The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
Quote of the Day
The BATFEIEIO is a regulatory bureaucracy that has managed to make gun ownership as easy and enjoyable as the FAA has made piloting, the NHTSA has made driving, and OSHA has made running a small business. – Tam, in a comment at Carnaby Fudge.
Not to mention how truly wonderful the TSA has made commercial air travel.
Yup. “We’re from the government, and we’re here to help.”
Post Delayed
This is getting to be something of a habit. I’ve started working on my next überpost, and it’s taking on a life of its own. I’ll be spending the next week in Wickenburg/Bagdad again, so I’ll have to work on it in the evenings. My brother’s birthday was yesterday, so I’m stopping by in Phoenix on my way up to take him and his wife out to dinner, so I can’t work on the piece tonight.
This is to say that I don’t know when it’ll post. But it should be long!
Quote of the Day
I’m beginning to think that one of the ways one can judge the degree to which a society has progressed towards a government-controlled police state is to look at the reaction of the police to encroachment on “their turf.” In a free society where the police are truly viewed as the servants and protectors of the citizens, the cops respect the rights of the citizens and see them as partners in the battle against crime. In a place like New York or San Francisco where the government is pressing towards complete control of the citizens, the cops bitterly resent any interference with their monopoly on the use of force and treat all citizens as simply potential criminals. – Toren Smith of the late, lamented Safety Valve from a July 21, 2003 comment at the Samizdata post, Tony Martin: Political Prisoner
Movie Review – Changeling
My wife and I just got back from seeing Changeling. I have to agree with Roger Ebert:
Jolie plays Christine Collins without unnecessary angles or quirks. She is a supervisor at the telephone company, she loves her son, they live in a nice bungalow, all is well. She reacts to her son’s disappearance as any mother would. But as weeks turn into months, and after the phony “son” is produced, her anger and resolution swells up until it brings the whole LAPD fabrication crashing down. Malkovich as the minister is refreshing: He’s not a sanctimonious grandstander who gets instructions directly from God, but a crusading activist.
—
Eastwood’s telling of this story isn’t structured as a thriller, but as an uncoiling of outrage. It is clear that the leaders of the LAPD serve and protect one thing: its own tarnished reputation. Collins joins many other female prisoners whose only crime was to annoy a cop. The institution drugs them, performs shock treatment, punishes any protest. Mental illness is treated as a crime. This is all, as the film observes, based on a true story.
Eastwood is one of the finest directors now at work. I often say I’m mad at Fassbinder for dying at 38 and denying us decades of his films. In a way, I’m also mad at Eastwood for not directing his first film until he was 41. We could not do without his work as an actor. But most of his greatest films as a director have come after “retirement age.” Some directors start young and get tired. Eastwood is only gathering steam.
It’s a damned good film.
I saw it because A) it’s directed by Eastwood, and B) it was written by J. Michael Straczynski – the guy who conceived, wrote and brought to life Babylon 5. What an interesting partnership that had to be. I was not disappointed.
This is not an edge-of-your-seat thriller, but – if for no other reason – I recommend it to readers of my blog because you need to see what unfettered police power, Cartman’s “RESPECT MAH AUTHORITAH!” can really, has really produced here in America’s history.
It can happen here. It has happened here.
Quote of the Day
A long one, this time:
Seriously, folks, it’s already evident from his first week in office (since presidential power is primarily persuasive, the “-elect” doesn’t mean much) that President Obama is exactly what I guessed: nothing. A Gatsby, a Zelig, a warm breeze in a suit. A bright, but completely characterless and forgettable young man, with an unusual but hardly unique talent for reading speeches on TV. In short, America’s new anchorman.
Once again, America has re-elected her permanent government. Of course that was the only option on the ballot – as it has been since Wendell Willkie. There’s no need to worry at all. Nothing significant in Washington has changed, will change, or can possibly change.
