Why does the First Amendment enshrine both speech and religion as things the state shall not legislate against or establish an approved version thereof? To formalize “tolerance” without requiring “approval.”
In this wise, it is possible to form a society of individuals with vastly different ideas and religions in which the liberty of all is respected by all. In essence we agree that I tolerate your worship of a moon god and you tolerate my worship of a tree. It’s “live and let live” at the most basic level. If, on the other hand, you decide that I have to make continuous noises of “approval” of the moon god in order for you to grant me the right to worship the tree god in peace, we are headed towards an argument that ends in guns.
At its most basic the American tradition is that I don’t require approval of my beliefs from you and you don’t insist on my approval of your beliefs. Regardless of what we may do, we tacitly agree not to do things which exacerbate a state of mutual disrespect. We mutually agree not to get in each others faces about these issues with acts like, oh I don’t know, building a temple to the moon god so that it casts a shadow across my cemetery. Doing so starts a process of disrespect that also tends, if history is any guide, to end in guns and fire.
“Toleration does not require approval.” It really is the simplest of social compacts and like all great and simple ideas bringing in nuance and qualifiers doesn’t strengthen our common bonds as society but weakens it. This is well-known to those that seek to create a climate of continual upheaval in the mistaken belief that, in the end, the fire will not consume them. Civil war consumes all.
Gerard Vanderleun, “Tolerance Does Not Require Approval”, American Digest, 2010-08-27
September 1, 2010
QotD: Tolerance Does Not Require Approval
August 26, 2010
If you like Eminent Domain, you’ll love Montgomery’s version
Christina Walsh reports on an Alabama city’s even-more-tyrannical-than-eminent-domain law:
Imagine you come home from work one day to a notice on your front door that you have 45 days to demolish your house, or the city will do it for you. Oh, and you’re paying for it.
This is happening right now in Montgomery, Ala., and here is how it works: The city decides it doesn’t like your property for one reason or another, so it declares it a “public nuisance.” It mails you a notice that you have 45 days to demolish your property, at your expense, or the city will do it for you (and, of course, bill you).
Your tab with the city will constitute a lien on your property, and if you don’t pay it within 30 days (or pay your installments on time; if you owe over $10,000, you can work out a deal to pay back the city for destroying your home over a period of time, with interest), the city can sell your now-vacant land to the highest bidder.
H/T to Institute For Justice for the link.
August 25, 2010
QotD: Amnesty International decries human rights situation in . . . Canada?
According to some media reports, Amnesty International’s new secretary general, Salil Shetty, has accused the Canadian government of a “serious worsening” of human rights in Canada. He cited a “shrinking of democratic spaces” in Canada, and organizations that have lost their funding for asking “inconvenient questions.”
“You expect more from Canadians . . . I think there is a growing gap between the values and the track record of Canada historically and the actions of the current government, which is deeply concerning.”
It reads like a Liberal Party press release, doesn’t it?
So what, exactly, has Mr. Shetty so upset about that he’s decided to slam Canada rather than, for instance, Iran?
Why, it’s the fact that Ottawa hasn’t sought the repatriation of young Omar Khadr from his detention in Guantanamo Bay. Which is a rather curious thing to criticize, since “the values and the track record” of the previous Liberal government is entirely consistent with what the Conservatives are currently doing.
Adrian MacNair, “Canada, noted human rights pariah state”, National Post, 2010-08-25
August 24, 2010
“One of the few thrills of working as a bylaw enforcement officer is making people cry”
Ezra Levant looks at the bylaw enforcement regime in Clarington, just east of Toronto:
It’s not a lemonade crime wave that the brave city elders of Clarington are combating. It’s the menace of backyard barbecues.
Peter Jaworski has been holding backyard barbecues at his parents’ property there for 10 years. It’s a house in the country on 40 secluded acres. Once a year, Peter invites a few dozen of his friends to spend the weekend eating his mom’s cooking and camping next to the swimming hole. I’ve been there: it’s one part family reunion, one part picnic and one part political talk.
So clearly, the Jaworski family must be stopped.
First came the health department. They poked and prodded, and even took water samples. No one has ever got sick at a Jaworski barbecue — the opposite; everyone comes for the food — but the government ordered that no home cooking would be allowed. The Jaworskis complied with these costly and ridiculous demands, catering the whole weekend and serving only bottled water, at great cost.
But bureaucrats travel in packs. A local bylaw enforcement officer waited until the barbecue itself, and marched right onto the property — no search warrant needed! — and started peppering the guests with questions.
He wasn’t a health officer; he was a bylaw officer. Yet he demanded to know what the guests had for lunch. In the name of the law!
Armed with this devastating information, the officer charged Peter’s parents with running an illegal “commercial conference centre,” which carries a fine of up to $50,000. The officer, a burly, tattooed, six-foot-something man, told Peter’s mom to “be very careful.” She burst into tears.
