Click It or Ticket

Well, its that time of year again. I am sure you've send the endless stream of commercials sternly warning you that there is no escaping the all seeing eye of the law. Yep, Click It or Ticket is here again.

The program, created by the NHTSA, is ostensibly targeted at saving us from ourselves. Since the government likes to treat its citizens as property, rather than sovereign beings, this makes perfect sense to them and the nanny staters whose mission it is to use the government to protect us from ourselves.

Of course, in actual practice, the program is nothing more than a revenue grab. Police departments nationwide salivate at the opportunity of windfall revenues from the issuance of citations. As usual in politics, it is more about the money than anything else.

Girl Friday - 051807

This weeks Girl Friday is a study in the elegance of the female form:

Nickle Plated Epiphany

It is amazing the clarity of thought having a man with a gun chasing you can bring to even "true believers".

One such case is that of Michael DeBose (D-Cleveland). He was among those that just knew that people shouldn't be able to carry guns to defend themselves:

DeBose voted his conscience. He feared that CCW permits would lead to a massive influx of new guns in the streets and a jump in gun violence. He feared that Cleveland would become the O.K. Corral, patrolled by legions of freshly minted permit holders.

At least until he was chased by a man with a gun:

"The tall one reached in his pocket and pulled out a silver gun. And they both started running towards me."

"At first I just backed up, but then I turned around and started running and screaming."

"When I started running, the short boy stopped chasing and went back to the car. But the tall boy with the gun kept following me. I ran to the corner house and started banging on Mrs. Jones' door."

Now he sees the light:

"I was wrong," he said Friday.

"I'm going to get a permit and so is my wife.

"I've changed my mind. You need a way to protect yourself and your family.

"I don't want to hurt anyone. But I never again want to be in the position where I'm approached by someone with a gun and I don't have one."

DeBose said he knows that a gun doesn't solve Cleveland's violence problem; it's merely a street equalizer.

"There are too many people who are just evil and mean-spirited. They will hurt you for no reason. If more people were packing guns, it might serve as a deterrent.

Better late than never I guess.

Government Funded Science

As a follow up to one of my points in this post, namely the problem with government funding of science, be sure to go check out this piece by Robert Higgs over at LewRockwell.com:

When your research implies a "need" for drastic government action to avert a looming disaster or to allay some dire existing problem, government bureaucrats and legislators (can you say "earmarks"?) are more likely to approve it. If the managers at the NSF, NIH, and other government funding agencies gave great amounts of money to scientists whose research implies that no disaster looms or no dire problem now exists or even that although a problem exists, no currently feasible government policy can do anything to solve it without creating greater problems in the process, members of Congress would be much less inclined to throw money at the agency, with all the consequences that an appropriations cutback implies for bureaucratic thriving. No one has to explain all these things to the parties involved; they are not idiots, and they understand how the wheels are greased in their tight little worlds.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

Libertine vs Libertarian

One of the most common things that I run across when either directly discussing political philosophy or reading others discussion of it is the conflation of libertine with libertarian, especially, but not only, among conservatives. However, they are by no means the same and should not be treated as such by anyone that considers themselves to be informed.

When I hear the term libertine, it is not great libertarian thinkers such as Bastiat, Rand and Mises that come to mind. Rather I think of people such as the Marquis de Sade, Ami Perrin or John Wilmot. I think of rejection of imposed religious morals and sexual freedom exercised to the utmost extremes.

When I hear the term libertarian, on the other hand, I think of personal freedom from government coercion and laissez-faire capitalism. I also think of personal responsibility. To be sure, I see how it could be easy for those opposed to ideas such as the legalization of drugs and prostitution to confuse libertarian advocacy for the legality of such things for libertine philosophy, but only if they were not being intellectually honest with themselves.

The fact that a libertarian may call for legalization of such things does not mean that he is rejecting social standards, it means that he is rejecting the forced implementation of those standards via government coercion.

To be sure, there may well be libertine libertarians, but the two are distinct philosophies and should be treated as such.

Turtle Bay Perfidy

I gave up some years ago trying to view the United Nations as a serious body whose intent was to accomplish serious things. The idea behind the founding of the UN was a noble one, but noble ideas from yesteryear have not been able to save the UN from the fatal flaws of its charter.