For the next four years, public policy will flow smoothly from America’s universities to her agencies, unimpeded by Neanderthal populism or corporate corruption. Oh, no. All the populism will be of the fashionable, happy-clappy, Starbucks Unitarian flavor. The corruption will be communist – with a small ‘c,’ of course. – Unqualified Reservations: Barack Obama for the Last Time
Via Van Der Leun.
In the Mean Time . . .
. . . the election-day song-lyric post was popular, so I thought I’d put up another one.
The more things change, as they say. From 1972, Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s Texan Love Song:
I heard from a friend you’d been messing around
With a cute little thing I’d been dating uptown
Well I don’t know if I like that idea much
Well you’d better stay clear, I might start acting rough
You out of town guys sure think you’re real keen
Think all of us boys here are homespun and green
But that’s wrong my friend so get this through your head
We’re tough and we’re Texan with necks good and red
So it’s Ki yi yippie yi yi
You long hairs are sure gonna die
Our American home was clean till you came
And kids still respected the president’s name
And the eagle still flew in the sky
Hearts filled with national pride
Then you came along with your drug-crazy songs
Goddamit you’re all gonna die
How dare you sit there and drink all our beer
Oh it’s made for us workers who sweat spit and swear
The minds of our daughters are poisoned by you
With your communistic politics and them negro blues
Well I’m gonna quit talking and take action now
Run all of you fairies clean out of this town
Oh I’m dog tired of watching you mess up our lives
Spending the summertime naturally high
So it’s Ki yi yippie yi yi
You long hairs are sure gonna die
Our American home was clean till you came
And kids still respected the president’s name
And the eagle still flew in the sky
Hearts filled with national pride
Then you came along with your drug-crazy songs
Goddamit you’re all gonna die
Goddamit you’re all gonna die
Oh Lord, Goddamit you’re all gonna die
Listen now
I’ve Got Some Time Off . . .
. . . before I have to drive back up to Wickenburg on Sunday. I got some of the honeydo’s taken care of today, and I have a pistol match tomorrow morning. It’s been far too long since I sat down and wrote an actual essay.
Expect to see something longish posted on or before Sunday night.
Don’t expect “cheerful.”
Quote of the Day
We don’t have a Justice System, we have a Legal System, the purpose of which is to (supposedly) apply the law fairly to all in a predictable manner.
But even that’s gone by the wayside. The fact of the matter is that it appears that those in the system are interested in getting convictions, not in serving justice.
Found via David Codrea, here’s today’s QotD:
I have long been troubled by the uneven rules among circuits governing the use of unpublished decisions. It made a very irregular and unjust usage. Depending on where you lived, the precedent applicable would vary. Even worse, many courts in circuits which had rules prohibiting citation of unpublished decisions regularly used them for precedent in their own decisions. It made the principles underlying stare decisis unworkable. You should be able to know ahead of time what law will apply to the case you are researching. Use of unpublished opinions in some decisions and not in others, also raised the decision-making of courts to a level of secrecy and unpredictability that may have abridged constitutionality. – Out of the Jungle: “Done” Scotus: On using unpublished opinions
(Bold emphasis mine. Italics in original.) RTWT.
First Runner-Up for QotD
From Mostly Cajun:
We signed out from under that “ruler” thing in 1776. I don’t mind being led, but I am an American and a combat veteran. I don’t do “ruled”.
Can I get an “amen”?
Quote of the Day
I’ve been busy, so I didn’t notice that Mike Vanderboegh had published another excerpt from Absolved on Monday until Wednesday night. Here’s today’s QotD excerpted from that piece, and if you haven’t read the novel up to this point, I suggest that you read this part and then start at the beginning and read the whole thing:
You’ve got us surrounded, you poor bastards.
Remember that we consider our rights merely codified by the Constitution. They are, we sincerely believe, God-given and inalienable. Remember too that we are willing to die for our liberties rather than surrender them up meekly. Remember as well that men and women who are willing to die for their principles are most often willing to kill for them too.
Hey, Nicholson Baker can write Checkpoint, Vanderboegh can write Absolved.
Think of it as the “fairness doctrine” in action.