Quote of the day–Harry Browne

When the government tries to stop someone from ruining his life with drugs, it converts a personal tragedy into a national disaster.

Harry Browne
March 1998
Libertarian Candidate for President in 1996.

Freedom to travel

I don’t get it.  Or probably more accurately these people don’t get it:

Wash lawmakers want to ban overseas sex tours

By RACHEL LA CORTE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Travel agents wouldn’t be able to book or sell “sex tours” under a measure lawmakers are considering, following the lead of Hawaii, which signed a similar bill into law two years ago.

Arranging such tours would be a Class C felony, intended to crack down on sex tours to such places as Thailand. Violators would face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

Sen. Karen Fraser, the main sponsor of the bill, said she wants to help reduce the demand for such trips. While she said she wasn’t aware of any Washington state travel agents offering such tours, she said the state needs to take a pre-emptive stand.

“It is a global moral issue, and we should take every step we can to try and reduce sex slavery,” she said.

Okay, I’m against slavery of any type but not all sex for money involves slavery.  Prostitution is legal in many countries and even some counties in Nevada.  Would this law prohibit a “sex tour” to Nevada too?  Just because these Puritans in the Washington State legislature want something to be against the law everywhere doesn’t mean they have the authority to exercise that control over their citizen when they travel outside the state.  They can’t tell their citizens they can’t use a machine gun or suppressor when they visit Oregon, Idaho, or Nevada.  They can’t tell their homosexual residents they can’t get married while in Massachusetts if they meet the requirements of that state.  If they want to exercise that type of control then they should just be up front about it, put up their own “Berlin Wall”, and make it illegal for their residents to leave the state.

Quote of the day–Thomas Jefferson

He has erected a multitude of New Offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

Thomas Jefferson
The Declaration of Independence
Listing the abuses of King George III
[Sound like any government you know in present day?–Joe]

It’s hopeless

Always the optimist I sometimes I fantasize about people being rational in a political environment.  I know, rationally, that is it is irrational to expect people to be rational.  But I sometimes think that if only I can come up with the right set of facts and logic I could convince almost anyone of the truth of some things–such as gun control is wrong.  Here’s evidence that it’s hopeless:

Political bias affects brain activity, study finds
Democrats and Republicans both adept at ignoring facts, brain scans show

Updated: 6:46 p.m. ET Jan. 24, 2006

Democrats and Republicans alike are adept at making decisions without letting the facts get in the way, a new study shows.

And they get quite a rush from ignoring information that’s contrary to their point of view.

Researchers asked staunch party members from both sides to evaluate information that threatened their preferred candidate prior to the 2004 Presidential election. The subjects’ brains were monitored while they pondered.

The results were announced today.

“We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning,” said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University. “What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts.”

And people think I’m the one with the problem because they give the way my mind works a name–they call it Asperger Syndrome (thanks Mike, that was a big help–seriously).  I’m with the Aspies that call them Neurotypical.

Quote of the day–Kim du Toit

And that’s the difference between Mr. B and myself. He shakes his head in bafflement, I resume sharpening the M4 bayonet while crooning “Soon, soon, my precioussss…”

Kim du Toit

January 24, 2006
[I can relate to that–in so many ways.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Alfred Korzybski

There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.

Alfred Korzybski
[I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately.  It’s not been
pleasant.  Details later when I get my mind around it all.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Mark Twain

There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

Mark Twain

Quote of the day–Groucho Marx

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and then applying the wrong remedies.

Groucho Marx
[The Washington State Legislature is in session again.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Senator Soaper

Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class management.

Senator Soaper
[Except under McCain-Feingold.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Robert Bork

The judge’s authority derives entirely from the fact that he is applying the law and not his personal values. That is why the American public accepts the decisions of its courts, accepts even decisions that nullify the laws a majority of the electorate or their representatives voted for.

Robert Bork
Opening statement at 1987 Senate hearings to become associate justice of  the Supreme Court.

Quote of the day–James Harlacher

There is no “scourge of illegal guns” in New York City.

Being a police officer is inherently dangerous, and it is wrong to pretend that infringing on the constitutional rights of citizens will eliminate all the dangers associated with the job.

