Leviathan unbound

Government by Waiver

RICHARD A. EPSTEIN

One of the great achievements of Western civilization is what we commonly call "the rule of law." By this we mean the basic principles of fairness and due process that govern the application of power in both the public and the private spheres. The rule of law requires that all disputes — whether among private parties or among the state and private parties — be tried before neutral judges, under rules that are known and articulated in advance. Every party must have notice of the charge against him and an opportunity to be heard in response; each governing rule must be consistent with all the others, so that no person is forced to violate one legal requirement in order to satisfy a second. In the United States, our respect for such principles has made our economy the world's strongest, and our citizens the world's freest.

Though we may take it for granted, the rule of law is no easy thing to create and preserve. Dictators and petty despots of all sorts will rebel against these constraints in order to exercise dominion over the lives and fortunes of their subjects. But anyone, of any political persuasion, who thinks of government as the servant of its citizens — not their master — will recognize that compliance with the rule of law sets a minimum condition for a just legal order.

They are more than stupid, they are evil

What's next ?

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino KOs Soda, OKs Alcohol

April 10, 2011

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has banned soda, sports drinks and sweetened ice teas from city property, according to a recent government press release.

In an attempt to reduce the city’s rising obesity rates, Menino has banned all sugary drinks from city vending machines, cafeterias and concession stands, just one day after reaching an agreement with the Boston Red Sox that allows the team to sell mixed drinks at its ballpark.

“I want to create a civic environment that makes the healthier choice the easier choice in people’s lives, whether it’s schools, work sites, or other places in the community," said Menino in the press release issued last week about the soda ban.

According to the release, city buildings and departments have a six-month grace period before they’ll be required to phase out the sale of beverages loaded with sugar, such as non-diet sodas, pre-sweetened ice teas, refrigerated coffee drinks, energy drinks, juice drinks with added sugar and sports drinks. The order allows for the sale of beverages such as diet sodas, diet iced teas, 100 percent juices, low-calorie sports drinks, low-sugar sweetened beverages, sweetened soy milk and flavored, sweetened milk. Beverages such as bottled water, flavored and unflavored seltzer water, low-fat milk, and unsweetened soy milk can continue to be sold.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/04/10/boston-mayor-thomas-menino-kos-soda-oks-alcohol/#ixzz1JHeyDEid

..and since we own them ...

Homosexual Nudging for British 11-Year-Olds

It had never occurred to me that 11-year-olds have "sexual orientations." But they'll need to come up with them, if they are to comply with the nudging inquiries of British educrats:

Children as young as 11 could soon be asked about their sexuality without their parents' consent, it has emerged.

Teachers, nurses and youth workers are being urged to set up pilot studies aimed at monitoring adolescent sexual orientation for the first time.

A report commissioned by the Government's equalities watchdog found that it was 'practically and ethically' possible to interview young children about their sexuality.

Parental consent is not deemed necessary.

The report for the much-criticised Equality and Human Rights Commission recommends that children should be asked if they are gay from the age of 11. A record should be kept of those unsure or 'questioning' their sexuality.

The purpose is to promote homosexuality by encouraging little kids too young to understand it to think of themselves as privileged deviants. According to the report,

"some young people begin to question their sexual orientation as early as age eight and may begin to identify as LGB (lesbian, gay, bisexual) from early adolescence."

Or at least they may with sufficient encouragement.

Obama's North American Association for Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) associated Safe Schools Czar would no doubt approve.

There was a time when we expected public officials to defend children's innocence from predatory perverts. Now they are the predatory perverts.

We also own your children

April 11, 2011

Kids Forbidden From Bringing Lunch to School

First they use your money to provide government cheese. Then they force you to eat it. 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-school-lunch-restrictions-041120110410,0,2614451,full.story

At Little Village Academy, a Chicago public school,

students are not allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria.

Principal Elsa Carmona said her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices.

It's a weighty job protecting people from their choices, but Big Government feels up to it. Carmona describes the ban as common.

A Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman said she could not say how many schools prohibit packed lunches and that decision is left to the judgment of the principals.

"While there is no formal policy, principals use common sense judgment based on their individual school environments," Monique Bond wrote in an email. "In this case, this principal is encouraging the healthier choices and attempting to make an impact that extends beyond the classroom."

You won't find a better argument for private school or homeschooling than government educrats attempting to make an impact that extends beyond the classroom.

Being government-issued, the food stinks.

At Little Village, most students must take the meals served in the cafeteria or go hungry or both. During a recent visit to the school, dozens of students took the lunch but threw most of it in the garbage uneaten. Though CPS has improved the nutritional quality of its meals this year, it also has seen a drop-off in meal participation among students, many of whom say the food tastes bad.