These flaws have been used time and again to not only render the organization useless in accomplishing it various stated goals, but also to turn it into a stick with which second rate thugs and dictators can smack the West in general and the US in specific, a task in which they are gleefully joined by nations such as France looking to exercise a position of world power that they haven't had in hundreds of years.

The latest in a long line of various corruptions, scandals and inconceivable actions involve Zimbabwe and Belarus, two countries ruled by ruthless thugs.

Zimbabwe was recently chosen to lead the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development. That's right the same Zimbabwe that, under the foul hand of Robert Mugabe has gone from a shining example for all of Africa, to among the worst of a long line of corrupt hellholes on that continent. As Peter Brookes points out:

The former British colony was once an outstanding example of African development. But then dictator Robert Mugabe began to fear losing his grip on political power - setting out to destroy domestic threats to his rule through land seizures and redistribution. The result? The once-prosperous country's economy has shrunk 40 percent since 2000 - with no end in sight. Years of consecutive negative growth and inflation (at over 2,000 percent annually) are the world's highest; 80 percent of the populace is unemployed and/or lives below the poverty line.

And a nation that used to be Africa's prime food exporter now faces widespread hunger. As many as 4 million have left the country, mostly for South Africa, putting Zimbabwe on par with Sudan's Darfur in refugee terms.

Life expectancy has plummeted - where once the average newborn would live into his or her 60s, that infant now survives only to his or her 30s. A population that should be 18 to 20 million is just 11 million - with a reported 1.3 million orphans.

This is a country that should be leading a commission devoted to smart economic development? What a joke! Well, it would be a joke if it wasn't so tragic.

Belarus, which is ruled by the Soviet wannabe thug Alexander Lukashenko, is about to be chosen to head the UN Human Rights Council. Belarus is so bad in fact that even many of the usually feckless human rights organizations are opposing this move, but this is the same council that was headed by Libya, so don't expect such opposition to be headed.

While none of this surprises me, I am continuously surprised that so many people still think the UN can be taken seriously as the sole purveyor of international legitimacy. The time for the US to do the right thing and completely abandon the UN and its failed system has long since passed, but there are just too many people in this country that are willing to overlook things such as the above situations, the mass corruption, and everything else wrong with the UN simply because they enjoy seeing the US beat about the head and shoulders by thugs. It doesn't matter to them how much the world suffers so long as the US is "kept in its place".

Cowardly Punks

I don't know how many of you have seen the video of the elderly gentleman beaten by the carjacking thug, but here it is:



This is the kind of thing that makes me sick. Not only is the guy that did this a cowardly bastard, but so are the jackasses that just sat by and watched it happen. I haven't checked yet, but you just know that somewhere, some idiot is making excuses for this thugs, blaming rich people or some other such nonsense.

More of the Same

Back before the 06 midterm elections, the second most voiced complaint from Dems was the "Culture of Corruption". According to them, if the Dems got control they would sweep in and clean house on the way things are done in Congress. Back then, I told my Dem friends they were crazy if they thought the Donkeys were any different than the Elephants.

Needless to say, I was right and they were wrong. The Dems have done next to nothing to rid Congress of earmarks, those nasty little add-ons to bills that members use to butter up constituents, payoff lobbyists, and fatten their own pockets.

Now that the Dems control the purse strings once again, they are not quite so eager to clean up shop, Robert Bluey points out:

So when Murtha faced Republican opposition for a $23-million earmark to fund the National Drug Intelligence Center, an operation in his hometown of Johnstown, Pa., he blew a gasket -- “unleashing a loud, finger-jabbing, spittle-spraying piece of his mind,” according to The Hill.

Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), a fellow appropriator, was the recipient of Murtha’s tirade for voting against the earmark in committee. Murtha threatened to pull a pet project from Tiahrt’s district to exact revenge. Fortunately for both members, the situation was resolved, and they walked away from the squabble with their projects intact.

Such is life in Washington, where members of Congress still don’t get it.

The Dems seem to have a short memory when it comes to their campaign promises. What a shock right? Well, only if you have no idea of how politicians work or if you are just so blindly partisan that you only see problems with the "other" side.

