Category Archives: Justice

S’cuse Me While I Die

Government, Justice, Law, libertarianism, The Zeitgeist

Approved, indubitably, by Mayor Marie Gilmore, the “rescue” guidelines adhered to by members of the pampered oink sector of the City of Alameda preclude rescues that necessitate “water training.” Alameda is in the San Francisco Bay Area!

Since they did not have “water training,” the Alameda pigs chose to stake out a good spot on the sand from which to watch a man drown. The man took an hour to expire. At no time were these pampered pigs overwhelmed by an urge to violate the bureaucratic restrictions imposed upon them. What resolve!

The deceased would be alive had these services been rendered by a private company, where owners would be sued into bankruptcy over such an incident. As it stands, the taxpayers will be penalized: they will pay for ensuing lawsuits. Responsibility for criminal negligence will be collectivized, as in all state-run enterprises. Wait for a statement by the mayor, who’ll announce a commission of inquiry, which is where all issues of culpability pertaining to the State go to die.

As to the libertarian issue of free will and the right to die. I understand that the man was trying to kill himself. But I am not of the libertarian mindset that you leave him to die. Since I cherish life, my position is that it is incumbent on good people to attempt a rescue in this case. Incumbent, but not legally binding. Not in libertarian law. The point here is to alert you to government callousness. If you want rescue services to be effective, private arrangements, neighborhood associations and the like, are most effective.

UPDATED: Deadend Debates (& State Death Squads)

Constitution, Education, Ilana Mercer, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Journalism, Justice, Law, Media, Military, Political Philosophy, Reason, The Zeitgeist

Be they pundits, politicians, government watchdogs, and other dogs (no offense to the canine community), most “critics” of our ever-accreting Nanny State don’t pose the right questions. This is because they appear to lack the requisite philosophical (constitutional or other) and logical frameworks. Unless these players begin directing the arrows in their quiver at the philosophical issues—what is the proper role of the state in this republic, RIP—we will be left with the silly, “To Spend of Not to Spend” debate. (Lackluster logic is harder to fix.)

One example is this Drudge headline (click “Go Back One Page” to view actual headline): “FEDS SPEND MILLIONS STUDYING SHRIMP ON TREADMILLS?? ‘GELATIN WRESTLING’ IN ANTARCTICA??” All the screeching CAPITAL LETTERS and question marks in the world will not fill in the blanks: Is the objection to this particular spending based on considerations of frugality? Or is Drudge’s outrage over the flouting of the Constitution by Feds? A better headline would begin to steer the Idiocracy in the right, critical direction.

The founders bequeathed a central government of delegated and enumerated powers. Intellectual property laws are the only constitutional means at Congress’s disposal with which to “promote the Progress of Science.” (About their merit Thomas Jefferson, himself an inventor, was unconvinced.) The Constitution gives Congress only 18 specific legislative powers. Research and development spending—even for crucial matters as “Jell-O wrestling at the South Pole” and the “shrimp’s exercise ability”—are nowhere among them.

Rights and the Constitution aside, once we we begin to focus on the right issues and questions, the right answers will be likelier to present themselves.

Take the fuzzy discussion facilitated by Neil Cavuto, today, with two mushy-headed women about the right of a school to fine parents for pupil tardiness.

Lis Wiehl, a lawyer no less, was of one (mushy) mind with the other guest, a mother. Both believe that it’s simply unfair, in these tough times, for schools to penalize busy parents when kids are late for school.

The question here is, of course, not only about pedagogic purview; it’s about individual responsibility. Kids of a certain age ought to be responsible for their actions. Teachers are supposed to be able to enforce minimal attendance standards. If a child in high-school is tardy, he or she ought to be punished, not his parents.

But pedagogues, parents, pundits and most politicians are all-over-the-map—incapable of articulating the simple issues at hand. If thinking is so disordered and illogical, solutions will be no better. (In the last example: teachers should wait for better economic times before they fine parents for the actions of their kids.)

