who's your nanny?

No 'Right' to Patriotism in the Workplace

A hospital supervisor in Arlington, Texas, is upset because her boss made her remove an American flag she hung in her office in anticipation of Memorial Day weekend.

Debbie McLucas is one of four hospital supervisors at Kindred Hospital in Mansfield. Last week, she hung a three-by-five foot American flag in the office she shares with the other supervisors.

When McLucas came to work Friday, her boss told her another supervisor had found her flag offensive. "I was just totally speechless. I was like, 'You're kidding me,'" McLucas said.

McLucas' husband and sons are former military men. Her daughter is currently serving in Iraq as a combat medic.

Stifling a cry, McLucas said, "I just wonder if all those young men and women over there are really doing this for nothing."

Well, no, Mrs. McLucas, the young men and women aren't fighting for nothing -- they're fighting for the state. But even though McLucas mistakenly believes that our soldiers are fighting for her freedom and wonders "what other freedoms" she'll lose "before all is said and done" if she's not allowed to display her flag at work, she should take solace in the fact that her fears are misplaced.

Because the report makes reference to Kindred Hospital Corporation and Kindred Hospital Corporate Headquarters, one can safely assume that Kindred is a privately owned and operated hospital (even though I'd guess that, like most, the corporation is the beneficiary of government grants). Therefore, because there is no right to free speech in the private sector, Mrs. McLucas has no case. The Bill of Rights is a compact -- albeit a crappy one, but I digress -- between the federal government and its citizens, not between private citizens.

But even in the event that Kindred were a public hospital, one would be hard-pressed to argue that a supervisor should have any less right to prevent an employee from hanging an American flag than she would to prevent that same employee from hanging a pornographic calendar or an alarm clock set to go off every other minute. In short, the problem is public funding of facilities and institutions in the first place, not the directors and supervisors tasked with operating them.

Oh, and for the record, if Mrs. McLucas really is worried about the preservation of her freedom, perhaps she'll consider the viewpoint of her protesting colleague, who likely understands that individual liberties are the sacrificial lamb of America's wars.

Is It Possible That Obama Is Worse Than Bush?

Yes.

Could This Be the Future of Austrian Economists?

A blogger in South Korea has been arrested for spreading "false economic information over the internet."

The blogger, identified only by his surname Park, gained prominence among South Koreans because some of his dire predictions about the global economy, including the collapse of Lehman Brothers, later proved to be correct.

Known widely by his pen name "Minerva," the mythological Greek goddess of wisdom, the 31-year-old Park was accused of spreading false information on an Internet discussion site last month that the government had ordered major financial institutions and trade businesses not to purchase U.S. dollars.

If spreading false economic information were a crime, Paul Krugman would be facing the death penalty.

The South Korean government, like all States, is worried about its image:

Kim Yong-sang, a judge at the Seoul Central District Court who issued an arrest warrant for Park following Saturday's court hearing, said the case "affected foreign exchange markets and the nation's credibility," Yonhap news agency reported.

"Minerva" sounds like someone who has been influenced by Austrian economics:

In about 100 postings on the popular Web site last year, Park criticized the government's handling of the economy and made predictions, largely negative, on the future. His writings were sprinkled with jargon that convinced some readers he was an economic expert...

His deeply analytical style and sometimes prescient forecasts made Park a star on the Web, earning him the nickname "economic president on the Internet."

The punishment for disparging the South Korean govenment is pretty severe:

If indicted and convicted, Park could be sentenced to up to five years in prison or receive a fine of up to 50 million won ($37,250).

Of course, our government would never arrest people for criticizing its actions or tarnishing its image.

The NYPD Needs a Beatdown

This video via Radley Balko, who notes how much the police reports diverge from what was actually captured on video. Remember, kids, no cycling or taking photographs in the Land of the Fee..er.."free."

By definition, government is anti-trade, anti-market, anti-capitalism. But it's really no wonder this is so. Left to their own devices, creative people will always use their ingenuity to invent products of convenience, like cell phones and video cameras -- which we can all use to document the inherent abusive overreaches of the omnipotent State. And it just can't have that.

(Thanks to Vijay Boyapati and Manuel Lora.)

Pot. Kettle.

Black.

Free the Oklahoma 3!

Paul Jacob, national term limits and citizen initiative leader, has been indicted by the state of Oklahoma along with Susan Johnson and Rick Carpenter for allegedly "conspiring against the state."

