October 2003 Archives

Drug Czar John Walters, addressing Hispanic leaders:

"Marijuana use is a serious problem for all young people, but we are particularly concerned about the high usage rates among Hispanic eighth graders, who are using this harmful drug at a crucial time in their lives."

According to the government's own numbers, marijuana usage rates among Hispanics in that age range are lower than that of whites. Read about it here.

What could possibly motivate our Drug Czar to say such a thing? Why is this imbecil on our payroll?

Today I officially joined the ranks of small business owners. Over the last few days I've obtained federal, state, and municipal licenses or tax numbers. I've bought state mandated insurance. I've hired an acountant to deal with the labyrinth of tax laws, and gotten to know the bank branch manager on a first name basis. All this to get past the government imposed obstacles to starting a business. It's as if they don't want people to get ahead.

I've known a few tax protestors here and there. I'm talking about people who do everything they can to avoid paying taxes, usually because they believe taxes, especially the income tax, is unethical, and paying the tax is unethical as well. This is different from some wealthy taxpayers who take advantage of every possible shelter in an attempt to legally pay little or no tax. The tax protestors I'm talking about are usually not wealthy, and are avoiding taxes by means the IRS says are illegal, such as simply not filing a tax return. These protestors often knowingly risk great personal hardship, including being dismissed as right-wing whackos. (Not unfairly, in some cases.)

I agree with them, that the income tax is unethical. However, I do pay income tax. Let me try to justify that.

Taxation is theft! would be the bumper-sticker length argument against the ethics of the income tax. But that is a gross oversimplification, and only partly true. Part of income tax revenue goes to public services which everyone uses, you know, the roads and bridges type stuff. People who use those services rightfully owe money - how much money is an open question. Most of the tax goes for other purposes, mainly income redistribution schemes and military spending. This is where the ethics of the tax break down. Forcing people to hand their money over for others to spend as they see fit is ethically indefensible, although volumes have been written in defense of the practice. You could add that the income redistribution programs are actually harmful to society and help create more poverty, but that's a separate question.

So how much tax does a person really owe, in an ethical sense? Pinning down a dollar amount is difficult, as so many services are paid through multiple taxes. If the gas tax and social security withholding and other things all get thrown into the general fund it becomes hard to track who is paying for what, exactly. To further complicate things, people avail themselves to government services at various levels, some constantly, some not at all. So, being unable to determine how much tax I really should pay, and agreeing that most of the tax is used for deleterious purposes, I pay the income tax. As little as legally possible, like most people.

Instead of trying to change an unethical system by refusing to pay taxes, a strategy unlikely to pay off, (as I explain here,) I try to convince others to change the system. An ethical system would look something like this.

1. Spin off all infrastructure functions of government to private or semi-private institutions. Technology is making some of these things possible, such as systems to allow drivers to pay for the roads they use by the mile. Not only is this more efficient and cheaper than the current system, it has the important feature of linking usage to payment. When people pay for exactly what they use, and have the option of not using the service at all, the ethical conflicts dissipate.

2. Fund the remaining government services through voluntary payments.

OK, at this point you're saying, Walter are you out of your mind? No one would pay the government voluntarily! But I firmly believe, that if the government requested a small part of everyone's paycheck, say 5%, that they would get 90% or more compliance. Wouldn't you pay that? If the gov embarked on some unpopular course of action, like a war, they might see a precipitous drop in income. There's something to be said for that.

I know this solution isn't politically likely. But I'm writing about ethics today, not current political realities.

Yesterday, 1pm: 81F. Today, 1pm: 26F.

Pete Guither has read the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. It finds that over 100 million Americans have used an illegal drug at some time. This leads Pete to coin this slogan:

WE can win the War on Drugs! Just lock up 100,000,000 more Americans.

He also notes;

Over 80% of people who have used drugs are not current drug users, let alone abusers (so much for the certain enslavement properties of drugs).

One more thing I see in this table, a solid majority of people under the age 50 have used illegal drugs, and that trend is holding solid. This is why I have hope that the War on Drugs has a limited life expectancy.

Zomby had a little excitement in his life early this morning. After the beasts dogs I don't know what I'd grab next. Part of the problem is that Mrs. In Denver is the only one who knows where things are around here. Anytime I need to find anything I have to ask her. No time for that in an emergency.

The Billion Dollar lawsuit in Pennsylvania is underway:

Bethlehem police inappropriately used a flash-bang concussion grenade without taking basic fire precautions, an expert witness testified Monday about the 1997 drug raid in which police killed John Hirko Jr.

Further updates as warranted.

Doug Kenline, writing on his own blog, asks

Walter, please check out givemeliberty.org and blog a few of your thoughts regarding this letter written by Bob Schulz.

