who's your nanny?

Ain't This Some S*%^?

As if intellectual property law could not become more absurd, I learned today from MSNBC that there are patents, copyrights, and trademarks for toilet paper. Georgia-Pacific which makes Quilted Northern sued Kimberly-Clark Corp., which makes Cottenelle Ultra. Georgia-Pacific introduced quilted design in Quilted Northern in the 1990s and Kimberly-Clark redesigned Cottenelle Ultra with a quilted design later. The court ruled against Georgia-Pacific arguing that Quilted Design in functional and thus cannot be trademarked.

There is a surfeit of ridiculous IP lawsuits out there, but this one ranks pretty high in my opinion. This case and all the others I am familiar with continue to demonstrate that given a choice between innovation and litigation, businesses will choose litigation every time. The temptation to use power of the State to crush competition is irresistible. Yet another one of the myriad reasons why the State along with its evil IP laws must be abolished

A Danger of Debating Statists

They might call your bluff and up the ante. Commenting on Wil Wilkinson's post about food nannyism, Eric Crampton writes:

Wilkinson is right to use the reductio. But that can be dangerous; not long after I used mandatory ski helmets as reductio, I started seeing proposals entreating that mandatory helmets would save lives. When I wrote [PDF] in the NZ Med Journal about the logical end of seeing public health costs as being basis for policy - bringing one's sex life from the private to the public realm - earnest healthists replied that they've happily prescribed subsidised condoms. Setting up signposts about what's logically implied by positions might well be taken as suggestions of where to go next...

It took me a couple of years to figure out why nanny statists miss the humor of the reductio. Instead, they agree and amplify the argument in all seriousness. I believe that this is because the nanny statist has no problem with using violence to control the behavior of other people. Whereas the libertarian believes that aggression -- i.e., the initiation of violence against innocent people -- is always immoral, the nanny statist believes that violence is an amoral means to an end. For the nanny statist, the reason to initiate violence might or might not be immoral in her mind.

For example, most modern day nanny statists abhor African slavery. The reason is not because they are against slavery as such. That is, nanny statists have no problem with using violence to force people to live as they want them to. However, they believe that the enslavement of people on the basis of race is immoral. This is an important point to recognize. In several past debates with nanny statists, I assumed that if could point out that they were arguing for the initiation of violence against innocent people, their moral conscience would finally awaken and they would realize that their means were immoral. However, I never witnessed such an epiphany during any of my debates. Some interlocutors would say in essence, "Yes, I know that, but this is the outcome I prefer."

Nanny statists truly believe that they should control the lives of others. If we engage in debate with them on a specific topic, such as a fat tax, we should heed Crampton's warning about using the reductio. We might give them specific ideas as to other facets of life they think they should control.

Still Think You Can Trust the Police?

Think again.

Congressional Kabuki Theater Continues

I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing. H.L. Mencken

Although I should have long ago accepted this, it still amazes me that so many Americans take the debate over the debt ceiling seriously. The Federal Government does not obey the Constitution at all. The only limit on its power is the ideology of the people. As long as our government believes that they can get away with it, they will do it. War, fraud, bailouts, thousands of regulatory laws, whatever. Yet we are supposed to believe that this same government that obeys none of the laws created to limit it will suddenly collapse if the debt ceiling is not raised. Now all of a sudden a rule limiting the government matters. I even heard discussion this week on CNN about passing a balanced budget amendment. Really? Our government bans free speech, searches us freely without probable cause, threatens States who nullify federal laws, but we are supposed to believe that if a Balanced Budget Amendment were to pass, the government would suddenly obey this law.

Given that I took the red pill long ago, I do find some entertainment in the back and forth between Democrats and Republicans. The hyperbole from both sides about whom to blame, Boehner acting like a drama queen by ending the debt talks with the President, Democrats mad at the President for proposed spending cuts, talk of tax cuts and tax raises and closing tax loopholes, it just goes on and on. And many Americans wait with bated breath for Congress to "get is act together and cooperate so that we won't default on our obligations". This would be so much funnier if these people did not vote.

 

There's No Need to Argue, Liberals Just Don't Understand

Today I was driving behind a Prius that had three bumper stickers. The sticker on the far left read "The Patriot Act: Turning Citizens into Suspects Since 2001". The sticker on the far right was the Peace Sign. The sticker in the middle...

