The “New Police Professionalism,” or Support Your Local Gang-Banger Most American men older than, say, fourteen years of age have had the following experience:During a pick-up basketball game at the YMCA or the local health club, you find yourself paired off defending a guy who’s taking things just a little too seriously. Bumps escalate into […]

Opening the Gates of the Gulag (Pt. I) Displaying candor and alacrity that might be admirable in other circumstances, the Bush regime has made clear the purpose and impact of the Military Commissions Act,(.pdf) or MCA (better described as the “Reversal of Freedom Act of 2006″).Two days ago (Monday, November 13), the “Justice” Department filed […]

(UPDATED) Opening the Gates of the Gulag (Pt. II): Manifest Destiny’s Dark Side This is a man: Chief Big Snake of the Poncas.The frost of late October clung to the ground, and the small general store was wreathed in early morning murkiness when the detachment of soldiers arrived. Lieutenant Stanton Mason had been sent with […]

It’s a Droog’s World, After All (Note: This essay represents a brief detour from the ongoing series “Opening the Gates of the Gulag,” which I intend to conclude tomorrow.)I was sure I had met these millicents some mesto before. The one who had hold of me, going: “There, there, there,” just by the front door […]

Opening the Gates of the Gulag (Pt. III): One Little Victory “I am a man”: Chief Standing Bear of the Poncas seeks vindication of his rights in an Omaha courtroom; behind and to his right is his niece and translator, Susette “Bright Eyes” LaFlesche.Among those who served in the U.S. Army during the decades-long war […]

Review of the News, November 20 Here Come the Draft-NappersChales Rangel is a boon companion to Fidel Castro and a self-described good friend of Sean Hannity. He could thus be considered a living synthesis of modern collectivism, and his proposal to re-instate conscription as part of a comprehensive “national service” program is the distillate of […]

Review of the News, November 21 Quote Of The DayOur present selection addresses a persistent source of perplexity: Why do so few subjects of the regime notice our ever-deepening condition of servitude?“From the time of the Magna Carta and even earlier, the makers of English law have been concerned to protect the physical freedom of […]

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 […]

Cultists, Counterfeiters, and Cop-Outs Bush’s Conservative Critics are HELPING THE TERRORISTS!Isn’t it fun to see a mind-wiped cult adherent get caught in the coils of a cult conundrum?Last month, the Bush White House convened an off-the-record meeting with the GOP’s chief herd-poisoners: Talk radio personalities Mike Gallagher, Neil Boortz, Laura Ingraham, Michael Medved, and Sean […]

Habeas Corpus Delicti corpus de-LIC-ti (n) — The material evidence in a homicide, such as the discovered corpse of a murder victim, showing that a crime has been committed; a corpse.“This is not a time of rebellion,” points out John D. Hutson, dean of the Franklin Pierce Law School in New Hampshire and former judge […]

The Romney Candidacy, or Will The Saints Go Marching In? (Part 1 of 2) For the Republican Party, particularly the Christian Right (or what I have come to call the “Ecclesio-Leninist” faction), the chief objective of modern politics is to preserve and expand executive power in order to continue the war against “Islamo-Fascism” — and […]