"Some of the kids don't like the food they give at our school for lunch or breakfast," said Little Village parent Erica Martinez. "So it would be a good idea if they could bring their lunch so they could at least eat something."

Public schools serve not only lunch but breakfast too. Maybe that's what has replaced discarded old-fashioned activities like teaching the three R's. Coming soon: government dinner.

The press dug up a parent who actually approves:

[P]arent Miguel Medina said he thinks the "no home lunch policy" is a good one. "The school food is very healthy," he said, "and when they bring the food from home, there is no control over the food."

Heaven forbidden there should be no control over food. As Rep. John Dingleberry (D-MI) revealed, controlling the people is what the government's ostensible concern with our health is all about.

Not all schools have progressed this far in their authoritarianism:

At Claremont Academy Elementary School on the South Side, officials allow packed lunches but confiscate any snacks loaded with sugar or salt.

Salt is an essential nutrient, but like CO2 it has been arbitrarily declared unholy according to the bizarre godless religion of our moonbat overlords.

If we're seeing this level of totalitarianism now, imagine how much micromanagement of our diets bureaucrats will insist on imposing when they've finished consolidating control of the healthcare system under ObamaCare.

The Bad Word

... Fascism has attained the dignity of a cuss word in America. When we disagree with a man's social or political arguments, if we cannot reasonably call him a communist, we call him a fascist. The word itself has little more relation to its original and precise object than a certain well-beloved American expletive has to the harmless domestic animal it actually describes. But fascism is something more than a bad name. If we are to have an eye cocked for fascism and fascists in this country we had better be sure we know a fascist when we see one. Of course we will recognize him in an instant if he will go about in a Bundist uniform or storm trooper's black shirt. But what if he wears no such uniform, has never learned to goose-step, speaks with no German gutturals or Italian gestures but in excellent seaboard English and is, in fact, a member of a patriotic American society or labor union and actually hates Hitler and Mussolini and wants them trapped, tried, and strung up — how then will we detect him?

Since you pay social security we own you

Should there be a 'fat tax'?

Offering incentives for lifestyle choices likely to cut medical costs is an idea worth considering.

Los Angeles Times

If an individual's body mass index isn't a purely personal matter, what is? We have the right to choose between healthy food or junk food, even if the latter is more likely to result in obesity and related health problems. But once our choices affect others, there's a natural conflict between individual freedom and social responsibility. In a nation where rising healthcare costs and diminished access to medical care are issues of grave concern, personal decisions are no longer strictly private. The treatment of obesity- and smoking-related disease is tremendously expensive, which in turns drives up health insurance premiums for everyone, as well as raising the costs for Medicaid, Medicare and health coverage for public employees.

These legitimate concerns have resulted in a raft of nanny-state proposals to shape the public's dietary habits by taxing this food or that drink or by outlawing free toys that accompany unhealthy children's meals at some restaurants. Such proposals raise inevitable questions of fairness and effectiveness. Does it make sense to tax a can of soda but not a fruit juice that contains more calories per cup and very little additional nutrition? Would a vitamin-fortified soda be exempt from the tax? And it's hard to figure out whether the bigger obesity culprit is a small order of fried chicken at a fast-foot outlet or a giant slab of prime rib at a pricey restaurant. Or, as many dietitians now think, maybe it's the carbs; has the time come for a public pasta tax? In any case, there is much uncertainty about whether such tactics would have any effect on the country's collective bulging belly.

suicidal government

... government is suicidal because it breeds expectations that cannot be met ...
by Robert Samuelson
Read the article at
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/big_government_on_the_brink/2011/04/09/AFNcwrGD_story.html?wprss=rss_opinions

Resistance

Soviet hard tyranny produced dissidents like Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Nanny state soft tyranny has produced Jon Basso, owner of the Heart Attack Grill:

Don't worry moonbats, the business will be closed down by some greedy lawyer before you know it.

government lunacy at it's best

Police arrest salvagers for taking 47p in scrap from recycling centre

Pair of salvagers who took dumped items claim police told them the arrest operation had cost £20,000

read the whole thing at  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/05/salvagers-arrested-scrap-recycling

Rising Supply, Advances in Drilling Technology and Conservation Will Counteract Rising Oil Prices

1. Basic economic theory tells us that one of the predictable consequences of resources becoming more expensive is that higher prices will stimulate discovery, exploration and greater production on the supply side.  And that's exactly what we're seeing now in Texas for oil and gas, according to today's WSJ article "Chevron Rekindles Old Texas Flame: High Oil Prices, New Technologies Once Again Make the Permian Basin a Popular Spot for Drilling," here's an excerpt:

"Climbing oil prices are making the aging oil fields of Texas's Permian Basin look attractive again to some big petroleum companies. Chevron Corp. has pumped oil from this well-plowed area of west Texas and New Mexico since 1925. But in recent decades, as production in the area declined, Chevron and other companies used it primarily as a lab for oil-extraction techniques that could be employed in larger projects elsewhere.