UPDATE (May 27): STATE DEATH SQUADS. With grim determination William N. Grigg dogs the perps in Police State America. Here they are breaking and entering and, then, killing the occupant of the invaded private property. Look at the goons! Talk about “The Myth of Posse Comitatus.” What is this if not the deployment of the US military against the people?

A YouTube poster appended an excerpt from our dead-letter Constitution: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The speedy execution of Jose Guerena (“it’s complex,” say officials) was mislabeled by our official cognoscenti. FoxNews bobbleheads debated whether this bloodbath amounted to the use of excess force, and entertained an apologist for the SWAT fucks who shed tears over the split-second decisions these, our great defenders, undertake in the course of defending us against alleged tokers.

The only relevant debate here is: whose property is it anyway? Does a man have the absolute right to defend his abode from invaders whomever, however? The only answer: “YES, YES, YES.” If you’re vaguely compos mentis, this is the only debate you should dignify.

[For those of you who await the weekly, WND.COM column: it will be back next week. I’ve been under the weather.]

UPDATE V: Atavism On the Streets of America (THE UNIT)

Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, John McCain, Justice, Middle East, Military, Terrorism, The State, War

Today Barack Obama just about guaranteed his reelection by offering up the blood, guts and gore Americans seem to crave. Like Bush before him, the president and his advisers know that to keep the American people tuned-out, they have to keep them turned-on. Killing and carnage turns too many Americans on; makes them like animals in perpetual estrous (on heat). It’s just the way it is.

I wager it’s quite possible that the body of the slain Osama bin Laden will be put on display, much as the Bush administration proudly exhibited the horribly mutilated bodies of Saddam Hussein’s sons.

Some Americans streamed into the streets of the Capital and gathered at Ground Zero, New York, in jubilation over the bin Laden kill, much as the Arab Street erupts after their Americans or Israeli enemies are murdered. (To their credit, I have not seen Israelis throng to Rabin Square to celebrate similar occurrences, although I’ve seen them form human chains from Tel-Aviv to Haifa to stop a war.)

How different are we from our Arab adversaries? Not much, or so it would seem. That vulgarist Geraldo Rivera surrounded himself with hysterical reptilian brains—students who were behaving as on a spring break. Or in a fashion that would do any primitive tribe proud.

Except that a primitive tribe generally wages war only on imminent enemies, and confines the battle to the home front. Had such a precision operation been undertaken and achieved after 9/11, without wasting trillions of dollars, destroying at least two countries along the way, and causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, to say nothing of the American economy, the travel industry, on and on—it would be worth celebrating. But not now.

And not in this manner. A civilized people doesn’t dance in the streets in celebration of the enemy’s death; barbarians do.

First to die today at the hands of NATO (purportedly “Danish airmen possibly in an F16 bomber”) were members of the Gaddafi family, when their compound was hit on the weekend. The Libyan government reported that Gaddafi’s “second youngest son, 29-year old Saif al-Arab, and three grandchildren under 12” were murdered. What had they done to anybody?

Nevertheless, barbarism booster John McCain rattled his old bones in a jolly jig, with nary a thought for the kids killed:

“We should be taking out his command and control. If he is killed or injured because of that, that’s fine.”

UPDATE I: TOO LATE FOR PAC MEN OF THE UNIVERSE. Nobody disputes that OBL needed killing. It ought to have been done by precision pac men: highly select, special-ops soldiers, and not by lumbering standing armies that scooped up in their dragnet entire countries and economies (ours). The state can’t do anything right. I said as much in 2002. I made recommendations against the “military’s clodhopper’s traipse around the world” in “Facing the Onslaught of Jihad”:

Professional killers get high on blood and can be put to good use as the Pac-Men of the universe. Paid by contract, the mercenary is far more motivated than a poorly paid soldier.
GI Joe, moreover, has little incentive to avoid killing civilians. Punishment for carelessness is infrequent and responsibility for mishaps is collectivized. Litigating against the employees of an all-powerful superpower can be Kafkaesque. Ultimately, the people who pay for the soldier’s excesses are the taxpayers.
The mercenary contractor, on the other hand, will incur liability for “collateral damage,” the euphemism for killing innocents. For the mercenary, stray bullets mean strained budgets. Above all, like any private contractor, mercenaries are paid in full only on delivering the Bin properly Laden with goods.