Democrats and Republicans are both quick to point out the problems with the other side, while blatantly ignoring their own party's lapses. As the saying goes, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." The truly disheartening thing is that there is no sign of change on the horizon. Their taste of power has almost completely cleansed the Republican party of all of its beliefs of small government and fiscal sanity, so even if they regain power, expect no changes.

I guess the best that can be hoped for is continued split power between Congress and the President. At least that slows the process down a bit so that not quite as much pork gets through, but both sides have shown they are eager to be "bought off" with pork; principles be damned when there is other people's money to be wasted.

Girl Friday - 051107

If this is the kind of stuff that Canada exports, we should definitely expand our trade relations.


Update: Because Invadesoda asked the question, here is the answer:

Campus Ignorance

Any time you are looking for an example of flat out ignorance, it is usually a safe bet to go looking at an institution of "higher learning". The latest example to come to my attention is at Hamline University in St. Paul, MN.

Apparently the administration felt that their students were in need of counseling after the massacre at Virginia Tech and sent out a group email to the students letting them know of the services.

One student, Troy Scheffler, who has a CC permit apparently thought there was a better way to handle the situation than counseling.

Scheffler had a different opinion of how the university should react. Using the email handle "Tough Guy Scheffler," Troy fired off his response: Counseling wouldn't make students feel safer, he argued. They needed protection. And the best way to provide it would be for the university to lift its recently implemented prohibition against concealed weapons.

"Ironically, according to a few VA Tech forums, there are plenty of students complaining that this wouldn't have happened if the school wouldn't have banned their permits a few months ago," Scheffler wrote. "I just don't understand why leftists don't understand that criminals don't care about laws; that is why they're criminals. Maybe this school will reconsider its repression of law-abiding citizens' rights."

A few days later, he again shot off an email, but decided to vent about a few other things as well.

After stewing over the issue for two days, Scheffler sent a second email to University President Linda Hanson, reiterating his condemnation of the concealed carry ban and launching into a flood of complaints about campus diversity initiatives, which he considered reverse discrimination.

"In fact, three out of three students just in my class that are 'minorities' are planning on returning to Africa and all three are getting a free education on my dollar," Scheffler wrote with thinly veiled ire. "Please stop alienating the students who are working hard every day to pay their tuition. Maybe you can instruct your staff on sensitivity towards us 'privileged white folk.'"

Apparently, that got some attention. He was placed on suspension and required to both pass a mental evaluation (at his expense) and convince the Dean of Students he was fit to be at the school.

Now, not having available the full text of the emails, I can't speak to whether or not Scheffler presented his arguments in a coherent manner. The fact that he is a 31 year old grad student with aspirations of law school makes me think that he likely did, but who knows. Regardless of that, the administration showed that, like most advocates of gun control, they are completely ignorant about the kinds of people that get CC permits.

They automatically assume them to be some kind of nut on the verge of killing everyone in site for the slightest of provocations. Cloaking themselves firmly in the events at VT, they even posted an officer at the door of his class.

He has also suffered embarrassment. Scheffler obeyed the campus ban and didn't go to class, but his classmate, Kenny Bucholz, told him a police officer was stationed outside the classroom. "He had a gun and everything," Bucholz says. Dean Julian Schuster appeared at the beginning of class to explain the presence of the cop, citing discipline problems with a student. Although Schuster never mentioned Scheffler by name, it didn't take a scholar to see whose desk was empty.

So apparently, expressing views in favor of the 2nd Amendment an against Affirmative Action are "discipline problems" at Hamline and warrant swift action and questioning of one's mental stability.

Of course, Hamline is a private institution and I believe the relationship between the school and it's students should be at will, but this seems a ham-fisted way to treat a student. If I were Scheffler, I would be asking for a pro-rated refund for the rest of the semester.

Prostitution and the Right to Self

With the possible exception of our call for legalization of drugs, nothing seems to alienate conservatives more than the libertarian idea that prostitution should be legal. After all, what conceivable reason could it be illegal to pay for something that it is legal to give away, namely sexual services.

The recent "Washington Madame" has Cathy Young asking the question, "Why is it still illegal to pay for sex?"

Even those who feel a certain schadenfreude at Tobias's downfall should be asking the question: should there have been a criminal case in the first place?

Prostitution is currently legal in virtually all developed nations, though often surrounded by restrictions and regulations. It is illegal everywhere in the United States except Nevada and, by a legal quirk, in Rhode Island if all transactions are conducted in a private residence.

