Why License Cars?
I'm thinking about starting the "Bipolar Party".
If you don't like my viewpoint, check again tomorrow.
It's likely to be different.
Gregory Hession at Spintech - Cars and Guns: This was written over a year ago, but still rings as true as ever. The Brady Bunch have been using the rhetoric of licensing guns like we license cars. Mr. Hession asks the obvious question. Why do we license cars? No reason other than our government masters reminding us daily of who's in charge.
To illustrate, let's say that a patriotic citizen decides to buy a new car. In an exuberant moment of freedom, he has made the decision that he will no longer be regulated and controlled by the government in his vehicle use. Let's see what happens to him as he drives away from the car dealer when he applies the principal of not being controlled by the state....
The verdict: Sales tax on a $20,000 car - $1,000. Excise tax - $500. No registration - $50 plus a $100 fine. No title -$50. No plate - $100 fine and up to 10 days in jail. No little sticker on the plate, same thing. No insurance - minimum $500 fine, maximum $5000, and up to a year in jail. No inspection sticker - $50 fine. No drivers license - $500-$5000 fine and up to two years in jail. Plus surfines on all the fines. Plus "victim-witness fees". Plus towing and storage for his car.
So, for proceeding safely and sensibly onto a road for ten feet, but without the right badges of submission to state control, our citizen can be liable for fines and fees of over $12,000 and over three years in jail! Plus, he will be forced to do business with a private insurance company under threat of further criminal prosecution. (Penalties for second offenses on most of these things are far worse by several degrees.)
Narco News - Carlos Fuentes Speaks on Friday's Bush-Fox Summit: glad there's at least one voice of reason in the war on freedom, er... some drugs. [grabbe]
"In the end," concluded Fuentes, "as I see it, there is only one solution to this terrible scourge that affects us all: legalize the use of drugs, or decriminalize it. The problem is that this must be, without exception, a global decision. The advantage is that, although there will continue to be drug addicts, no one will get rich on their misfortune. When Franklin D. Roosevelt ended prohibition against alcohol in 1932, there were still drunks, but the Al Capones disappeared."
Jon Dupre at Fox News - Congress Sets Sights On Assassination Bill: I mentioned Bob Barr's H.R.19 on January 26. The story reached the mainstream press last Wednesday. Still no cosponsors. Still in the House International Relations committee where it will likely die a quiet death. [market]
There's a new article in The Libertarian series by Vin Suprynowicz:
- For once, bureaucratic nightmare has a happy ending - Thanks to the efforts of former District Court Judge Don Chairez, Shaek Muhammad Jawaid may now legally stay in the United States with his wife and two children. His marriage to an American citizen wasn't good enough for the INS lawyers. They wanted to separate his family because he didn't follow all the rules.
Mel Young at Sierra Times - Another Christian Church Under the Gun; For Helping The Homeless!: Pastor Wiley Drake of the Buena Park First Southern Baptist Church has been allowing homeless people to crash in the church parking lot. Somebody in the local government would prefer he let them die on the street. But follow the money... [sierra]
It's interesting to note that churches produce little if any revenue for a city. Rumor has it that someone wants that piece of property very badly to build a new automobile dealership on. Does the plot seem to thicken?There's a big difference, though. Pastor Drake does not intend to be a shrinking violet, as was the case at IBT. (He went back to the IBT to help stand firm but the church leaders caved in for a "peaceful" giveaway of their church to the IRS.)
Pastor Drake is asking for help and support. He's a staunch supporter of the Constitution and Second Amendment Rights, and realizes that if the City of Buena Park is allowed to continue the harassment and attempts to close the church, this will serve as a green light for similar operations all over the country. It has to stop and it has to stop here and now.
Sunni Maravillosa at Sierra Times - Why Women Should Care about RKBA: This is a pretty good, if long, summary of the arguments on both sides of the victim disarmament issue. [sierra]
To many individuals, the use of a firearm as a tool for self-defense seems like too much power. Just pointing a gun at another individual is a very intimidating gesture. (It is also assault with a deadly weapon in many places.) If Mr. Thug is wounded or killed, that's a pretty serious consequence. And, some would argue, that places his shooter in the position of being judge, jury, and executioner. Consider these questions, though. In what other situation can a person be more certain about what is about to happen to her, than when Mr. Thug is sneaking into her bedroom at 3 a.m.? Would he think twice about using his gun on you? If not, then your use of a gun for protection is simply responding to force with similar force. The moral responsibility for initiating the use of that force rests with Mr. Thug.
Bruce Schneier at Counterpane - Hard-Drive-Embedded Copy Protection: Mr. Schneier gives a good overview of CPRM (Content Protection for Recordable Media), and tells us why it won't do anything but pour money into the pockets of lawyers. [wes]
Broadly speaking, there are three classes of people who copy documents. There are average users, who just want a second copy for whatever reason but won't use hacker tools. There are more savvy users, who are willing to download programs that break copy-protection schemes. And there are professionals, who are prepared to spend serious money to break copy-protection schemes.Against the first group, any security measure works. This hardware scheme is overkill. Against the second group, any scheme that involves software fails... If the scheme only runs on DVD players or MP3 devices or anything else where you can't run custom software, this is much more effective.
But it still doesn't work against the third class of attackers: the professionals. These are people willing to invest in custom hardware. They will always be able to break these schemes and extract the documents. And they will always be able to produce and sell bootlegs, at least to the limits of law enforcement in whatever country they're in.
