When Laughter Is a Crime

Obviously, there are some situations where laughter can get you in trouble with authorities. Code Pink activist Desiree Fairooz has learned the hard way that one of those times is during a Senate confirmation hearing. From Vox:

It is hard to believe this is happening, but it’s real: The US Department of Justice is literally prosecuting a woman for laughing at now–Attorney General Jeff Sessions during his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this year.

Admittedly, this is an oversimplification of the situation, but it can certainly be inferred from the circumstances.

Continuing:

According to Ryan Reilly at HuffPost, Code Pink activist Desiree Fairooz was arrested in January after she laughed at a claim from Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) that Sessions’s history of “treating all Americans equally under the law is clear and well-documented.”

Sessions, in fact, has a long history of opposing the equal treatment of all Americans under the law.  

This "editorial dressed as news" goes on to talk about Sessions' anti-equality history. Let us review this piece by piece.

First:

He has repeatedly criticized the historic Voting Rights Act.

The linked article from The Guardian states:

He did, however, also admit that he had called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a "piece of intrusive legislation", a phrase he stood behind even in his confirmation hearings. To this day, he argues that Section five – a protective measure that concerns a handful of (mostly southern) states with appalling race histories – of the Voting Rights Act should be struck down.

It should be noted the Supreme Court struck down that part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Does that make the Supreme Court racist too? At the very least, it does call into question parts of the Voting Rights Act, which does not state the entire act is bad. Legislation is rarely so perfect that it can be considered above reproach. Neither Sessions nor the Supreme Court ever suggested tossing out the entire VRA.

On to the second point about Sessions:

He voted against hate crime legislation that protected LGBTQ people, arguing, “Today, I'm not sure women or people with different sexual orientations face that kind of discrimination. I just don't see it.”

There is a good reason to be against hate crime legislation: Thoughtcrime should never be a part of any legal code.

Sadly, Sessions went for the "I'm living in a bubble and don't see the problem" answer. If you want to accuse Sessions of living a sheltered life, that seems to be what his comment indicates, and not any kind of angst against equality.

Finally:

And his nomination for a position as a federal judge was rejected in the 1980s after he was accused of making racist remarks, including a supposed joke that he thought the Ku Klux Klan “was okay until I found out they smoked pot.”

The comments in the linked New York Times article were certainly indicative of racism, However, the one the writer chose is actually a fairly good joke, not to mention it is about the KKK and not against any race specifically.

Even the New York Times article picks a better example with which to lead:

In 1981, a Justice Department prosecutor from Washington stopped by to see Jeff Sessions, the United States attorney in Mobile, Ala., at the time. The prosecutor, J. Gerald Hebert, said he had heard a shocking story: A federal judge had called a prominent white lawyer “a disgrace to his race” for representing black clients.

“Well,” Mr. Sessions replied, according to Mr. Hebert, “maybe he is.”

But the problem is that all of the accusations about racist remarks are from over 30 years ago. Even a racist can open their mind. A charge of racism isn't a scarlet letter that can never be removed. If you treat racists that way, you discourage them from opening their minds. Why should they since they have already been branded as a racist?

Then we get to the point of the article:

According to Ryan Reilly at HuffPost, Code Pink activist Desiree Fairooz was arrested in January after she laughed at a claim from Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) that Sessions’s history of “treating all Americans equally under the law is clear and well-documented.” 

...Given this history, Fairooz laughed at Shelby’s claim.

But federal prosecutors have pushed forward with the case against Fairooz. As Reilly reported, prosecutors argue that “the laugh amounted to willful ‘disorderly and disruptive conduct’ intended to ‘impede, disrupt, and disturb the orderly conduct’ of congressional proceedings.” In court, they have tried to emphasize that the laugh was extraordinarily disruptive, with a US Capitol Police officer claiming that Fairooz laughed “very loudly” and people in the hearings turned around when they heard it.

Fairooz’s defense, meanwhile, has argued that her laughter was a reflex and not meant to disrupt the hearings. Fairooz was also in the back of the room, and her laughter had no noticeable impact, based on video of the hearings, on Shelby’s introductory speech for Sessions. 

In spite of the fact that Fairooz was a narrow-minded Leftist, she still shouldn't be prosecuted for this. This is a clear case of malicious prosecution, and the case should be dropped immediately. Since there was no harm from her actions, the old "no harm no foul" rule applies.

Anyway, preventing laughter during Senate hearings seems like an uphill battle, considering the absurdity of most of our politics.