Category Archives: Regulation

American Tyrants Seek Internet-Killing Powers

Democracy, Free Speech, Internet, Regulation

LET US WORRY ABOUT OUR OWN TYRANTS, SHALL WE? The American cognoscenti pompously carries forth about the individual rights of people in blighted and benighted spots like Egypt, Tunisia and China. It’s as though we in the US do not live under a massive, ever-accreting, highly sophisticated Managerial State; are not regulated to the hilt; are not stripped and groped when we travel abroad and across stateliness (http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=575); do not sit in jail for decades on violating information socialism laws (http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=576), and on ingesting an unapproved substance (http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=308).

‘Get some perspective!

While pundits and politicians pontificate about the obvious need for liberty in Egypt, our legislators have decided to refine Hosni Mubarak’s methods and lunge for more of their pliant peoples’ liberties. It’s all very democratic, you know (which is why “democracy is for the dogs” http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=333).

The brain infarct is that of Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Via WIRED:

Legislation granting the president internet-killing powers is to be re-introduced soon to a Senate committee, the proposal’s chief sponsor told Wired.com on Friday.
The resurgence of the so-called “kill switch” legislation came the same day Egyptians faced an internet blackout designed to counter massive demonstrations in that country.
The bill, which has bipartisan support, is being floated by Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican ranking member on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The proposed legislation, which Collins said would not give the president the same power Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak is exercising to quell dissent, sailed through the Homeland Security Committee in December but expired with the new Congress weeks later.
The bill is designed to protect against “significant” cyber threats before they cause damage, Collins said.
“My legislation would provide a mechanism for the government to work with the private sector in the event of a true cyber emergency,” Collins said in an e-mail Friday. “It would give our nation the best tools available to swiftly respond to a significant threat.”

MORE.

UPDATED: RELATIVE Economic Freedom: Canada Clobbers the US

Business, Canada, Economy, Free Markets, Government, Regulation

Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Denmark, and even Ireland have leapfrogged over the US with respect to economic freedoms, measured by the Heritage Foundation’s 2011 index of Economic Freedom, in accordance with “10 measures that evaluate openness, the rule of law, and competitiveness.

I confess to finding the Heritages’ indices of “individual empowerment, non-discimination [sic], and the promotion of competition” a little vague, if not statist, as they all presuppose a central authority that acts to “empower,” police discrimination, and “promote” competition.

The Canadian Fraser Institute actually considers parameters like the “Size of Government, Legal Structure, Security of Property Rights, Access to Sound Money, Freedom to Trade Internationally, Regulation of Credit, Labor, and Business—all recognizable as fundamental to economic freedom.

You know that American freedoms are on the wane when the very constructs our intellectuals use to measure those freedom are, well, so veiled and politically correct.

UPDATE: RELATIVE ECONOMIC FREEDOMS. Ingemar, these indices are relative. Ireland is not free, not by a long shot. Neither are we. According to the Heritage Foundation, Ireland is economically freer than the US. What you need to take away from this, vis-a-vis the US, is the following: If a think tank that is prone to American boosterism rates Ireland, which is bankrupt, higher than America—we are in bad shape. But then you already knew that.

Power-Crazed Politicians

Crime, Democrats, Free Speech, Politics, Private Property, Regulation

Your sovereigns have some suggestions on how to eliminate any risk from their arduous, daily duties, and further insulate themselves from interacting with the peasants in the provinces of Rome. You can’t wait, right? Ban “bull’s-eyes or crosshairs on a United States congressman or a federal official.” That’s the brainchild of Rep. Jim Clyburn, third ranking Democrat in the House. “Make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against any federal official or member of Congress.” (Courtesy of Robert Brady, D-Pa.)

As the Boston Herald quipped today, “We’d rather take our chances with a crazed gunman than with crazed politicians.”

I’d be quite happy to stay away from all of them forever-after if they’d promise to keep their distance from me and what’s mine.

“The Great American Waiver Act”

Government, Healthcare, Regulation, Republicans, Socialism, The State

With a title such as “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act,” you’d think the House Republicans’ plan to kill HealthScare would find its way onto the front pages of the parrot press. Alas, unless the migraine I’ve suffered for the past two days has interfered with my vision, I saw no exclusive report on the bill over the website pages of the New York Times, TIME magazine, Newsweek, Orange County Register, or the Los Angeles Times.

Luckily, there is Michelle Malkin, who covers the news exceptionally well.

Befitting a Republican political ploy is how the Obama houseboys of Hardball saw this simple Bill and its title.

From the hulking horror itself I had originally excerpted here, so that you could get a feel for the impenetrable legalese the Managerial State has evolved over time to ensure the people have not the faintest notion what’s upon them.

If the H.R.4872 Reconciliation Act of 2010 was not cause for revolution, I don’t know what is. It has thousands of sections. Green provisions, early learning fund, promotion of employment experience, translation or interpretation services, whistle blower provisions—all sub-chapters in what is a violative bill by every conceivable criterion.

The two pages endeavoring “to repeal the job-killing health care law and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010” are indeed too sweet and simple to be true. Not in Washington.