Yet Another Federal Judge Gone Wild
When I got the FNC Alert below in my e-mail box at 4:44 p.m. today, I thought it had to be a joke. But sure enough, at Fox News at 5 p.m., it was the headline at the top of the page, not yet linked to any stories. I checked the calendar; it isn’t April Fool’s Day.“Breaking News >> Federal Judge Rules American Paper Money is Unfair to Blind Peopleâ€
By 5:12, the headline had a story:
U.S. District Judge James Robertson said the Treasury Department has violated the law, and he ordered the government to come up with ways for the blind to tell bills apart.
Now the first thing that occurred to me was that this will make it easier to counterfeit money. And sure enough, Treasury made the same argument.
Government attorneys argued that forcing the Treasury Department to change the size of the bills or add texture would make it harder to prevent counterfeiting. Robertson was not swayed.
The good judge gave Treasury ten days to begin fixing the problem. How kind of him. I think Treasury would spend the time better, putting in its appeal.
“Of the more than 180 countries that issue paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their denominations,” Robertson wrote. “More than 100 of the other issuers vary their bills in size according to denomination, and every other issuer includes at least some features that help the visually impaired.”
So, America is unique. I like that. As for Judge Robertson’s implied claim that every nation on earth has deliberately changed its currency, in order to aid the blind, if you believe that, I have a great deal for you on a slightly used bridge. His claim sounds like a sophistic hook the plaintiffs and the American Council of the Blind came up with, for friendly judges like Robertson to hang their hats on.
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, I can see changing their bills to accommodate the blind, not to mention in order to appease Moslems who see images of Mohammed everywhere, and currency cultists. But over 80 percent of the world’s 200 or so nations would laugh at activists who demanded they change their currency for the blind … and then shoot them, and laugh some more. We’re talking about impoverished countries that are run by dictators, and where life is nasty, solitary, brutish, and short … but we’re supposed to believe that the butcher-in-charge hops to, in order to change the currency for the sake of activists and their clients. (We’re also talking about countries whose respective currencies are safe from counterfeiters, because they are worthless!)
Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, The Dominican Republic, Djibouti, Dominica, East Timor, Haiti, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, The Central African Republic, Congo I, Congo II, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, EtiopÃa, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, India, The Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, The Maldives, Moldovo, Morocco, North Korea, Kosovo, Lesotho, Laos, Lebanon, Nigeria, Niger, Namibia, Mali, Chad, San Marino, Somalia, Somaliland, The Sudan, Swaziland, Suriname, Togo, Tanzania, Syria, Tajikistan, Russia, Latvia, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Rwanda, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Red China, Palau (Palau?), Mauritania, Mauritius, Turkmenistan, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and last but not least, good old Zimbabwe.
(I’m pretty geographically literate, as these things go, and yet a few dozen of this week’s new national names are Greek to me.)
How many of the 101 above-named nations – roughly half of those in the world today – do you see going broke, changing their currency to accommodate the blind?
This is the world we live in, not the world of Judge Robertson’s humanitarian fantasies.
What I think is going on here, is that the plaintiffs and their judge took the odd-sized foreign bills, and assumed that they had been changed to accommodate handicap activists.
“The fact that each of these features is currently used in other currencies suggests that, at least on the face of things, such accommodations are reasonable,” he wrote.He said the government was violating the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in government programs. The opinion came after a four-year legal fight.
“It’s a landmark decision. I believe it will benefit millions of people,” said Jeffrey A. Lovitky, attorney for plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
The good judge’s claim that the federal government is in violation of the Rehabilitation Act is nonsense on stilts. Money is not a “government program.†If James Robertson gets away with redefining money as a government program, oh, the mischief that will ensue.
And for every person the turning upside down of American currency will benefit, it will wreak havoc for the hundred others who will have to foot the bill for the cost of printing up billions of new bills, and then foot the bill for additional billions of dollars in costs due to counterfeiting. Not to mention the millions of vending machines whose owners will then be sued by activists and attacked by the media as being guilty of “discrimination.†(Will Judge Robertson be around to claim, ‘More than 100 of the other nations mandate that all vending machines take bills varied in size, according to denomination, and every other nation mandates that machines include at least some features that help the visually impaired’? I wouldn’t put it past him.) And the owners will get expensive new machines, whose costs will have to be borne by the 99 percent of customers that will not benefit from them.
The Treasury has spent years and a fortune developing bills that are more difficult to counterfeit, something that Judge James Robertson evidently could care less about.
I can just hear someone say, “But what about justice?!†Yeah, what about it? This isn’t about justice, unless we redefine “justice†so that it means that certain selected groups can turn the world upside for everyone else, at everyone else’s expense, while everyone else is disenfranchised.
