I often tell my students that, in my humble opinion, one purpose of government is to help people be happy. The DC government did a good job on Wednesday.

I disagree with that on so many levels. The government’s job is to secure people’s rights, and as Thomas Jefferson so eloquently said, one of those inalienable rights is the pursuit of happiness. But we cannot move from a government built to secure negative rights to one built to fulfill positive rights just by wishing it so.

But this is one of those special cases where the government got it right. The government, through bigoted discrimination, was actively denying some citizens of their right to pursue happiness as they see fit. In this case, they did help people be happy, by getting out of the way.

Hat Tip: Ezra Klein

The Transportation Security Administration is spreading airport body-scanner technology across the country.

A TSA official said Friday that units will be fielded next week in Chicago, and in the coming months at Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; San Jose, Calif.; Columbus, Ohio; San Diego; Charlotte, N.C.; Cincinnati; Los Angeles; Oakland, Calif.; and Kansas City.

They are among 150 machines bought with money from the federal stimulus package signed into law by President Obama last year.

I figure if they’re gonna look, I might as well give them a show, right? Now, I’m not talking about some Dirk Diggler-esque salamander halfway down my leg…

I’m just wondering what it would take to get this made out of rubber?

Hat Tip: Jason Pye @ UL

Unlike libertarians, most conservatives simply don’t want small government. They want their own version of big government. Of course, they have done a pretty good job of fooling American voters for decades by repeating the phrases “limited government” and “small government” like a hypnotic chant.

It’s interesting that conservatives only notice “big government” when it’s something their political enemies want. When conservatives want it, apparently it doesn’t count.

- If a conservative wants a trillion-dollar foreign war, that doesn’t count.

- If a conservative wants a 700-billion-dollar bank bailout, that doesn’t count.

- If a conservative wants to spend billions fighting a needless and destructive War on Drugs, that doesn’t count.

- If a conservative wants to spend billions building border fences, that doesn’t count.

- If a conservative wants to “protect” the huge, unjust, and terribly inefficient Social Security and Medicare programs, that doesn’t count.

- If a conservative wants billions in farm subsidies, that doesn’t count.

It’s truly amazing how many things “don’t count.”

Benedict went on to point out the lack of concern these same people had with the government expansion of President Bush and the health care mandates of another CPAC favorite – Mitt Romney.

While I’m by no means a supporter of the Obama Administration, the idea that many Conservatives seem to have that all the problems we are faced with started on January 20, 2009 is completely ludicrous**.

These are the same people who would gladly support Sarah ‘the Quitter’ Palin, ‘Mandate’ Mitt Romney, or ‘Tax Hike Mike’ Huckabee – none are what I would call ‘limited government’ by any stretch of the imagination.

*And even the anarchists among us who oppose all government regardless of size

**Ditto for those Bush haters of the left who believes every problem we face now began 8 years prior. If we are honest, the problems we face today go back at least as far back as Woodrow Wilson (and probably even before him)

Crystal Mangum, 31, was arrested late Wednesday on charges including assaulting her boyfriend, Durham police said in a press release.

Durham County jail records indicate she also was charged with identity theft, communicating threats, damage to property, resisting an officer and misdemeanor child abuse. A judge ordered that she remain in jail on a $1 million bond. Mangum had no attorney listed Thursday.

Authorities released the audio of a 911 call in which a girl who said she was Mangum’s 9-year-old daughter called for help.

Police said they found Mangum and Milton Walker fighting when they arrived at the home just before midnight. Mangum then went into a bathroom and set some clothes on fire in a bathtub, police said.

For most readers who have busy lives but still try to follow the news of the day, the name Crystal Mangum probably doesn’t ring a bell.

Why should it?