Schulz covers a lot of ground in that piece, and I won't try to comment on all the points he makes. Let me make a few more general observations and highlight a couple of things Schulz wrote.

The Constitution is becoming a dead letter.

I think every libertarian would agree with that statement. Most budget items that pass through congress are not authorized by the Constitution.

Most people believe that the income tax system is legal and that the revenue from the tax is used in the public interest.

That's an important point, and I would add that most people want that to be true.

Researchers Benson, Schiff and others have been incarcerated because they asked the government to show them the law that gives the government the constitutional and statutory authority to impose an income tax on the people.

I've read Schiff and others who share a similar philosophy about the tax, and what they're saying is loopholes in the law exist that make it illegal for the IRS to collect income tax they way they do. This may or may not be true, and the IRS says it isn't, natch, but it's not important. If the courts ever do find the income tax to be illegal, and many people stop paying, Congress will quickly act to close the loopholes. When they do they will act with the support of the people, who as noted above, want the government to spend that money in the public interest. At best a handfull of lucky resistors will avoid paying the tax and beat the system in court. Bully for them.

Note that what I'm not saying here is that the IRS doesn't run over some taxpayers, and sometimes uses unfair and downright nasty collection methods.

I'm saying that in order to end the income tax you have to convince the voting public that the tax is bad, who in turn elect representatives who will overturn the tax. Doesn't seem too likely these days, does it?

Radley Balko has the lastest from MADD. A lot of folks still think of them as a public service group. Radley says they're 'neo-prohibitionists.' I said the same a few weeks ago.

Here's a welfare concept libertarians can love.

Immigration and remittances are the most effective welfare programs ever devised. Anyone who claims to speak for the world's poor should embrace them. Here are some relevant facts:

1. Total remittances around the world are now about $80 billion a year, twice the amount of so-called "foreign aid," which often goes to corrupt governments, not poor citizens.

Very nice. Blogger Tyler Cowen goes on to explain how this makes the European socialists look very bad.

Up late last night, surfing the news, I was amazed to see the extent of the damage. Citizen Smash has a point when he wonders where the national news media is on this. Go see him for blogging about it, and photos. The news out of Iraq overshadowed it, it seems.

I'll bet the national media will start catching up today.

Doug Kenline is a blogger, a tax protester, and he's in trouble with the IRS. I read through his posts from the last few days and I feel sorry for him. He says he can't sleep.

A sidelight to the investigation of a recent police shooting - it turns out Denver police dispatchers are writing down exactly what people tell them. Seems innocuous?

Lemme aks you sumpin'.
D'ya think the Denver Police Department policy of transcribing poh-lice interviews in black dialect is racially insensitive? Or am I jus' bein' hyxsterical?
{...}
Police say they try to transcribe the words in interviews exactly as they are pronounced by the person being questioned. The cops say they do it across the board.
Every mispronunciation gets written phonetically, regardless of the race of the speaker, Denver's public safety manager insisted.
"I know the implication is that someone is trying to put a racial spin on something," explained Al LaCabe, who is African-American. "But the transcriptionists are trying to be as accurate as possible."

This is ludicrous. Language is a fluid thing, and mis-pronunciations are universal. I know a bit about this subject and let me assure everyone, no one pronounces everything correctly. This phenomonon is so common that the listener will not even notice when some words are mis-pronounced.

Here's an example. People in northern Minnesota and North Dakota tend to pronounce the word 'three' as 'tree.' You may not notice that, but it's true. (go back and watch the movie Fargo again) To complicate matters, it's not always clear when the word 'three' becomes 'tree.' There's various shades of graduation, where the speaker says something in between the two, something that sounds like 'chree.' If you were to make a transcription of a conversation and had to write that word, you would have to make a subjective judgement as to whether to write the word as 'three,' tree,' or 'chree.' Why would anyone want the transcriptionists to make these judgements? Why not just write the words as they are obviously meant to be?

I take back all the nasty things I've said about the Denver Post*.

Thank You.

*Until y'all annoy me again.

The crack team of trendwatchers here at Walter in Denver are now predicting that porn karaoke will be the Next Big Thing.

Eight people are accusing the police of severe brutality during a drug raid in Minnesota. I have no way of judging the veracity of these claims, but it looks pretty bad.

Walter in Denver is the number ten site listed in the Google search for 'sammich.'

I don't know how this story got missed, but New Zealand is giving up on its plan to tax flatulence. So, umm, have at it, I guess.

I first met Rick in 2000, I think. Rick was a businessman in Denver, and he was angry. The IRS, he said, had nearly put him out of business. I won't retell all the details of episode, but the gist of it was bureaucratic bungling on the agency's part had given him a six figure tax bill when he owed no money. It took months of wrangling to get off the hook, and he wound up paying a considerable sum of money anyway. So Rick was going to do something about it. He wanted to help the Libertarian Party.