Mooks like James Robertson talk “justice,†but have contempt for the law, and for any notion of justice worthy of the name. What they have is loyalty to certain groups, enmity towards the rest of us, and a hubristic self-righteousness. Robertson and his ilk in the judiciary, the bar, and among activists and politicians are in a competition to see who can be more “creative†with the law, and thereby incur the greatest possible costs to the American taxpayer, and cause the greatest possible damage to American society.
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Stumble It!
November 28th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
I can’t see the Judges point. I must be being kept in the dark deliberately. He’s got 10 days to fix it or, gimme da money.
November 29th, 2006 at 2:00 am
I agree with the judge.
It seems like a small thing to make currency discernible to the blind by varying the size of bills (or in some other way).
Whatever counterfeiting measures work with currency of one size should work with currency of another size. I think the counterfeiting argument sounds like a bunch of huey nonsense.
I think it is a good thing that the government is held to the same standards as private business. If private business must adjust its behaviors to accommodate the disabled, the government should also.
I say three cheers for the judge.
He had the courage to stand up and say things can be better — things should not remain the same just because we are accustomed to it.
The world is not going to fall apart just because some change making machines need to be updated.
November 29th, 2006 at 3:36 am
It seems that Congress need only amend the Rehab Act to create an exception for the printing of currency.
Problem solved.
If the Republicans did that more often in response to loony court rulings during their 12 years in control of Contress, they would still be in control of Congress during the next two years.
November 29th, 2006 at 9:54 am
Let’s stop the name calling.
This judge made a reasoned decision
that apparently some people disagree with.
Whatever one may think, it is not fair to
call the decision “loony.”
We need sometimes people to stand up and say
that something isn’t right. He did this.
He probably can be overruled by Congress, but
even if that happens that doesn’t mean his
decision was “loony.”
We do not improve our system by attacking
judges doing their jobs in good faith.
Things ain’t necessarily right just because that is the way it has always been.
What is the attachment to the present currency?
Come on? Let’s make life a little better.
I find it amazing that anyone would think that helping blind people count their money accurately is “looney.” I cannot imagine that a small change like this would not be worth the benefits.
People are very adaptable. Our economy is very adaptable. The world is not going to end if this change is put into place. Gee whiz.
November 29th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
What’s wrong about improving a bill? How it’s so wrong to add one feature or two?
Cool off Nicholas, everything will be allright.
November 29th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Did not mean to imply you are loony, snootfish.
The judge may have used good reasoning, but it seems that the Rehab Act has been around for quite a while without anyone previously believing it regulated the currency.
It is still up to Congress, for they can either acquiesce to the court ruling by not changing the Rehab Act, or they can change the Rehab Act to provide an exception for the currency.
As for the currency itself, it might be wise for Congress to pass a bill requesting the Treasury Department and its Bureau of Engraving and Printing to come up with some design ideas to accomodate the blind. The recent change in the bills providing for a large block number in one corner of the federal reserve note designating the denomination (5, 10, 20, 50, or 100) is one such accomodation for those with weak eyes or who are in a hurry at a cash register.
Where I consider this kind of ruling to be loony is not that changing the design of the currency to make it possible for a blind person to tell whether she is holding a 5 or 10 dollar note, but that the judges are adding meanings that 4th graders who pass the basic skills test would not derive from the language of the statute. This makes legislating more difficult for those we do elect to Congress and state legislatures.
Next on the agenda is the US Supreme Court consideration of whether the Clean Air Act signed into law by President Nixon requires the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide, a natural product of metabolism, as a pollutant because of the highly dubious theory that CO2 generated by the use of fossil fuels leads to climate change.
Why I call this loony is because during the Nixon Administration, almost no one was giving such a loony theory serious consideration.
Whatever the court’s ruling, it would still be up to Congress to acquiesce or to amend the Clean Air Act to reflect whatever decision Congress makes on the proposition that CO2 generation should be regulated.
Problem, of course, is that neither judges nor Congressmen seem to be able to make a rational decision on such subjects.
November 29th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
Snootfish, how wrong can you be? The world will explode in a fireball of cosmic proportions because of this ruling. And the ruling that schools can’t have phys.ed. anymore because the crips can’t play. And the ruling that airlines must allow the blind to fly 7% of their routes. And the ruling that all roadsigns have to be pictographs for the mentally retarded. And the ruling that all voting materials have to be in 101 languages including Braille.
