March 25, 2003
But Vin, War is the Health of the State
Vin Suprynowicz asks "When did it become illegal to put your hands in your pockets in America, when left unexpectedly standing by the side of the road on a chilly Friday evening?"
And then he asks:
If the officers spend their shifts in fear that the average middle-aged motorist is hoping for a chance to pull out a little .25 and plug them, why did they volunteer for this line of work? None of them were drafted.
Or why don't they at least lobby heavily (don't tell me they don't lobby the legislatures; they do it all the time) to end the War on Drugs and the War on Guns and all these revenue-seeking traffic stops, whereupon they could simply go back to answering emergency calls and chasing violent felons?
And finally he asks: "If this is a war, when do we start to negotiate the peace?"
Good questions, Vin.
March 24, 2003
March 23, 2003
Worth Repeating
From Col. Jeff Cooper:
It is a long time now since Lon Horiuchi shot Vicky Weaver in the face while she was holding her child in her arms, but that is something most people would like to forget. Horiuchi still walks free with that on his conscience. The law cannot reach him, but there are many who do not forget.
March 20, 2003
A Good Explanation
Byran Caplan's Anarchist Theory FAQ is a very useful document, especially for folks who are confused by the "bombthrowing radicals" or "shop-window-smashing thugs" connotations of the word "anarchist." The FAQ goes into great detail about the various flavors and strains of anarchism. Reading it, I learned several things I did not previously know, including the fact that many left-anarchists (anarcho-syndicalists and the like) don't consider anarchocapitalists to be anarchists at all.
Recommended.
March 16, 2003
Yup, Enemy Action All Right
Quote of the day, from Jerry Pournelle:
The TSA [Transportation Security Administration] is the result of enemy action. Getting us to establish the TSA was the most effective use of economic ju-jitsu I have ever seen, making us use our own strength against ourselves. The TSA has cost us far more than 9-11 ever did; a 9-11 every year would cost less than the TSA.
Thanks to Bill for the pointer.
March 13, 2003
Strange Bedfellows
My father the creative footdragger has besworn himself never again to vote for a Republican or a Democrat. And I myself have been eschewing votes for candidates from either of those two wings of the Boot On Your Neck party. Last time I stepped up the ballot box I voted against all the enlarge-government initiatives and voted "for" candidates from several different of Alaska's wacky assortment of third, fourth, fifth, and sixth parties.
Thus I felt a strange sort of fellowship for the folks over at Electrolite. It's a lefty crowd over there, and I don't mean that in a good way, but there are some interesting parallels I never would have suspected.
Exhibit A: There's a vicious-but-unusually-civil (Electrolite being a civil kind of place) debate going on in the comments to this post. The topic? Recriminations about the 2000 presidential election.
Patrick (the host over there) started it with a bitter comment about Nader voters and their responsibility for putting the current crop of "knaves, criminals and morons" and "bullies, sadists, and fools" in power. (No sarcastic bite to those quotes --- they merely serve the pedestrian function of indicating exact reproduction. I don't disagree with a word of the description.)
And with that, the folks at Electrolite were off to the races, to the tune of well over a hundred comments.
It turns out that there is a left that considers Gore to be as bad, or almost as bad, as Bush. This amazes me. But perhaps it shouldn't, since in my turn I consider Bush to be as bad, or almost as bad, as Gore. As fast as fascism is growing in this country, I'm not convinced Gore wouldn't have nurtured it just as enthusiastically, with an extra twist of national socialism to make us all impoverished as well as oppressed. But it is -- remotely -- possible he might not have, while it's clearly too late to give Bush the benefit of any comparable doubt.
The point to all this? Waaaay over there on the left fringe of a leftist crowd, there's a group of people so disgusted that government isn't big enough that they refused to vote for either a Republican or a Democrat. They and I have each gone so far around the world that we are meeting ourselves coming back. Or something like that.
Tolerate THIS, assholes
"Zero Tolerance" -- the new creed of puritanical fascists. A simple ideology even graduates of the public schools can understand. No need for judgment, prudence, fairness, tolerance, discretion, reason, or common sense. There's more at The Creative Footdragger.
And it leads to moronicity like this -- where a six year old boy is suspended from school and pending expulsion for possessing (wait for it) the plastic butter knife the school issued him to use in the school cafeteria.
Cops Who Steal Mail...