I had a few years of activism with the Party, and I and others recognized that Rick was exactly what we needed. He was passionate, articulate, conservative in appearance, and a great salesman. I mean that last part in the best way - his enthusiasm was contagious, and he could convince you that he was right. Usually, he was right. Soon, he announced himself as candidate for U.S. Senate in the 2002 election.

I don't like to use phrases like 'required reading,' but everyone should know about the the new survey of human rights abuses* in North Korea. It was compiled by researcher David Hawk for the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. The report wasn't available at that website at last check, but will be soon.

Meanwhile, you can read Claudia Rosett's striking article about the report at Opinion Journal. I think some people assume that after Hitler and Stalin the world would be safe from these sorts of things, but for some the great tyrants were only role models. For Kim Jong Il this appears to be true.

As an interesting and spot on aside Robert Clayton Dean notes:

I never cease to be amazed at the useful idiots who view corporations and the market as more of a threat to their well-being than the state. When Microsoft and Exxon order "babies tossed on the ground to die, with their mothers forced to watch. . . , or assign [grandmothers] to help in the delivery of babies who were thrown immediately into a plastic-lined box to die in bulk lots," I will be willing to listen to these morons, but not before.
The state is not your friend.

I steal a lot of good ideas from Samizdata.

*On second reading 'human rights abuses' looks a little pale to me. It's really a report on concentration camps and state sponsored mass murder, not just jailing a few annoying dissidents.

Via Cal Ulmann, an article from Bully Magazine about dolts who wear Che Guevara's image on their shirts:

Equally disturbing about the Che-worship cult is the complete whitewashing of his more foul deeds (if his trendier fans are aware of them at all). In organizing the July 26 Movement with Castro, Guevara was in charge of the revolutionary troops. He had standing orders that all informants and deserters should be shot and even carried out the first execution himself, declaring, "I ended the problem giving him a shot with a .32 pistol in the right side of the brain." The trail of bodies Guevara left through the Sierra Maestra has been well documented by many biographers; most of the victims of course were his own men.

The fad of Guevara worship is a symptom of a larger trend, washing the blood from the hands of socialists.

Another essential offering from Samizdata, pointing out this article from the UK's Libertarian Alliance. As libertarians know, fascism and socialism are practically the same ideology. The LA article traces Mussolini's socialist roots:

From 1912 to 1914, Mussolini was the Che Guevara of his day, a living saint of leftism. Handsome, courageous, charismatic, an erudite Marxist, a riveting speaker and writer, a dedicated class warrior to the core, he was the peerless duce of the Italian Left. He looked like the head of any future Italian socialist government, elected or revolutionary.

The rest of that article will make some leftists very uncomfortable. Don't skip reading the comments to the Samizdata post as well, including:

Naziism substituted race struggle for class struggle; one could opine that anti-Semitism and anti-capitalism were born conjoined twins.
Posted by: zacek

The opposite of Fascism isn't found on the Left, the opposite of Socialism isn't found on the Right. In both cases opposition is found in libertarianism, or classical liberalism, or anarcho-capitalism, or whatever you want to call it, as long as you're clear on the concept. I'm not picky.

Among the many interesting reads included in the CotC (see post below) was this by Steve Verdon, Fixing Social Security and Medicare for Good. Steve analyzes a proposal for reform and starts out by listing ten 'viewpoints' he says are held 'all sides of the debate.' He's almost right, as almost everyone would agree with these ten points. And that is why we're in the mess we're in. Let's look at the points from an ethical perspective.

1. Old people should not be allowed to starve to death.

The interesting word here is 'allow,' meaning that if we don't take proactive measures we will be culpable in their starvation. You may argue that current Social Security beneficiaries have been promised their benefits, and therefore they are owed those benefits, but who exactly owes what? And is everyone, everywhere obligated to feed the starving? I don't make enough money to feed very many, myself.

2. Old people should not be deprived of basic medical care.

Absolutely correct. I certainly will not deprive anyone of their medical care. However, I reserve the right to choose if I shall pay for it.

3. Workers should be forced to save for retirement.

If your ethics allow you to force others to do your bidding with their money, you have a very twisted set of ethics.

4. Workers should have basic life and disability insurance.

...and good schools and vacation time and reliable cars and decent clothes, [not to mention good hygiene] and plenty of beer and an ice cream maker, too, except for the lactose intolerant ones. Am I obligated to pay for any of this?

5. Poor people should be given a break.

Absolutely. Everyone else, too.

6. Women and minorities should be treated fairly.

Yup.

7. Social insurance programs should be transparent.

Yes. Good luck with that.

