Review of the News, November 22 Tased and ConfusedIn the welter of partial disclosures and contradictory eyewitness accounts that are emerging about the Taser attack on UCLA student Mustafa Tabatabainejad, two facts have achieved saliency:First, the UCLA officer who used the Taser, 43-year-old Terrence Duren, who has been a policeman since 1988, has a somewhat […]
Posner’s Paean to Totalitarianism “… you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.” Matthew 15:6In dealing with what amounts to a permanent state of emergency resulting from the threat of mass terrorism, the federal government “could be authorized by a constitutional amendment to curtail particular civil liberties in times of national […]
Review of the News, November 27 It’s time to play Name That Dictatorship!“Except for a brief period in the early 1980s, the country has been ruled under `emergency laws’ since 1967 – laws that consolidate power in the president and which authorize [law enforcement and intelligence] authorities to detain suspects for long periods of time […]
Red Dogs, Death Warrants, and Murderous Marketing A “warrant,” explains the insightful Lew Rockwell, is “a piece of paper the government issues itself before burglarizing your home.” Lew seems to be giving voice to the shade of Ambrose Bierce, author of The Devil’s Dictionary – which is to say that he is using the scalpel […]
Support Your Paramilitary Police? THESE are the “good guys.” “I am so sorry to see that you, who worked for a group that supports local police, have nothing but contempt for police,” a decent and conscientious police officer wrote in a recent e-mail. “You and [Reason Senior Editor and libertarian blogger Radley] Balko can point […]
Review of the News, November 23 Spanish Conquistador Juan de Onate, who celebrated the first American Thanksgiving on April 30, 1598Offer Thanks to God, not to the StateAs a Confederate sympathizer of (partially) Iberian heritage, I would prefer to celebrate Thanksgiving on April 30, the anniversary of the true first Dia de Gracias, celebrated by […]
Review of the News, November 30 An orbital view of the CIA-operated “Salt Pit” detention/interrogation/torture facility in AfghanistanToday’s Theme: Murderous Impunity”To us, everything is permitted.” — From a 1919 editorial in Krasni Mech (The Red Sword), a journal published by the Soviet Cheka, forerunners of the KGB. Unofficial motto of the contemporary Homeland Security State […]
GOP: Grand Old Pederast Party “Were I to discover that my only possibility of happiness lay in excessive perpetration of the most atrocious crimes, without a qualm I’d enact every last one of them this very instant, certain — that the foremost of the laws Nature decrees to me is to enjoy myself, no matter […]
Tonight’s Episode: The Tory Perspective, or There Goes my Severance (THIRD UPDATE; see comments section) A brief preface:This one is long and unfortunately heavy on history, but PLEASE stick it out. Toward the end of this entry I will share some very significant personal news that is directly related to the substance of this essay. […]
Fencing Us In, Not Keeping “Them” Out To say that Congress’s vote to erect 700 miles of “secure” fencing along the southern U.S. border is an “empty” gesture is a felonious act of understatement. It is barren of any meaning save cynical political opportunism: The fence offers politicians on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border […]