Of what are the "Oklahoma 3" allegedly specifically guilty? Of organizing a citizens' rights initiative in Oklahoma to cap government spending.

In order to circulate a petition in Oklahoma, a petitioner must by law be an Oklahoma resident, which heretofore has apparently been defined as someone who moved to Oklahoma and declared residency. So that's what some petitioners did. According to Jacob:

A number of petitioners moved to Oklahoma, declared residency, and proceeded to gather signatures on the various petitions. Ultimately, both the spending cap and the property rights measure garnered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.

You might be able to guess what happened next. As soon as the initiative qualified for the ballot, various government forces, labor unions, and companies that benefit from state spending organized to challenge it. With the assistance of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, they were able toughen the state's residency requirments, which ultimately allowed the court to "[strike] enough signatures from the 300,000 gathered to deny the people of Oklahoma a vote on the spending cap measure."

But apparently it wasn't enough for the government to mangle the rule of law enough to succeed in ridding itself of such an unsavory ballot initiative. Unbelievably, Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson indicted Jacob, Johnson, and Carpenter on charges of "conspiracy to defraud the state of Oklahoma for allegedly 'willfully' violating the state's residency statute," a felony for which they can each receive a prison sentence of ten years.

Given that residency statutes were changed after the ballot initiative proved to be a success, it certainly seems as if the Oklahoma 3 are being intimidated and criminally charged for having the audacity to criticize the state of Oklahoma.

Free Speech Dies a Little More

A federal jury has ordered the New York Knicks to award $11.6 million to former team executive Anucha Browne Sanders for "[enduring] crude insults and unwanted advances from coach Isiah Thomas."

The jury of four women and three men found Thomas and Madison Square Garden sexually harassed Anucha Browne Sanders, but it decided only MSG and chairman James Dolan should pay for harassing and firing Browne Sanders from her $260,000-a-year job out of spite.

[...]

The jurors had heard Browne Sanders testify that Thomas, after arriving as new team president, routinely addressed her as "bitch" and "ho" in outbursts over marketing commitments. He later did an abrupt about-face, declaring his love and suggesting an "off-site" liaison, she said.

Thomas, while admitting to using foul language around the plaintiff, insisted he never directed it toward her.

Something tells me that Ms. Sanders was willing to put up with these insults and advances as long as she was raking in $260k a year, and only decided she was offended once she was fired.

I'm not excusing Thomas's actions or language in the least, but Sanders was free to quit her job at any time. Thomas's speech may have been insulting and offensive, but it shouldn't be a crime (and a federal crime at that). And people quit their jobs out of spite every day; shame that an employer in a supposedly free country doesn't have an equal right to fire an employee out of same.

Talk About Obscene

Talk about a rough life. Get a load of this (emphasis mine):

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 — Tom Rogers, a retired Indianapolis detective, toils away most days in his suburban home office reviewing sexual Web sites and other Internet traffic to see whether they qualify as obscene material whose purveyors should be prosecuted by the Justice Department.

His work is financed by a Justice Department grant initially provided through a Congressional earmark inserted into a spending bill by Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia.

The grant, about $150,000 a year, has helped pay for Mr. Rogers and another retired law enforcement officer in Reno, Nev., to harvest and review complaints about obscene matter on the Internet that citizens register on the Justice Department Web site.

In the last few years, 67,000 citizens’ complaints have been deemed legitimate under the program and passed on to the Justice Department and federal prosecutors.

The number of prosecutions resulting from those referrals is zero.

I sure am glad I go to work everyday so a couple ex-cops can get paid to look at porn all day long. On the other hand, I guess we should be happy there's finally some good news coming out of the Justice Department.

According to the Times's report, the recipient of the grant is Morality in Media, a conservative religious group run by Robert W. Peters that "has worked since 1962 to 'rid the world of pornography.'"

How interesting. Rent-seeking is apparently now considered "work."

“We’d like to see some prosecutions that arose from the complaints submitted to the Web site,” Mr. Peters said in an interview. “But it’s ultimately up to the Justice Department, and I can’t tell the Justice Department what to do.”

Like the outlook of many antipornography campaigners, Mr. Peters’s combines disappointment in the government’s performance and optimism that the situation will soon change. Mr. Peters said he was confident that officials would eventually assume their responsibility and go after what he described as a prime threat to society, the growth on the Internet of sexual material involving consenting adults.