8. Social insurance programs should be efficient.

{Rolling around, laughing, gasping for breath, wiping up the tears} Oh yeah, where were we?

9. Social insurance programs should not bankrupt the next generation.

It might bankrupt us, or not, but it certainly won't make us wealthier, either.

10. Social insurance programs should not destroy the economy.

Steve continues;

These are all completely and entirely reasonable points. Further, most people in the United States are probably going to think the 10 points above are reasonable and should be followed.
Anybody who is serious about reforming Social Security would do well to consider adopting these points. Now if you are on the far left of the spectrum then point 9 means you will have to destroy Social Security...as we know it today.

The proposals in Steve's post are reasonable, and a big improvement over the current system. But these ten points are full of ethical holes, and as long as the majority of people continue to subscribe to these ideas we'll continue to find trouble for ourselves.

Jay Solo has the new Carnival of the Capitalists up. Lots of good reading there. Nice that we can all get together and talk about something everyone agrees on, making money...
What's that? Oh, never mind. If you've come here from the Carnival, welcome. Even you socialists.

I realize not everyone is interested in this topic but it is perhaps the most crucial issue in the state of Colorado, with national and international implications. People everywhere are watching to see if we can operate a government under this thing, and it will stand as an example for grassroots action everywhere.

A short primer for those of you who don't live here and might not know what it's about:

A decade or so ago the people of Colorado, by referendum, passed a constitutional amendment known as the Taxpayer Bill Of Rights, or TABOR. The principle effect of TABOR was to limit the growth of state government spending. Specifically, state spending can not increase any more than the rate of population growth multiplied by the rate of inflation. The voters said, sensibly, Governmnent is plenty big enough. It will have to make do with what it's got. Also, under this amendment, tax rates cannot increase without a public vote, so if tax receipts decline as the economy declines then government spending will have to do likewise.
Altogether these are fairly mild limits on government growth but since governments everywhere are used to unfettered expansion any limit at all seems revolutionary.

Well, during the current recession Colorado state government suffered less than other states, because it wasn't allowed to grow as fast as the economy during the 90's. You'd think this was a good thing, but some people are absolutely livid that state spending had to be restricted at all. Talk about unintended cosequences, not only did TABOR rein in spending it also serves as a bellweather of public ethics. On one side, the folks who think state spending is the cure-all to every ill, and spending should be unrestricted, pitted against people who think government should usually be subjugated to the rights of the individual.

Taking the pro-government side is a newish think tank called The Bell Policy Center. they oppose TABOR and are trying amend the state constitution to allow faster spending growth. They issued a press release headlined 'BELL POLICY CENTER STUDY CONCLUDES THAT TAXPAYER'S BILL OF RIGHTS (TABOR) IS NOT WORKING FOR COLORADO,' which is quite the opposite of what many of us Coloradoans think. Some highlights of the press release:

Major flaws in Colorado's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR) have seriously impaired the state's ability to set budget and program priorities and respond to crises, such as the current economic downturn, according to a study released today.
"TABOR is the most restrictive tax and spending limitation in the country, which has been eating away at vital programs and services and will make it much more difficult for the state to recover from the current budget crisis," said Carol Hedges, author of the TABOR study and director of the Fiscal Project at the nonprofit Bell Policy Center. "Some spending limits may be desirable and prudent, but TABOR has created a government hamstrung by inflexible rules that defy common sense and drive bad public policy."

Again, many think the opposite, that TABOR has saved the state a lot of grief during the downturn.

"The stated purpose of TABOR is to permanently limit the overall growth of government. But it hasn't just limited government's growth; it has shrunk it," Hedges said.

Government spending declined! Egad!

Growth in state government has not kept pace with economic growth...
The "ratcheting effect" of this growth limit continually downsizes government, making cuts virtually permanent. ...impossible to restore program cuts in good times.
TABOR contains a series of complex and often redundant provisions that greatly restrict budget-making flexibility, even within the overall limit on growth;
TABOR contains provisions that make it very difficult for the state to take advantage of surpluses in good times (e.g. create a Rainy Day Fund) to save for bad times.

This list is unblinkingly presented as entirely negative, as if there's just no way a reasonable person could want state spending to shrink, and no question that these programs are beneficial.

We've still got a long way to go to beat big government in Colorado.

CBS news this week ran a two-part report on home schooling, implying that parents who home-school commonly do so to perpetrate all kinds of abuse on their children. Never mind the most obvious explanation, that parents who home-school do so because they care about their children too much to turn them over to the state. Their solution? More regulation, natch.
Radley Balko says it better than I could, in a post aptly titled 'Home Schooling Hatchet Job':

The report then goes on to question why home schooling isn't more heavily regulated, and -- hold the friggin' phones on this one -- why home schooling parents aren't given criminal background checks...
If you're going to background-check home schoolers, shouldn't you background check all parents? And if Andrea Yates is indicative of the dangers of home schooling, might we say that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris embody the dangers of public schooling?