As If You Need Even More Evidence that Some Animals Are More Equal than Others

OK, students. Let us review our lesson about the difference between state agents and mundanes. If you are a state agent, this is proper security procedure. If you are a mundane, this is sexual assault. Any questions?

Eric Peters Joins the Casey Anthony Lynch Mob

Eric Peters is one of my favorite writers. He regularly writes about cars and politics from a libertarian perspective. He has some particularly astute observations about how the State robs our freedom and wallets with its traffic laws. However, I found myself quite disappointed his recent reaction to the Casey Anthony trial. His argument, if one could call it that, is that the jury in the Anthony case did not think for themselves. They chose to follow "The Law". What "The Law" is that the jurors followed without critical thought is not spelled out. But whatever "The Law" is, Peters is absolutely certain that Anthony murdered her child and is guilty of first-degree murder.

The best description of "The Law" that these jurors followed blindly is contained in the following paragraph:

In the trial, the hideous totality of evidence presented that Anthony killed her kid, then covered it up, counted for naught because the Jots and Tittles of The Law had not been satisfied – according to the tortured interpretation and admonitions of shyster lawyers. Instead of ignoring the shysters’ pedantic sophistry and using their own best judgment as to what really mattered – did this woman kill her kid? – they chose to follow The Law. If, for example, they were told by the man in the black dress to ignore damning evidence because said damning evidence was not presented in quite the proper way, they would actually throw a switch inside their heads and exclude said damning evidence from their (cough) deliberations. Reason – hell, common sense – never enters into it. Just whatever arbitrary construct The Law presents them as the template for their actions (and non-actions).

It’s the same mindset that causes decent people to forgo the means of self-defense if The Law says that only criminals may possess them. It never occurs to them that obeying The Law is less important than staying alive – The Law be damned. (Italics in original)

I have several issues with this paragraph. The first problem I have is with Peters' assertion, "In the trial, the hideous totality of evidence presented that Anthony killed her kid, then covered it up counted for naught because the Jots and Tittles of The Law had not been satisfied." Perhaps Peters should have first written an essay explaining why he is so certain that the evidence proves that Anthony killed her child and covered it up. I have not followed the case closely, but from what I have read, it sounds like the only thing prosecutors were able to prove was that Casey Anthony is not a woman of high character. But being guilty of low character does not mean, therefore, that she murdered her child. There must be evidence that proves she murdered her child.

Goodbye, Spitzer, and Good Riddance

Last week FoxNews reported that CNN canceled former New York attorney general and governor Eliot Spitzer's show "In the Arena". I had the misfortune of regularly suffering through many of his shows while working out at the gym. One episode in particular has been branded into my brain due to the blatant hypocrisy Spitzer displayed. After the Obama administration decided not to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act, Spitzer commented that while he was attorney general, he could not pick and choose the laws to enforce. Even though he personally disagreed with certain laws, his job was to uphold the law regardless of his personal feelings.

My reaction at the time: Muthaphucka, what???!!!! Oh really, Spitzer? You uphold all laws even if you don't personally agree with them? Then what about prostitution, you lying, hypocritical, punk-ass bitch? In fact, why do you even have a TV show? Why isn't your ass in jail like the people you prosecuted for prostitution, you cowardly-ass, punk bitch muthaphucka?

Being the radical that I am, I don't believe that anyone should be in jail for prostitution as long as it is consensual among the parties involved, but the fact that Spitzer could put people in jail for prostitution while indulging in the same activity illustrates the mindset of the ruling class in this country. These people really do not believe that the laws they burden us with apply to themselves. They only capitulate when public pressure is high enough. If there were no substantial outcry from the public, these scumbags would willingly indulge in their crimes without the pretense of ethical or moral behavior. But as I have argued before, Spitzer and his ilk are not hypocrites. "Sociopaths" is a much more apposite adjective.

Mom Arrested for Refusing to Bend the Knee to the TSA

I wonder how many people who think Casey Anthony should fry have no problem with the government sexually assaulting our kids. Funny how the state, on the one hand, prosecutes parents for physically harming their kids, and then, on the other, turns around and initiates physical harm. Weird.

One woman who apparently understands the true nature of the state is Andrea Fornella Abbott, who was arrested for -- get this -- yelling and swearing in a Nashville airport while trying to prevent TSA agents from feeling up her daughter.