Did you catch that? Peters and his morality police aren't even going after child pornographers, they're targeting pornographers who hire and appeal to other consenting adults (!). In their view, you should be prosecuted simply for doing something they don't like. Is it quaint to suggest that Internet pornographers have just as much right to partake in their trade as Mr. Peters does to oppose it?

Apparently, this grant hasn't resulted in any prosecutions because none of the complaints have turned up material that could legally be described as "obscene," which according to the Supreme Court is material that "taken as a whole, lacks artistic merit, depicts certain conduct in a patently offensive manner and violates contemporary community standards."

I'm guessing there's a veritable chasm of difference between what two free peoples could consider "patently offensive," which hopefully stands as the primary reason the Justice Department has so far ignored this patently absurd, taxpayer-funded exercise in moralism. Furthermore, why should "obscene" material be illegal in the first place if it is produced and enjoyed by private parties? Certainly no one is forcing anyone to view pornographic material.

I can't believe there's anything much more obscene and immoral than coercing taxpayers to fund any group that aims to prosecute Americans simply for having different views and tastes than they do.

"Putting Up Signs Isn't My Job"

I've been meaning to tell this story for a while now, but I guess it's better late than never. My wife and I were driving home after watching a pretty crappy Fourth of July fireworks display last month when we had a rather unfortunate (though I'd say fairly typical these days) encounter with one of Calvert County's finest.

If you recall, the Fourth fell on a Wednesday this year, so I wasn't really in the mood to party since I had to work the next day. However, my buddy and I split a sixer during the fireworks, and by the time we left and sat through all the traffic on the way home I had to take a pretty serious leak. So you can imagine how excited I was to finally make it to the street that leads directly to our house.

Not so fast. When we pulled up to the stop sign, I noticed the street was blocked off by a row of orange cones (talk about a buzz kill). Given that the primary job of our police officers should be to keep the peace, I understand that road safety is of utmost importance when traffic volume is at its peak. So I politely asked one of Maryland's State Highway Administration workers if he'd kindly move a couple cones so we could get home.

Well, he refused. After I shook off the disbelief and asked if he was kidding me, I asked again. He shook his head. I'm pretty sure at this point I told him to stop acting like a [redacted] retard and bend his fat ass over and pick up a couple cones. He simply pointed across the street and told me I had to take it up with "the sheriff."

Suffice to say, "the sheriff" doesn't pull traffic duty, but one of his deputies began walking our way from the middle of the road after he realized we weren't following his orders to continue on past the stop sign. As he approached the driver's side window, my wife explained that we lived right down the street that was blocked and asked if we could simply turn right at the stop sign.

Let the record show that at this point, these government employees could have moved the cones several different times in the time it took to argue with us. Considering that this road is sparsely populated (which is probably the reason they chose to block it off in the first place), I can't believe it would have been too much trouble to make an exception and move a couple cones. But deputy man would have none of it. He told us we'd have to go straight, make a U-turn wherever we could, then come back down the road right past where we were sitting, go about another half-mile or so, then make a left onto a side road that would take us to an alternate access point of the road we were originally hoping to turn onto.

My wife and I had used this side road plenty of times before, but it would have been nice if we'd known this was the route we were expected to take before we realized the main road was blocked off. When my wife asked why there wasn't a sign to this effect, deputy man proclaimed rather haughtily, "Putting up signs isn't my job."

Excuse me, Mr. Deputy Sheriff Guy, but putting up road signs is exactly your job. Protecting and serving the public, by whom and for whom you are employed, is precisely your job. If you reserve the right to restrict access to and movement on roads that I pay for, I have the right to expect to know which ones I'm "allowed" to use so as to not have to engage in pissing contests with huffy government big shots on my way home.

Mr. Deputy Sheriff Guy was somewhat of a prick to be sure, but his attitude was very telling when it comes to explaining the true role of our police forces today. Today's cops are indeed not expected to "protect and serve," but rather they are primarily expected to generate revenue for the State under the guise of "safety" and "security," endlessly harassing non-violent motorists by setting up speed traps and sobriety checkpoints, and enforcing seat belt use. Politicians claim they intend to reduce traffic accidents and fatalities by engaging in such enforcement, but roadblocks, for example, are much less efficient at actually catching drunk drivers than they are at generating money for other, oftentimes lesser, infractions (like driving without possession of a license or car registration).

Welcome to the new Police State of America, where cops are just as likely to brutalize teenage skateboarders and arrest peaceful citizens for having the temerity to criticize an unjust war or their vice-president as they are to get you home safely from a Fourth of July celebration. It sure is a good thing we're sending our soldiers to die to protect these indispensable freedoms.