...from journalists investigating terrorism.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the FBI, with the help of U.S. Customs, intercepted a Federal Express package sent by one Associated Press reporter to another. No warrant, no notice -- but they siezed the documents inside.
When the government stops even pretending to be constrained by the rule of law, the sound you hear is the echo of metaphorical jackboots.
March 12, 2003
Cops & Prosecutors Who Coach Witnesses
Apparently there's an old sex scandal involving Roman Polanski and a girl far too young. Some testimony from the girl has recently surfaced on the web. Bacchus over at ErosBlog pointed out what might be a sad childish misunderstanding, or what might be a hilarious transcription error, when the girl says "And then he went down and he started performing cuddliness."
I have to say that this bit just reeks of witness coaching. In 1977 or today, how many girls of thirteen would even attempt to say "cunnilingus?" But the real credibility killer is the phrase "performing cunnilingus" (or cuddliness). Those are cop words, lawyer words, even therapist words. But they aren't kid words. Nobody that age talks like that unless they have been coached, prepped, trained, rehearsed. Pick your poison -- but somebody in a position of authority told that girl to say that. Which is a pity, especially if the core facts of her story are true.
March 08, 2003
"Don't be nervous, don't be anxious, don't be scared..."
My father (and this will come as no surprise to those who know him) has just put up the definitive post on duct tape and survival.
"Dial 911 and your death will be professionally investigated, when they get time."
Indeed.
March 07, 2003
In FedWorld There Will Be No Doors
Unruled points out this article about the costs of regulation, complete with anecdotes like this one:
Someone from my five-year-old son’s school rang me on my mobile phone to tell me that he’d had a very nasty accident. She was sketchy about the details, but said that Tyler was quite badly hurt and needed to be taken to both a casualty department and a dentist. ... at casualty the doctors were mystified. ‘There’s nothing wrong with him,’ they said, ‘nothing at all.’ In fact, there was no sign of any injury whatsoever.
What had happened was this: a child had let a door bang shut in his face. It must have hurt the kid, for a bit.
Later that evening, someone from the school rang again. ‘We’re undertaking a full review of our policy with regard to doors,’ she assured us. ‘Doors,’ the woman added, ‘are an accident waiting to happen.’
Hmm, but lack of doors makes it hard to keep the terrorists out of the supply closet. Whatever will they do?
Decline and Fall
So this librarian says:
A mother and her two children came in one evening and were looking at the video collection. The two children began arguing about a movie and became pretty loud when the mother finally interjected with "Quiet down! This is a library and people are trying to read the backs of the videos!"
My source.
"HALT! It's the Pee Police!"
Every time the prospect of ever-expanding state power brings me close to despair, I am rescued by absurdity. A story will come along demonstrating that governments are doomed to self-parody so vicious that, in the end, they will be reduced in scope and power to little enclaves of self-deluded tin-pot despots with no subjects willing to take them seriously. Think Fedworld in Neil Stephenson's "Snow Crash".
This is one such story. Ronald Bailey of Reason Online's Hit and Run writes:
I was astonished to learn that several states make it illegal for someone to give away, distribute or sell their urine. Apparently, in South Carolina one can be thrown in the pokey for up to 3 years and fined $5000 for selling "clean urine." Other states outlawing pee include North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Texas, and Arkansas. Is there no indignity to which the drug warriors will not stoop?
No there is not. But eventually people will be laughing so hard it doesn't matter.
"Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when the Pee Police come for you?"
But it gets better. In Curtis v. State, 549 S.E. 2d 591 (South Carolina 2001) the Soutch Carolina Supreme Court put on their "Pee Judge" hats and concluded that the statute "does not prohibit Curtis from doing what he wants with his urine. He could even sell his urine for other purposes as long as he does not intend to defraud a drug or alcohol screening test."
How nice.
March 05, 2003
Beaten to Death In Chains...
...while in the custody of U.S. military police.
CNN reports that two "detainees" in Afghanistan were murdered in custody (even the military coroners called it homicide) and that "blunt force trauma" was a contributing factor in both deaths. Such detainees are kept "heavily restrained" at all times.
It appears that the responsible parties will "suffer" Janet Reno style accountability: "No military police have been transferred out of the facility to date, and there has been no change in detention procedures, according to military officials." Also: "a U.S. military source said it is not clear whether anyone will be charged."
What a happy day it will be when we are all terrorists, to be treated so!