Category: Civil Liberties

Last month I wrote a bit on how we could begin to restore liberty and limited government in this country by seizing key social institutions back from the progressives:

If we want to reverse the progressive slide, we have to make progress in academia, particularly in topics that tend to feed the political elite, such as political science, law, and economics. The good news is, we’ve pretty much won on economics, and I think we’re making progress in law.

This post by Ilya Somin over at Volokh talks about progress we’re making in the legal realm:

Steven Teles’ important new book, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement, does an excellent job of analyzing and explaining the growth of non-liberal public interest law. He notes that the success libertarian and conservative public interest law groups was not foreordained. Indeed, early efforts in the 1970s and early 80s were mostly dismal failures. How did the founders of IJ and CIR turn things around? Teles notes two important causes: the second generation of libertarian public interest firms learned from the the strategies of their liberal predecessors and distanced themselves from business interests.

Read the whole thing.  IJ and CIR are worthy organizations that have shown demonstrated progress on the issue.  This is a generational fight, but I believe if we work hard enough, it’s winnable.

The ACLU has to be commended when they do right, and I have to admit, this video is pretty good.

Information technology is just getting too good, and we’re going to have to learn to live with other people knowing a lot about us, but we should be very fearful of a confluence of information technology in both public and private hands enabling a meddlesome government to be even more meddlesome.  It will be very hard, and I’m not sure even a net public good, to prevent private entities from sharing information, but we must be very wary of government getting into the game, especially if they decide to declare themselves the only provider of health care.

Hat tip to Michael Bane.

From John Derbyshire of National Review:

Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy.

All to effectively explains the difference between people who want liberty, and people who want to be relieved of its burden.

The Peruvian Police have some very menacing looking riot gear.  I’m not sure I’m comfortable with how they appear to be marching either.

Joe Huffman has a good post up on government information gathering on its citizens.  I think this is indeed something we have to be wary of, but only to the extent that the government can compel me to give them information.   The government, for instance, knows my income because they will lock me up for failing to file an income tax return.

But in an information based society government will be able to know a lot about its citizens.  Our government probably knows more about its citizens than any other government in history.  There won’t be much means to avoid that.  Conversely though, information technology also makes it possible to know more about our government than any other people in history.  I would encourage and recommend anyone who’s interested in this topic to read David Brin’s The Transparent Society.  Brin’s argument is essentially that technology is going to make information and surveillance technology ubiquitous, and there’s not much we’ll be able to do about it:

While this has the makings for an Orwellian nightmare, Brin argues that we can choose to make the same scenario a setting for even greater freedom. The determining factor is whether the power of observation and surveillance is held only by the police and the powerful or is shared by us all. In the latter case, Brin argues that people will have nothing to fear from the watchers because everyone will be watching each other. The cameras would become a public resource to assure that no mugger is hiding around the corner, our children are playing safely in the park, and police will not abuse their power.

No simplistic Utopian, Brin also acknowledges the many dangers on the way. He discusses how open access to information can either threaten or enhance freedom. It is one thing, for example, to make the entire outdoors public and another thing to allow the cameras and microphones to snoop into our homes. He therefore spends a lot of pages examining what steps are required to assure that a transparent society evolves in a manner that enhances rather than restricts freedom.

It’s a good read.  I don’t always agree with the book, but it makes you think.

Classical Values has a pretty insightful comment about the latest no knock raid gone sour:

Incidents keep happening, and the only remedy I can see is to get rid of night time no knock warrants.

Otherwise, if they keep doing this, it will become another argument in favor of gun control.

No, seriously. Police will claim they “don’t feel safe” executing these no knock warrants, so to “avoid more such tragedies,” all citizens (beginning with those in “at risk neighborhoods”) should be disarmed.

Don’t laugh. It’s already a major unstated reason for dog control, especially “pit bull control.” The best protection you can buy against a home invasion SWAT team is being called the “number one dog of choice for drug dealers.” Sure, there’s a “loophole”; convicted criminals can still legally own dogs. So can ordinary citizens.

That will go doubly for people who have center fire rifles which soft body armor presents no obstacle to.  It’s a price that will be demanded to make it safer for the government to prosecute the War on Drugs.

Young people have been really big on Obama, despite the fact that he’s peddling the same old crap the Democrats have been peddling for decades.  The GOP need to learn how to court the young vote, unless they want to look at Democratic majorities for decades to come.  What are some ways to lose young voters?   Well, you can start by advocating a ban on video games.  Especially when it’s pretty obvious the advocates are repeating crap they have been hearing and have not actually played the game.

Yep… banning video games.  That’s sure to energize young voters.

Thanks to Geek With a .45 for this link. Follow it, watch all the videos. It is some truly excellent stuff. This man is facing The Inqusition a Canadian government inquiry demanding answers as to why he published cartoons that were deemed offensive to Islam. Here is the first video, just for your perusal. Watch all of them:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iMNM1tef7g[/youtube]

We must never let this happen in our country. Never! Bravo to Mr. Levant for standing up for his rights.

Friend: I know you are at work.. but you are good at tracking things down too. My mom now has to be fingerprinted for work as a crossing guard…. they claim its a Michigan state law that all people working with children must be… but i don’t think so. I don’t have to be, and my daycare was just relicensed in December. So.. i wondered if you had any ideas how i could go about looking this up and if she really does have to be fingerprinted.
Friend: Never mind.. i found it already. The Student Safety Initiative.
Me: Most police departments will do it for you
Me: Nowadays, they can use electronic fingerprinting too
Friend: The school is doing it for free for her
Friend: but, she is just really against it… let me see if i can quote her:

Friend’s Mom: Are you being asked to be fingerprinted for your work? The school says it’s the law this year and all employees that work with children – church, schools, day cares, have to be fingerprinted….
Friend’s Mom: I don’t like it – that’s for criminals and I don’t like the FBI keeping my fingerprints on file

Me: But it’s For the Children^TM
Me: Ze innocent have nazing to fear
Friend: bleh
Me: Tell your mom now she knows how gun owners feel ;)
Friend:

Friend’s Mom: Yeah – I still feel like a criminal and I don’t carry a gun
Friend’s Mom: My only weapon is an orange vest

Me: It’s hard for me to have sympathy :)
Me: I get routinely treated like a criminal every time I want to buy a gun or renew my license
Friend: She’s all mad that i said something comparing her to a gun owner
Friend: BTW, she’s very anti gun.
Me: Welcome to the police state. Vere are your papers!?!?!?
Friend: heh ;~)

Savor that one folks. What goes around, comes around. You can’t expect to empower the state to take away liberty from people you find undesirable, and then expect the state to respect your liberty when you end up in the cross hairs. When you find yourself in that situation, the people who’s liberties have already been trampled on may not be sympathetic enough to help you.