Why do people get this insane idea that they should be able to do what they want on their own property? If we wanted that to happen, we wouldn’t appoint bylaw officers and arm them with bylaws to quash your fun and destroy your ability to enjoy your own property!
This scourge of backyard entertainment must be defeated, and Clarington is leading the way!
August 9, 2010
The inevitable decline in public respect for the police
Paul Bonneau examines the declining levels of respect among members of the public for the police:
I’ve gotten the impression lately that cops aren’t getting very much support in Internet forums these days, even in places where in the past you’d find almost unqualified support. About everyone seems fed up with ’em.
I wondered why this should be. Why are they becoming so much more frequently scorned?
[. . .]
I think one reason cops are hated is that people generally don’t like being scrutinized, and put under suspicion for minding their own business; they really, really don’t like that. Cops are always checking you out, looking for a reason to “brace” you (an old meaning of the word that looks very useful these days).
The War on Some Drugs has to cause some hatred, as more and more peoples’ lives are ruined by it. Indeed, this prison industry boondoggle has stained all aspects of the “Justice” system, not just cops.
Another reason is that cops are treated, and see themselves, as superior to the rest of us. In innumerable ways, cops are always given the benefit of the doubt; certainly legally, and also informally — although the latter seems to be fading a bit, as trust in cops fades. They are “The Only Ones”, we are “mundanes”, “proles”, peons. They can lie to us, we can’t lie to them; they can beat us up and torture us, but if we touch them it is “assault”.
Along with this insufferable attitude is a self-regard that what they are about is important and good. I suppose everyone suffers from this malady, but usually it does not impact a person as it does when one runs into a cop in the throes of it. As C.S. Lewis put it, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good, will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” What are cops, if not “omnipotent moral busybodies”? At least when the Mafia runs a protection racket, they don’t deceive themselves they are doing you a benefit. One appreciates the Mafia’s honesty, in comparison.
August 7, 2010
July 28, 2010
More on that elusive right to photography
Jon, my former virtual landlord sent me a link to this article, with more on the “you have the right only if they don’t stop you” aspect of imaginary laws and their not-so-imaginary enforcers:
Legally, it’s pretty much always okay to take photos in a public place as long as you’re not physically interfering with traffic or police operations. As Bert Krages, an attorney who specializes in photography-related legal problems and wrote Legal Handbook for Photographers, says, “The general rule is that if something is in a public place, you’re entitled to photograph it.” What’s more, though national-security laws are often invoked when quashing photographers, Krages explains that “the Patriot Act does not restrict photography; neither does the Homeland Security Act.” But this doesn’t stop people from interfering with photographers, even in settings that don’t seem much like national-security zones.
Tennessee law student Morgan Manning has compiled a list of incidents in which individuals were wrongly stopped. Cases like that of Seattle photographer Bogdan Mohora, who was arrested for taking pictures of police arresting a man and had his camera confiscated. Or NASA employee Walter Miller, who was stopped for photographing an art exhibit near the Indianapolis City-County Building and told that “homeland security” forbade photos of the facility. More recently, a CBS news crew was turned back from shooting the oil-fouled gulf coastline by two U.S. Coast Guard officers who said they were enforcing “BP’s rules.”
All of which leads people to believe that there really are laws restricting peoples’ right to take photographs or videos, because police and other government officials keep acting like there are such laws.
So what should you do if you’re taking photos and a security guard or police officer approaches you and tells you to stop? First, be polite. Security people have tough jobs and probably mean well. Ask them what legal authority they have to make you stop. (If you’re in a public place, like a street, a park, etc., they have none; if you’re in a private place, such as a shopping mall, they may have a basis for banning pictures.) Krages advises those hassled by security guards to threaten to call law enforcement. If it’s an actual police officer who’s telling you to stop shooting, ask to speak to a superior. And remember — you never have a legal duty to delete pictures you’ve taken.
More importantly, we need better education among security guards and law enforcement. In Britain, the country’s police chiefs’ association is attempting to educate officers about the rights of photographers. So far, nothing like that has happened in the U.S., but it should. Trying to block photography in public places is not only heavy-handed and wrong but, thanks to technology, basically useless. With the proliferation of cameras in just about every device we carry, digital photography has become too ubiquitous to stop. Let’s have a truce in the war on photography and set our sights on the real bad guys. Who, it seems, don’t carry cameras anyway.
July 27, 2010
Photography is legal in Britain . . . unless they catch you at it
The continuing story of police harassment of peaceful photographers has still not come to a middle:
The Metropolitan Police Force cannot be guaranteed to abide by the law when it comes to allowing the public their right to take photographs.
