Gimme That Remote
Linda Hamilton - Response to McLaughlin - Linda's response to the letter I posted yesterday from Mass. state police internal affairs. I hope she realizes that the legislators at the state house make the the police in Framingham look like little angels.
I wonder how the legislators at the statehouse are going to react when they realize the employees in Framingham are collecting big fat salaries but aren't doing anything to earn them. I don't imagine they are going to be pleased to find out the Mass. State Police, on a regular basis, violate the very laws they so diligently pass to protect the citizens of the commonwealth. It would appear it is time to assign an investigator to investigate the investigators.
Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - UN War Crimes Tribunal Cannot Create Peace - Slobodan Milosevic is on trial at the Hague and all is right with the world. Not by a long shot. CommU.N.ist war-making cannot create peace, even if you call it "peace-keeping".
The west can congratulate itself that Milosevic has been removed from power, but it cannot guarantee that the vacuum will not be filled by another equally bloodthirsty leader.
UN-initiated wars, even when followed by UN war crimes trials, cannot simply create peace in troubled nations. Time and time again, we have witnessed the folly of intervening in the domestic conflicts of sovereign countries. The US did so in Korea and Vietnam with disastrous results, and now the UN has supplanted the US as the world's policeman (although largely with US tax dollars). Kosovo undoubtedly will not be the last example of this pattern of UN "peacekeeping," where the UN chooses sides in a domestic war, intensifies the conflict, engineers a winner, and puts the loser on trial. Yet history demonstrates that respecting the sovereignty of individual nations does far more to promote peace than military intervention, even when such intervention is undertaken for humanitarian reasons. Nations have every right to criticize and denounce foreign governments, but they have no right to initiate aggression against such governments simply because they muster up a gang of allies who share their view. The UN, as a collective body, cannot make moral acts of aggression that clearly would be immoral if initiated by a single nation.
Michael W. Lynch and Bradley A. Smith at Reason - Prof. Smith Goes to Washington - Mr. Smith is the commissioner of the Federal Election Commission. He doesn't believe in most of the laws that the f.e.c. administers. He will still enforce them, however, although he also has sworn to uphold the constitution, which is sometimes (sic) at odds with the law. [rcr]
That may well be the case. Before signing on to the FEC, Smith wrote extensively on the mind-numbing topic of campaign-finance and election law. His findings were quite radical, at least from the point of view of professional reformers and regulators. Smith concluded not only that restrictions on campaign donations are unconstitutional, but that they degrade America's political process by strangling grassroots efforts in a tangle of red tape. Moreover, further efforts to regulate campaign contributions increase the advantage of professionals and insiders over ordinary citizens, provide the press with more power, and increase the already considerable electoral advantage of incumbents.
"We must limit, fine, and penalize. And then all will be well. We will weed out corruption, and have true political equality," said Smith in a speech last year at Catholic University, mocking the mindset of reformers. "I would suggest to you that campaign finance regulation is like Frankenstein's monster, well-intentioned, but hopelessly misguided and ultimately irredeemable, yet impossible to kill, and creating havoc wherever it goes."
...
REASON: What kind of corruption?
Smith: Well, to be honest, I can't tell you because the cases I am thinking of are still in the process. But they are the kind of cases where people complain about someone selling access. But what I find most interesting is that the real problem in these cases is not that constituents are corrupting the government. Rather, the government is corrupting the people. The officials are the ones saying, "Look, if you want this or that, this is what you have to pay." That's discouraging to me. But I don't think it changes my overall view or is inconsistent with my view, which is that the problem is not so great as people think and efforts to solve it cause more problems than they solve.
Scott Carpenter at Laissez Faire City Times - Save the Children--Give Them Guns - Mr. Carpenter got a .22 when he was 11. He's convinced that it saved his life. Not because he used it to defend himself from a charging bear or a raging human, but because it kept him busy and gave him a sense of responsibility.