The answer, I believe, is pretty obvious. People still find it acceptable to legislate their religious values. There can simply be no other reason for it than the fact that a certain segment of our population finds sex outside of marriage to be morally unacceptable. They can't get away with outright outlawing it, but they can at least keep people from paying for it, at least to an extent.

You see, having money for sex is only illegal if the only two people that benefit from the transaction are the two directly involved. Man A cannot pay Woman A for sexual services. However, Man B can pay both Man A and Woman A to have sex so that Man A can later sell the pictures or movie of the sexual services to the public. I guess that is OK since it fits into the collective ideologies of both the left and right, in that greater society gains benefit from it as well. That seems a bit odd to me, but such is our current system.

I am interested in hearing any arguments against the legalization of prostitution that you guys may have. Post them in the comments and I will then try to give the reason why it is an invalid argument.

Update: An anonymous commenter points to this site: http://www.prostitutionprocon.org/
It seems to cover most of the arguments both for and against, though I haven't had a chance to thoroughly review it yet.

The Fallacy of Collectivism

Over at Mises.org, there is always much of importance to read. One such must read is this article by Mises himself. Money paragraph:

The supporters of a heteronomous morality and of the collectivistic doctrine cannot hope to demonstrate by ratiocination the correctness of their specific variety of ethical principles and the superiority and exclusive legitimacy of their particular social ideal. They are forced to ask people to accept credulously their ideological system and to surrender to the authority they consider the right one; they are intent upon silencing dissenters or upon beating them into submission.

Politicize and Emotionalize: Al Gore Style Enviromentalism

It seems that the almost automatic response to anyone who questions Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is a loud and sustained charge of "Big Oil" payola towards those questioning the current "consensus". A big reason for this has been the lopsided alarmist trill coming from most of the world's media outlets. It is very rare to come across a piece covering AGW that isn't about the impending global catastrophe that awaits our planet. It is even rarer when a balanced piece manages to make its way out of Europe, whose media (if its possible) are even more over the top on this subject than the US media.

One such piece has managed to find its way onto the pages of Der Spiegel. While I did, at times, get the sense that the author is an advocate of the AGW theory, he was at least honest enough to bring up some very important points concerning the current movement. While describing the process for the creation of the summary of the IPCC report, he points out a major flaw in the way it is handled (though he never called it a flaw):

The document, known as the SPM, or Summary for Policymakers, contains the essence of the actual climate report, which is a scientific compendium divided into three volumes, each containing at least 1,000 pages. Negotiations were underway in Brussels over the summary of the second volume and, as always, it was a laborious process. The two groups debating the issue had little in common except a mutual interest in reaching a consensus.

On the one side were the authors of the report, all scientists, who have done little else in the last three years than work on this report. For many of them, it was already asking too much to compress the contents of more than 1,000 pages into a 23-page summary.

On the other side were the politicians, members of delegations from almost every country on earth. Sitting in alphabetical order in the chamber, their main concern was to adjust the report to suit their individual economic, environmental and foreign policies.

This is a major problem with the way the IPCC is run and its reports are produced. Science is supposed to be about knowledge, not political policy. Most people in the world, including the most of the politicians involved, do not posses the technical knowledge necessary to understand the either the theories and implications of those theories put forth in 1000+ page scientific studies. Therefore, people will naturally look to the SPM for guidance, but the SPM is not a scientific document, it is a political one. Its authors have political agendas and have no compunction at all about using it to accomplish those agendas.

Another flaw of the IPCC brought to attention by the article, though again perhaps not intentionally, is the funding of the IPCC:

It operates on a minimal annual budget of only €5 million ($6.8 million). To be able to fulfill its mandate, the IPCC is dependent on assistance from UN members. They finance the conferences and provide the scientists who, as authors, are responsible for the contents of individual chapters.

...

And the politicians were intent on preventing the scientists from gaining sole responsibility for the content of the reports.

As I mentioned above, if you are even remotely resistant to the idea of AGW, then you are immediately considered to be in the pocket of "Big Oil", but what is virtually never questioned is the funding and the motives of the scientists of the IPCC. Their money is dependent on governments and the politicians and bureaucrats that run those governments. Such funding is just as likely, if not more, to influence the views of those receiving it, as is any funding from energy companies.

