Month: November 2010

The the Drug War has helped spawn the TSA. The precedent on how to deal with contraband has been set. It is now going to be applied to everyone. Bet you weren’t expecting that were you? Oh yeah. It turns out that a dope case, Raich vs Gonzales, can be used to justify the mandates…

I keep reading about how New Jersey wants to pass new legislation against bullying. In the news today I read about an “Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights” but the articles were short on details, so I had to look for the text, which I found here. Most of the very long bill deals with restrictions on…

It seems the Senate is about to pass S 510. Maybe. It is about food safety (do you really believe that?) and the regulation of food products that could cause illness from contamination. According to what I consider overblown (for now) rhetoric it will be messing with home gardeners and legacy seed growers and collectors.…

Eric in a previous entry linked to a page of John Stuart Mill quotes and featured one. I thought, given, the discussions that have gone on around here the past few days that it deserved a more prominent place. …it is the absolute social right of every individual, that every other individual shall act in…

From the Wiki entry for John Coode (17th century Protestant rebel leader in Maryland) In April 1689, John Coode helped lead “An association in arms, for the defence of the Protestant religion, and for asserting the right of King Oscar and Queen Isabelle to the Province of Maryland and all the English dominions.” Nonsense. There…

An e-mail friend suggested I take a look at A Common-Sense Platform for the 21st Century. From the excerpt I read it looks pretty good. It is all about how to roll back socialism in America in the 21st Century. Cross Posted at Power and Control

As usual I’m trying to talk sense with one of my solipsistic social conservative friends. Rough slog that. You can’t reason with faith. I’m trying to figure out if that is a bug or a feature. Well my friend is questioning the libertarian “faith” which is an interesting way to describe a political philosophy. If…

Amazing as it may sound, the government is trying to get people to feel sorry for the TSA screeners. “Our concern is that the public not confuse the people implementing the policies with the people who developed the policies,” said Sharon Pinnock, the union’s director of membership and organization. I love it. “Don’t blame me!…

I can’t decide what’s funnier in all this: that Krugman thinks this arms treaty is “desperately needed,” that he likens spending cuts to “blood lust” while claiming the GOP won’t do anything to address deficits, or his intimation that the GOP having a voice on spending may mean the end of the Republic as we…

As part of my endless quest to understand the meaning of words that are commonly used but ill defined, I found myself trying to understand precisely how best to politically characterize opposition to big government. I am going to attempt to break this down because the more I think about it, the more confused I…

In the comments to Did I impose on PETA last night? some one says I’m a fanatic. To wit (or without it): M. Simon, you’re a fanatic, and I know you mean well… I’m a fanatic and I don’t mean well to the statists of the left and right. I would remind you that extremism…

The drug war and its search for contraband was the prototype for all this. All made easier by the Drug War Exception to the Fourth Amendment. You peed in a cup to get your job didn’t you? Why all the pissing and moaning about the TSA? After all they are doing it to save the…

The link to the above was sent to me by my #2 son who is a staunch libertarian, graduated with honors in Russian literature from U Chicago, and now teaches American Culture at a University in Smolensk under a Fulbright Grant. Every time I think of that it cracks me up.

There is a unifying thread between the TSA and the drug war. The unifying thread? The search for contraband. You gave up the 4th Amendment to get at the dopers. And now that you are a suspect you have nothing to protect you. Because the 4th Amendment has already been torn down to make searching…

Watching the video of a small boy being strip-searched made me very angry this morning. I was already angry at the TSA, though, as I had just finished reading in the Sunday paper about the indignities meted out to a man suffering from bladder cancer whose urostomy bag was forced open by TSA man handlers,…

Some Birther Madness from Ulsterman’s Deep Throat. The she in question is supposed to be Nancy Pelosi. We shall she. Insider: Well, she was at it again and then she says something along the lines of, “How about I just hand over the goddamn certification file. They want me to go there? Because that’s where…

Every time a discussion of the correct scope of the laws comes up with social conservatives this little ditty or something like it is trotted out to justify the death penalty for picking your nose or for growing the wrong kind of plants. So do you advocate getting rid of laws that deal harsh consequences…

Inspired by a discussion with a commenter at Did I impose on PETA last night? Being left alone is not an imposition. If I push on a block of wood I am imposing on it. If I don’t push on the block I’m also imposing on it? You must be a Taoist.

Dr. Helen links a post by ShrinkWrapped about the disturbing trend highlighted in a Drudge headline that read: ‘1 IN 5’ AMERICANS MENTALLY ILL Hey, if that’s true, that must mean that this blog has a lot of mentally ill readers. I won’t comment on the authors, but there are at least four of us…

Social Conservatives thrive on prohibitions. So do criminals. Makes ya wonder sometimes don’t it?