Canada's antigun lobby is fond of poking fun at gun owners for getting kids involved in firearms-oriented activities. They equate the push to involve youth in such activities to putting car keys in the hands of an eight year old. But there is a flaw in this line of reasoning that gun owners thus far have failed to address that goes beyond the mere mechanics of an eight year old driving a car versus an eight year old with a .22 in hand; that being not that children are capable of learning and exercising responsibility (which they are) but rather that it is absolutely integral that they do so if they are to mature into capable and responsible adults.
Russell Madden at Laissez Faire City Times - Abolish the United Nations - commentary on the commU.N.ist push for control of their subjects starting with yesterday's gun bonfires. Then some jabs at the "Universal Bill of Rights" and commU.N.ist enviro-nazi pseudo-science.
The collectivists and statists roaming the halls of the United Nations want to dictate all aspects of gun usage: how they are manufactured, the manner in which they can be sold, and who will be permitted to buy them.
You can bet your bottom dollar that you will not be one of those "sanctioned" to buy or possess those dastardly tools of death, guns. Only the rich, politically connected, or select few leaders will have access to any practical means of self-defense. A case study indicating how this will work can be seen in the disgusting anti-self-defense rhetoric of Senator Diane I've-Never-Seen-A-Gun-Control-Law-I-Didn't-Like Feinstein — who nevertheless has a concealed carry permit.
Oh, yes, just as in George Orwell's Animal Farm, we're all equal, but some of us are more equal than others.
...
End the U.N. . . .before it is too late.
There's a new article in The Libertarian series by Vin Suprynowicz:
-
'Flag desecration amendment' does not improve with age - The
U.S. House of Representatives is about to vote, for the fifth time, on
a constitutional amendment allowing them to criminalize the
"desecration" of the flag. According to Vin, this one isn't likely to
get out of committee in the senate this time 'round. He's probably
talking about
H.J.Res.36 which has 258 cosponsors and was placed on the house
calendar not quite two weeks ago. When will these guys realize that
they can't repeal the first amendment. Without the bill of rights, all
of it, the constitution is null and void, and the federal government
loses its right to be.
Yes, flag burning is an act designed to express -- and generate -- outrage. Is it really so unthinkable that our federal police might do something under the red-white-and-blue to which an appropriate response might be an expression of outrage? And once we've gone this far, what other "outrages" shall we next ban by popular acclamation? Some of our more "dangerous" churches? Newspapers? Internet sites?
Cindy A. Cohn at the Electronic Frontier Foundation - EFF Response to "Barney" Legal Threat - I linked to a Wired story about Barney's unlovable defenders a little while ago. The EFF has made a legal analysis of one of their nastygrams. Conclusion: the threats have no basis in trademark or copyright law. [grabbe politechbot]
Finally, we would like to remind you that New York State Code of Professional Responsibility DR 7-102 [§1200.33] and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 provides for sanctions for litigation undertaken without support in existing law or sufficient evidentiary support. You may rest assured that, should you pursue a legal course of action against the EFF based upon the frivolous claims made in your e-mail, we will both defend against your claims with all of the means at are disposal and will seek appropriate affirmative relief.
Larry Chin at Online Journal - Help Wanted: Bush administration seeks crooks, cronies and ideologues - gw continues to expand his band of thieves. [wood s lot]
It does not require much imagination to see what kind of "democracy, human rights and international operations" the current Bush administration is interested in: the same brand of criminal, extra-constitutional global-corporate-cowboy imperialism that was the hallmark of the prior Bush occupation.
...
Today, the corporate media absolutely refuses to properly scrutinize the backgrounds of its politicians. Congress, itself rife with corruption on both sides of the aisle, shrinks from the very idea of aggressively investigating cabinet appointees, judges, corporate bandits, and (heaven forbid) its own inhabitants. Many average Americans have a short memory, no clue about history or current events, and no taste whatsoever for truth.
NORML - Medical Pot Legal in Canada: Canadian Government First to Regulate Marijuana for the Sick - On July 30, Canadian residents will be able to obtain a license to use cannabis for some medical conditions. A baby step in the right direction. [unknown]
Ximian Announces Open Source Initiative to Develop a Linux Platform for .NET - this press release announces the Mono Project, an open source .NET clone, including C# compiler and run-time, to be introduced at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention (July 23-27) in San Diego. [script]