That was the startling admission made last week by Met Police Commissioner John Stephenson under sharp questioning from Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member Dee Doocey during a Police Authority Meeting on 22 July in City Hall. Video footage of the exchange is available on the Metropolitan Police Authority site, with relevant footage from around the 68 minute mark.
[. . .]
He admitted that he was aware of a recent disturbing incident that took place in Romford, which according to Doocey represented “eight minutes of two of your officers intimidating somebody”.
She continued: “At one stage they say that they don’t need a law to stop them photographing, but much more worrying, they don’t need a law to take them away. It’s not a question in my view of . . . It’s so serious that it don’t think it should be somebody giving them words of advice and I don’t also agree with you that it is a question of officers using their discretion.
“This was very black and white: Two of your officers who, despite the fact that I know you have given them guidelines because I have a copy of it, who totally disregarded them and were either so completely ignorant of the law, or decided to ignore the law — they were just going to say they knew the law better than the person they were talking to — they were very seriously intimidating. I find it quite worrying that I don’t think you are taking this quite as seriously as I think you should be.”
In short, the powers-that-be have grudgingly acknowledged that photographers do indeed have the right to take photos unmolested by PC Plod, but admitted that it’s still not actually been properly communicated to Plod and the other coppers on the beat.
We asked the Met for official comment as to why, despite the numerous efforts made by Assistant Commissioner John Yates and other serving officers to get the message about photography across, such incidents kept occurring. They suggested that these incidents were a very small part of the whole story of London policing, that to expect zero incidents was unrealistic, and that when such incidents occurred, they tended to be blown up out of all proportion by the press.
An alternative explanation, suggested to us by current and recently serving police officers with whom we have spoken, is that such incidents represent a far more disturbing aspect of police culture. They suggest that a small minority of officers see the law as being “what they say it is”, and these officers are quite prepared to take their chances, on the basis that the number of times they will be caught out by being recorded is likely to be few and far between.
It’s almost as if the police are sublimating their frustrations with the out-of-control but politically favoured members of certain religious groups and instead victimizing members of the public who don’t have political favour.
July 13, 2010
Lacrosse team caught in international issue over passports
This is a confusing situation, as Aboriginal tribes/nations are sometimes considered separate political entities from the country within which they live and other times are not. The Iroquois nation apparently has been issuing their own passports, but now the British and US governments don’t want to honour them as they have in the recent past:
The Iroquois team, known as the Nationals, represents the six Indian nations that comprise the Iroquois Confederacy, which the Federation of International Lacrosse considers to be a full member nation, just like the United States or Canada. The Nationals enter this year’s tournament ranked fourth in the world.
The Nationals’ 50-person delegation had planned to travel to Manchester, England, on Sunday on their own tribal passports, as they have done for previous international competitions, team officials said.
But on Friday, the British consulate informed the team that it would only issue visas to the team upon receiving written assurance from the United States government that the Iroquois had been granted clearance to travel on their own documents and would be allowed back into the United States. Neither the State Department nor the Department of Homeland Security would offer any such promise.
If the US government has allowed the use of Iroquois travel documents before, why are they now pretending they’ve never encountered them before? Is it a formal change in policy or just a bureaucrat flexing his or her ability to cause inconvenience and delay on a whim?
Update, 14 July: The New York Times reports that the team has been allowed to travel on their Iroquois passports:
The State Department’s blessing ends a five-day standoff between the Iroquois team and the federal government over whether the players could travel on their own documents instead of United States passports, as they have done in past international competitions.
Representative Louise M. Slaughter, Democrat of New York, said in a statement that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally intervened in the case on Wednesday morning and that the team would be able to depart on Wednesday afternoon.
“I am extremely grateful to Secretary of State Clinton, who responded to this glitch promptly and efficiently,” Ms. Slaughter said. “Going forward, we must find a way to balance homeland security concerns with some common sense and a border policy that does not create unintended consequences.”
Part of the reason appears to have been technical: “The Iroquois passports are partly hand-written and do not include any of the security features that make United States passports resistant to counterfeiting.”
July 12, 2010
Another ploy to save the British ID card system
Even though they’re no longer in government, Labour is still trying to save their ID card system:
The latest group lucky enough to enter their sights just happens to be the transgendered. The Identity Documents Bill, which is intended to assert the Coalition’s new position vis-à-vis matters like identity cards is currently at the Committee stage in the House of Commons.
On Tuesday, Labour MP and one-time Identity Minister Meg Hillier was on her feet proposing an amendment, which stated: “Any ID card issued to a transgendered person, which is valid immediately before the day on which this Act is passed, shall continue to be valid until the Secretary of State has laid before both Houses of Parliament a report to the effect that the Secretary of State is satisfied that an identity document in the assigned gender is available for issue to a transgendered person.”
And the down side for transitioning transsexuals?
