Archive for January, 2012
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
How about some good news on the civil liberties front to kick off the week for a change? Robert Barnes writing for The Washington Post reports that SCOTUS ruled 9-0 in United States v. Jones stating that the police placing a GPS tracking device on a person’s vehicle and tracking said vehicle over days, weeks, [...]
Continue reading SCOTUS: Police Placing GPS Tracking Device on a Vehicle Without Warrant Violates the Fourth Amendment [or Does it?]
Posted in Civil Liberties, Constitution, Crime and Punishment, Know Your Rights, Legal, Police Watch, Privacy, Property Rights, Security, Supreme Court, Technology, The Bill Of Rights, The Surveillance State, Theory and Ideas | 3 Comments »
Sunday, January 22nd, 2012
“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm-but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.” – T.S. [...]
Continue reading An explanation for… Almost everything really…
Posted in General | Comments Off
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012
We’re not going black today, over SOPA or PIPA. In case you by some miracle hadn’t noticed it yet, tens of thousands of web sites around the country and around the world, are “going black” or putting up banners explaining that they are not available or there is no content today etc… In protest against [...]
Continue reading We don’t go black… We try to turn on lights
Posted in Activism, Civil Liberties, Constitution, Corruption, Culture, Doublespeak, Dumbasses and Authoritarians, Economics, Free Speech, Freedom of Association, Freedom of the press, General, Government Incompetence, Government Regulation, Individual Rights, Intellectual Property Rights, Know Your Rights, Legal, Liberty, Politics, Technology | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
In last night’s debate, Gov. Mitt Romney said something quite incredible when asked if he would have signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA): Yes I would have [signed the NDAA] and I do believe it’s appropriate to have the capacity to detain people who are threats to this country who are members of Al [...]
Continue reading Romney Would Have Signed the NDAA; Trusts that President Obama “Would not abuse this Power”
Posted in Civil Liberties, Constitution, Crime and Punishment, Democrats, Dumbasses and Authoritarians, Election '12, Individual Rights, Legal, Multimedia, Politics, Republicans, Security, Theory and Ideas, War on Terror | Comments Off
Monday, January 16th, 2012
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech is unquestionably one of the most infamous famous speeches in American history. In listening to the speech today, I found the following passages that aren’t as often quoted to be some of the most powerful lines in the speech. In a sense we have come to [...]
Continue reading Quote of the Day: MLK Day 2012 Edition
Posted in Activism, Civil Liberties, Constitution, Culture, Freedom, History, Human Rights, Individual Rights, Liberty, Multimedia, Quote of the Day, racism, Strategies For Advancing Liberty | 4 Comments »
Monday, January 16th, 2012
Over at David Friedman’s blog, he discusses the thorny position Mormon Presdential candidates (which at the time of posting included Huntsman) may face when taking a position against same-sex marriage. Many opponents of same-sex marriage use the slippery-slope argument that if two consenting gays can marry each other, why not three or more consenting adults [...]
Continue reading Will Romney Have To Answer For Polygamy?
Posted in Election '12, Founding Fathers, Politics, Religious Liberty | 4 Comments »
Friday, January 13th, 2012
That I believe the set of what’s popular and the set of what’s good aren’t always the same thing should come as no surprise to readers here, especially in the wake of my Kardashian post the other day, but I should make it clear that this idea extends quite a bit farther. As such, I [...]
Continue reading The Good And The Popular
Posted in Theory and Ideas | 1 Comment »
Friday, January 13th, 2012
Meet Democrat presidential candidate Vermin Supreme. The man wears a boot on his head, advocates a mandatory dental hygiene program, ponies for every American, and harnessing the energy of zombies to wean America off of foreign oil. Best of all, in his closing statement (following his singing!), Vermin tries to turn his political rival Randall [...]
Continue reading Vermin Supreme: “Friendly Fascist” and “A Tyrant You Can Trust”
Posted in Activism, Culture, Democrats, Election '12, Fascism in America, Humor, Multimedia, Politics | Comments Off
Wednesday, January 11th, 2012
I doubt he’s filed any sort of FEC paperwork, or has actually put any effort into his candidacy with the exceptions of blog postings, but Scott Adams is better than Obama or Romney: I will assume for now that the pundits are correct, and Obama will face Romney in the coming election. Both of those [...]
Continue reading Dilbert For President
Posted in Election '12, Humor | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
Radley Balko: Greece adds pedophiles, exhibitionists, and kleptomaniacs to list of disabilities eligible for state benefits. Sounds like some politicians are ready to retire. Hah!
Continue reading Quote Of The Day
Posted in Quote of the Day | Comments Off
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
If someone were to pose the question: “Among the candidates running for president, who would you say describes himself as the most ‘pro-family’?” I suspect that most people would say Rick Santorum and for good reason. To Santorum, the decline of the traditional, nuclear family is the root cause for every problem facing America right [...]
Continue reading Rick Santorum is Not as Pro-Family as He Would Have Us Believe
Posted in Crime and Punishment, Criminal Justice Reform, Culture, Dumbasses and Authoritarians, Election '12, Individual Rights, Legal, Mandatory Minimum Sentences, Military, Non-Intervention, Politics, Republicans, Security, The Nanny State, The War on Drugs, Theory and Ideas | 1 Comment »
Monday, January 9th, 2012
Over at Cato, Jim Harper responds to proponents of gov’t research that point to the products of that research as justification — they never really consider that such products would still occur via private-sector investment. He takes a bit of a swipe at IP policy in the middle, and in his discussion of the history [...]
Continue reading A New Approach To “Government Research”
Posted in Intellectual Property Rights, Technology, Theory and Ideas | Comments Off
Wednesday, January 4th, 2012
Newt Gingrich calls Mitt Romney “a liar” but says he would support him over Barack Obama if he wins the nomination. Talk radio host and raving lunatic extraordinaire Mark Levin threatens to campaign against Rand Paul if his father chooses to make a third party run. What a petulant asshole. Sarah Palin warns: “G.O.P. had [...]
Continue reading Post Iowa Caucus Links/Open Thread
Posted in Culture, Democracy, Election '12, Look About, Media, Multimedia, Open Thread, Politics, Republicans | 2 Comments »
Monday, January 2nd, 2012
Until Rick Santorum’s recent surge in the polls, I didn’t consider him much more than a nuisance. Since the beginning of the campaign, I thought he had the most anti-libertarian agenda in the 2012 race but I didn’t think he was as realistic of a threat as say Rick Perry or Newt Gingrich. The best [...]
Continue reading Rick Santorum, The Anti-Libertarian
Posted in Church and State, Civil Liberties, Dumbasses and Authoritarians, Election '12, Foreign Affairs, Hubris, Individual Rights, Liberty, Military, Multimedia, Non-Intervention, Politics, Privacy, Property Rights, Republicans, Sex, The Bill Of Rights, The War on Drugs, Theory and Ideas, War on Terror | 6 Comments »