Interview with John Armor. Reds and blues sit down for a talk.

Paul -V- — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 07:00:31 -0500

What happens when you put a Republican candidate for congress in the midst of a group of inquisitive left-wing Democratic bloggers?

Two days ago, I found out.

On Sunday evening myself and a handful of Asheville bloggers interviewed John Armor, Republican congressional candidate for NC district 11.

The event was organized by "Screwy Hoolie" of the blog ScrutinyHooligans. Also in attendance was "Edgy Mama" of BlogAsheville and Chris Parsons of ModernPeasant. (I'll stick to blogonyms unless the participant tells me that I can publish their real names.)

Before I get into my opinions about John, I want to make a few points crystal clear:

John Armor and I have serious disagreements over important policy issues. If you are looking for an unbiased analysis of his candidacy, look elsewhere.
John Armor, unlike the incumbent Charles Taylor, is not a corrupt man. When I say that Taylor is a corrupt man I'm not speaking as a partisan... even the local Republicans admit this. It is a testament to the power of the incumbency that Taylor is going to be allowed to run despite his legal problems.
John Armor is a hard-working, honest, intelligent patriot who will fight hard for his constituents if elected. That I think his hard work as congressman would harm our Republic and the state of North Carolina is not the point of this essay. I'm simply sharing with you my perspective on the man: No more, no less.

In order to prepare for the meeting, I Googled Mr. Armor and found that, among his long resume of political activism, he is a respected poster on the conservative forum FreeRepublic. In other words, he is a "Freeper."

This made me wince, since I am a well-known poster on the liberal forum DemocraticUnderground. I am a "DUer."

In the blogoshere, the rivalry between Free Republic and Democratic Underground is legendary. To say that Freepers and DUers don't get along is an understatement on par with comparing the Civil War to a spat over "Tastes Great" vs "Less Filling."

Have you ever seen English and Argentine soccer fans at a World's Cup match?

That's what it's like between Freepers and DUers.

To make it even more interesting, John Armor isn't just any Freeper. His legal opinions are highly valued on FreeRepublic; and he took the unusual step of announcing his candidacy on FreeRepublic before he told the mainstream media!

And by the way, I'm not just any DUer either. I used to be a moderator at DemocraticUnderground, and Brainshrub.com is one of the few blogs listed on that site's front page.

In other words, Armor and I have close ties to our respective teams and we are political polar opposites of each other. From a sociological point of view, to put us together in the same room would be like giving a child a flame thrower: A lot of potential for fireworks.

Because of this, I decided to make a special effort to find common ground with Armor. I quickly found some: We are both strong advocates for term limits. In fact, in 1994 he wrote one of the definitive books on the topic: Why Term Limits?.

Well that's a start!

I also found out that Armor is a Yale-educated constitutional lawyer and a dedicated campaigner to extend access to the political system for 3rd party candidates.

Very cool.

When Mr. Armor arrived, I helped him and his finance (Michelle) out of the car. John sported a Nordic-style sweater that you would only find in Denmark, and is usually only worn by liberals in the US.

I could be wrong about this, but John strikes me as a plaid-flannel shirt kinda guy. I think the sweater was his way of reaching out to us.

He brought copies of his book Why Term Limits?, which was great because I was going to purchase or check it out from the library.

As he autographed his book for me in Edgy Mama's kitchen, we made some small talk. I could tell he wasn't pleased when he found out I was a DUer. To humor him, I agreed that DU was a nuthouse and that we are overly quick to kick out opposing views.

We also talked briefly about the Dan Rather fake-memo controversy; and he mentioned that William Rivers Pitt has a big head. I decided not to tell him that Will Pitt was one of the reasons I got into political writing in the first place.

Heck, if he was willing to wear a foofy sweater for us - I could ignore a few quips about Rather, DU and Pitt .

So far, so good!

While people arrived for the meeting, Michelle told those assembled in the kitchen an incredibly romantic story about how she and John broke up 35 years ago, and they re-connected after she Googled his name.

The entire kitchen went: "Awwwwwwwww."

John acted like a typical macho guy by protesting: "That doesn't have anything to do with the issues!", but I could see that he loved hearing Michelle tell the tale.

Soon after listening to Michelle, we sat around in the living room and started asking Mr. Armor questions.

A good summary of the Q&A can be found here on the blog Scrutiny Hooligans.

John Armor said he knew Kerry back in college. He said of him: "I've never met a more pompous, self-serving, social climber."

Surprisingly, most of us Democrats nodded our heads. (Hey, if the truth hurts... don't blame the messenger.)

John went into great detail about his support for 3rd party candidates to get access to the electoral system. However, when I asked him what he would do about it as a Congressperson he said: "Nothing. I would just enforce the 1st Amendment."

What?

Enforce the 1st Amendment??? That's it?

As if that has worked thus far! As honorable as Armor's work was in the 80s, today's 3rd party candidates are still effectively locked out of the current system.

Mr. Armor could have advocated instant run-off voting or full federal funding for national campaigns. I wasn't expecting a detailed blue-print, but just leaving the system as-is and trusting the lawyers seems like a dead-end strategy.

His ideas about how to build a sustainable local economy was definitely supply-side. i.e.: Give welfare and tax breaks to corporations and hope they don't scamper off at the first opportunity.

On social issues, what irked me the most about Armor was the way he feels the constitution supports his personal prejudices.