This is nothing more than a disgraceful attempt by Bloomberg to use the tragic deaths of two police officers to advance his irrational political agenda.

If he really wants to help the city, he can start by ending the scourge of eminent-domain abuse.

James Harlacher
Brooklyn
New York Post January 4, 2006

Interesting twist on the cold war

Tell me again why we didn’t open the ANWR for more oil production.  Here is a important clue as to why we should:

PICTURE the families shivering in apartments without heating, factories grinding to a halt, frozen water pipes bursting in the depths of winter. Welcome to the new Cold War.

At 10am on Sunday, Russia is threatening to unleash the most powerful weapon in its post-Soviet arsenal: unless Ukraine agrees to a fourfold increase in the price it pays for gas, Russia will simply turn off the tap.

Nor is it just Ukraine under threat — the EU imports about half of its gas from Russia and 80 per cent of that comes through Ukrainian pipelines.

So when President Putin met Ivan Plachkov, the Ukrainian Energy Minister, in Moscow yesterday, there was more at stake than relations between the neighbouring states. Analysts fear the dispute could provide a foretaste of how Russia will use its massive oil and gas reserves as a foreign policy tool in future disputes with the West.

“Energy co-operation has replaced military might as the mainstay of Russia’s international credibility,” Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Alfa Bank in Moscow, said. “It is using its importance as an energy partner to pursue its geopolitical and foreign policy agenda.”

Quote of the day–Ebenezer Elliott

What is a communist?  One who has yearnings
For equal division of unequal earnings.
Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing
To fork out his copper and pocket a shilling.

Ebenezer Elliott

In response to Steve Lacey

This started out to be a comment to Steve’s post and his question, “What on earth is going on back home?”  It grew in size and scope to the point it needed to be its own post which I now offer to you.  It’s not the first time (here is a collection) I have touched on the subject and for certain it will not the last.

The number of days I have spent in the U.K. can be counted on one hand so I recognize my limitations on being an authority on the politics and mindset there. However, it is my opinion that the rush toward a police state in the U.K. is because of a mindset that developed slowly over the last 70 to 80 years. Read F.A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom for my best guess at to what is going on. Hayek published the book in 1944 and he was specifically warning the U.K. about the dangers of where they were headed. The basic problem as outlined by Hayek is that the people decided it was the job of government to take care of them. From socialized medicine to giving up their right to self defense it’s always the government who is responsible. Once that mindset is cemented into place and the government fails on any given task the “answer” is always more power to the government.

The really scary part is what comes next. As Hayek points out extreme power, however benign the original people to whom it is given, attracts “the wrong sort of people” and is repulsive to those who would be most responsible with it. Hence the more power the government is given the more you will find people in government that should not be given that power. The examples abound–Soviet Union, Communist China, and Nazi Germany. In the 20th century there were at least 60 million people killed by their own governments because of this sort of error in political philosophy. I hope the U.K. will not be a prime example of the 21 century.

One would think that after 60 million dead the lesson would have been learned but the evidence from the U.K. is that some people may still have to learn it for themselves.

Quote of the day–F.A. Hayek

Now, it is somewhat difficult to think of Germany and Italy, or of Russia, not as different worlds but as products of a development of thought in which we have shared; it is, at least so far as our enemies are concerned, easier and more comforting to think that they are entirely different from us and that what happened there cannot happen here.  Yet the history of those countries in the years before the rise of the totalitarian system showed few features with which we are not familiar.

F.A. Hayek
The Road to Serfdom, Page 14
Published 1944
[This relates both to my previous post and next.–Joe]

I’m honored by a visit from the U.S. Senate

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senate.gov ? (United States Government)

IP Address

 

156.33.59.# (U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms)

156.33.59.61

ISP

 

U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms

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Continent

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North America

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United States  (Facts)

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District of Columbia

City

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Washington

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38.8933, -77.0146 (Map)

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English
en

Operating System

 

Macintosh MacOSX

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Dec 21 2005 5:11:53 pm

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Whoo hooo!!! Party time in Canada!

