The case SayUncle links to here rules that police can’t ask you for identification without a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed. I have a feeling this case, currently in the eighth circuit, might end up being useful in a case that’s developing here in Pennsylvania. Hopefully I’ll be able to post more about that later.
Category: Civil Liberties
Thinking About Rights
I’m really getting tired of these fascists:
Perhaps, then, the recent signs of violent times occasion an opportunity for broadening our collective sense of what ”rights” should be in terms of our social consciousness. Our political and judicial discourse would benefit from moving beyond a purely libertarian view of rights, which emphasizes freedom from governmental coercion or constraint, to incorporate also a dignitarian view of rights, which promotes freedom for the good of each other and for society as a whole. The challenge now before us is how to preserve personal independence and autonomy while also recognizing, as Prof. Mary Ann Glendon once wrote, ”that we are constituted in important ways by and through our relations with others, and that each of us develops our potential within a social network of obligations and dependencies.”
Sorry Reverend Dailey, you sir, can go to hell. Inidividual liberty and freedom is social well-being. Any government empored to create social well-being, empowered to do ulimited good, is by nature empowered to do unlimited evil. If you’d like to live in a society like that, perhaps I can suggest Venzuela, or perhaps China. But this country is founded on principles of limiting government for the sake of personal liberty, and if you don’t like that, get the hell out.
Gotta Watch that Mike’s Hard
Based on this article, you would almost think a bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade is rat poison:
The Comerica cop estimated that Leo had drunk about 12 ounces of the hard lemonade, which is 5% alcohol. But an ER resident who drew Leo’s blood less than 90 minutes after he and his father were escorted from their seats detected no trace of alcohol.
“Completely normal appearing,” the resident wrote in his report, “… he is cleared to go home.”
But it would be two days before the state of Michigan allowed Ratte’s wife, U-M architecture professor Claire Zimmerman, to take their son home, and nearly a week before Ratte was permitted to move back into his own house.
The father, a Professor of Archeology at the University of Michigan, who doesn’t watch much television, apparently was unaware that it was alcoholic lemonade. Easy mistake to make.
One 12 ounce bottle of hard lemonade isn’t going to hurt a 7 year old. Hell, they used to tell parents to give whiskey to kids to fight teething pain (ask my dad about that one). It was a simple mistake, and a bit of questioning should have revealed that, and that should have been the end of it.
Hat tip to Orin Kerr.
Men in Black
I can’t help but notice that these kinds of stories seem to come from states with high Brady rankings.
Where’s the ACLU?
Via Glenn, I noticed this article talking about the entire Texas polygamy fiasco, and asking where the ACLU is in all of this. The answer to me, is pretty clear. It’s not George W. Bush perpetrating this outrage against people’s civil rights, so who’s to care? If it can’t used it to beat those warmongering Republicans over the head, why does it matter?
The progressives’ defense of civil rights has become an utter joke, and it’s not just their willingness to throw the second amendment under the bus. I’m not happy with Bush’s record on civil liberties at all, and for letting a weasel like Gonzalez run around for as long as he did. But civil liberties violations don’t start and end with the Bush administration.
It’s for the Children
This law could be the bane of dirty old men in malls in the State of Maine. Dr. Helen talks about whether this law, which basically seems to outlaw staring at children, won’t have unintended consequences. Here’s my scenario:
A man is caught starting into a park with a set of binoculars where children are known to be congregating. Surely that’s enough to creep out any parent who might come across it? The police are called, and arrest the man for “visual sexual aggression”, in the face of a crowd of angry parents demanding something be done. The man, a member of the local ornithological society, claims he was tracking a rare Rufous-capped Warbler. The police don’t buy it, and he’s arrested and charged. He’s ultimately acquitted in a jury trial, but the legal fees force him into bankruptcy, and he loses his life’s savings.
People need to develop a healthy skepticism of what those in power suggest will protect their children. Legislators can pass laws. That’s all they can do. When your only tool is a hammer, a lot of things start looking like nails. Voters need to consider that the legal system can ruin the lives of the guilty along with the innocent. The reason I oppose this Maine law is the exact same reason I opposed the “Lost and Stolen” requirement. We set the state’s burden of proof high for a reason, and we should look most skeptically on any proposal designed to allow the state to divine that a person clearly must be guilty, and to give the state tools to make an easy conviction based on that cognition, without having to meet the burden of proof for the more serious, but more difficult to prove offense.