One case where the authors views come through is in his description of Prof. Richard Lindzen's arguments against the current status quo of environmental belief:

Lindzen's arguments sound convincing, but they are still nothing but claims, popular theories as opposed to a transparent global process, a global plebiscite among climate researchers.

So here we get to it, the oft heard argument of a "consensus". But science is not about consensus. The mere fact that most people, even scientists, believe something has absolutely no bearing as to whether or not that something is actually true. History is rife with examples where the scientific consensus of the day was flat out wrong. Science is about falsifiable results capable of being consistently reproduced. The models currently being used just don't rise to that level. If fact, scientists don't aren't even sure yet at to what all variables belong in the models in the first place. It might be OK to use these models as a basis for further study of some particular theory, but it is entirely unacceptable to treat them, as they currently are, as some sort of proof of AGW is really beyond the pale, and not very scientific.

Naturally the only place such politicization can lead is to the over emotionalizing of the topic:

When it comes to his one remaining argument, however, Lindzen is dead-on. The tone of the debate, he says, is hysterical.

There is hardly a newspaper article and hardly a TV or radio program that doesn't conjure up images of "climate catastrophe," prophesy floods of gigantic proportions, droughts and hunger. Indeed, the media have developed something akin to a complete apocalyptic program.

It's the fault of the media, of course, but not exclusively. It's also the fault of a new hero, an environmental activist who likes to introduce himself by saying: "Hello, I was once the next President of the United States of America."

That's correct. Al Gore has seen his popularity skyrocket to rock star levels the world over by preaching global disaster. He has been so successful at this, in fact, that even twits like John Kerry are getting in on the act. Such emotionalism is even coming from those entrusted to make rational decisions about the available science:

But it is odd to hear IPCC Chairman Pachauri, when asked what he thinks about Gore's film, responding: "I liked it. It does emotionalize the debate, but it seems that it has to do that." And when Pachauri comments on the publication of the first SPM by saying, "I hope that this will shock the governments so much that they take action," this doesn't exactly allay doubts as to his objectivity. When Renate Christ, the secretary of the IPCC, is asked about her opinion of reporting on climate change, she refers to articles that mention "climate catastrophe" and calls them "rather refreshing."

Stefan Rahmstorf, a professor of the physics of oceans at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, one of the world's bona fide experts on the subject and the lead author of the current report, praised Gore's film unconditionally, even for its inclusion of the sequence depicting New York sinking into the ocean. And Rahmstorf's boss, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who serves as the institute's director and as an advisor to the German government, sounded a lot like Al Gore recently when he said in an interview: "We could see a one-meter rise in sea levels by 2100. The expected, climate-related shift in the ocean current could cause the water to rise by an additional meter in the Helgoland Bight." It sounds as if it could happen tomorrow. But it can't, and Schnellnhuber's colleague Rahmstorf, who has an inclination toward extreme scenarios, estimates that there is only a 10-percent probability that it will even happen at all.

Is activism trumping science?

No matter where one encounters officials from the IPCC -- at the organization's headquarters in Geneva, in Brussels during the negotiations over the SPM or in Potsdam, where the German authors, together with the Federal Ministry of the Environment, are staging a workshop on the world climate report -- everyone seems to be talking more like environmental activists than scientists these days.

In the face of this, I find it hard to understand how you cannot be skeptical about what is coming out of the IPCC these days.

Finding the Lost Individual

I remember back when I was in high school. I was pretty involved in debate, not the Lincoln-Douglas type, but rather the Student Congress type. In preparation, I started to read the Constitution so that laws I wrote, and arguments I made, would be constitutional.

During one of the events, I recall chatting with one of the students from another school about one of the bills that was on the agenda for the day. I don't recall the specifics, but it had something to do with gun control. As the other student was discussing it, he mentioned that the 2nd Amendment only applied to militias. Having just read the entire text of the Constitution a few days prior, this struck me as a strange argument.

Perhaps I was just naive, but that just didn't make any sense to me. As I would later learn, a good portion of the people that I discussed this with, well the ones that actually knew enough to intelligently discuss it, took basically the same view, that the 2nd Amendment is a collective right.