A better joke of the week

A Greek, an Irishman, and a Portuguese go into a bar. 
The German pays

Joke of the week

A German, a Greek, an Irishman, and a Portuguese go into a bar. The German pays.

Climate models go cold

by David Evans

The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic. Watching this issue unfold has been amusing but, lately, worrying. This issue is tearing society apart, making fools out of our politicians.

Let's set a few things straight. The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now outrageously maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant.

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.
Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

In the meantime, back in Pakistan, loonies kill each other like crazy

Terror attacks and politically motivated executions have been on the rise in Pakistan.

In January, Punjab governor Salman Taseer was shot by his own bodyguard for opposing Pakistan's blasphemy law.

The assassination of Pakistan's minority affairs minister Shahbaz Bhatti in March, was "justified" for the same reason.

In the past seven days, 96 people have been killed and hundreds more injured in attacks across Pakistan's North-West Frontier province and Balochistan.

·         March 30, 2011 - Suspected Taliban militants targeted the convoy of Maulana Fazl ur Rehman of the hard-line group Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F). The attack which killed 10 took place on the Peshawar-Islamabad motorway in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

·         March 31, 2011 - Suspected Taliban militants targeted Maulana Fazl ur Rehman's convoy again. This attack in Charsadda, a town in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan killed 12 people and injured 32 others.

·         March 31, 2011 - 10 people were killed in Pakistan's Balochistan province in three separate attacks. A tribal elder, his son and three guards were killed in a bomb attack by the Baloch Liberation Front. A landmine killed three people and militants gunned down two tribal elders in the town of Kalat.

·         April 1, 2011 - A 12-year-old boy was killed when a suicide bomber detonated his bomb at a weapons market in Dara Adam Khel, a town in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province.

·         April 3, 2011 - Two suicide bombers killed 50 people and injured about 100 when they struck outside the Sakhi Sarwar shrine in Punjab. The Tehreek-e-Taliban have taken responsibility for the attack and said it was in response to the government attacks on militants in north-west Pakistan. A third suspected bomber was shot and injured by the police.

·         April 4, 2011 - A teenage suicide bomber killed 8 people at a car showroom, near a bus terminal in the Lower Dir district of Pakistan on Monday. Pro-government tribal leader Muhammad Akbar Sufi, 55, was the target of the attack.

·         April 5, 2011 - A blast in Tirah Valley, a tribal area located in Pakistan's Khyber Agency, killed 5 and injured 8 others. The death toll is expected to rise as the injured are in critical condition.

Brass Balls

Part 1



Part 2


This is a response to this jackass

Keep in mind that this guy might have ended up as Attorney General under President McCain. A few minutes earlier, Harry Reid told Schieffer that Congress will “take a look” at Jones’s act and the ensuing “protests” in Afghanistan, so at a minimum there’ll probably be some sort of congressional resolution of disapproval. Maybe hearings too: Reid wouldn’t commit to that, but he didn’t rule it out. As for Graham, “I wish we could find some way to hold people accountable,” he laments, clearly deflated by the thought that the First Amendment applies even while we’re “at war.” And if you’re not sure what he means by “at war” — well, I’m not either. Are we “at war” only if troops are in the field? No Koran-burning, in other words, until the last U.S. serviceman has left Iraq and Afghanistan (and Libya)? Or are we “at war” as long as Al Qaeda and other anti-American jihadist movements exist, ready and willing to demagogue acts like Jones’s for their own uses? Even if all Islamist outfits in the world were eliminated, wouldn’t Graham want to continue the ban on Koran-burning lest it inspire new jihadist outfits to spring up? There’s no limiting principle to this idea, realistically. It’d end up being his own version of an “emergency law.”