UPDATE II: HE WENT DOWN FIRING: “U.S. official says Osama bin Laden went down firing at the Navy SEALs who stormed his compound.” OBL refused to surrender.

UPDATE III: STORY CHANGES. Now the custodians of the allowable information claim that OBL “Hid Behind One of His Wives During Firefight.” This is just a wild guess: The stories will vary depending on the circumstances and the politician weaving the yarn. I also hazard that the general direction will to demean the enemy.

I can offer a historic perspective on the enemy’s evolving courage. During the Six-Day War, in 1967, Egyptians were often mocked in Israel for their cowardice. Piles of shoes were left in the desert, as the Egyptian soldiers fled from the Israelis. They removed their shoes and ran. (Google seems to have scrubbed these famous images from their search.) But that has changed. The Jihadis are cowards in as much as their “military” strategy is to go after defenseless civilians. But are they cowards in death? I doubt it.

UPDATE IV: MURDER IN LIBYA. “There were no obvious signs of military command and control facilities, but there were signs that the buildings were being used as a residence,” reports the Star Tribune. “In a kitchen, rice, pasta, fish and stuffed peppers were on a stove, with a wall clock stopped at 8:08 p.m., the time of the attack. In the building, which took a direct hit, women’s dresses were buried in the concrete debris.”

No wonder “U.S., British and Italian embassies were attacked and burned by angry mobs in the Libyan capital Sunday, hours after a NATO airstrike was reported to have killed one of Moammar Gadhafi’s sons and three of his grandchildren.”

UPDATE V: THE UNIT. I can see how the operation executed by “the specially trained and highly mythologized SEAL Team Six, officially called the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, but known even to the locals at their home base Dam Neck in Virginia as just DevGru,” will make for a good episode of “The Unit.” Yes, I confess; I watch it. It’s one of the more tolerable action drama series on TV, because it features … action, good acting, and very few women pretending to be as strong or as capable on the battle field as men. I’m allergic to those. (If there is a skinny, annoying fem, weighing 80 pounds, and chasing bad guys in stilettos, I change the channel.) Although “The Unit” has elements of “Jack Bauer: Federal Zombie,” which I simply hated, beggars can’t be choosy.

UPDATED: An Egyptian Revolutionary Tribunal?

Democracy, Economy, Islam, Justice, Law, Middle East, Welfare

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak suffered a heart attack in the course of an inquisition “investigating graft and abuse allegations.” Also on the public prosecutor’s docket: “violence against protesters.” (Link)

Expect Egyptian freedom fighters, many of whom are of the once-thwarted Muslim Brotherhood, to grow more restive as it becomes clear that “freedom” will not make manna fall from the heavens—especially since most Egyptians are not, as far as I know, demanding a liberalization of their economy.

The Egyptian court judging Mubarak will oblige the masses. It’ll masquerade as a court of law, but I suspect that this tribunal will more closely resemble the French Revolutionary Tribunal, meting justice by popular demand.

UPDATE: A “Day of Cleansing” is what the rebels are, ominously, calling the next stage of the Egyptian revolution.

During “the early days of the movement … Egyptians showered the Army with flowers and saw them as defenders of the people after tanks rolled into the streets to restore order after violent clashes with police.” It was not as though “hundreds to thousands of people have [not] been detained by the Army and tried in military courts without access to civilian lawyers. Yet until recently, such criticism of the Army had not been widespread.”

The people, it would seem, have changed their fickle minds.

The blood will flow, and still something will be amiss.

Why do you think that, bar the likes of the tea party, is it never real liberty that the majority wants?

Here’s why: Radicals, libertarians among them, believe that because all people seek safety and sustenance for themselves, they’ll allow those they dislike to peacefully pursue the same. These radicals are oblivious to reality. People are not naturally good. They want what is not theirs. Free up the Egyptian economy. Some will rise, others will fall.

A cry will then go out for a third party (the new government) to take from those who rose and give to those who fell.