“(She) told me in a very stearn voice with quite a bit of attitude that they were not going through that X-ray,” Sabrina Birge, an airport security officer, told police.

“No, it’s not an X-ray,” she told Abbott. “It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.”

Well if the TSA says it, it must be true. But that's not necessarily even the point. Some people just don't like the feds violating their Fourth Amendment "right" to be free from unreasonable searches. I know ... whackos! Apparently it's "reasonable" to assume that anyone who travels nowadays is a criminal. 

Anything other than complete obedience is a threat to the state. The TSA can't risk having everyone in an airport see a crazy woman defending her kid -- what if they all started to think like her! Why, it would be sheer bedlam, what with mothers and fathers standing up to such tyrannical authoritah! and trying to guard their civil liberties. I mean, what would people think if word got out that we can actually protect ourselves!

Because the State Helped Derek Jeter Get 3,000 Hits ...

It's entitled to collect taxes on all the gifts the Yankees gave to Christian Lopez to thank him for returning the homerun ball Jeter used to collect his 3,000th hit.

Makes sense.

Of course, it's a little difficult to feel sorry for Lopez when he says shit like this:

"The IRS has a job to do, so I'm not going to hold it against them, but it would be cool if they helped me out a little on this."

Yeah, I never hold theft against thieves, either.

I wrote an article for LRC on this very theme after Barry Bonds hit his milestone homerun.

In Which I Make My Chances of Getting to Heaven Even Lower

Dear Conservative Evangelical Republicans,

I am tired of your hypocritical bastards. I have read your latest pledge for Republican candidates to defend the family and marriage. One of your darlings, Michelle Bachman, has gleefully signed it to suck up votes among you idiots. Among your solutions, you include nebulous solutions such as the following:

• Support for prompt reform of uneconomic, anti-marriage aspects of welfare policy, tax policy, and marital/divorce law, and extended "second change" or "cooling-off" periods for those seeking a "quickie divorce".
• Steadfast embrace of a federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which protects the definition of marriage as between one man and woman in all of the United States
• Support for the enactment of safeguards for all married and unmarried U.S. Military and National Guard personnel, especially our combat troops, from inappropriate same-gender or opposite-gender sexual harassment, adultery or intrusively intimate commingling among the attracteds (restrooms, showers, barracks, tents, etc.): plus prompt termination of military policymakers who would expose American wives and daughters to rape or sexual harassment, torture, enslavement, or sexual leveraging by the enemy in forward combat roles.
• Rejection of Sharia Islam and all other anti-woman, anti-human rights forms of totalitarian control.
• Commitment to downsizing government and the enormous burden upon American families of the USA's $14.3 trillion public debt, its $77 trillion in unfunded liabilities, its $1.5 trillion federal deficit, and it's $3.5 trillion federal budget.

What the f*** is this? Where are the specific solutions? What do you plan to cut in the budget? How the hell is a Constitutional Amendment going to defend marriage? The U.S. Government itself does not even obey the Constitution yet you idiots think some words on a piece of paper are going to save marriage? You wonder why people think evangelicals are anti-intellectual fools?

Radley Balko Deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom

After 10 years of being incarcerated for shooting and killing Mississippi police officer Ron Jones Jr. during a botched drug raid on his home, Cory Maye is finally a free man. I can't even type that or reread it without getting chills.

Balko linked to his Huffington Post story above from his personal blog under the title "How Cory Maye Was Freed," though he neglected, no doubt out of humility, to note the primary reason Maye is a free man today. He won't say it, so I will: Radley Balko is how Cory Maye was freed.

I believe Radley first ran across the Cory Maye story in December 2005 while doing research for his paper, Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America, for the Cato Institute. Incensed over the injustice that landed Maye on death row, he continually pounded the drum for Maye's innocence until people took notice. And they did, starting with popular bloggers, then lawyers offering to work for Maye pro bono, and then, miraculously, the state of Mississippi.

Of course, Mississippi couldn't have failed to notice and eventually take action to begin rectifying this wrong even if they wanted to after the shitstorm Radley stirred up in Cory Maye's defense.

This story is far too long to rehash here. After all, Balko himself has been following it for over five years, and you can read all about it here at The Agitator (I strongly recommend you take the time if you've never heard the name Cory Maye). And anyhow, this blog post is about Radley Balko.

If the Pulitzer Prize for reporting is worth a damn, Balko is a shoo-in to win. He deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom (although, any good libertarian would refuse that one).