Ironically, though, the more attention Congress devotes to this, the worse they’ll make it. If Reid and Graham were stupid enough to hold hearings (which they almost certainly aren’t), it’d be a galactic clusterfark — a spotlight for Jones, a red alert for civil libertarians, and an offense to a public that’s tired of double standards for religious insults. If nothing else good comes from this incident, though, it’s at least been useful as a window into the mindset of our trusted “ally” Hamid Karzai, who did his level best to earn brownie points with the fanatics among his constituents by demagoging this to the hilt. As voters get set for another debate this summer about whether we should draw down in Afghanistan, make sure that isn’t forgotten.

Historical Myths

One of the most powerful influences on human affairs is historical myth—beliefs about the past that are simply wrong. Some historical myths have far-reaching and baleful effects because they shape the way people understand not only the past but also the present, leading them to make harmful or even dangerous decisions. This seems to be especially so with economic history. Take the standard account of the Great Depression and the New Deal. In many ways the New Deal itself was one result of another historical myth: the widely received account of what had happened to the German economy in the first half of the twentieth century, particularly during World War I and the Third Reich.

That myth probably did more harm than almost any other in that century. In the case of the Third Reich, the widely held perception even now is that whatever else may be said about his regime, Hitler managed to bring about a dramatic revival of the German economy. After 1933 Hitler and his finance minister Hjalmar Schacht stabilized the economy and managed to solve the huge unemployment crisis that had destroyed the Weimar Republic’s legitimacy. This was partly due to Schacht’s imaginative monetary policy and partly to massive public works programs, such as the autobahnen. There was a sharp move away from free markets to a much more interventionist economy that worked better than what had gone before. During World War II this economy was able to achieve great success in terms of war production, notably under Hitler’s armaments minister, Albert Speer. Obviously there is some truth in this account, or else it would not be credible. There was indeed a sharp move in the direction of a more state-controlled economy. In fact few people realize just how interventionist—even socialist—the policies of the Nazi state were (although the full name of the party should give some indication of this).

I’ll stick with “savages” and “barbarians.”

"To those in the media who are suggesting, apparently in all seriousness, that Terry Jones caused the deaths of seven UN employees in Afghanistan by burning a copy of the Koran, I’ll just note that the only way that argument works is by means of a suppressed premise. The premise is that the killers had no moral agency–in other words, that they were, literally, animals."

Me, I’ll stick with “savages” and “barbarians.”

Government run amock

''... St. Louis is not the problem; government is. Many people go into it because they enjoy bossing people around. Surely this is why a court had to overturn a decision by the government of Glendale, Ohio, when it threatened a man with fines and jail because he put a “for sale” sign in his car parked in front of his house. The city said that people might be distracted by the sign and walk into traffic....''

read the whole thing at:http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-st-louis-a-protest-sign-meets-government-arrogance/2011/04/01/AFvR4wJC_print.html

Liberty

''The distinction between an economic sphere of human life

and activity and a noneconomic sphere is the worst of their fallacies.

If an omnipotent authority has the power to assign to

every individual the tasks he has to perform, nothing that can

be called freedom and autonomy is left to him. He has only the

choice between strict obedience and death by starvation.''

by Ludwig von Mises

Theory and History, pp. 376–77

Nudgers vs. Nannies

The civil war between British busybodies

by Brendan O'Neill 

There is a new divide within Britain’s political classes. It’s not the old conflict of left vs. right, or a return of the 17th-century clash of Roundheads and Cavaliers. The new split divides those who believe the fat, feckless masses should be nudged toward better behavior and those who believe the fat, feckless masses should be nannied toward better behavior.

Prime Minister David Cameron leads the nudgers. He has established a Behavioural Insight Team (BIT) to furnish him with ideas for how to nudge the “illogical” masses (its word) toward the lifestyle approved by Cameron’s government: nonsmoking, alcohol-free, slim, no fun.
Public health officials and their cheerleaders in the media lead the nannies. They believe nudging isn’t enough and that, in the words of Catherine Bennett of The Observer, there will be“a surge in obesity and mass poisoning” by booze and junk food unless the government adopts rules forcing people to become more health-conscious.

'The Tyrannies Are Doomed'

By BARI WEISS

That was the explosive title of a December 2001 book by historian Bernard Lewis about the decline of the Muslim world. Already at the printer when 9/11 struck, the book rocketed the professor to widespread public attention, and its central question gripped Americans for a decade.
Now, all of a sudden, there's a new question on American minds: What Might Go Right?
To find out, I made a pilgrimage to the professor's bungalow in Princeton, N.J., where he's lived since 1974 when he joined Princeton's faculty from London's School of Oriental and African Studies.
Two months shy of his 95th birthday, Mr. Lewis has been writing history books since before World War II. By 1950, he was already a leading scholar of the Arab world, and after 9/11, the vice president and the Pentagon's top brass summoned him to Washington for his wisdom.
"I think that the tyrannies are doomed," Mr. Lewis says as we sit by the windows in his library, teeming with thousands of books in the dozen or so languages he's mastered. "The real question is what will come instead."
For Americans who have watched protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Bahrain and now Syria stand up against their regimes, it has been difficult not to be intoxicated by this revolutionary moment. Mr. Lewis is "delighted" by the popular movements and believes that the U.S. should do all it can to bolster them. But he cautions strongly against insisting on Western-style elections in Muslim lands.

