May 7, 2012
Reason.tv: The True Story of Lawrence v. Texas
May 6, 2012
The free speech baby with the Citizens United bathwater
George Will on the rather impressive sweep of a new proposal to circumvent the US Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United:
Now comes Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., with a comparable contribution to another debate, the one concerning government regulation of political speech. Joined by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, 26 other Democrats and one Republican, he proposes a constitutional amendment to radically contract First Amendment protections. His purpose is to vastly expand government’s power — i.e., the power of incumbent legislators — to write laws regulating, rationing or even proscribing speech in elections that determine the composition of the legislature and the rest of the government. McGovern’s proposal vindicates those who say most campaign-finance “reforms” are incompatible with the First Amendment.
His “People’s Rights Amendment” declares that the Constitution protects only the rights of “natural persons,” not such persons organized in corporations, and that Congress can impose on corporations whatever restrictions Congress deems “reasonable.” His amendment says it shall not be construed “to limit the people’s rights of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free exercise of religion, freedom of association and all such other rights of the people, which rights are inalienable.” But the amendment is explicitly designed to deny such rights to natural persons who, exercising their First Amendment right to freedom of association, come together in corporate entities to speak in concert.
McGovern stresses that his amendment decrees that “all corporate entities — for-profit and nonprofit alike” have no constitutional rights. So Congress — and state legislatures and local governments — could regulate to the point of proscription political speech, or any other speech, by the Sierra Club, the National Rifle Association, NARAL Pro-Choice America, or any of the other tens of thousands of nonprofit corporate advocacy groups, including political parties and campaign committees.
Newspapers, magazines, broadcasting entities, online journalism operations — and most religious institutions — are corporate entities. McGovern’s amendment would strip them of all constitutional rights. By doing so, the amendment would empower the government to do much more than proscribe speech. Ilya Somin of George Mason University Law School, writing for the Volokh Conspiracy blog, notes that government, unleashed by McGovern’s amendment, could regulate religious practices at most houses of worship, conduct whatever searches it wants, reasonable or not, of corporate entities, and seize corporate-owned property for whatever it deems public uses — without paying compensation. Yes, McGovern’s scythe would mow down the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, as well as the First.
Gary Johnson wins the Libertarian nomination
Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson won the Libertarian Party’s nomination for their presidential candidate. Yesterday, before the vote, Dave Weigel posted this profile of Johnson:
Gary Johnson is late. He’s pretty happy about the reason: too many interviews on the schedule today. That was never a problem when he was running for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. Now that he’s the front-runner for the less-exclusive Libertarian Party nod, people want to talk to him.
“We started out at Grover Norquist’s meeting,” says Johnson, putting down his iPad to join me at a Dupont circle coffee shop. Norquist’s meeting of conservatives is off the record, but attendees can confirm that they crossed the threshold. “I thought it was a really good reception. Part of being out there, campaigning, talking to people, is being able to read body language. And it was all good. Nobody was dozing off. Nobody was shaking their heads. They were actually shaking their head this way.” He nods vigorously.
We’re talking on the day that Newt Gingrich announced the end of his profound presidential bid, when the Republican Party, supposedly, was learning to love Mitt Romney. It’s a few days before Johnson will claim the Libertarian Party’s nomination, potentially becoming a spoiler for Romney. The heads really nodded this way? No heads shaking that way?
“No, none, zero,” says Johnson. “I really believe I’m gonna take it from Obama rather than Romney. I joke, you know — maybe all those pot-smoking, marriage equality, get out of Afghanistan voters for Romney are going to switch to me. Then, boy, he’ll be in trouble!”
May 3, 2012
Reason.tv: Brian Doherty on Ron Paul’s Revolution
“Ron Paul invented the notion of a populist, activist, modern movement thats transpartisan” says Reason’s Brian Doherty
Brian Doherty sat down with ReasonTV to talk about his new book and how Ron Paul has changed politics in America. Doherty wrote about the evolution of the libertarian movement in his 2007 book “Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement”. He has been following and writing about Ron Paul and his movement since then. Doherty examines Ron Paul’s influence in a new book out May 15, “Ron Paul’s rEVOLution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired”.
Identifying activists
Kelly McParland explains some of the ways people come to identify themselves as “activists”:
You come across activists all the time. They are often quoted by legitimate news organizations, offering opinions on issues of the day. Generally their qualifications appear to be limited to an interest in the subject matter. So anyone involved in organizing a Root Vegetable Consumers Against Frozen French Fries (RVCAFFF) protest march can legitimately identify themselves as an “activist”.