While the amendment was intended to prevent a particular group being “outed”, the fact that this amendment would make the transgendered the only group of UK citizens in the country still carrying identity cards would be a de facto outing by the government.
He also introduced an intriguing notion and marker for future debate, suggesting that maybe the simplest solution was not more bureaucracy, but the removal of gender identity from any documents unless it was absolutely necessary.
July 7, 2010
Delineating the “bounds of the central government’s Constitutional authority”
Art Carden reviews a new book by Thomas E. Woods:
In Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century, Professor Woods offers a thorough-but-compact discussion of the doctrine of nullification. As he writes, “(n)ullification begins with the axiomatic point that a federal law that violates the Constitution is no law at all” (p. 3). It is, according to the framework established by the Founders, an essential part of the system of checks and balances that defined the federal union. Even though they established federal-level checks and balances, the founders were troubled by the notion that the Federal government should be its own judge.
Nullification was formalized in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, and it essentially says that the states are not bound to enforce federal laws that step outside the bounds of the central government’s Constitutional authority. That raises two obvious questions. First, what are “the bounds of the central government’s Constitutional authority”? Second, what is the Constitutional relationship between the states and the central government? Woods discusses the three provisions that have been used to justify expansion of federal power — the “general welfare” clause, the commerce clause, and the “necessary and proper” clause — and argues convincingly that these were largely clauses of convenience that empowered the government to do the things necessary to fulfill their constitutional mandate. In Woods’s interpretation, this meant that the government had the constitutional authority to do mundane tasks in pursuit of their constitutional goals. They could buy lumber to build “needful buildings” and paper on which to print government documents without explicit permission, for example (p. 29). As Woods interprets it, the interstate commerce clause establishes the United States as a free trade zone. It does not give the government carte blanche to do as it pleases as long as it can cook up an “interstate commerce” rationale. Citing James Madison, Woods asks an important question: if the general welfare clause is sufficient to justify pretty much anything the Federal government wants to do, why bother with enumerated powers? Indeed, why even bother with a constitution?
Unfortunately, sympathy for nullification and states’ rights has been smeared by the association of these ideas with slavery. This is most unfortunate because it conflates a question of unambiguous moral evil (slavery) with a legitimate and difficult constitutional question.
June 26, 2010
G20 arrests not considered “major enough” to release details
Siri Agrell notes the inconsistency of Toronto police over the (32 at time of writing) arrests made around the G20 area:
When asked for details of the arrest of a deaf man at Friday night’s demonstration, Burrows [of the Integrated Security Unit] said he had neither a name or the charges.
“Very rarely do we ever release information unless it’s a major arrest, major charges, big investigation or something like that,” he said. “That’s our standard practice. This guy was arrested last night, there’s nothing major about it. we’d never put a release out about that.”
And yet, the police regularly release information about minor incidents, ranging from lost property to suspicious behaviour. Surely, the arrest of Toronto citizens exercising their right to protest during a major international event warrents some transparency?
Yet another example of the police taking advantage of the situation to expand their practical reach?
So teenagers sending sext messages, a lost urn and some guy trying to pick up Toronto women are worthy of police updates, but details of arrests made during the G20, when police have been given huge powers, aren’t worth releasing?
In a nutshell, yes.
June 23, 2010
Bunch of “radical extremists”
Protest groups at the G20? No, the Heritage Minister’s sweeping characterization of the people and organizations opposed to the new copyright bill:
So when Moore warns about radical extremists opposing C-32, who is he speaking of? Who has criticized parts of the bill or called for reforms? A short list of those critical of the digital lock provisions in C-32 would include:
* Liberal MPs
* NDP MPs
* Bloc MPs
* Green Party
* Canadian Consumer Initiative
* Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada
* Canadian Association of University Teachers
* Canadian Federation of Students
* Canadian Library Association
* Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright
* Retail Council of Canada
* Canadian Bookseller Association
* Documentary Organization of Canada
While there are bound to be a few individual “radical extremists” in any organization, these particular groups aren’t known for their bomb-throwing agitator ways.
June 22, 2010
UK photographers might want to pick up this magazine
BoingBoing advises that the July issue of Amateur Photographer is doing something to assist innocent photographers who are still encountering police and rent-a-cop harassment in public spaces:
The UK Amateur Photographer magazine is giving away free lenscloths silk-screened with the Photographers’ Bill of Rights with its July issue. UK anti-terror legislation gave the police sweeping powers to harass photographers for shooting in public places, and to compound matters, tabloid-driven hysteria over paedophilia has seen many photographers accused to paedophilia for taking pictures of (for example) public busses and empty playgrounds.
Between the anti-terror laws, the anti-pedophilia panic in the newspapers, and the general busy-bodiness of security guards, photographers in the UK are being treated like criminals. More on the anti-harassment campaign here.