For those who didn’t know or need reminded, Mangum was only the lying skank who falsely accused several members of the Duke Lacrosse team of raping her in 2006. The general public did not know her name, at least in the beginning, due to the MSM’s ridiculous* ‘rape shield’ policy which kept the media to keep from revealing Mangum’s identity. By the time Mangum was exposed as a liar, the media’s ‘rich white male jocks rape poor, defenseless, black woman’ template no longer worked and the media lost interest in the story (though some gave at least some passing mention of her past before moving on to the next story). Curiously, Al Sharpton was also nowhere to be found.**

Though I knew the media was done with Crystal Mangum, somehow I knew that one day I would see her name in the paper again. She was never subject to the kind of scrutiny the Duke Lacrosse players received by the media (and certainly not the courts).

Now Mangum is the one in the hot seat with her credibility all shot to hell. The burden of proof will be on her accusers and the prosecution that she is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. But as the Duke Lacrosse players know all to well, the court of public opinion requires quite a lot less proof.

As tempting as it may be to smear Mangum by posting every rumor, conjecture, and tabloid story, I for one will do my best to separate the garbage from the truth (admittedly, not an easy task). While the truth may set most individuals free, I tend to believe that in this case at least, Mangum will finally receive the poetic justice she richly deserves.

* I say these policies are ridiculous for the following reasons:

1. The purpose of the policy is to ‘shield’ legitimate rape victims from any shame associated with being a victim of a rape. I find this notion that a victim of a violent crime should feel ashamed completely offensive. Any person who is willing to publicly face his or her attacker should be celebrated not pitied. Had Mangum’s name been made public, perhaps her past would have gotten the investigators’ attention sooner and she would have been exposed as the liar she is much sooner.

2. While the accuser’s identity is not made public, those who stand accused (before having the opportunity to have the case even go to trial) identities are made public.

** Does anyone happen to know if Sharpton still gave Mangum the ‘No Strip Scholarship’ once she was exposed?

“Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections,” Obama said. “Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.”

In the video, Justice Samuel Alito can be seen visibly disagreeing with this sentiment. First, I’m glad someone can stand up against a President who respects the independence of the judiciary so little that he calls them out in the State of the Union. Such moves reek of political hackery that should be far beneath the President. Second, Obama’s assertion is flatly wrong.

Obama contends that the floodgates have been suddenly opened for corporations to have undue influence over candidates and politicians simply because campaign spending limits have been lifted. How, in a country where a single mother can be ordered to pay $1.92 million for sharing music because of a law bought and paid for by the recording industry, can it be claimed that the influence of corporate interests is at all inhibited?

In the recent health care debates, WalMart was on the front lines of the cheering, hoping that they could dupe Democrats into using the law to skewer their smaller competitors. In the same debate, the SEIU managed to secure a sweetheart deal for unions where the “Cadillac” tax would not be borne if the gold-plated health care plan was a result of collective bargaining (read: union strong-arming).

The history of the last half-century in Washington is one where incumbents and party-anointed successors enter into perpetual quid pro quo relationships with special interests. Legislators get things from special interests in return for political and legislative favors. We all know that this is the way things work. We all hope that when we send “our guy” to Washington that he’ll be the one to change it.

In real life, there is no Mr. Smith. Even when someone like Jeff Flake comes to Washington and tries to fight for the people he is rebuffed. The self-styled ruling class in Washington depends on having a monopoly on the influence of big business and special interests.

It is not the thought of special interests influencing politics that scares the ruling class. It is the thought of special interests influencing politics without them that does.

Influence peddling and vote buying are expected in the halls of power. Interests are allowed nearly unlimited access as long as they come in as supplicants to the ruling class. Once the same interests attempt to take their message from K Street to Main Street, the law is brought down upon them as they are accused of trying to corrupt the political process.

With that in mind, let’s look at what the President really meant behind the doublespeak:

“Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to speak directly to the people,” Obama said. “Well I don’t think that the course of American politics should be interfered with by the American people. It should be decided by the ruling class in cooperation with America’s most powerful interests, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.”

The Supreme Court had the temerity to undercut the system of influence carefully constructed by the Republicratic ruling class over the last century. Obama is leading the charge to restore the power that the Supreme Court, and the Constitution, has denied them.

