The Freedom Bulletin

Governor Deval Patrick signed a bill reforming Massachusetts’s alimony laws yesterday. The bill, overall, will decrease the amount of alimony people have to pay to their ex-spouses, limiting payments to a set amount of time based on the length of the marriage.

This bill, while it doesn’t go as far as I would, is a step in the right direction. I don’t think there should be such thing as alimony or spousal support at all. The way I see it, no adult has a right to be financially supported by another adult, and there is no reason why one person should be required to continue financially supporting another just because they have in the past. If one person agrees to financially support another, fine, but this is a favor, not a right, and the giver has a right to withdraw it at any time.

I’ve heard many supporters of alimony argue that stay-at-home spouses contribute just as much to the marriage as those who have jobs, and that they are making a big sacrifice by giving up their careers to take care of the house and/or children. Yes, housework does require some time and effort. But in my experience as a single person who both takes care of my house and has a full-time job, commuting to my job and spending the day in an office is way more tiring and time consuming than doing the cleaning, cooking, shopping, and laundry that I need to do. If I could choose between working full-time and not having to do any chores around the house, or doing all the chores and not having to work, I would definitely choose the second. Each type of work is work to some extent – I’m not trying to say that spouses who stay at home do nothing but sit around all day. But having a job – unless you have an unusually easy job – is simply more time-consuming and stressful than working around the house. For one spouse to be the breadwinner and the other to stay at home is just not an equal division of labor.

And yes, staying home for a long time is an impediment if you decide to go back into the job market at a later date. But it’s not exactly a sacrifice to receive the material goods you need for free, instead of having to work for them. Plus, unless someone forced you to stay at home, you don’t have a right to demand restitution for this because it was your own choice.

For one spouse to be allowed to live off the money of another is a windfall that they did nothing to earn. Even if someone freely chooses to do such a favor – and many people are pressured into it against their will – they should also be free to change their mind and stop the financial support at any time. Alimony punishes people for doing a favor for their spouse, and rewards people for having received financial support that they did not earn. If anything, the spouse who received the financial support should have to pay alimony as a way of repaying the favor that they received!

So while eliminating lifetime alimony is a good start, I hope alimony laws are changed even more in the direction of equality and justice.

There’s a debate going on in Massachusetts about whether written permission should be required for HIV testing or just verbal consent to medical treatment in general. Currently MA is one of only two states that require written consent, and groups who want to encourage more testing are trying to change this. Personally I don’t really care whether consent is verbal or written, but I think there need to be stronger, not weaker, consent requirements for all medical procedures.

We live in a system where, when someone goes into a doctor’s office, the doctor usually just tells them what medical tests they are going to have, maybe asking, as an afterthought, if that’s OK. This is wrong. As I explained in a blog post from yesterday, this is not true consent. Many people, especially if they are shy by temperament, find it difficult or impossible to refuse what a doctor tells them to do. We need a system where the patient, not the doctor, is in charge of medical decisions. Instead of saying what medical procedures are needed, doctors should tell people what services they offer (perhaps through a brochure, sheet of paper, or sign) and the person can indicate which services they would like, with advice from the doctor only if asked.

Another part of the proposed law would require doctors’ offices to have written permission before sharing a customer’s HIV status. This seems pretty reasonable. People should be in control of their own medical records, and it should be a no-brainer that doctors should not share information without the permission of the person the information is about. But of course, doctors had paternalistic and pompous things to say in opposition to the law:

Dr. Howard Heller…said the legislation would mean that each time he referred an HIV patient to a different specialist outside of his organization, he could not tell that provider about any HIV-related medications that patient was taking, without first getting the patient’s written permission.

And that’s a problem why?

“Each time we share information we would have to have written informed consent…and each step we put in the way puts more impediments to getting tested,” said Dr. Stephen Boswell.

That’s right, how dare the wishes of the people he is supposed to be serving get in the way of making them to do what he wants? I know doctors are trying to make people healthier, but too many of them have lost sight of the idea of liberty and the dignity of individuals. Doctors need to give up their paternalistic attitudes and start treating their customers with respect, just as members of any other profession would. They need to focus less on what they think is best for their patients and more on their patients’ wishes.

