Category: Civil Liberties

I hate the GOP, and I hate my choices. So with the Democrats, I can either have my money, and my kids’ money, spent so fast that our head spins, or, under the GOP, I can deal with stupid Internet snooping bills that invade my privacy and force ISPs to spend huge sums of money watching what everyone does. Let’s not even, for a moment, think about what this will do to the performance of high speed connections, where services will have to be forced through proxies, in order for their behavior to be logged. I propose an amendment to this bill, suggesting that Congress’ and the White House’s internet connection get tapped too, and the logs opened up to anyone who wants to look. Think it’ll pass then?

I should note that Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Rep. Chaffetz (R-UT), and Rep. Issa (R-CA), all voted against this stupid, stupid bill. The rest of the GOP fell in line. The GOP is still for big government, they are just for different big government than the Democrats.

A DC Circuit court has upheld the TSA nude-o-scope and government mandating groping as in compliance with the Fourth Amendment. If something like this isn’t what the founders had in mind when they wrote the damned thing, I don’t know what is. I’m really tired of the high degree of deference the courts give the other branches of Government, particularly in Fourth Amendment law. Tam has yet another example of federal overreach on the part of the FDA, and what has to be a quote of the day:

At this rate, everybody’s going to be so busy stockpiling 100-watt bulbs and glucosamine tablets that they won’t have any room for ammunition… Which might be the plan, actually.

The big problem with our political system is that it’s designed to only really handle big issues. Petty bureaucrats and politicians are pretty much free to chip away at the edges with little fear of consequences. How many women are willing to put up with elected officials who want to grope their children provided they still stand for letting her cut a fetus out of her body? How many of us are OK with someone a politician who votes to ban lightbulbs if he votes the right way on guns? The government is free to chip away at the periphery as long as the population is focused on only a handful of big issues at a time. Does it matter so much that the government is groping our children at airports, which probably happens to your average family once every few years, when it’s quite busy spending all our children’s future earnings?

It doesn’t really work for keeping liberty, but I’m not sure how to change it. I’ve often believed the right would do better to apply the NRA model to a lot of these smaller issues. Would I join a lobby to save the 100 Watt lightbulb? Hell yes. Would I join a lobby that took on FDA overreach? Hell yes. But I’m probably only 2% of the population who even really understands the issue, let along is outraged by it. The NRA model can work because there’s enough people who care about this big issue to support something like the NRA, and a lot of other groups in addition. I would think if there was viability in some of these smaller issues, someone would be capitalizing on it by now.

Turns out there are law enforcement methods out there for taking dangerous criminals into custody that don’t involve breaking down doors.

King County, Washington, home of Seattle, is passing an ordinance requiring all swimmers to wear a life preserver. Generally speaking, I would imagine if you’re actually swimming in the water, you probably know how to swim. If you don’t know how to swim, and you’re swimming in the water, you’re probably actually drowning. Presumably King County wants to stave off the possibility of someone who does not know how to swim trying to do it, and drowning.

Personally, I think all this interference with natural selection is going to come back and bite us in the ass in a few generations.

It’s rather unusual for a politician to veto nanny state legislation, but Rick Perry has vetoed the texting while driving law passed by the legislature, considering it “a government effort to micromanage the behavior of adults.”

One of the main reasons to be against this kind of legislation is that it does not work. It’s a feel good measure, and one that is only going to result in yet another crime that will help fill state coffers when ordinary people are fined. We already lose most of our rights when we get behind the wheel.

The Boston Herald seems to be surprised their their state ranks near the bottom in a freedom index:

“The big takeaway is that Massachusetts is not doing well overall in terms of freedom,” said study co-author William Ruger, despite the state’s laissez faire attitude toward gay marriage and pot. “There’s this kind of stereotype or myth that the deep blue states are more economically restrictive but more personally free. But the data doesn’t actually bear that out . . . Liberals tend to want to constrain your freedom in all areas.”

Now I support gay marriage and a laissez attitude towards pot, but let’s face it, “rules on smoking, seat belts, transfats and firecrackers,” affect a lot more people. I, for one, have long believed it’s a core tenent of freedom that on certain holidays, we be able to celebrate our nation’s freedom by blowing up a small chunk of it.