May more Americans have the courage to challenge Obama and the ruling class on this.

In this country, it is still socially unacceptable (in the areas where it is legal) to go see a doctor in-person with a moderately fraudulent ailment for prescriptions of a recreational drug (marijuana).

Discuss.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that corporations may spend as freely as they like to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on business efforts to influence federal campaigns.

By a 5-4 vote, the court overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said companies can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to produce and run their own campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.

(…)

The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.

As I’ve said many times before, the only campaign finance regulation that we need is full and complete disclosure.

Every candidate for Federal office should be required to disclose all contributions and disbursements and a regular basis (possibly even more frequently than the quarterly reports that are now the law), and that information should be easily available to the public so that people can know where a candidate’s money comes from and where it goes. After all, isn’t that what the First Amendment is really all about — let the information out and let the public decide what to think about it ?

Here’s the full opinion and dissent:

Citizens Opinion

The base post is about marriage and in support of gay marriage. But I found this analogy somewhat off:

What opponents of same-sex marriage cannot explain is how exactly same-sex marriage undermines the institution of marriage. It broadens the definition, to be sure; but that definition still includes opposite-sex marriage. We broadened the definition of voting when we allowed non-landowners, women, minorities, and 18-year-olds to vote. Democracy is a process of broadening; it’s an evolutionary thing.

You see, there’s a difference. Allowing gays to marry does not make my marriage to my wife any less meaningful. Allowing gays to marry does not infringe upon any of my natural rights. In fact, while I have no problem with gays (and have several gay friends), it doesn’t change the way anyone might think about gays. Gay marriage doesn’t stop homophobes from being homophobes just like Loving v. Virginia didn’t stop racists from hating blacks.

Democracy, though, is far less tolerant. The masses of the nation can democratically infringe upon my rights. They can forcibly seize more of my earnings as “taxes”. They can impose regulations on every aspect of my life, including how much water my toilet can flush. And worst of all, they hold in their power the ability to determine who I may or may not choose to marry. I’m lucky enough to be in the “politically favored” rather than the “minority” status on that one, but that doesn’t in any way change the nature of democracy. While I don’t oppose the expansion of voting on fairness grounds (it should be clear that I’m against democracy on its own merits), every expansion of voting only widens the pool of people who think they can tell me what I can and cannot do.

I don’t like the idea of comparing gay marriage to democracy. After all, one of the two should be opposed. Just not the one most people think.

EXECUTIVE ORDER
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COUNCIL OF GOVERNORS

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1822 of the National Defense AuthorizationAct of 2008 (Public Law 110-181), and in order to strengthenfurther the partnership between the Federal Government and State governments to protect our Nation and its people and property, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Council of Governors.
(a)
There is established a Council of Governors (Council).The Council shall consist of 10 State Governors appointed bythe President (Members), of whom no more than five shall be ofthe same political party. The term of service for each Member appointed to serve on the Council shall be 2 years, but a Membermay be reappointed for additional terms.
(b)
The President shall designate two Members, whoshall not be members of the same political party, to serve asCo-Chairs of the Council.
Sec. 2. Functions. The Council shall meet at the call of the Secretary of Defense or the Co-Chairs of the Council toexchange views, information, or advice with the Secretary ofDefense; the Secretary of Homeland Security; the Assistant tothe President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism; theAssistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs andPublic Engagement; the Assistant Secretary of Defense forHomeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs; the Commander,United States Northern Command; the Chief, National GuardBureau; the Commandant of the Coast Guard; and other appropriateofficials of the Department of Homeland Security and theDepartment of Defense, and appropriate officials of otherexecutive departments or agencies as may be designated by theSecretary of Defense or the Secretary of Homeland Security.Such views, information, or advice shall concern:
(a)
matters involving the National Guard of the variousStates;
(b)
homeland defense;
(c)
civil support;
more
(OVER)
2
(d)
synchronization and integration of State and Federalmilitary activities in the United States; and
(e)
other matters of mutual interest pertaining toNational Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.