Ugh. Background checks for parents. Anyone else have a problem with that?

I should congratulate TX Rep. Ron Paul, who along with Dennis Kucinich authored the 'Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act,' the pointedly named bill seeking to repeal some of the more dangerous provisions of the Patriot Act. Paul once ran for president on the Libertarian ticket and might be the only libertarian in Congress.

Here's his website.

Via Jeff Trigg, another "kook" joins the Libertarian Party.

Michael J. Totten writes about his past experiences with the Libertarian Party, and how their radicalism forced him away.

Back in the early 1990s I joined the Libertarian Party. I didn’t know much about it at the time, but I did know they favored freedom more than anything else. It helped that they were different from the Democrats and Republicans. 1960s left-overs were unappealing then as now. And the 1992 Republican convention in Houston, where Pat Buchanan declared a “culture war” on America - with the nightmarish Pat Robertson by his side - was enough to keep me out of the GOP for a long long time.
I was put on the Libertarian mailing list. It turned me off pretty fast.
They wanted to legalize dope. Fine, fine, I’m still fine with that. They also wanted to abolish the IRS. They wanted to privatize the roads and set up toll booths to pay for it. (Any idea how much the tolls would cost each time?) They wanted to quadruple my college tuition by yanking subsidies from universities. They would have ruined me.

This radicalism is one of the major weaknesses of the LP. Never mind if such plans as privatizing roads would work, and I think they would, they just won't happen. Even if a large number of Libertarians suddenly found themselves in office, those sorts of things are politically impossible. But potential voters, and even LP candidates themselves get caught up in irrelevant debates. There are a handful of things Libertarian officeholders could do, things the established parties won't touch. Fixing Social Security. Ending the war on drugs. Most importantly, scaling back the size and scope of government. Take each of these items on their own and you don't see society-busting radical reforms, you see good ideas that many people agree need to be done. The nation would be stronger as a result.

Instead we get debates on toll roads, and we elect Dems and Repubs who fight to maintain the status quo.

Totten now sees a new face of libertarianism espoused by such people as the writers for Reason magazine.

It’s not news to everyone but it is news to me that there are different kinds of libertarians, just as there are different kinds of lefties and righties. Reason magazine is a lot more…reasonable than I would have thought. As Matt Welch told me, their libertarianism is not an ideology. Rather, it is a way of looking at the world. Social liberalism plus a healthy respect for the market economy.
I've never been totally comfortable with the Democrats, but my frustration with them right now is higher than ever. I've been tempted many times to declare myself libertarian again. The folks at Reason are some of the smartest around, certainly preferable to the fossilized anachronisms at The Nation. They're also more refreshing than the crusty old conservatives at National Review....

I'm a big Reason Magazine fan as well. It may surprise a lot of readers, but a majority of the LP sound a lot more like that than the radicals who get the press attention. The fault lies in part with the LP, who haven't been too careful about who they put on the ballot, but more importantly they allow themselves to be sucked into discussing these irrelevant topics.

Link via Vodkapundit.

"Like Salieri, J.Lo speaks for mediocrities everywhere."

- Tim Cavanaugh at Hit and Run.

The Supreme Court says the feds can no longer persecute a doctor for discussing medical marijuana. You wouldn't think a case like this would be necessary, would you? But the drug warriors aren't exactly rational thinkers. Read what Dr. Andrea Barthwell, deputy director at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has to say:

"There is a difference between feeling better and actually getting better. There is no scientific evidence that qualifies smoked marijuana to be called medicine. Further, there is no support in the medical literature that marijuana, or indeed any medicine, should be smoked as the preferred form of administration. The harms to health are simply too great."

I'll skip over the bald faced lie there, as evidence of marijuana's efficacy as medicine continues to mount, and that odd bit of logic about a non-medicine having a 'preferred form of administration.' What stands out from that quote is her apparent belief that her office and the White House are the best judges of medical science. I don't think many people outside D.C. would take that claim seriously.

Way back in July I wrote a bit concerning the rash of cat mutilations in the Denver area. I posited that the cats were being killed by wildlife, and a few weeks later the authorities came to the same conclusion.

Someone found that post and left this alternate theory:

Cat Mutilations, Sleep Paralysis and the Human DNA Hyper-Dimension.

Posted by: Scared Snitless at October 14, 2003 09:56 AM

Mr[s]. Snitless left a very interesting link with his[her?] name. Sometimes this blog stuff is too much fun.