No expertise is required, nor any specific experience, though activists often appear to have plenty of background in activism itself, i.e. they’ve been complaining about the same thing for a long time. There was a time when environmentalists needed nothing more than a desire to live in a remote hut without electricity or access to commercial television to consider themselves fully qualified to assess an energy plan that might impact millions of people. Since then, however, universities have discovered they can fill entire buildings with students eager to memorize environmental slogans and other arcania, and “environmentalism” has become a recognized discipline. But you can still be an “activist” by just registering to show up at a review hearing to condemn Big Oil, knowing little more than the price at the pump.
I was reminded of this when I saw the list of activist groups that are supporting the agenda of May Days of Action for Immigrant and Worker Rights and Economic, Social and Environmental Justice. (It’s a peculiarity of activist organizations that they require long titles. This is generally because slotting anyone into a particular identity goes against the activist code of conduct — as does having a code of conduct — so naming the group itself constitutes a balancing act that touches on the full range of obsessions held by its members. It’s a bit like forming a federal cabinet).
May 2, 2012
We must make internet freedom the new “third rail” of politics
L. Neil Smith on the most recent attempt by the US government to get formal control over the internet:
After many previous attempts on the part of different groups for a variety of reasons, the United States House of Representatives has passed a bill that could result in the destruction of freedom on the Internet.
And the erasure of the First Amendment.
I won’t bother you with this week’s misleading acronym for such an atrocity. This specimen is likely to fail in the Senate — because it doesn’t go nearly as far in muzzling each of us as that “parliament of whores” wants it to. The Faux President declares he will veto it, but we’ve heard that before from a criminal imposter who couldn’t move his mouth to speak the truth if his life depended on it — because he couldn’t recognize the truth if it came up to him and pissed in his ear.
What I will tell you is what a lifetime of fending off similar assaults on the Second Amendment — and the unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right of every man, woman, and responsible child to obtain, own, and carry weapons — has taught me. I know what has to be done now, and what will happen if we don’t do it.
First, don’t be relieved or satisfied if this particular bill doesn’t pass this time. Others will be introduced, one after another, until they wear down our resistance, unless we make every attempt cost them something they can’t afford to lose. We must make our freedom to communicate a political “third rail” and aim for nothing less than total eradication of the very notion of censoring the Internet in any way.
May 1, 2012
April 25, 2012
The War on Drugs: “For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong”
The Wall Street Journal looks at the drug war and considers alternatives:
Our current drug policies do far more harm than they need to do and far less good than they might, largely because they ignore some basic facts. Treating all “drug abusers” as a single group flies in the face of what is known as Pareto’s Law: that for any given activity, 20% of the participants typically account for 80% of the action.
Most users of addictive drugs are not addicts, but a few consume very heavily, and they account for most of the traffic and revenue and most of the drug-related violence and other collateral social damage. If subjected to the right kinds of pressure, however, even most heavy users can and do stop using drugs.
Frustration with the drug-policy status quo — the horrific levels of trafficking-related violence in Mexico and Central America and the fiscal, personal and social costs of imprisoning half a million drug dealers in the U.S. — has led to calls for some form of legalization. Just last week, at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, President Barack Obama got an earful from his Latin American counterparts about the need to reverse current U.S. drug policy.
In brief, American (and to a lesser extent, Canadian) drug policies follow this pattern: 1) identify a problem, 2) pass laws against it, 3) discover that the laws haven’t solved the problem, 4) double-down and ratchet up enforcement and penalties. In other words, if it’s not working, then derp it again.
The quote in the headline is, of course, from the writings of H.L. Mencken.
Why fly?
Amy Alkon on yet another blatant attempt by the TSA to lord it over passengers, especially the young, weak, and vulnerable:
Chris Morran on Consumerist excerpts a Facebook post from a Montana mom, Michelle Brademeyer, who was flying home from Kansas with her two young children and their grandmother. Grandma apparently triggered some alarm at the checkpoint, and was forced to have a seat and wait to be groped by an agent. That’s when the 4-year-old ran over to give Granny a hug. Sweet — until the TSA went all police state on them. The mother writes:
[. . .]
First, a TSO began yelling at my child, and demanded she too must sit down and await a full body pat-down. I was prevented from coming any closer, explaining the situation to her, or consoling her in any way. My daughter, who was dressed in tight leggings, a short sleeve shirt and mary jane shoes, had no pockets, no jacket and nothing in her hands. The TSO refused to let my daughter pass through the scanners once more, to see if she too would set off the alarm. It was implied, several times, that my Mother, in their brief two-second embrace, had passed a handgun to my daughter.