Read the rest here.

Occasionally, though, an HOA does something worthy of genuine outrage. Especially when they do so in a callous and inhuman manner, which is the case here:

Kimberly, a 6-year-old in the custody of her grandparents, is facing eviction by local law enforcement because her grandparents live in a retirement community. The child has lived in the house her whole life, as her mother is unable to care for her due to unspecified drug problems. Now authorities plan to remove the girl from the only home she’s ever known and place her in foster care with strangers due to a homeowners association policy.

Kimberly’s grandparents, Jimmy and Judie Stottler, have been unable to sell their home and move elsewhere due to the housing market crash. The Stottlers have even lowered the price from $225,000 to $129,000, willing to get completely hosed on the move just to keep their family intact, but no one is buying. The battle has been going on for several years, the better portion of Kimberly’s life, but the Stottlers are of limited resources to fight the situation.

That’s bad. But this quote (from the HOA president) is the truly callous part:

“No, the sheriff will. I will merely be the President of the Board who is trying to enforce the policies of our association that she agreed to when she moved in.”

Yes, you’re not the one throwing a six-year-old girl out of the only home she’s ever known, and the care of two loving “parents” who never expected a child to be thrust upon them to be raised because her biological parent had abdicated all responsibility. You’re not responsible, it’s all the sheriff — who just happens to be acting on the orders you gave him. What’s the life of a small child worth? Obviously not as much as your rules.

I’ve never understood how the acquisition of a little bit of power can seemingly remove someone’s sense of humanity. Maybe this douchebag never had it to begin with?

Anyone who flies regularly will tell you, the hellishness of airline travel is not primarily derived from the outrage of lost privacy, it’s derived from the outrage of inefficient, time-consuming idiocy. I would gladly trade the privacy invasion that would come with those body scanners in Total Recall in exchange for the ability to casually walk into the boarding area.

As I’ve mentioned before, my job has me on the road quite a bit, and thus I visit our illustrious TSA on a regular basis. I survive largely on airports having the black-diamond “Expert Traveler” security line and having a time-tested system of packing that gets me through the line quickly.

Unlike some libertarians, who choose not to fly rather than be subjected to TSA scrutiny, I see this as an unwelcome, unnecessary, but trivial evil. I view air travel as too important to me (both personally and professionally) to allow the government to slow me down. I know I’m going to be hassled, but it is most important to me that the hassling be kept to a minimal level and that it disrupt my plans as little as possible. I must admit that I was more than a bit irked over the holidays traveling with family, when the TSA screener wiped my infant son and I down for explosive residue (I was carrying him in a Baby Bjorn) “to make sure he was a real baby”. But even that was only an inconvenience, it’s not like he swabbed us for our DNA (at least that I’m aware of).

All that said, the level of idiocy is highly annoying. On short trips, I prefer not to check baggage, lest it get lost. At the same time, as a beer aficionado, I like to buy beer where I’m traveling that isn’t distributed in CA. With the liquid restrictions, I’m then forced to either forgo a purchase and not carry beer back with me, or wrap it in my luggage and check it on the return hoping that baggage handlers don’t leave me with a wet, smelly bag upon my arrival home. I often forgo the purchase these days rather than risk losing the bag or ending up with a mess.

However, I will take issue with one thing Goldberg says:

We keep hearing how we have to trade privacy for security. “No we don’t!” says the always helpful ACLU. “Yes we do!” say some security experts. “Maybe we do, maybe we don’t,” say others.

It’s all terribly tedious and it misses a very basic point: We already trade privacy, a lot of privacy, for security.

We already trade privacy for the appearance of security. Posts like this remind me that we’re actually not much safer as a result of all this hassle. It is truly security theater, designed to make us feel better but almost completely useless.