For example, my impression is that he is personally against gay marriage. But rather than just come out and say that, he quibbled over the meaning of marriage and says it's a states-rights issue.

Liberal translation: Armor believes that the constitution gives states the legal grounds to give special rights to heterosexuals and discriminate against gays.

I didn't get to spend much time discussing the abortion issue with him, but ultimately he used the same kind of logic.

My impression is that he is personally against a woman's right to choose, but rather than come out and say this, he claims that the abortion question is best left to the states.

Liberal translation: Armor believes that the constitution gives states the right to execute women who have had abortions. (Note: We had a great conversation about whether, in a post Roe-v-Wade world, a state could have a woman extradited over abortion. John said that this would not happen, but I think it would be inevitable.)*

What was particularly revealing about Armor's understanding of the constitution was when, toward the end of the meeting, I got to ask him a question I've wanted to ask every congressperson running for office since I understood the concept of free elections.

First I turned to Screwy Hoolie, who was sitting to my right, and asked him to pick a number between one and ten.

Screwy Hoolie looked a bit perplexed, but after a while he said: "Eight."

Then I turned to Mr. Armor and asked:

"Sir, could you please tell me what the eighth Amendment to the Constitution says?"

Mr. John "I'm-a-constitutional-lawyer" Armor did not remember!

For the record, the 8th Amendment reads: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

To summarize: If you are a Republican, you are going to love John Armor. He is smart, honest, witty, politically astute and, if elected, he will make Liberals pull their hair out.

That he's a legal scholar that can't remember the 8th amendment to the constitution should not bother Republicans in the slightest - being that the Bush administration is known for torturing people.

Now to be fair, that Armor was going to get embarrassed by something at this event was inevitable. His bravery for meeting with a group of untamed bloggers eclipses his faux pax about the constitution.

While I hope John Armor loses his bid to be congressman, I wish him and his new bride all the best. By meeting with a group of bloggers he helped publicize Taylor for the crook he is, gave valuable insights into the nature of political discourse and raised the level of debate.

Republicans, and Freepers, should be proud of him.

To donate money to his campaign follow this link. (If you follow the above link, be sure to send the money to: "Armorforcongress.com")

The snail-mail to send money is:

Armor for Congress
"KettleRock" Box 243
Highlands, NC 28741
e-mail: armor a-t armorforcongress.com

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: John Armor - Taylor - NC - district 11 - congress - election - Asheville - North Carolina - debate - honorable man

* Since the topic of abortion might have gotten testy, I asked him questions about it informally after the meeting was over back in the kitchen. This was not part of the group discussion, but I placed these three paragraphs here to keep the story cohesive.

Interview with lawyer handling DUI proprietary code case

Paul -V- — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 11:43:42 -0400

As reported on this site on October 20th, 2005 there is a case working its way through the Florida courts that may have implications for OpenSource software and transparent elections.

A group of over 150 people who have been accused of DUI are arguing before Florida judges that the software on the breathalizer machine that implicated them should be open for review.

I have email-interviewed the lawyer for the defendants, Robert Harrison. His answers are extremely educational.

###

START OF INTERVIEW:

Paul -V-: How did your case go on Friday?

Robert Harrison: No ruling yet. The Judges indicated a decision would be entered sometime next week.

PV: While the software for the Intoxilyzer 5000 is not available for analysis, is the hardware for the Breathalyzer in Florida audited regularly?

RH: Some of the breath instruments in question are over ten years old. The State of Florida did not recertify these instruments after repair. Over time, the accumulations of repairs / modifications have become significant - to the point, no two look the same on the inside. Florida law requires the instruments to be re-approved if they have been modified.

PV: Are there any other devices that the state of Florida rejected when the vendor used proprietary software? (Follow up question: Are you aware of any devices that the federal government rejected when the vendor used proprietary software?)

RH: Not sure what you are looking for here, but I do know that this Vendor (CMI) had a least one version of the Intoxilyzer 5000 software recalled for software bugs in 1993.

PV: Many Americans do not trust electronic voting machines because they do not provide a verifiable paper ballot, and they are run on proprietary software. Do you think that your defendant's case has implications for the electronic voting-machine industry and/or the movement for a more transparent election process?

RH: This case addresses a narrow issue dealing with DUI instruments in Florida. Florida has a specific statute that provided a driver or his / her attorney is entitled to full information about the breath test.

PV: Do you, or or clients, have any other statement you'd like to make?

RH: It is important to note that all of the significant functions of the breath instrument is software, not hardware. The hardware only measures how much light is absorbed in a sample chamber for three specific wave lengths; these measurements are obtained about 5 times per second for 7 to 10 seconds. The software then analyzes this data and makes a conversion to blood alcohol level on many assumptions, some scientifically sound, others which reasonable scientists would debate.

Without knowing why the computer program is saying my client committed a crime, It is difficult to effectively challenge this evidence. The rhetorical question posed by one of the Judges to the prosecution last Friday sums it up well: "Doesn't the due process rights of the accused take precedent over a manufacturer's claim of trade secret?"

END OF INTERVIEW.

###

I would like to thank Robert Harrison for this interview. I have invited him to post comments in this thread if you have questions for him. (This thread will be open for comments until November 27, 2005.)

Brainshrub.com - Interviews

Interview with John Armor. Reds and blues sit down for a talk.

Interview with lawyer handling DUI proprietary code case