Civil Liberties – Page 16 – Shall Not Be Questioned

A Movement Gone Wrong

What if I told you that there was an organization out there taken over by zealots, and people who are motivated by grief to engage in activism restrict the freedom of others. Sound familiar? I really enjoyed this link to Classical Values provided by Glenn Reynolds, who also had some really worthwhile contributions to this line of thought. From Eric of Classical Values:

When I was awakened early this morning, I made the mistake of turning on the TV in the hope of being bored into drowsiness so I could go back to sleep. I turned on C-SPAN, thinking that boring speeches would do the trick.

Big mistake. Instead of boring speeches, I was greeted by passionate, in-your-face activists from M.A.D.D. The hard core of that organization consists mostly of people who have lost a family member because of an accident with a drunk driver, and who have clearly sublimated the normal grief which accompanies the death of a loved one into political activism. They think that their loved ones died because of lax laws, and they press for endlessly tougher laws, which they claim will stop drunk driving.

M.A.D.D. activists are now pushing toÂ make drunk driving a felony,Â and to lower the blood alcohol level standard for DUI from .08 (already lowered from .10 thanks to MADD activists) down to .04.

.04 is the BAC you’d get from a glass of wine.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see that this would create a gigantic new group of felons.

Read the whole thread. Sounds awfully familiar doesn’t it? I’d say just as wrong too, but really, no one is going to be put in jeopardy of life and limb by not getting behind the wheel after a few drinks. Someone denied their right to effective self-defense tools just might.

For anyone who wants to belong to an organization who actually stands up for the motoring public, I would suggest the National Motorists Association, who have actually been willing to stand up to MADD’s insanity. They are doing what AAA used to do before they sold out to become an insurance company.

What’s really sadd about MADD, is that if they get what they want, they will destroy the legitimacy of these laws in the eyes of the public, and will actually reverse the gains they’ve made in the past several decades educating the public that drunk driving is a serious problem. In the end, social shame is what stops DUI, and if the standard is one drink and you’re a felon, that shame is going to disappear. MADD actually hurts its own cause with this garbage.

Security Theater

There’s no better source for amusing security theater scenarios than Joe Huffman. (This was a topic of great conversation in Louisville at the first Blog Bash, but I can’t seem to find any posts about it from the time.)

Anyway, while we were preparing for Hawaii, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about security for a number of reasons. Number one being Phoenix. We don’t get the benefit of an oops again. Number two reason is the debate for a trip like this over how much to bring in the way of toiletries and their damn 3-1-1 rule. Number three being the general pain-in-the-ass of TSA these days – and the fact that in Kona, we had to exit secured areas and re-enter when we had only 50 minutes between flights initially and our arriving flight was delayed by about 20 minutes. (Run!)

If it’s truly vital that no containers that can contain more than 3.4 ounces of liquid are allowed on the plane, then I should be forced to have a haircut pretty much every time I walk through security. At the very least, they would probably have to deny me entry if I try to board a plane after washing my hair.

I’m serious about this. We joked that I singlehandedly countered the effects of a rising tide in Hanauma Bay when I decided to go in just long enough to get my hair wet. My hair is crazy thick, very long, and holds a ton of water.

So, if my hair is not considered a security risk based on the fact that I’m quite confident it can hold more than 3.4 ounces of liquid, then why do we still have this rule? Sebastian’s aftershave was .1 ounce too much. Most of the travel-sized items are made to 3 ounces because people haven’t figured out that the actual rule is closer to 3 1/5 ounces. (Thank you Listerine for making your bottles just the right size!)

I guess I shouldn’t give TSA any ideas. Knowing that they are headed up by a woman who believes a nickname based off an Orwell novel is a good thing. Many of the TSA agents I’ve encountered have been bad enough, I’d hate to see who they would hire to give the mandatory haircuts at the gate.

The Obama Administration is keeping up appearances – Health Care Edition

Once again, the Secretary of HHS is threatening insurance companies who say they are raising rates in response to the coming Health Care Reform. This kind of thing is, if nothing else, disturbing because of the assymetry of power between a federal regulatory agency and the industry it regulates. If thre is fraud, prosecute it. Making threats is simply an attempt to suppress speech.

A proposed amendment to the US constitution (Updated)

I would like to suggest the following amendment to the US constitution:

No person shall be convicted of a felonious crime or subject to lengthy term of imprisonment or loss of civil rights, or ruinous fine, or a sentence of death, save that either:
1)The intent of the accused to knowingly commit the specific alleged crime be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in open court
OR
2)The felonious actions of the accused be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in open court to have resulted in actual bodily injury, actual physical harm, or death, to another person

The goal here is to require intent for non-injurious crimes; no more strict liability.