But while I’m certainly more concerned about privacy and government surveillance than the average joe, I’d be willing to trade the concern that some screener sees my naughty bits for a much quicker and less hassling airport experience*. And when I’m traveling with family, if it would make it unnecessary for me to take shoes off my toddler (getting them back on is the hassle), I’d be positively overjoyed.

Hat Tip: Curunir @ Distributed Republic

* PS – Of course I know they’d probably do this IN ADDITION to all the other stupid security theater, so I opposed it for that reason. The point is that if they had the technology to enable this to REPLACE everything else, I’d call it a net improvement.

I’m in Chicago visiting family, sadly with little internet access (sitting outside Panera Bread Co in the car with my napping son in the back). Today we celebrate my grandmother’s 90th birthday. This is a woman who lived through the Great Depression, raised three sons during WWII, lived on the south side of Chicago up until a year or so ago after her sister died, and is generally one of the tougher old ladies I’ve ever known. My other grandmother spoiled me rotten when I grew up; Grandma Ann — as the father of three boys — didn’t let me get away with squat!

My grandmother doesn’t have a driver’s license. My grandfather was the only one who drove up until he passed about 15 years ago, and then she was still tough enough to walk or take transit pretty much wherever she needed to go (when she couldn’t get a ride from a neighbor).

So why am I throwing out all this backstory?

Because a few weeks ago, she got a ticket.

No, before you ask, she wasn’t joyriding out in my dad’s minivan. She was sitting in the passenger seat, with the audacity to ride without a seat belt.

Surely, you’d think that a cop would understand that a 90 year old woman was competent enough to make her own decisions. That at most, if he has to pull my dad over, that perhaps he could give her a warning. After all, it wasn’t illegal for most of her adult life. Maybe, you’d just think that a cop would have the common decency not to give a 90 year old woman a $75 dollar ticket for a completely victimless crime in the middle of the holiday season. In fact, my father tried to argue these points — and yet the ticket still came.

Most non-libertarians view the state as helpful and friendly, and believe that it only hassles the type of people who deserve it*. To those non-libertarians I ask one question: does your grandmother deserve it? Because mine sure as hell doesn’t.

So I might not have enough time to change my grandmother’s views. I’m only in town for another 25 hours or so, and she’s spent a lifetime building those views. But I am going to try to convince her not to pay the ticket, and not to go to court. If they want to come after a 90 year old woman, I’d like to think I know enough people in the greater libertosphere to rain down hell (in the form of letters, emails, and phone calls) on the local police force.

* The TSA excepted, of course, as they made my wife and I — very frazzled from traveling with a 2 1/2 year old and a 6 month old — take my 2 1/2 year old son’s shoes off going through the airport. He’s a threat to ruin quite a few fliers’ trips, but that’s only by screaming, not by hiding illicit materials in his shoes.

Put simply, each person has the right to seek the health care he deems appropriate for him and his family within the limits of his budget or insurance. A corollary to this is that each person has the right to seek the health insurance that he deems appropriate. This same right applies when buying TVs, cars, dinner, books, etc., and is fundamental to a free existence.

First, an example from Britain of a grievous violation of this right:

If health care is a fundamental right, equality under the law would seem to require that everyone have the same level of care, regardless of their resources. That principle was illustrated by the case of Debbie Hirst, a British woman with metastasized breast cancer who in 2007 was denied access to a commonly used drug on the grounds that it was too expensive.

When Hirst decided to raise money to pay for the drug on her own, she was told that doing so would make her ineligible for further treatment by the National Health Service. According to The New York Times, “Officials said that allowing Mrs. Hirst and others like her to pay for extra drugs to supplement government care would violate the philosophy of the health service by giving richer patients an unfair advantage over poorer ones.” The right to health care is so important, it seems, that it can nullify itself.

Mrs. Hirst was forced into a system where the right to seek appropriate care was appropriated by the government. When the National Health Service exercised a right that did not belong to it, Mrs. Hirst tried to use the resources available to her to reassert her right to seek health care. She was told if she were to do so, she would be forced out of the program that provides the only affordable health care for the lower and middle classes in the UK.