The reason that stuck me ass odd then and still strikes me as odd today is simple, I've read the Constitution myself. First, let's take a look at the language of the 2nd Amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

While "Militia" is certainly mentioned, to me, that has always just been filler. The important phrase is "the people". That phrase appears in the Constitution a total of 10 times, so I figure it is important to see how it used the other 9 times.

The first occurrence is in the Preamble:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It is very clear that "the People" as used here means all the individuals that make up the citizenry of the United States.

It next occurs in Article I Section 2:

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

This time the phrase means all the individuals that comprise the citizenry of the individual states.

The third time the phrase shows up is Article VII:

that it should afterwards be submitted to a Convention of Delegates, chosen in each State by the People thereof, under the Recommendation of its Legislature,

Here again the phrase refers to the individual citizens of the sundry states.

The fourth occurrence is in the 1st Amendment:

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's certainly no question that "the people" means individuals here. I think I'm starting to notice a pattern.

Of course next comes the 2nd Amendment and after that the 4th Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Yet again the phrase delineates an individual right. I guess I could go on, but I think you get the point. In every other instance, the phrase "the people" refers to individuals and their individual rights. Why would it mean something different in the 2nd Amendment? The answer, of course, is that it doesn't. The right to bear arms is an individual right and it seems to me the only way to view it otherwise is to be willfully blinded by your own anti-gun beliefs.

Fortunately, there are still some liberal scholars of good faith that put their scholarship ahead of their own bias. One such scholar is Harvard law professor Laurence H. Tribe. He was recently quoted in a NY Times article concerning the effect of liberal scholars in changing the view of the 2nd Amendment as an individual right rather than a collective right:

“My conclusion came as something of a surprise to me, and an unwelcome surprise,” Professor Tribe said. “I have always supported as a matter of policy very comprehensive gun control.”

I would expect that a lot of gun control types would be surprised with the answer they came up with if they were to actually think about the meaning of the 2nd Amendment rather than just knee-jerk dismissing the obvious conclusion.

My hope is that Parker vs DC (PDF) makes its way to the Supreme Court, where I believe its holding of 2nd Amendment as an individual right will be upheld. As we constantly see government power expand and individual rights restricted, it make for a nice change of pace.

Who's At Your Door?

Anyone paying attention is aware that the War on Drugs^TM has been an utter failure. The price of cocaine has dropped like a rock since the campaign began and our prisons are bursting at the seams with low-level, non-violent offenders guilty of nothing more than wanting to feel good.

Hand in hand with the War on Drugs^TM has been the militarization of police departments around the country. Nearly every medium sized or larger department in the country now has some type of paramilitary unit and it is not just high level Miami Vice style cartels that they are being used against, but normal people just like you and me that may or may not even use drugs.

These units are being used based on the flimsiest of warrants and in situations that couldn't possibly justify their use. Naturally, there have been dire consequences to their raids. Police are executing no-knock and knock-and-enter warrants on innocent people and in many cases, those innocent people are seriously hurt or killed. What's even worse, is that in many cases, police are lying and planting evidence to cover their own asses.

No one in the Blogosphere has been more diligent in covering this issue than Radley Balko. It is from Balko that I learned about the cases of Kathryn Johnson and Frances Thompson. Just two botched cases in one city by one department. The latter ended with just a scared 82 year old woman, the former with an 88 year old woman lying handcuffed and shot as she bled to death on the floor.

These are not isolated incidents either. There are stories just like these taking place all over the country. In fact, Cato has put the Google Maps API to use in the most important manner that I have yet to see. They are tracking botched paramilitary police raids around the country. Their list currently has 296 such stories, including 41 which involve the death of innocent civilians.

This is the kind of stuff that I have in mind when I think of the need for a strong 2nd Amendment. Often times, the response that I get from gun control advocates is that I am simply being paranoid and must be like the so called "nutjobs" at Waco or Ruby Ridge. Of course, what else would I expect from people that have no real concept of why the Founding Fathers even included the 2nd Amendment in the Bill of Rights. They felt the need for it not primarily for hunters or even self-defense from others, but rather for self-defense against a tyrannical government.

That someone could even consider the possibility of the need to defend yourself against a rogue government seems beyond their comprehension. Naturally, I don't need to point out that these are often the very same people that consider Bush to be akin to Hitler. Such irony would be lost on them anyway.

