Saturday, April 30, 2011

Seriously, There's Gotta Be a Better Way to Scare Stupid White People

North Carolina locking out Sharia law from sneaking into it's laws:
Though state Rep. George Cleveland (R), one of the sponsors of the bill, told the News & Observer that the bill is "to ensure that any individual in this state does not have to worry about being taken advantage of by foreign laws. It's barring any international law."

"If Sharia law tries to be enforced in the state," Cleveland said, "yeah, it would do it."
This whole "passing a law that states other laws can't sneak in" is confusing stuff.  Most of all, if you suddenly find yourself under the rule of a foreign law, then you're probably already in deep shit.  I'm no historian, but I'm pretty sure things almost never went like this:

Country A: Hi.  We're here to overwhelm you with violence and then rule your people with our own set of laws.
Country B: I'm sorry, I'd love to help you, but we have a law that says that we are to stay in charge of ourselves.
Country A: Oh. Well, that's unfortunate.
Country B: Sorry about that.
Country A: Is there a manager I can speak with?
Country B: I'm so sorry, he's not in right now.
Country A: Okay...okay, I guess I'll be off then.
Country B: Good luck!

Also, I'm pretty sure that even foreigners as loveable as, say, Wills & Kate, can't decide to weigh in on a case in North Carolina because "that's how we do it back home" and have it taken seriously, since the court would be following a set of codes defined as, ta-da, the law.

I've spent very little time in a courtroom, but I don't think I've ever heard of a judge starting out a trial with "okay Mr. So and So, which set of laws would you like to apply to this case?"  But then, I've never seen Law & Order, so what the fuck do I know?

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