Scalia's "New Professionalism" Comes to a Town Near You

William Grigg shares proof that America continues to devolve into a Police State, which dispatches its cronies to terrorize and harass anyone who dares criticize it.

If you can read this without wanting to throw something, you're part of the problem.

No Bong Hits for Jesus

The Supreme Court has ruled against Joseph Frederick and his "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner today, apparently signaling its intent to legitimize only that speech which adheres to the court's preordained sense of morality.

Schools may prohibit student expression that can be interpreted as advocating drug use, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court in a 5-4 ruling.

Joseph Frederick unfurled his homemade sign on a winter morning in as the Olympic torch made its way through Juneau, Alaska, en route to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Chew on that for a minute, especially you conservatives who were convinced that John Roberts was going to be the savior of the Supreme Court (I much preferred Janice Rogers Brown or someone of her ilk).

Judging by our public schools' sterling track record of educating America's youth, you'd think they were only allowed to prohibit students from advocating studying. Who knew?

UPDATE (6/26): Radley Balko examines this ruling much more thoroughly and concludes that it may have actually been a victory for drug reform activists.

For the record, if the school's primary contention was that it should merely have the right to regulate activity it deems disruptive -- i.e., that it isn't seeking to regulate the specific content of allegedly disruptive material -- then I can't argue too much with that stance, inasmuch as any school has the right to implement discipline policies. However, I think you have to be high as a kite not to believe the perceived advocacy of drug use was the principal's primary concern here.

Related:
What Would Jesus Do?

So This Caught My Eye

I was tooling around this new website for a local radio station this morning and ran across something interesting, which is listed as the DJ's "stupid news story" for today.

Academy Award-nominated director MIKE FIGGIS doesn't have a way with words. Officials at Los Angeles International Airport recently held Figgis, who is British, for five hours after he told immigration officers who asked him why he was in the U.S., quote, "I'm here to shoot a pilot."

What the 59-year-old Figgis meant, of course, was that he was in L.A. to direct a TV show in the hopes it would get picked up to become a regular series, but authorities thought he was planning to fire a gun at an airline pilot. He was held in a cell until officials cleared up the matter.

So is this just another case of being rounded up for what we say, not what we do?

A Bump Along the Slippery Slope

Andy Roth points to a bit of good news today from John Fund, who notes a free speech victory in Washington State:

Campaign finance laws are increasingly becoming a tool to suppress political speech, and the courts are finally waking up to the danger. Last week a unanimous Washington state Supreme Court struck down an outrageous interpretation of a law that had been used to classify the antitax comments of two Seattle talk-radio hosts as "campaign contributions" subject to regulation--that is, suppression--by local prosecutors and officials who disagreed.

Washington's highest court struck down a decision by Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham, who in 2005 ordered KVI radio hosts John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur had to place a monetary value on "campaign contributions" they made when they argued in favor of Initiative 912, a ballot measure to repeal a 9.5-cent-a-gallon increase in the state's gasoline tax. The antitax measure ultimately lost by 6% of the vote, in part because its opponents outspent its supporters by 20 to 1.

This is great news, but is anyone else bothered by the fact that stupid, oppressive laws like campaign finance legislation automatically provide incentives to exploit them?

Unfortunately, the high costs of fighting lawsuits alone oftentimes is enough to convince people that their right to freedom isn't worth fighting for in the first place. And if the concept of having to spend money to obtain something that is assumed to be "free" isn't the height of perversity, I really don't know what is.

What Would Jesus Do?

My guess is toke up, especially if he knew he was about to be nailed to a cross. But I digress.

Today the Supreme Court hears the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case, more formally known as Morse v. Frederick.

I realize we live in highly intellectual and sophisticated times, but gee.. students hold sign on public street.. public school principal seizes sign. Hmm, seems to me like a pretty anti-free-speechy thing to do. You know, in the "land of the free" and all.

Perhaps it's simplistic of me to think this case should be about as cut and dried as cut and dried could be. Then again, I suppose I'm just a simpleton. I think we should privatize as many schools and roads as possible.

Holy #@%!, That Was Close!

This has to be just about as easy as it gets for a court.

DETROIT (AP) - An officer who arrested a man for cursing in a public meeting violated the man's right to free speech, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's decision that Montrose Township police officer Stephen Robinson had probable cause to arrest Thomas Leonard in 2002 when Leonard cursed while addressing the township board.