My child, who was obviously terrified, had no idea what was going on, and the TSOs involved still made no attempt to explain it to her. When they spoke to her, it was devoid of any sort of compassion, kindness or respect. They told her she had to come to them, alone, and spread her arms and legs. She screamed, “No! I don’t want to!” then did what any frightened young child might, she ran the opposite direction.
That is when a TSO told me they would shut down the entire airport, cancel all flights, if my daughter was not restrained. It was then they declared my daughter a “high-security-threat”.
[. . .]
The TSO loomed over my daughter, with an angry grimace on her face, and ordered her to stop crying. When my scared child could not do so, two TSOs called for backup saying “The suspect is not cooperating.” The suspect, of course, being a frightened child. They treated my daughter no better than if she had been a terrorist…
A third TSO arrived to the scene, and showed no more respect than the first two had given. All three were barking orders at my daughter, telling her to stand still and cease crying. When she did not stop crying on command, they demanded we leave the airport. They claimed they could not safely check my daughter for dangerous items if she was in tears. I will admit, I lost my temper.
Finally, a manager intervened. He determined that my child could, in fact, be cleared through security while crying. I was permitted to hold her while the TSO checked her body. When they found nothing hidden on my daughter, they were forced to let us go, but not until after they had examined my ID and boarding passes for a lengthy amount of time. When we arrived at our gate, I noticed that the TSOs had followed us through the airport. I was told something was wrong with my boarding pass and I would have to show it to them again. Upon seeing the TSO, my daughter was thrown into hysterics. Eventually, we were able to board our flight.
Terrorize ’em young and they stay terrorized, pliable, and afraid to confront authority. It won’t be long before the TSA is Tasing ’em before they can run away (if they don’t already have that power).
April 24, 2012
The Hunger Games as a fictionalized version of the UN’s “Agenda 21”
In a letter published in the most recent issue of Libertarian Enterprise, David Walker points out the quite notable similarities between the fictional world portrayed in The Hunger Games and the United Nations’ Agenda 21:
The Hunger Games “universe” is the inevitable result at the attempt to implement Agenda 21.
- Herding the population into tightly controlled resource production “districts”.
While there are no “arcologies/super cities” as forwarded by Agenda 21, I don’t think such things could possibly be created by such a system anyway. The Agenda 21 structure is simply too anti-technological and too government heavy. The “Hunger Games” police state “Districts” is a much more believable result of enforced population reduction & control.- In the “country” of “Panem” no one is allowed out into “the wild”. Agenda 21 demands “rewilding” of all space outside of habitation districts. In the Hunger Games, crossing the electrified fence can get you shot. Killing wild game (poaching the government’s animals) will get you shot. Pristine Earth policed with heavy weapons. Sound familiar?
- Travel is largely by High Speed Rail, and solely by High Speed Rail between Districts. Cars/trucks are only mentioned in the Capitol. The more poor the district, the more likely you are to be forced to walk everywhere. Only the Military has anything resembling air travel and even that is curtailed (one character dreams/reminisces about winged flight vs. hovercraft).
- The utter disdain for Carbon Based Fuels.
The Heroine from Hunger Games comes from the Coal Producing District (District 12). As described, there simply could not be enough coal produced by that district to have coal be a viable energy source, therefore the coal must be being used for other non-energy-related tasks. Likewise, “District 12” is the pariah of the Districts. Nobody loves Coal, and nobody loves the people who produce it. “Power” is produced by a nameless “District 5” by nameless means, though Nuclear is suggested on the website.- There is no Religion in the Hunger Games world.
Agenda 21 specifically declares non-pantheistic/non-“natural” religions (particularly Judaism, Islam & Christianity) as something that must be eliminated. “Nature worship” is apparently OK.- The Government is Hollywood/Hollywood is Government.
Hollyweirdoes love Agenda 21. The 3 books of the series are not kind to Hollywood and the kind of government the majority of those weirdoes would create. It presents “The Capitol” as a cross between San-Francisco Body Modification, Hollywood & Rome where nonproductive decadence, self importance, absurd vanity and utter banality are the rule. Any wonder the Movie(s) (will) suppress this aspect of the books?Other Themes, late in the series: Revolutions aren’t always led by noble causes.
April 23, 2012
More from the Bahrain protests
Marc Lynch on what he terms as Bahrain’s “Epic Fail”:
This week’s Formula One-driven media scrutiny has ripped away Bahrain’s carefully constructed external facade. It has exposed the failure of Bahrain’s regime to take advantage of the breathing space it bought through last year’s crackdown or the lifeline thrown to it by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry. That failure to engage in serious reform will likely further radicalize its opponents and undermine hopes for its future political stability.
