Brits Gone Barking Mad
For thirty years, Libertarians tried to tell their fellow Americans that an insane, interventionist policy was bound to backfire on our nation sooner or later. They didn't listen. Or maybe we didn't speak loudly enough for them to hear us.
For thirty years, Libertarians tried to tell their fellow Americans that our country was becoming a de facto one-party state -- a state whose politicians can't be distinguished from one another except by the color of their ties, and who agree wholeheartedly with each other that the lives of the American people are theirs to dispose of. They didn't listen. Or maybe we didn't speak loudly enough for them to hear us.
Suddenly, after thirty years, the American public is saying the same things that we've been saying all along.
...
My name is Aaron Russo. I'm the presidential candidate who is saying NO.
Will you say it with me?
# Jim Pittaway at The American Conservative - In Praise of Laudanum - Some people require, and thrive on, a steady dose of opiates. But the drug warriors won't let them use their medicine. So they go to jail or kill themselves or at best live in misery. [claire]
Until the great government power-grab of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, Americans were assumed competent to treat themselves for chronic or acute pain, as well as for what we now imperfectly describe as chemical imbalances of the brain--such as bipolar disorder--by simply stopping at a corner apothecary and purchasing such tincture of opium as they judged appropriate for their needs. This actually went on for centuries without generating serious social or moral problems. Undoubtedly, many individuals became "addicted" and the opportunity for drug "abuse" abounded, but such excesses were the business of family and community. No tyrannical European king or dictator even dreamed of so intruding on the private lives of individuals as to interfere with access to pain relief and psychological equilibrium. At least not until FDR's Harry Anslinger, of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, set about criminalizing vast tracts of human behavior in his push to build a crime-fighting empire on behalf of the state whose power he and his boss were so dedicated to expanding.
...
Over time, I have come to view my work in increasingly simple terms: consequences. I factor in, but do not really weigh, what a patient uses, how much he uses, how often he uses, what his spouse, mother, boss, or society thinks about his use. These are problems only insofar as they generate consequences for the patient as an individual. If a patient is experiencing serious consequences related to his use that he is incapable of dealing with rationally, then that patient has a problem and I can help. But if the patient is fully functional and the consequences are related entirely to supply, then I'm beginning to have a problem. And these are the people this piece is about.
# Lauren at the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society - Kahle v. Ashcroft Case Page - a challenge to the recent change in U.S. copyrights from conditional to unconditional. Brewster Kahle, founder of archive.org, wants to provide out-of-print books on the internet, but recent changes in U.S. copyright law make it illegal to do so, even if the book is no longer in print and the owner cannot be found. [picks]
# Will Batchelor at Scotsman.com - Man Who Killed Armed Intruder Jailed Eight Years - four men with a gun come uninvited into Carl Lindsay's house, wherupon he stabs one of them with a sword. Instead of giving him a medal and jailing the three who unfortunately are still breathing, they've convicted him of manslaughter and sentenced him to eight years in prison. The Brits have gone completely crockers. [kimdutoit]