"It cannot be seriously contended that any reasonable peace officer, or citizen, for that matter, would believe that mild profanity while peacefully advocating a political position could constitute a criminal act," the three-judge panel wrote in Friday's decision.

The amazing thing is that a decision had to be overturned in the first place.

Help Free Kareem

Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer was arrested in Alexandria, Egypt in November and is scheduled to stand trial tomorrow for writing in support of women's rights and religious and academic freedom. He faces extensive jail time simply for doing something many of us take for granted. Supporters of Kareem will gather at the Egyptian consulate in New York City today at 3:30 to protest his incarceration.

This is yet another painful reminder that not all laws are just, yet there are too many people who would tell Kareem to have a hot cup of shut the hell up simply because he "broke the law." Such are the people who ostensibly cannot tell the difference between Harriet Tubman and Mark David Chapman.

Support Kareem by signing the petition here.

No Celebration Necessary

Tomorrow marks the 100th anniversary of the first federal campaign finance reform law. In a very good article today in the Washington Examiner, Bradley Smith and Paul Sherman explain what it's gotten us.

When these laws failed to solve the “problem,” we got still more “reform,” or to be more accurate, more regulation. The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, and extensive amendments to FECA in 1974 dramatically expanded the law’s reach and created a new bureaucracy, the Federal Election Commission, to enforce it.

More than a quarter century after the “comprehensive reforms” of 1974, however, corporations, unions, and ubiquitous “fat cats” were still spending money and influencing elections. So in 2000, Congress passed added disclosure regulations on citizens’ organizations such as the Sierra Club (sometimes called “527s”), and more significantly, in 2002 it passed the “McCain-Feingold” law. Five years later, the era of McCain-Feingold is the era of Duke Cunningham, William Jefferson, Bob Ney and Jack Abramoff.

Surveying a century of “reform,” what has been accomplished? When was the last time you heard anyone say, “Thank goodness corporations, unions, and ‘fat-cats’ no longer influence elections”; “Thank goodness elections are not so negative as they used to be”; or “Thank goodness campaign finance laws have put an end to political corruption?”

Forgive me if I won't be celebrating this egregious assault on the First Amendment. And incidentally, as it seems appropriate to discuss the 2008 elections now that half of D.C. appears to be forming exploratory committees for a presidential run, I'll add that John McCain and Russ Feingold deserve consideration from no one.

There are several reasons to oppose both men, as most candidates, but the First Amendment sits above all others for a reason. And they deserve automatic disqualification for spitting on the one that intends to preserve the distinction between the people and the actors who serve them.

Must. Avert. Eyes!

I actually felt a little dirty after reading this literary handjob on Sen. John McCain by Larry Kudlow.

Yep, the same John McCain who co-sponsored the worst assault on free speech in ages.

Thankfully, a federal court has just overturned some especially tough restrictions imposed by campaign finance law. Now we get to wait and see if the ruling is upheld by the Supreme Court, which condoned this censorship in the first place.

Free Speech in Germany? Nein!

The scoop:

A human rights group campaigning for gypsies has filed a complaint against British comic Sacha Baron Cohen over his "Borat" film featuring a spoof Kazakh journalist who calls himself a former "gypsy catcher," German prosecutors said.

The state prosecutor's office in the northern city of Hamburg said the European Center for Antiziganism Research had brought the complaint accusing Cohen of slander, inciting violence against the Sinti and Roma gypsy groups and violating Germany's anti-discrimination law.

...

Germany has strict rules governing speech that could been seen as defaming minorities, particularly groups such as Sinti and Roma that were targeted for genocide by the Nazis.

RINOs For Censorship

Andy Roth lists the current Republican congressmen and senators who sided with the Democrats in 2002 by voting YES on the McCain-Feingold bill, effectively banning free speech 60 days prior to election day.

On a related note, see this piece by Jacob Sullum:

Wisconsin Right to Life, for instance, wants to run a radio ad encouraging listeners to contact the state's senators, Herb Kohl and Russell Feingold (both Democrats), and urge them to support passage of a stalled anti-abortion bill. The group has asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C. for an injunction that would allow it to air the ad during September without a legal penalty.

It seems Americans now need permission to speak out on political issues and petition the government. I'd suggest a constitutional amendment protecting those rights, but I thought we already had one.

Ouch.

UPDATE: Andy follows up this morning's post with another great one linking to several bloggers who, in his words, have gone around the MSM (which seem to be ignoring this issue) and reported on the grave implications of this sad day.