Who Will It Be?

The first 2008 primaries are still 9 months away, so what better time to engage in idle thoughts and useless predictions about the outcome for both parties.

Let's start with my thoughts on the Dems:

Hillary Clinton -- barring any major missteps, the likely nominee
Barack Obama -- already starting to falter under the spotlight
John Edwards -- possible VP selection
Joe Biden -- no chance
Bill Richardson -- possible VP selection
Christopher Dodd -- no chance
Dennis Kucinich -- no chance
Mike Gravel -- no chance
Al Gore -- things become much more interesting if he jumps in

Now on to the Reps:

Rudy Guiliani -- possible nominee or VP selection
John McCain -- rubs too many people wrong
Mitt Romney -- no chance
Ron Paul -- should get the nomination, but won't
Sam Brownback -- no chance
Tom Tancredo -- no chance
Tommy Thompson -- no chance
Jim Gilmore -- no chance
Mike Huckabee -- no chance
Duncan Hunter -- no chance
Fred Thompson -- not declared, but likely nominee

Of course, there is no way of knowing what will happen between now and then. Besides, the shear madness of the political thought process of both Democrats and Republicans boggles my mind, so trying to guess what they will actually do is really just pointless.

I probably have a better chance of guessing what country the next Ms Universe will be from and would undoubtedly enjoy getting to know more about the candidates much more.

Feel free to give me your thoughts on the matter in the comments.

Ron Paul Won't Get My Vote for President

Off the top of my head, I can't think of another elected official on the national level that has done more to consistently promote liberty in the modern era than has Dr. Ron Paul. In the face of the acerbic environment of DC, he has resisted the temptation to sway with the polls and has stood fast on principle. It is no wonder that the LP dubbed him as their candidate for President in 1988.

Of course, anyone who follows politics knows that third party candidates rarely have much success on any level, which is why Dr. Paul runs as a Republican. I am constantly amazed that he manages to get re-elected in TX-14 simply by putting an (R) at the end of his name rather than an (L), but without changing his message. He certainly doesn't do it with help from the RNC. To them, he is nothing more than a placeholder for the Republican Party. They do not actively support him, though they should. A good look at his views could do a lot to remind Republicans of many of the things they supposedly stand for.

By this point, after such a glowing description of Dr. Paul, you may be wondering why he won't be getting my vote for President. Simple. Republicans are idiots and he will be lucky to garner a few percentage points of the vote during the primaries. Therefore, he will not actually be running for the Presidency, but only the Republican nomination for President. Because of that, he won't be getting my vote for President.

He will get my vote for the Republican nomination though, and he should get yours as well. The Republicans have taken advantage of the fact that many liberty minded people feel like they are between a rock and a hard place come election time. They don't want to vote for whatever unappealing character happens to get the Rep. nomination, but they also find themselves afraid to vote for a third party candidate for fear of the unappealing character on the Dem side will win.

Believe me, that is a nauseating feeling indeed. I have voted for the LP candidate during the last 2 Presidential elections (since I started considering myself a libertarian), but I can say that the thought of Gore or Kerry being President scared the hell out of me. The thought of another Republican like Bush scares me as well, so I will undoubtedly vote for whomever garners the LP nomination once again. And once again, he will have no chance of actually winning.

Paradise Lost

As an Atheist, religion holds a certain curiosity for me. I grew up in the Church and my transition from believer to non-believer was a gradual one that took place over many years of continued study during my adult life. I don't seem to recall there being any one pivotal moment that changed my way of thinking. For years I considered myself Agnostic and just eventually completed the transition.

The extended transition is, I believe, a process that has made me much more accepting of those who still choose to believe. My transition to libertarianism from conservatism took place during this same extended time period.

Some people, however, are not so fortunate in their epiphanies. Take the case of the poor bastard pointed to here by Tim Blair. This fellow is apparently a true believer in the religion of Environmentalism (and yes it is a religion). Apparently, he was just recently slapped in the face with the realization that the orthodoxy's premier profit, Al Gore, is not pure of heart.