Did someone use the word “looney”? Did someone slip the word, “rational,” into the conversation? Are you kidding?! How much legislation over the temperature of coffee and the force required to flush a toilet can you take before you just want to vomit your last 2001 dinners into the good judge’s lap? How much redefinition of “is” and abdication of common sense can you suck down and still wear a smile on your face?
Snootfish, I like your handle, but take a good long look at the nose on your face. The world IS ending because of precisely the immense ocean of legal insanity and piracy in which it is drowning. It’s not only NOT time to stop the name-calling, but it’s time for sticks and stones and maybe a fork or two up the good judge’s robes.
There’s a line that’s been playing over and over in my mind these last few days. How does it go…? Oh, yeah…
Kill all lawyers.
Just kidding. Kind of.
November 30th, 2006 at 1:16 am
Gee whiz. Sometimes, statutes go many, many decades before being interpreted in a certain way — just because no one ever asked for such an interpretation. I haven’t read this statutory language. But, I suspect this interpretation is rational. It is a huge difference from having the blind fly airline routes to having currency that the blind can discern. I have thinking your post is tongue in cheek and exaggerated.
The legal system is far from perfect. But, its biggest flaw is not making radical changes. Its biggest flaw is preserving injustices. The legal system supported slavery for a long time. It supports feminist atrocities. It has been very slow and ineffective so far at correcting abuses of executive authority related to the “war on terror.” I think the main problem with the legal system is exactly the opposite of what you suggest. It is too willing to support the status quo — the status quo is not necessarily good.
November 30th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
My post exaggerated? I think not. After a country has been ravaged by judicial tyranny and all that has either been the people’s will or their expectations has been turned on its head, then there will be blood and bombs one way or another. And if you don’t think lawsuits are on their way about the blind flying,
or 95 pound weaklings being fire captains, or anosmiasts not being able to detect gas leaks, then your imagination is stilted.
The cancer is our courts. That’s what this article is about–not how money can be made more blind-friendly. Not a day goes by when some court doesn’t overturn or stop what the people have voted into law based upon the courts’
own inventions. There are so many examples, you just have to flick your tongue into the air for the stench. So people haven’t voted the design of our money into law? So what? No one’s complaining except a very, very tiny minority. This
is not discrimination. This is just the way some things are, and everyone has to put up with something that makes their life hard or even miserable for the
functioning of society. I sure as hell don’t like sitting at a computer all day ruining my eyes. The fact that I can’t do anything without having to look
at a computer screen means I, a minority of one, am being discriminated against. Therefore, the courts should simply mandate that all computer manufacturers “do something” within 10 days.
As Nicholas has pointed out, money is not a government program. So even under laws like the Rehabilitation Act (more cover for lawyers to fill their coffers and bleed victims dry) a judge cannot rule our money “discriminates.” The
abandon with which these pointy-headed latte-sipping pseudo-intellectuals levy their decrees is outrageous. Many of these judges are ivory tower elitists with no
connection to reality or common sense. Nothing’s perfect. Nothing SHOULD be perfect. Nothing’s universal. Don’t expect it from this nation or any other. There will always be mainstream and those born without fins.
The argument that this will make money far more difficult to use for the rest of us–the MAJORITY–and, more importantly, easier to counterfeit, is valid. The blind have been using this money for a loooong time, and they have ways of dealing with it.
Snootfish, when the Supreme Court found the right to abortion written in our constitution, that was a radical change. WHen the Supreme Court said that states cannot legislate morality, that was a radical change. WHen the California Supreme Court found that cross-dressing men et al. have a right to wear dresses to work or else their company will face a $200,000 fine, that was a radical change. When the 9th District Court found “under God” to be unconstitutional, that was a radical change. When the Supreme Court found that prisoners taken off the battlefield wearing no uniform, swearing no allegiance to any recognized army, have Geneva Convention rights, that was a radical change.
The cancer is our courts. Lawyers and the courts must be stopped or this country is finished.
November 30th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
I almost forgot…
Doesn’t money, itself, discriminate against the mentally retarded (the correct and unambiguous appellation until the language police were deputized)? I seem to recall as a child going with my retarded uncle to the store and having to help him count out the correct amount and receive the correct change for the brandy and cigs we were going to have later that evening.
December 1st, 2006 at 8:16 am
I’l bet the federal reserve loved this ruling. They get to print and loan us all of our money again at current interest rates. Hmmmm…I wonder if they talked to the judge about that.
A more sane solution is to for the blind to have hand held optical scanners that can tell them what currency denomination they are holding in their hand.
I wonder if such devices already exist? If so, I think that the federal reserve should be required to provide them to blind people. After all, it was their “short sightedness” that caused this problem. And, it is their product that is deficient!