Take that example and apply it to the Reid bill. Centralized authority regulating what health insurance can and can’t cover, can and can’t cost, how much doctors will get paid by the public option… From Richard Epstein in the Wall Street Journal:

Normally, insurers have the power to underwrite—to choose their line of business, to select and to price risks, and to decline unattractive risks. Not under the Reid bill. In its frantic effort to expand coverage to the uninsured, the bill will create state health-care exchanges supported by generous federal subsidies to unspecified millions of needy and low-income individuals. Any health insurance carrier that steers clear of these exchanges cannot keep its customers. Any insurance carrier that enters Mr. Reid’s inferno will lose its financial shirt.

Here are some reasons why. Initially, all insurers have to take all comers and to renew all policies except for nonpayment of premiums. Insurers are not allowed to take into account differential risks based on pre-existing conditions. And the premium differentials based on such matters as age and tobacco use are smaller than the market spreads. If too many customers demand coverage from a given insurer to insure efficiently, it’s the government that will decide how many they have to keep and who they are.

Next, it’s the government that requires extensive coverage including “ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance abuse disorder services, prescription drugs, rehabilitative and habilitative [sic!] services and devices, laboratory services, preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management, pediatric services, including oral and vision care.” The price squeeze gets even tighter because in every required area of care a collection of government standards will help set the minimum level of required services.

Ostensibly, the Reid bill does not impose any direct price controls on what health insurers can charge for this veritable cornucopia of services. But the bill’s complex, cooperative federalism scheme authorizes state regulators, after recommendations from the federal government, to exclude insurers from the exchanges if their prices are too high, which would again be a competitive death knell. Exile from the exchange does not, however, restore traditional underwriting controls, as the Reid bill and other federal and state regulation continue to apply to these firms.

The bill is designed to turn the health industry from servants of payers (primarily employers, insurers, and the government) into a servants of Congress and the President.

We are headed towards a day where our fundamental right to seek health care is non-existent, replaced by a state of submission where our betters in Washington decide what health care we should get. Anyone who equates a right to health care with taxpayer subsidized health care is mounting an assault on the real right to health care. Call them out, prove them wrong, and shout them down.

UPDATE 12/23: Added the section from Richard Epstein.

Not everyone thinks imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

In fact, U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson of Orlando took such offense at a parody Web site aimed at unseating him that the freshman Democrat asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the Lake County activist who started it.

In his four-page complaint, Grayson accuses Republican Angie Langley of lying to federal elections officials. In particular, he writes, the Clermont resident lives outside his district but still uses the term “my” in her Web site, mycongressmanisnuts.com. The name mocks a Web site started by Grayson, congressmanwithguts.com.

“Ms. Langley has deliberately masqueraded as a constituent of mine, in order to try to create the false appearance that she speaks for constituents who don’t support me,” writes Grayson. “[She] has chosen a name for her committee that is utterly tasteless and juvenile.”

Grayson’s office confirmed he wrote the letter — including the request that Langley be fined and “imprisoned for five years” — and released a statement from Grayson saying, “Everyone has to obey the law, even rude, right-wing cranks.”

Langley, a former top Republican official in Lake County, said the letter initially “scared the heck out” of her but that she got angry after an attorney friend — who is acting as legal adviser — told her that the accusations were “groundless.”

“This man is nothing but a bully and an intimidator,” she said.

For those of you who don’t know Alan Grayson, he’s also the little punk who has described the GOP health care plan as dying quickly among other things. He’s basically the Sarah Palin or the Joe the Plumber of the left. Now this wannabe commissar is trying to jail a woman for expressing her opinion. Here’s a little obstacle to that:

Amendment 1 – Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

There are no gulags in this country for those who speak against members of Congress, Representative Grayson. Hopefully his constituents will send this thug into retirement next year.

Related Link: Alan Grayson is Nuts

Edited on 12/20/2009 at 8:06PM to insert related before link