During his live slideshow today, however, he showed his true colors. One of his slides was a quote from Genesis, which he used to show that humans are the stewards of biodiversity. I have no problem with people quoting from the bible (as long as it makes sense), but I found it kind of funny that he went out of his way to announce that he did not mean to push his religious beliefs on people by using the scripture in his slideshow. I didn't really see the need for this disclaimer, because I actually agreed with the use of the scripture.

The slide I found particularly interesting/shocking/sad, was his new(?) slide containing a graph of human population growth over the past couple hundred-thousand years. It started off good. He pointed at the beginning of the graph, showing the population of humans on Earth from 200,000 years ago, and referred to the "rise of humans."

Cool beans. So he believes that Homo sapiens evolved from other hominid ancestors, right? Nope. In the very same breath, he then continued to explain that according to his religious beliefs, this "rise of humans" was God's creation of mankind - apparently 200,000 years ago. His graph then changed to include the caption "Adam & Eve" above this starting point.

One can only imagine that such a sight must have felt like a right hook from Tyson in his prime. After all, one of the most vociferous arguments from those who espouse the idea of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), is that anyone that disagrees with its teachings is either a shill for "Big Oil" or a backwards rube who rejects science, just like those idiot Christians.

The right hook was followed by a quick left jab:

I started laughing, and I had to consciously blink my eyes and double-check the screen to make sure I was seeing it properly. Let me get this straight...the guy's entire presentation exists in order to present people with the scientific data showing that human-caused climate change is a fact. He does his very best to include references in all of the slides, showing to any thinking person that this data is not made up, that it comes from the forefront of our scientific research (there was many slides containing data from Science journal, and a few from Nature).

At the same time, he tarnishes his beautifully crafted presentation by not only stating his belief in creationism - but by placing the words "Adam and Eve" right on the slide (which is actually a scientific graph) as a caption explaining the beginnings of mankind.

Once his head stopped spinning, I would bet that the sense of betrayal emanating from him must have been palpable to those closet to him.

Something doesn't add up here. On one hand, he is using science to predict the disastrous outcome of our current actions and rally support for taking proactive measures to make sure bad things don't happen, but on the other hand, he is clinging to stone-age beliefs that another very important area of science has proven wrong (that we humans evolved from other forms of life, and that every organism on Earth has a common ancestor).

And of course, all the religious people in the audience get to feel good knowing that this important politician sees no dilemma in using this this zero-sum belief system. I should also note that at this point in the lecture (I'll call it the schism) he stated that there is no conflict between science and religion. He appeared as though he wanted to say more about this, and even mentioned the Scopes trial, but then decided to continue on with the slideshow instead.

...

The schism pretty much ruined the rest of the show for me. His message about climate change and our need to take action was great, inspiring even. However, I am now somewhat confused about the sort of man that is Al Gore. If you're going to be intellectually honest about issues like climate change, than why not carry through to the next logical step and apply this kind of honest thinking to everything?

While it would be easy to engage in some good ol' schadenfreude at this poor bastard's realization that Al Gore is nothing more than an opportunist scumbag, it is never easy watching true believers abruptly faced with reality.

Update: Elliot Joseph has more thoughts on Environmentalism as religion.

Girl Friday - 050407

One of the regular things I like to do is a weekly post featuring the beauty of the human female form. I do this every Friday, and hence the title, Girl Friday.

Normally, I don't post Anime, but I like this picture so much that it is currently gracing my Desktop. I don't know who the artist is, but I like his work.

Liberty Dog V.3.0

OK...here we go again. Liberty Dog blogging V.3.0. I have created blogs twice before, One Billion Red Chinese and a Dog Named Liberty and Fuki Blog. Both are now defunct due to lack of time on my part. Well, the time constraints on my life haven't really changed, but there are just so many things that need to be talked about, that I will give it another go.

I promise nothing, so expect the same. I will blog when I can. In the past I have mostly done political blogging, with a bit of humor and some good ol' fashioned T&A thrown in for good measure. I expect that will pretty much stay the same this time around, though in order to keep more material flowing, I may do some link and point style blogging a la Instapundit.

Hopefully, those that know me will give me a spot in their blogrolls once again. It only takes a few seconds to write the code and if I slack off again, it is even quicker to delete it.

Over the next few days, I will recreate my own blogroll and such other things as are necessary such as adding Sitemeter, etc.

So I guess there is nothing left to say but, "Let the games begin!"