Three days ago I told you the Canadian Supreme Court was about to rule on the legality of swingers clubs.  The ruling is out now:

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Group sex between consenting adults is neither
prostitution nor a threat to society, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled
on Wednesday, dismissing arguments that the sometimes raucous
activities of so-called “swingers” clubs were dangerous.

In a ruling that radically changes the way Canadian courts determine
what poses a threat to the population, the court threw out the
conviction of a Montreal man who ran a club where members could have
group sex in a private room behind locked doors.

“Consensual conduct behind code-locked doors can hardly be supposed
to jeopardize a society as vigorous and tolerant as Canadian society,”
said the opinion of the seven-to-two majority, written by Chief Justice
Beverley McLachlin.

“Criminal indecency or obscenity must rest on actual harm or a
significant risk of harm to individuals or society. The Crown failed to
establish this essential element of the offence. The Crown’s case must
therefore fail,” wrote McLachlin.

In indecency cases, Canadian courts have traditionally probed
whether the acts in question “breached the rules of conduct necessary
for the proper functioning of society”. The Supreme Court ruled that
from now on, judges should pay more attention to whether society would
be harmed.

The judges said that just because most Canadians might disapprove of
swingers’ clubs, this did not necessarily mean the establishments were
socially dangerous.

“Attitudes in themselves are not crimes, however deviant they may be
or disgusting they may appear,” the judges said, noting that no one had
been pressured to have sex or had paid for sex in either of the cases.

“The autonomy and liberty of members of the public was not affected
by unwanted confrontation with the sexual activity in question only
those already disposed to this sort of sexual activity were allowed to
participate and watch,” they said.

I won’t be going to Canada anytime soon even if Barb said I could
do some “field research”.  They may have figured out sex between
consenting adults isn’t a threat to society at large but they haven’t
figured out that someone that carries a handgun for person protection
and hasn’t ever committed any crime worse that going 10 or 15 MPH over
the speed limit isn’t a threat either.  But this is a step away
from the Nanny State.  I wish the fiscal conservatives in this
country would realize that being a Nanny State isn’t just about
refusing to let people spend their own money however they think is
best.  It’s also a Nanny State that tells individuals they can’t
fry their brains with recreational drugs, marry the person of their
choice, or play a group game of belly bump.

Top court checks out sex club ‘swingers’

From the Ottawa Sun:

The Supreme Court of Canada is set to rule on whether
spouse-swapping in public venues should be a criminal act. The
ground-breaking case, which could set new standards for decency in
Canadian society, stems from two Montreal “swingers” clubs charged with
keeping a bawdy house.

One defendant, James Kouri, ran the Coeur a Corps bar, where couples
could hook up by paying a $6 cover charge. Every half hour, a
translucent black curtain automatically closed around the dance floor
while people took part in, or watched, sex acts.

Kouri was convicted of keeping a common bawdy house and sentenced to
pay fines of $500 on the first count and $5,000 on the second. He won
acquittal from Quebec’s top court, but the other club owner, Jean-Paul
Labaye, lost his appeal.

Although there are similar prosecutions happening in the
U.S. it’s frequently a socialist (when you think about it you realize
religion is frequently very socialist) mindset that drives this sort of
prosecution.  The people are just cattle to be
herded/controlled.  They don’t have the brains to make decisions
for themselves.  It’s for the “greater good” that people are
forbidden dominion over their own bodies.

Quote of the day–Toyotomi Hideyoshit

The people of the various provinces are forbidden to have in their possession any swords, bows, spears, firearms, or other types of arms. The possession of these elements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to permit uprising. Therefore, the heads of provinces, official agents and deputies are ordered to collect all the weapons mentioned above and turn them over to the government.

Toyotomi Hideyoshit
Shogun
August 29, 1558
Japan
[I admire his honest and forthrightness.  If only present day politicians would be so when they demand we turn over our personal protection tools.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Brian Schweitzer

I guess I kind of believe in gun control: You control your gun, and I’ll control mine.

Brian Schweitzer
Governor of Montana
An avid hunter who has “more guns than I need but not as many as I want.”
The Boston Globe December 17, 2005
[For a Boston paper this is an excellent article on guns.  My only criticism is they seem to think guns are only about hunting.–Joe]