Sometimes you find the free market cause being taken up in the oddest corners. Rocky Mountain News wine critic Jennifer Rosen traces the course of an imported wine and counts the hurdles a new wine importer would have to navigate. Her list:

1. Federal import license, $500, 3 to 5 month wait.

2. Register an office for each state in which the wine is sold, $100 to $350 per state.

3. Find a distributor for each state or even each county. These distributors will add their own markup to the price of your wine. State governments will not allow you to act as your own distributor.

4. Create and print a new English language label for the wine. The label will have to meet the federal requirements for warning labels and such.

5. After shipping, wait ten days for the wine to clear customs.

In Rosen's hypothetical case the bottle of wine that sells in its home country for $4.50 winds in U.S. stores at $15.50 per bottle.

Tax protestors often note that half of the average American's paycheck goes to taxes. When you count the cost of regulation, government's cost is actually much higher.

Picking up on an Arthur Silber post I quoted here, Jim Henley expands:

I tend to think of the Republican and Democratic parties less as exponents of ideologies than as constituent service organizations - the Chamber of Commerce, defense contractors and low-church adherants over here; public employees and recipients of transfer payments over there.

"[T]he drug war is so profitable to law enforcement, that they are importing criminals from other countries."

Update: At the risk of turning this blog into All Drug War News, All the Time, which was never my intention, comes this cute little story:

Boyfriend and girlfriend, 15-year-olds Brandon Kizi and Andra Ferguson are both asthma sufferers and both students at Caney Creek High School. At least, they were, until Andra began suffering an asthma attack at school.
"I couldn't breathe, and I was just very short of breath," recalled Andra. "My chest was tightened up and it was hurting."
Brandon described the incident. "Her face was turning a little reddish-pink and she looked pale, as far as I could see. I loaned her my inhaler. I walked her to the nurse's office and loaned her my inhaler."
That's when the trouble started. The school nurse called the school police, who arrested Brandon. They charged him with a felony, namely distributing a dangerous drug for loaning out his prescription inhaler.

He might have saved her life, and he may well go to jail. Courtesy of the War. On. Drugs. Does this make you mad? Do you have a pulse?

Link courtesy of TalkLeft.

So much of what we libertarians have to do to succeed is to change the way people think, or as the Samizdata writers say, 'change the meta-context.'

Libertarian thinking in some cases seems so obvious to us, but not to others. Case in point - a high ranking Admininistration official proposes to impose random drug tests on school kids. We would immediately know that such a proposal is a blatant affront to the fourth amendment of the Constitution. So blatant, in fact, that said official should be immediately relieved of his duties. But what is so obvious to us is not so to anyone in the press or the Administration.

The aftermath of the California recall has some Democrats saying some truly bizarre things. Take this, from the comments to this Calpundit post:

Okay, so let's say that we accept defeat graciously. Um, Cal, please, please tell me — when do we get to stop accepting defeat graciously? Where is it getting us? Texas, Colorado, California, Florida, Max Cleland, hell, Michael Dukakis — when do we get to fight back just as dirty? When do we stop getting raped by the GOP and then turning around and thanking them after it's over?

After the campaign to smear Ahnold (see the last post), I can't think of anything Democrats could do to fight any dirtier, short of actual bombs and bullets. I might, gently, suggest that they stop trying to fight dirty and consider finding some productive issues and honorable candidates for future campaigns.

Arthur Silber read these same comments and adds:

What I find more significant, and much more depressing, is that the reactions on all sides to the recall has revealed openly what has been true for a very long time. I realize that partisans on both sides will not acknowledge this, and that they would rather be dragged screaming to their deaths than think in terms of basic principles, but I shall state the issue nonetheless. The Republicans and Democrats agree on all fundamentals, and they are only arguing over details -- over who gets to rig the game, and who gets the spoils. And what we now see is open gang warfare.

To make things worse there's this statement from Howard Dean:

Today's recall election in California was not about Gray Davis or Arnold Schwarzenegger. This recall was about the frustration so many people are feeling about the way things are going. All across America, George Bush's massive tax cuts for the wealthy are undermining state budgets, causing cutbacks in services and increases in local property taxes. Were recalls held in every state, it's quite possible that 50 governors would find themselves paying the price for one president's ruinous national economic policies. Tonight the voters in California directed their frustration with the country's direction on their incumbent governor. Come next November, that anger might be directed at a different incumbent...in the White House.

Could he be more wrong? Remember, Bush hasn't cut spending at all, in fact quite the opposite. Davis's fault, other than being an all around unsavory character, is that he refused to control spending, no matter what that did to the tax rates in California. If Dean doesn't realize this he is really out of touch.

The outbreak of accusations against Schwartzenegger have been scandalous by themselves, even if they are true it's apparent the stories were an orchestrated effort to keep Davis in office. The L.A. Weekly is on the case, investigating the L.A. Times and its 'Arnie is a groper' story trend.