My dog is more rational than these beasts (2)

Only 14, Bangladeshi girl charged with adultery was lashed to death

Darbesh Khan and his wife, Aklima Begum, had to watch their youngest daughter being whipped until she dropped.

Shariatpur, Bangladesh (CNN) -- Hena Akhter's last words to her mother proclaimed her innocence. But it was too late to save the 14-year-old girl.
Her fellow villagers in Bangladesh's Shariatpur district had already passed harsh judgment on her. Guilty, they said, of having an affair with a married man. The imam from the local mosque ordered the fatwa, or religious ruling, and the punishment: 101 lashes delivered swiftly, deliberately in public.
Hena dropped after 70.
Bloodied and bruised, she was taken to hospital, where she died a week later.
Amazingly, an initial autopsy report cited no injuries and deemed her death a suicide. Hena's family insisted her body be exhumed. They wanted the world to know what really happened to their daughter.
Sharia: illegal but still practiced

My dog is more rational than these beasts (1)

Eight killed in worst-ever attack on UN workers in Afghanistan

Eight United Nations workers have been executed in the northern Afghanistan city of Mazar-e-Sharif, two of them by beheading, by demonstrators protesting the burning of a Koran at a church in Florida.

The victims of the worst-ever attack on UN personnel in Afghanistan included five guards from Nepal, and civilian staff from Norway, Sweden and Romania. Four local residents were also killed.

UN officials told The Daily Telegraph the final toll could rise as high as 20, and there were unconfirmed reports that the head of the United Nations Military Assistance Mission (Unama) in Mazar-e-Sharif had also been seriously injured

Local residents said about 2,000 demonstrators attacked UN guards stationed outside Unama compound, seized their weapons and began firing at police.

Bourbon for breakfast

Most people say that a job is good for making money. So, if you don't need money, what's the point? The fabled English aristocratic class of the late 19th and early 20th century apparently thought that way, if the caricatures painted by Jeeves and Wooster, Brideshead, and the like have any truth to them. Their main job was getting dressed and undressed. It seems like young Americans are thinking the same way.

Doug French drew my attention to some statistics from the Wall Street Journal on teenage employment that knocked me out. In 2000, slightly more than a third of 16- and 17-year-olds had jobs. Today, in 2011, it is 14 and 15 percent. These are shocking numbers. But in retrospect, I've seen enough anecdotal evidence to back them up.

I was speaking to a group of 200-plus high-school students (location I will not disclose) and I casually asked how many of them have worked in a retail environment, working directly with customers. Not a single hand went up. Shocked, I asked the question more broadly: how many have had a job that yielded a paycheck? Not a hand went up.

How to make yourself poor (2)

Public Enemy and Criminal Barber Dale Smith

An 82-year old Oregon barber (pictured above) with more than half a century of experience cutting hair (he was first licensed in 1957) is accused by government authorities in Oregon of "criminal barbering" because his government license to cut hair inadvertently expired in 2006.  Now state regulators want him to go back to barber school and pass a series of exams before he will be allowed to cut hair again legally. His barber shop is currently shut down to protect the public from getting their hair cut by this unlicensed, criminal barber.  
See related CD post here of armed government SWAT team raids on Florida barber shops last November.  

How to make yourself poor (1)

License now required for this Cuban guy.

"Cubans can now seek licenses 178 private-sector jobs, under economic reforms announced last year by President Raul Castro," see the full list here from the Associate Press, including:

6. Door-to-door knife and scissors sharpener

8. Mule Driver

14. Wagon or Pushcart Operator (to help move things)

17. Wheelbarrow Operator 

29. Public Bathroom Attendant 

62. Spark Plug Cleaner and Tester 

111. Automobile Battery Repair

116. Mattress Repair 

124. Umbrella and Parasol Repair

127. Doll and Toy Repair 

158. Fresh Fruit Peeler

My personal favorite is the license for a wheelbarrow operator (see photo above). 

Sounds Good ...

"Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area - crime, education, housing, race relations - the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them."

~Thomas Sowell