Massachusetts might have a lot of questions on the 2012 ballot. On Wednesday, 23 ballot initiatives passed Attorney General Martha Coakley’s review and now will need to get 68,911 signatures by this November and (unless the legislature takes action) 11,485 more by next July.

They include:

• Giving people 3 days to cancel car purchases
• Expanding the do-not-call law to include charitable organizations that use telemarketers
• Amending the state constitution to require legislators to ensure that all people have “comprehensive, affordable, equitably financed” health insurance (this won’t appear until the 2014 ballot because constitutional amendments require the approval of 25% of the state legislature two sessions in a row)
• Limiting annual increases in water and sewer rates to 2.5%
• Legalizing medical marijuana (website)
• Legalizing assisted suicide for people with terminal illnesses (website)
• Creating a Citizens’ 9/11 Investigation Commission
• Requiring car manufacturers to share information with repair shops that they need to repair vehicles (website)
• Banning car insurance companies from setting prices based on credit score, education, or occupation
• Banning certain types of fishing equipment that could endanger whales
• Establishing consequences for teacher evaluations (website)
• Expanding the bottle deposit law to include water, juice, and other drinks
• Repealing the state’s individual health insurance mandate (website)
• Allowing grocery stores to sell wine
• Requiring the RMV to notify drivers, when suspending or revoking their licenses, of the exact laws they are accused of violating
• Legalizing secretly recording public officials who are performing their official duties in a public place

Among the initiatives that did not make it through were one to develop three casinos, one to require competitive bidding for energy contracts, and one to require people to provide photo ID in order to vote. The latter question’s backer, Olivier Kozlowski (and radio host Michael Graham) criticized the AG’s decision, saying, ”In Massachusetts, the cheapest ID you can get from the Registry is $25. If there’s someone out there who doesn’t need an ID for anything else in their entire life other than voting, then their ‘freedom of elections’ has been infringed upon, under the Massachusetts constitution.” I actually agree with the AG on this one. A similar ID requirement was upheld by the Supreme Court in Indiana, but photo IDs are free there. To charge $25 for an ID and to require an ID in order to vote is to charge $25 to vote. While I understand why people want to make voter fraud more difficult, requiring people to purchase an item in order to vote is tantamount to a poll tax, and this simply infringes upon the right to vote.

Sources: Mass.gov, MassLive.com, Boston Globe

The First Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that people have the right to videotape and record police officers performing their duties. The ruling came in the case of Simon Glik, a Boston lawyer who filmed police arresting someone on Boston Common. He was charged with disturbing the peace, aiding in the escape of a prisoner, and illegal wiretapping, as he recorded audio of the arrest without permission. The charges were (thankfully) dropped, and Glik sued law enforcement officials for violating his First and Fourth Amendment rights. The Court of Appeals agreed with him, writing:

“Glik was exercising clearly established First Amendment rights in filming the officers in a public space, and that his clearly-established Fourth Amendment rights were violated by his arrest without probable cause.”

Read the rest at MassLive.com.

Clint Cornelius, 33, was sentenced to a year in jail today. His crime? Parking his car, with guns and ammunition inside, at Mount Holyoke College.

He was initially charged in 2007 with three counts of possession of a firearm without a license, six counts of possession of a large-capacity firearm, and possession of ammunition without a license. A student had seen the guns in the car and, even though they were not hurting anyone and are supposed to be protected by the Second Amendment, decided to alert campus police. The officers then searched his car. He and his lawyer challenged the search and sought the dismissal of the charges because Cornelius,who had recently moved to Massachusetts from Georgia, should have had 60 days to obtain firearms permits, but the Supreme Judicial Court rejected these arguments.

He agreed to plead guilty to the ammunition charge, and his lawyer and the prosecutor agreed to a sentence of one year in jail. The judge said that the sentence “causes me some pain,” and I agree with him. In fact, I would go so far as to say that sentencing Cornelius to jail is an injustice. Nothing that he did was the least bit immoral or violated anyone’s rights. There was no evidence that he planned to use the guns to cause anyone harm. To investigate, prosecute, and imprison him for having guns in his car is an utter waste of law enforcement resources, causes suffering to an innocent man, and benefits no one. Clint Cornelius did nothing wrong and deserves to be free.