Arthur Silber has an overview. It's important to note that neither Mr. Silber, the L.A. Weekly, nor myself are fans of Arnie as governor. However, I think any campaign capable of this, the dirtiest of dirty tricks, is unworthy of anyone's vote. I've already endorsed Gary Coleman, but I'll be happy with anyone but Davis.

Often a new blog will link back to any blog to give an incoming link. What are the chances?

Thanks to Dave Cullen for bringing this fine new site to my attention.

If you're lucky and quick you might be the 50,000th visitor here. Say hi to Vicky.

Hi Vicky!

The Denver Post has produced one of the worst editorials I've ever had the misfortune of reading. This in response to the Mark Paschall jury nullification story I wrote about here. Some lowlights:

In Paschall's case, the GOP needs to ask itself if this man - who has been handing out free booklets on jury nullification, a corrosive abrogation of the rule of law and the fundamental concepts of American freedom - really represents the "party of Lincoln."

I wonder what Lincoln thought about jury nullification?

"We the People are the rightful master of both congress and the courts - not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." - Abraham Lincoln.

Well, that sounds like he might like the idea. The GOP, sadly, might not.

Paschall may attempt to spin his advocacy of this nonsense until he is blue in the face, but that will not change the shameful, blood-stained place jury nullification holds in American history. For the record, jury nullification was the mechanism by which Ku Klux Klansmen and other bigots escaped justice when they murdered African-Americans.

It's also the mechanism by which people assisting runaway slaves 'escaped justice.' How do the Denver Post editors feel about that?

Jurors becoming a law unto themselves paves the way for the total destruction of the laws that guarantee freedom for all Americans and that protect the few and the powerless from the many and the powerful.
Paschall may attempt to ascribe some high moral purpose to the concept, but he is deluding himself and the public if he believes this idea has any place in a modern, civilized society.

Garbage. Jury nullification is one of the last lines of defense for freedom in a civilized society. That's one of the main reasons the jury system was created in the first place, to rein in government's immoral or unjust laws. Paschall may be a hopeless theocrat but the Post editors seem to have no clue about the concepts of freedom or democracy.

Religion is the basis of many people's conscience and provides guidance in their daily lives. But not all people have the same or even any religious beliefs. Hence, we have laws under the Constitution to govern the affairs of the people.

As I explained, the jury nullification movement is not religion based, and the Post misleads by implying it's so.

The example of bigots' use of jury nullification is an isolated example of a good concept used badly. Democracy isn't always pretty. Much more often nullification is used to minimize the damage of bad laws, most recently in drug war cases and tax prosecutions. It's a juror's DUTY to vote for acquittal when the juror recognizes that the defendant is not worthy of the punishment he will receive, even when that defendant might be objectively guilty of the law. The runaway slave cases are perfect example of this. Also, the famous 1670 case of William Penn, who was objectively guilty of failure to practice the Anglican religion, but who was spared beheading by a jury with a conscience.

One of the most famous modern cases of jury nullification is the Laura Kriho case which happened here in Colorado. As a juror Ms. Kriho refused to vote guilty in a drug dealing case in Gilpin county. An enraged judge then levied contempt charges in Ms. Kriho, which were eventually overturned. Kriho was doing exactly as a juror should, judging that the law itself was unfair, and refusing to convict. Modern trials stack the juries during voir dire, so this rarely happens. The Jury Nullification movement, led by The Fully Informed Jury Association, is attempting to change the way juries are selected so that juries have a more representative selection of society, rather than the carefully selected people who now sit on juries in these cases. Paul Grant was Kriho's lawyer and is on the advisory board for FIJA. He lives right here in the Denver area and has written opinion pieces on other topics for the newspapers. I wonder if the Post editors bothered to ask him about the situation, since he is a leading expert and is right here in our back yard.

Sadly, the Denver Post seems unaware of the rich pro-freedom tradition of jury nullification, and thousands of people will have little education on the subject other than this woefully mis-informed editorial.

All I can say is, poor puppies.

TWO Labrador dogs had cocaine surgically implanted in their stomachs by drug traffickers.

The attempt to smuggle the drugs, weighing 1.6kg, which left one of the dogs dead and the other extremely ill, is believed to be the first of its kind to come to light

Eewww. Poor dogs.

From the comments:

Hey WaltinD. I was just wondering if you and the wife are planning to move to NH? I just read an article on the FOXNews website that said that state had beat out all others to be the host of a Libertarian exodus from all over the country. I was pulling for SD, but I suppose NH will get more national attention.

