcing someone to wait until 18 does is insult them.

Do you agree that being atheist, or solo, and modded makes you discriminated against? Changing your body is fine for religious reasons, but if you're not part of a large religious group, and it's for personal enlightenment or fulfilment it's shunned?

Clearly awarding special rights to those who swear by an arbitrary religion is contrary to the concept of equal rights for all. Such a system awards rights based on faith, and obviously discriminates against atheists. The law must not be dictated by faith. The truths of law must be absolute and religion may not be considered in determining the rights of an individual in a free and equal society.

Do you think piercings can be dangerous on minors because of growth?

Within reason I don't believe there is any evidence showing that. All of the evidence I've seen over the past ten years suggests the contrary, as does the historical record.

A number of people have passed me this link about wireless networking being identified by the US Feds as the latest “terrorist tool” and how someone with an unsecured/open wireless network would be considered a “terrorist collaborator”. Let me be very clear on the future of the internet: the future of the internet is cheap, anonymous, untraceable, and unmonitorable. That's an unstoppable truth. The only way the US can avoid that is by cutting itself off from the rest of the world and throwing out the civil rights of it's population. Oh, wait…

Before I get into the heavy stuff, I was playing the latest PopCap game last night when Rachel walked behind me, started laughing, and yelled “screen capture! screen capture!” I didn't know why, since I was wrapped up in playing the game, but this is just too perfect:

I don't know if anyone's been paying attention to the story about the Israeli soldier that shot a UN official from close range in the back, but I think the British are crazy if they think they're getting an answer out of Israel. The last few years have made it very clear that nobody pushes Israel around, the US included. I'm sure there's a reason, I'm sure it's a reason the public wouldn't accept, and I'm sure they'll never hear it.

AntiWar.com just published an excellent article on “The Israelization of America” talking about how America is beginning to emulate Israel's policies — covert crimes becoming “points of pride”, pre-emptive strikes, militarization of politics, remote funding, human rights violations against its own people, occupations, and of course playing the terror card. Now, one might be able to make the case that Israel needs to play it that way to succeed. I don't agree, but one could make the argument. But America doesn't live in that world, and one can't make that argument for America without appearing ignorant under any objective scrutiny.

Most of you know about the criminal Poindexter (convicted of five felonies but given immunity for his testimony) being put in charge of the Total Awareness project, but now Elliott Abrams (seriously!) has been made the director of Middle Eastern Affairs. For those that don't know, Elliott Abrams is the aggressively pro-Israel neo-con that pled guilty in 1987 for withholding information from Congress over the administration's support of the Contras (he was then pardoned in 1992 by Bush Sr.). Abrams is also the author of “Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive In Christian America” and was a vehement objector to the Oslo peace negotiations.

People have this notion that countries like Iraq, Iran, and so on are these weird “rag-head” nations with people still living in the stone age — yes, that was close to the truth in much of Afghanistan, but rest assured that America would fall back a few hundred years too if it got bombed for twenty years. Take a look just at the photo at the top of this article from a student protest in Iran. The cars are different than you'd see in America, but there's not much different than you'd see in a poorer European country. The people look pretty normal, don't they? They obviously have enough civil rights to organize huge protests. Yes, there was skirmish with riot police, but guess what — that happens in the West too. At this point, thanks to new laws passed since September 11th, American citizens have less freedom than not only pretty much every Western nation, but many developing nations as well.

That said, this article does a pretty good job of characterizing the typical response to such statements:

A friend of mine is an Indian diplomat. He tells a story of being picked up by a cab driver in Texas for a long journey to the airport. The cab driver asked him to tell him something about India and my friend replied that it was a democracy of a billion people. The cab driver did not believe him. "A billion people?" the cab driver repeated. "Impossible. That's bigger than the United States."

...Randomly selected voters were ... questioned on what they knew about America's defence against rogue missiles sent by, say, the North Koreans or Iraq towards the US. Every single participant in the focus group believed -- wrongly -- that the missiles would be shot down by a version of the American Star Wars system. The fact that Star Wars has never worked and may well not be operational for at least a decade had not entered their consciousness.

Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Murder Rag
"apologies to Country Joe & the Fish"

Well come on all you big strong men
Uncle Sam needs your help again
Got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Afghanistan
Put down your mouse and pick up a gun
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun

Chorus:
And it's one, two, three, what are we waiting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn, next stop's Afghanistan
And it's five, six, seven, open up the Pearly Gates
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
whoopie they're all gonna die

Now come on Wall Street don't be slow
We gotta pay 'em back for their terror show
There is plenty of money to be made
Supplying the army with the tools of the trade
Just hope and pray they drop The Bomb
Drop it on Afghanistan

(Chorus)

Well come on Generals let's move fast
Your big chance is here at last
Now you can go out and get Rag Heads
'Cos the only good 'Ghanni is one that's dead
And you know peace can only be won
When they blow 'em all to Kingdom Come

(Chorus)

Now come on mothers through out the land
Pack your boys off to Afghanistan
Come on fathers don't hesitate
Send your sons off before it's too late
Be the first one on your block
To bring their ears back home in a box

(Chorus)