Bahrain’s fierce, stifling repression of a peaceful reform movement in mid-March 2011 represented an important watershed in the regional Arab uprising. Huge numbers of Bahrainis had joined in street protests in the preceding month, defining themselves as part of the broader Arab uprising and demanding constitutional reforms and political freedoms. Bahrain’s protest movement began as a reformist and not revolutionary one, and the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry found no evidence that the protests were inspired or supported by Iran.
[. . .]
A ferocious battle over how to understand the events in Bahrain has unfolded in the months since the crackdown, as anyone who has attempted to report on or discuss it can attest. Supporters of the regime have argued that they did what they must against a dangerously radical, sectarian Shi’a movement backed by Iran, and fiercely contest reports of regime abuses. The opposition certainly made mistakes of its own, both during the protests leading up to the crackdown and after. But fortunately the facts of Bahrain’s protest movement and the subsequent crackdown have been thoroughly documented by Bahrain’s Independent Commission of Inquiry.
The BICI report established authoritatively that the Bahraini regime committed massive violations of human rights during its attempts to crush the protest movement. Hundreds of detainees reported systematic mistreatment and torture, including extremely tight handcuffing, forced standing, severe beatings, electric shocks, burning with cigarettes, beating of the soles of the feet, verbal abuse, sleep deprivation, threats of rape, sexual abuse including the insertion of items into the anus and grabbing of genitals, hanging, exposure to extreme temperatures, forced nudity and humiliation through acts such as being forced to lick boots of guards, abuse with dogs, mock executions, and being forced to eat feces (BICI report, pp.287-89). Detainees were often held for weeks or months without access to the outside world or to lawyers. This, concluded the BICI, represented “a systematic practice of physical and psychological mistreatment, which in many cases amounted to torture, with respect to a large number of detainees in their custody” (Para 1238, p.298). And then there was the demolition of Shi’a mosques, widespread dismissals from public and private sector jobs and from universities, sectarian agitation in the media, and so much more. No political mistakes made by the opposition could possibly justify these acts.
Shakespeare’s plays as Soviet samizdat
An interesting bit of Soviet history in the BBC’s post on Shakespeare in the former Soviet Union:
In Soviet-era Lithuania, there were productions of Shakespeare for which people queued through the night for tickets. Shakespeare was culture with official approval, but as one of the few alternatives to tales about earnest Soviet heroes, it was also a way for theatre directors to symbolically address forbidden issues. Going to the theatre had an excitement it perhaps lacks nowadays, says Mamontovas.
“I miss those secret messages… there were always little secret messages from the artist to the audience. But there’s no need for that now because you can say what you want openly — it’s more entertainment now.”
[. . .]
Then there is the history of Hamlet in the Soviet Union. An early landmark of Lithuania’s professional theatre was a production of Hamlet by Mikhail Chekhov, nephew of the playwright Anton.
But Hamlet then fell out of favour. Stalin, it was understood, had turned against the indecisive Prince of Denmark. The uncomfortable comparisons between the setting of Hamlet, the dark world of Elsinore and the Kremlin, was perhaps too close.
Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, had usurped the throne, depriving the young Hamlet himself, and there were parallels — for those who wished to see them — in Stalin’s seizure of Lenin’s leading role and his demolition of rivals such as Trotsky.
There was also another layer of symbolism. Stalin, a keen theatregoer, took against the renowned director Vsevolod Meyerhold and had him arrested and tortured, and executed.
Meyerhold dreamed all his life of staging Hamlet, his favourite play, but somehow never managed it. He was renowned for having said, with bitter irony, that he wanted his tombstone to read: “Here lies a man who never played or directed Hamlet“. From the day he was killed in 1940, Hamlet and the death of Meyerhold became intertwined in the public imagination.
Stalin’s death in 1953 prompted a series of new Hamlet productions that tested the boundaries of how far the post-Stalin thaw had gone, and so the play gained a symbolic status of freedom of expression.
April 22, 2012
Protecting the Turkish identity should not include ignoring history
Ayşe Kadıoğlu is a Turk who went to university in the United States. Part of the experience was meeting Armenian-American students in Boston and learning about events in Turkish history that have been rigorously suppressed in aid of bolstering “Turkishness”:
I grew up in Turkey, where the prevailing education system still conceals certain historical facts in primary and secondary school curricula lest they harm the “indivisibility of the state with its country and nation”, an expression that is used several times in the current Turkish constitution. Perhaps the fear about deeds that can harm the unity of the state and nation is best symbolised in the Turkish national anthem, which begins with the lyrics “Do not fear”.