Posted by Larry at October 1, 2003 07:03 PM

New Hampshire. This is why I didn't sign up for the Free State Project. It's a great idea, concentrating libertarian voters in one sparsely populated area of the country. I hope it works. But I don't want to move to New Hampshire. I'm sure it's a great place, but I like the West. I was pulling for Wyoming, myself. Lots of open space there.

I will predict that if they pull it off, that is if they manage to get a libertarian plurality at the polls, they will be very successful. They will create a business haven and attract thousands of new jobs. Unfortunately the people who come in to take the new jobs will undo the initial progress and politics will revert to business as usual.

Via Instapundit, an article by Jack Ganssle:

California's recall election will be tallied by a mix of voting machines, ranging from punched cards to the latest in high-tech wizardry. Anyone following the comp.risks forum knows of the furor over electronic voting machines.

That's a strong statement, but it applies to any product that does not fulfill its mission. In the case of voting, the only important feature is trust. And few computer scientists feel the devices deliver an accurate count.

There's more.

I used to be a Rush Limbaugh fan. When he first came on the air there was nothing like it. He was funny.
As the years went by the appeal of the show waned, and I often wished he would go after Republicans as ferociously as he attacks Democrats - now that would be a show! But the real problem with the show is that as much as he prides himself as a logical thinker he tosses linear thinking out the window when it comes to certain conservative issues, especially the drug war.

As you all probably know by now, Rush may be in big trouble in that department. Reports are he has has been buying Oxycontin, a prescription pain medication, on the black market, and in large quantities. If convicted of such he could be subject to a long prison term.

As Reason Magazine reported last April, the feds have inexplicably been cracking down on Oxycontin abuse, and as a result patients in serious pain, many with terminal conditions, have been unable to get strong pain medication. Doctors are terrified of being prosecuted as drug dealers.

It's probably a vain hope, but if Rush is prosecuted using laws intended for drug dealers there could be a backlash against the drug war itself, as a whole new audience would come to realize the futility of such prosecutions. However, regardless of the evidence, I imagine the feds will decline to prosecute him to fullest extent of the law. That sort of thing is saved for people who aren't friends of the President. Drug WarRant has a concise take on the hypocrisy of it all:

Rush has often vocally condemned those with drug abuse problems. He has denied on his show that drug abuse is a disease. If, in fact, the stories are true, then he has been a hypocrite, and for that I do not excuse him. He is responsible. According to Drudge, President Bush has expressed his support of Rush -- a president who is likely to have engaged in "youthful indiscretions" regarding drugs, and yet has presided over the most oppressive drug policy in U.S. history. Former President Clinton admitted that he smoked marijuana, yet his office started the persecution of medical marijuana in California, and he brought us General Barry McCaffrey as drug czar, who also focused on enforcement.

If this story is true, and Rush has been using large amounts of illegal drugs, it highlights some of the circular reasoning of the drug war. He has, by all accounts, been functioning normally while using drugs.

So ask the drug warrior,

'Why do we send people to prison for using illegal drugs?'

'Because drugs are harmful, of course!'

'And how are illegal drugs so harmful?'

'Because you might wind up in prison from using them!'

For more see Hit and Run, and Atrios [multiple posts], Right Wing News, and Arthur Silber, and TalkLeft, and just about anyone else with a website, it seems.

Mark Paschall, ex of the state lege and now Treasurer of Jefferson County, Colorado, has been handing out pamphets to potential jurors. The pamphlets explain the concept of jury nullification, but with an unusual slant. I'll let the Denver Post explain, from an article titled 'Official advises jurors on God's law.'

The pocket-sized booklets promote "jury nullification," a concept built upon since 1989 by politically conservative groups that argue juries have the right to not only decide guilt or innocence, but also whether laws are just and adhere to God's law.

"YOU ARE ABOVE THE LAW!" the booklet says. "As a JUROR in a trial setting, when it comes to your individual vote of innocent or guilty, you truly are answerable only to GOD ALMIGHTY."

This is innacurate, as the jury nullification movement is not a religion-based effort. In fact, the people I know who favor jury nullification are often agnostics or atheists. I was so surprised by the tone of the Post's article that I first suspected it was written with a bias against nullification so strong that the article was grossly slanted. So I searched for a copy of the pamphlet online, and read it myself. Sadly, the Post article is right on the money when it comes to the literature Paschall was distributing. Read the thing for yourself. Talkleft has more.

Mr. Paschall, you once stood before a roomfull of Libertarians and asked us to refrain from running candidates against sympathetic Republicans, including yourself in that number. I was present in that room. Now I don't think you understand Libertarians at all.

Most importantly, I wish you'd stop corrupting religion by mixing it with politics.

As uber-annoyance Arianna Huffington drops out of the California race Talkleft notes some voters have already sent in their ballots - it's too late for them to switch their votes. Huffington couldn't even fail properly.