UPDATE: Illspirit points out that the actual bill is not nearly what the reporter has lead us to believe. After reading the actual text, I have no problem with said bill. It only goes to show you should never believe anything you hear from a reporter.
We can dance if we want to …
… or maybe we can’t if you’re on property under the jurisdication of the National Park Service. I smell a a lawsuit.
From Across the Rubicon
SayUncle points out that Wyoming is telling the feds to go to hell in regards to a lot of their less-than-civil-rights-respecting laws. Montana did a similar action with federal gun laws. These are largely symbolic gestures, because despite all this, Montana and Wyoming are still committed to being a functioning part of the United States.
But what if they weren’t? What if the federal government crossed the Rubicon of gun control? We often like to think that the federal government will meet mass resistance should the “knock on the door” ever come, but they probably won’t. Lone individual action will not be how an onerous federal gun measure will be successfully resisted. No doubt some individuals will try, with the end result being those individuals end up dead, possibly along with their families. I don’t think the answer to the “Crossed Rubicon” problem lies in relying on that possibility. The knock won’t likely come from men in jack boots, disarming people to ship them off in cattle cars and toss them into ovens. It’ll come from a happy, smiling government that wants to take care of everybody, and surely you don’t need guns in such a happy utopia.
Most non-sociopathic human beings have powerful mental programming that prevents them from going against the tribe. It’s easy to say “I’ll shoot any son of a bitch that comes for my guns.” from the comfort of a lounge or living room. It’s quite another thing to actually do it; to put a fellow countryman in the cross hairs, one that’s likely to represent a government that looks more like Sweden than 1930s Germany, and actually pull the trigger. It is not something the vast majority of law abiding people are capable of doing. I have no doubt some will, but the numbers will be very small, too small to make any difference in the end. Such action will likely strengthen the resolve of those who want to bring us paradise.
Whether we realize it or not, Wyoming and Montana are showing us how it could be done, effectively done. They key to resisting an unconstitutional federal government is state action, but something more than mere symbolic action. What if, for instance, Montana declared that federal gun control was invalid and unconstitutional, and threatened to arrest any federal agent who entered Montana to enforce it? How far would the federal government be willing to press Montana? What are other Americans willing to sacrifice in order to impose gun control on states that don’t want it? In this hypothetical scenario, Montana would have to be deadly serious about enforcing their edicts. Attempts by the federal government to impose control over the situation would need to be met with quite real threats of secession, along with the attendant violence that could go along with such an audacious move. Montana would essentially be asking the nation a very serious question “Are you so intent on gun control that you’re willing to risk the cohesion and integrity of the United States, and to risk violence against the citizens of several of our states to enforce it?” Unless Americans change greatly, the answer to that is probably going to be no, and it would offer a peaceful way for the federal government to retreat back across the Rubicon.
This scenario offers three very important things — It offers people, who want to resist, the legitimacy of a functioning, lawful government to rally around, as an alternative to dying in a desperate, lone action. It offers a means of collective confrontation with the federal government that wouldn’t have to turn violent except as a final resort, and finally it offers an opportunity for the proponents of gun control to back down from the brink.
The question second amendment advocates need to be thinking about isn’t “Where’s the line in the sand where I start shooting.” but “Where’s my line in the sand where I start lobbying my state government to stand up to this crap?” We have to keep the spirit of defiance alive in our state cultures. Secession has a lot of negative connotations to many people, since the last time we did it, it was in defense of slavery, but its possibility a critical aspect in the balance of power between the federal and state governments. It is the ultimate trump card, one that must be played with utmost care, but it must be kept in play. That’s tough in an age where all the states suckle at the federal teat, but if we’re to remain under a federal government limited by the a constitution, more states have to start acting like Montana and Wyoming, and be willing to tell the federal government to go to hell, with all the terrible consequences that statement could have if they were to one day be serious about it.
Involuntary Random Searches
We all know Boston was looking at doing voluntary random searches, but according to Bruce they aren’t above doing involuntary random searches either.
LiveLeak Grows a Pair
Good to see they are standing up for free speech.