When fears nurture and sustain taboos, the ability to retain experiences declines. Enduring an education that is laden with either false historical facts or an eerie silence makes it impossible for people to exit the state of self-imposed immaturity.
[. . .]
There are many taboos in Turkey that mainly concern the protection of the “indivisibility of the state and nation”. There are also many laws that make it a crime to break these taboos. When taboos are sustained by law, the minds (and, many times, bodies) of citizens end up being imprisoned. One such taboo involves the founder of the Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. In Turkey, it is a crime to insult his memory and harm his statutes. Another taboo involves the sacredness of the armed forces. This is sustained by a law against discouraging people from performing their compulsory military service.
[. . .]
Taboos, enforced by law, are fetters in front of the ability to reason. It is possible to be released from the spell of taboos and strengthen the ethos of democracy by upholding the realm of public debate and deliberation. Therefore, yes, I agree with Free Speech Debate’s fourth draft principle, “We allow no taboos in the discussion and dissemination of knowledge”, because we try not to be trapped in a state of immaturity and want to do our utmost to fulfil our capacities as reasonable human beings.
April 20, 2012
Reason.tv: Too Much Copyright
“This disconnect between the public’s view of copyright and fair use and what should and should not be prosecuted, versus the ‘copyright maximist’ view of the law, is our generation’s Prohibition,” says Ben Huh, CEO and founder of Cheezburger and a loud voice in the recent backlash to SOPA and PIPA, two congressional bills aimed at curbing internet piracy.
Copyright exists to “promote the useful arts” according to the Constitution. But is it still doing that? And should the government protect so-called “intellectual property” in the same way it protects other forms of property? Reason.tv posed these questions to Ben Huh, as well as a professor and a movie studio representative.
Tom Bell, a law professor specializing in property law, has serious reservations about attempts by groups like the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to equate property and copyright through ad campaigns admonishing viewers with messages like, “You wouldn’t steal a car. Downloading pirated movies is stealing.”
“As soon as we start using [the word] ‘copyright’ for ‘property,’ we start taking less seriously our property rights for things like cars and houses,” says Bell. “When you steal a candy bar or a car, you’ve left somebody without something to eat or something to drive.”
April 19, 2012
The Bahrain Formula One: it’s just a car race
Tim Black writes about the real reasons for protests against the Formula One race in Bahrain:
The way some politicians and commentators are talking, you would think that the fate of Bahrain hinged on whether or not this weekend’s Formula One (F1) grand prix goes ahead. Cancel it, and Bahrain’s repressive monarchs, the Al Khalifa family, will have to face up to the failings of their autocratic reign. But proceed with it and F1 might as well have crushed the Bahraini people’s democratic aspiration itself.
[. . .]
Ecclestone’s assessment of the state of Bahrain is certainly questionable. While life does go on for the 600,000 people of this tiny gulf state, there is little calm beneath the surface. Instead, the conflict between a politically and economically disenfranchised Shia majority and the ruling Sunni monarchy continues to simmer. Saudi troops may have helped Bahrain’s own security forces to quell the most explosive manifestation of this conflict last spring, but the arrests, torture and sometimes killing has continued. In the past fortnight alone, three teenagers were shot dead.
Yet as Panglossian as Ecclestone’s view of Bahraini society is, his larger point still stands: ‘it is not [F1’s] business running the country.’ And that’s the problem: too many commentators and politicians are so ‘wrapped up in their own bubble’, to quote Webber, that they believe that the question of whether or not a car race is staged in Bahrain is incredibly important; it is their business running the country. The grand prix is no longer just a car race: it has become a vehicle for exhibiting one’s moral credentials.
[. . .]
This seems to be the prevailing rationale behind the calls to cancel the grand prix: it is all about showing disapproval, striking a moral pose. Bahrain, a country increasingly seen, thanks to the press offices of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as a photo-essay in state brutality, is little more than a convenient background against which to act righteous. Of course, the calls for F1 to boycott the Bahrain grand prix are not recognised for their essential vainglory; they are presented as compassionate. For the advocates of a Bahrain boycott, those willing for the grand prix to go ahead are the callous, self-interested ones. By staging the grand prix, they are tacitly approving of, and legitimating, the rule of the Al Khalifa family.
But who does this disapproval benefit? Who is this display of moral opprobrium for? It’s certainly not those in whose name the grand prix could be cancelled: the disenfranchised majority in Bahrain. After all, if the grand prix does go ahead, it won’t legitimate or validate the regime in their eyes. For those indulging in running-street battles, for those with no political freedom, for those who experience life under the al-Khalifa autocracy on a daily basis, the presence or absence of F1 will make little or no difference. Their lives will still be marked by a ruthlessly enforced unfreedom.
