The Future

The unexpected death of my academic advisor Dr. Gustavo A. Wensjoe, PhD., aged fifty-nine has served as the catalyst, which solidified a number of my future endeavors. As an undergraduate student Dr. Wensjoe was always trying to making me see that my focus on international law and international politics was too narrow a viewpoint, and that I should broaden my analysis to include a study of international political economics and development issues in order to better understand global conditions.

Truth told as an undergraduate I was far from an ideal student. I allowed my intransigence, my disability and my illnesses to adversely affect not only my academic performance these factors also diminished the way in which I perceived my self-worth to such an extent that I like many of my professors had despaired of me successfully completing the requirements necessary to achieve a Bachelor of Arts degree.

This devaluation on my part made Dr. Wensjoe very angry and frustrated with me. He called me into his office. I had never known him to be angry over the conduct of a student. However, I did not understand why he was angry with me and when I asked him why he was angry with me. He said to me Mr. Zimmermann you can sell yourself short and tell yourself that you will fail to graduate. However, I will not do so because, I still believe you can graduate. I was later told that the dressing down could be heard through whole of Tiller Hall. I did graduate by the grace of God and with Jefe's strength of will to inspire me.

It was a long and arduous path that I had to take before I realized the truth of what he was telling me, and that he was right and had seen all those years ago what I had been too myopic to notice. My acquisition of my paralegal certifications were the first steps on the path that he led me to so many years ago, The next step is to find a position and take the LSAT

Thoughts of a Layman III: Expression and Radicalism

In Reiss v. National Quotation Bureau, Inc., 276 F. 717 (S.D.N.Y., 1921), Judge Learned Hand asserted that the Constitution of the United States and by extension the Copyright Act of 1909 was constructed to provide protection for the freedom of human expression. Judge Hand’s holding specifically addressed the question whether or not Copyright Law as derived from Article I section 8 of the Constitution implicitly required a standard of comprehensibility in order for the expression that is the product of an intellectual effort to be worthy of copyright

Hand’s holding that copyright law did not mandate a standard of individual comprehension, while, clarifying specific point of law, also, serves to remind the citizens of the Republic of the desire of the Founders to ensure that the freedoms granted under the First Amendment remained available and accessible to succeeding generations of Americans through the preservation of the sum total of the intellectual efforts of their descendants uniformly without any distinctions being accorded to them because, of their beliefs, values, and mores, id: Reiss v. National Quotation Bureau, Inc., 276 F. 717 (S.D.N.Y., 1921). The decision handed down in Reiss reflected I would argue Judge Hand’s belief that the greatest dangers to a society as a whole lay within legally sanctioned compulsory uniformity:

Our dangers, as it seems to me, are not from the outrageous but from the conforming; not from those who rarely and under the lurid glare of obloquy upset our moral complaisance, or shock us with unaccustomed conduct, but from those, the mass of us, who take their virtues and their tastes, like their shirts and their furniture, from the limited patterns which the market offers. (Learned Hand. The Preservation of Personality, VII, 7 Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin 7-14 (1927) reprinted in The Spirit of Liberty: Papers and Addresses of Learned Hand (Irving Dillard ed., 3d ed., New York, A.A. Knopf, 1960)

This belief was reaffirmed by Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Robert H. Jackson in 1943 during the depths of the Second World War, demonstrably highlighting his belief that the freedom to express oneself was a treasure to be protected in both war and peace, see: West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)
It seems to me that the Executive and Legislative branches have forgotten the idea illustrated above, and have allowed the government to be forcibly fettered by the shackles of extreme partisanship and its attendant rhetoric because, they have allowed themselves to forget Voltaire’s long held belief on the need for freedom of speech as a form of expression as restated by S. G. Tallentyre (Evelyn Beatrice Hall in her 1906 opus the Friends of Voltaire, when she wrote the following: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Truth told the situation as it now exists reminds me of the 1868 Impeachment of Andrew Johnson which was orchestrated by the Radical element within the Republican Party in the sense that then as now the United States was in a time of turmoil, decimated by partisan bickering. During the early years of Reconstruction politicians on either side of the political fence possessed of a spirit that was either unwilling to compromise, and unable to recognize the validity of the concerns raised by their opponents, threatened the stability of nation as a whole, and only the courage of a single Senator prevented the wholesale renewal of armed conflict.

The unwillingness of partisans on both sides to stipulate that even though they possess fundamental disagreements that the other side has legitimate concerns that should be considered and addressed in a civil manner has led to a divisiveness and intransigence that is dangerous and could potentially either stunt the growth of, or be fatal to continued growth of the Republic

I argue simply argue that radical partisanship on either the left or right when unrestrained by moderating influences poses a threat to the country as whole, because, it only serves to encourage and facilitate division which given the current economic woes would be function as a hindrance to the recovery of the nation.