Most people live an entire life without making this significant an impression in someone else's life, much less a complete stranger's. What a fantastic week for Radley and Cory Maye. Congratulations to you both.

Radley Balko is a hero.

Do You Disagree with the Casey Anthony Verdict?

If so, do you believe the government should control the court system? If so, why?

If you trust the state to administer "justice," why are you so incensed over Anthony's murder acquittal? If the state is the most competent administrator of justice, shouldn't you believe Anthony is innocent?

I admit that I didn't watch a minute of this show trial or any of the incessant talk show coverage. I couldn't have cared less. And anyhow, I learned all I ever needed to know about the case by listening to everyone in the office talk about it every day over the past few weeks.

If I had to guess, I'd say Anthony probably killed her daughter, or at minimum is partially responsible for her death. So I'm confused by people who simultaneously abhor the jury's verdict as a result of the state's failure to prove its case, but who nevertheless defend the state's right to prohibit any competition whatsoever in its court systems.

That said, I was pleased to hear that Anthony was acquitted. If she really did it, this is a stark (and welcome) indictment of our so-called justice system. Florida taxpayers will also no longer have to foot the bill to keep this woman in a government cage, and there's nothing anyone can do to bring her poor daughter back to life anyway. If anything, criminals should pay restitution instead of being the target of retribution.

Finally, even if Casey Anthony is a murderer, it's better one guilty person go free than an innocent, nonviolent person be convicted. We've got way too much of the latter going around already.

 

You Know the TSA Is Having a PR Crisis When...

The government needs to invent yet another new threat that requires either more scanners or more invasive searches. Now bomb implants are a "potential" threat to airline travel. Such a threat, of course, justifies the TSA manhandling of people with urostomy bags or elderly women with diapers. Perhaps random cavity searches all to save us from a threat that our own government created by its evil foreign policy.

Call me cynical, but I have a hard time believing that the government officials who identify these "threats" really believe this bullshit. Sounds to me that they read public opinion and make up whatever threat is necessary to persuade the people not to resist. Given that our government has planned and done worse in the past, this would be child's play.

Perhaps There Would Be Fewer Troop Suicides if There Were Fewer Wars

MSNBC reports that Obama has decided to "reverse a long-standing policy of not sending condolence letters to the families of service members who commit suicide while in a combat zone." I find it interesting that such a policy even existed. Apparently troops who take their own lives are not to be recognized for their sacrifice, perhaps because doing so might compel people to ask the question, Why are so many troops killing themselves?

According to the article, "Service member suicides have increased as the U.S. has fought two overseas wars and some troops serve repeated tours of duty and suffered post-traumatic stress and other problems." Well, why is this, I wonder? Could it be that there is something so horrific about warfare itself that no amount of patriotic brainwashing can inure some men against the fact that they are killing innocent people? Or the fact that one who attempts to leave the military without permission from his employers might feel so trapped and desperate that suicide is the only escape? Do you think that any of the mental health professionals paid by the State would dare suggest that such might be a root cause of the problem? And if there were clear and abundant evidence that the warfare itself compels troops to kill themselves, do you think that our masters leaders would even care?

"What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"

Frederick Douglass on Independence Day.

Hey Kids, Don't Bike While Retarded

A mentally handicapped Ohio teen was brutally tased, beaten, and pepper sprayed by Dayton police after being chased home on his bicycle.

Seventeen-year-old Jesse Kersey was riding his bike near his home when officer Willie Hooper stopped him to talk to him. According to Pamela Ford, Kersey’s mother, Hooper was aware of Jesse’s disability but “apparently took Jesse’s speech impediment for disrespect… [and] began yelling at Jesse and after Jesse attempted to communicate with him… turned and rode his bike back to his home in an attempt to ask his mother to help him communicate with Cooper.”

Why Hooper stopped Kersey in the first place is unclear, but I trust we all feel safer knowing that our "peace officers" are out on the streets protecting us from confused retarded kids who apparently do no harm to anyone.

Better yet, even though 20 officers (!) from several jurisdictions showed up to subdue one helpless kid, it was Kersey who was charged with assault. Even the mentally handicapped know that's fucked up.

Remember, kids: be sure not to "disrespect" some of the most despicable, disrespectful cretins the state has to offer. They certainly don't deserve it.

Boy, I sure can't wait to raise a glass to all this freedom come Monday!