(Edited to add the italicized words – the accused must have either meant to commit a crime or the injury must have been serious enough to merit a felony indictment. Please pass the BATFE and Sen Lautenberg some Kleenex)

Who gets to vote?

My last post, I noted thatÂ (anecdotally)Â Â the majority of parents in the Camden City school district were ineligible to vote for being immigrants or felons. Should this be?

I know a bunch of youÂ out there are in favor of restoral of rights for felons after leaving the pen, because if they were too dangerous toÂ have a gun, they shouldn’t have been let out. I agree with that.Â Â If we allow them to have guns, why stop them from voting? “Because they’ll vote for the other side” isn’t a valid argument here. They’re out, they’re paying their taxes (even if they’re under the income tax limit, they pay property tax and sales tax, which are local taxes). Shouldn’t they get some input into the political process,once they’ve served their time?

How about for legal aliens? (If you’re here illegally, get your butt home and jump though the proper hoops. I have too many friends who have gone through the tortuous procedure to become a resident alien legally to feel any sympathy for the queue-jumpers). At least for local (city/county level) elections?Â There’s too many potential policy implications for state-level voting for me to feel comfortable letting non-citizens vote at the state level, and, of course, input into national decisions is a privilege of citizenship. At the local level, though?

The floor is open for discussion.

The NYT Archive System Must be Down

Tam’s got a snippet from a New York Times column that tries to show how it was those evil Republicans who wanted to keep us women barefoot and pregnant – or at least out of the voting booth. I assume that the author’s access to the NYT archives must have been down the day he wrote that because I found a handy NYT article that shows it was the Republicans who finally got the 19th amendment moving.

In fact, it was the Democrats who seemed to provide the main opposition to the amendment. Out of 44 Republicans, 36 (82%) voted for it. Of the 37 Democrats, 17 (46%) voted against it. In the House vote, 200 Republicans (92%) voted for it and 70 Democrats (41%) voted against it.

San Francisco Becoming Food Fascists

Apparently the Center for Science and the Public Interest, our nations leading Food Nazis, are going around the bay area trying to ban the Happy Meal. I’m relatively disappointed that our restaurant industry is, so far, taking a relatively passive approach to resisting these Food Fascists, these Meatball Mussolinis. If McDonald’s came out and said, “We’re going to stand up for the right of Americans to eat whatever they want, and CSPI can go to hell,” health problems be damned, I’ll hit McDonald’s for lunch every day for the next two weeks. I’ll even regret not having kids to take there for a Happy Meal.

PA Liquor Gestapo Strikes Again

This time raiding a gun club and a firehouse, who have been selling alcohol to members without a liquor license, a practice I cam promise you they have been doing for a loong time. Gun club was probably a member looking to get even with someone for a transgression.

Yes, some shooting clubs have bars. Every one I’ve been to or heard about has procedures in place that if you’re coming to socialize (i.e. drink) you get flagged and can’t enter the firing ranges.

But let me just say I am so glad that crime in this state is under such firm control that the State Police have the resources rid our society of the scourge of unregulated liquor sales. Clearly this gun club and firehouse were sending drunk people onto the streets by the hundreds to poop on lawns, puke on the sidewalks, and pass out in theÂ azaleas.

Note this part they are speaking of at the end:

Kriedeman said club licenses, other than those issued to veterans organizations, are issued as long as a vacancy exists in the county. Club licenses can be obtained through purchase or transfer if a vacancy does not exist. Veterans organizations can receive liquor licenses even if there are no vacancies.

See, in Pennsylvania, we ration liquor licenses. Each county only has a certain number available, so if you want one, you have to wait for some other establishment to give theirs up. Given the hassle, it’s no wonder some private organizations just take their chances. Perhaps it’s time to consider making liquor licenses more freely available in Pennsylvania, like they are in most other states? This has impeded the restaurant business in this state for years.

They Don’t Even Believe in the First

I guess it’s difficult to get left wing journalists to believe in the Second Amendment, when they don’t even seem to believe in the First. There’s something rotten in Denmark.

Recording the Police

I have little sympathy for the animal rights whack jobs protesting the Philadelphia Gun Club, but I will defend them on this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmNU7Zmbe0s[/youtube]

They have every right to film the police, even if they have no right toÂ trespass. Hat tip to Radley Balko on this one. Now that these people are bringing these issues to Bensalem, they need to train their police officers on the law. I can’t stand what these people are doing, but I admire this woman’s tenacity.