Tag: politics

Not so much in these latter days of what used to be the Republic:

In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee today, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told representatives that American citizens can be assassinated by the US government when they are oveseas. Blair said the comments were intended to “reassure” Americans that there was a “set of defined policy and legal procedures” in place and that such assassinations are always carried out by the book.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R – MI) inquired about the procedures involved, asking what the legal framework was under which Americans could be killed by the intelligence community.

Blair insisted that under no circumstances would Americans be assassinated overseas for criticizing the government, adding “we don’t target people for free speech.” Rather they are subject to assassination when the government decides they are a threat and when they “get specific permission.” Exactly who was giving that permission was unclear.

It would certainly be interesting to know precisely what defines threat these days. Are they talking about employment in a secret Iranian nuclear weapons facility, making fun of Obama’s teleprompter, or shorting the stock market? Regardless, one would think that an official U.S. government policy of assassinating American citizens might be of some small interest to the Tea Party movement, given their much-ballyhooed concerns about government overstepping its bounds.

No matter how neoconservative you are, no matter how much of a pro-war National Greatness Conservative you might be, no matter what a complete Obama Democrat you have been since his glorious ascension to the Cherry Blossom Throne began, you cannot possibly condone your government targeting your fellow American citizens for execution sans arrest, trial, or conviction.

Terry Pratchett is an author of wonderful fantasy books. He is also, quite lamentably, a victim of early-onset Alzheimers. And as an ethicist, logician, and political activist I can only say that he makes a wonderful fantasy author:

Sir Terry said that if he knew he could end his life at a time of his choosing, without the fear of incriminating a friend or family member, he would enjoy the rest of his life far more. “If I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as precious as a million pounds. If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice,”

Sir Terry can already die at any time he likes. He can walk out in front of an onrushing truck today. He can blow out his brains with a .50 Desert Eagle tomorrow. Alternatively, next Thursday he can walk into one of the many mosques of Londonistan and wave around a penciled caricature of a certain individual who is not under any circumstances to be depicted. The motto: “My life, my death, my choice” is not only misleading, it is a cowardly evasion of the obvious. It is the frightened cry of a stricken man who is afraid to kill himself and prefers for someone else to take the responsibility from him.

There is room for reasonable disagreement about how those who are unexpectedly rendered helpless are treated, particularly if their previous wishes are clearly expressed in notarized writing. But any man who is capable of giving a public lecture on assisted suicideconsensual murder is also clearly capable of exercising his own choice with regards to the continuation of his present existence. Do not misunderstand me here; I don’t dislike Terry Pratchett nor do I want him to die. I would vastly prefer that he survive long enough for them to find a cure so that he can keep writing his excellent and underrated books. And while I have sympathy for the man, I have none for the suicide activist.

If the man really wants to die for fear of his disease, then he should simply go ahead and take responsibility for the act himself, whether that is today, tomorrow, or two years from now. It’s precisely because it is his own decision that no one else can assume the responsibility for ending his life. It is evil and stupid and cowardly to attempt to lay the foundation for what is already known to have led to the murder of more than 15 children per year in the Netherlands simply because you don’t have the fortitude to commit suicide while you’re of sufficiently sound mind and body.

I hope that Mr. Pratchett has not seriously thought the matter through, as it’s hard to imagine that he genuinely desires the English infanticide that would inevitably follow to become a part of his legacy. Law should not be based on enjoyment, especially when a more accurate description of what Pratchett is saying is “my life, my death, my choice, your action.”

I have to admit that I do find this sort of self-destructive political action to be amusing:

On Tuesday, unions in Oregon won a charred earth victory that will drive already troubled Oregon, straight off the cliff. Oregon voters passed Measure 66 which raises tax rates on individuals who earn more than $125,000 and couples with incomes greater than $250,000. Voters also passed Measure 67 which increases business taxes.

The worst thing is that Measure 67 taxes gross revenue. So, if a business is losing money, it still has to try to come up with money from somewhere in order to pay its tax bills. Or, it could just, you know, close. I wonder what will happen to the Oregon unemployment rate? I mean, who could possibly foresee what the consequences of tax hikes in a difficult economic environment might be.

And when Portland looks like Detroit, the stinking, filthy left-wing masses will rage at the evil John and Jane Galts who either left or quit working in order to sustain them. I can’t believe that anyone still believes in the myth of progress after watching people voluntarily commit the same idiocies over and over and over again.

Forget the possibility of feigning offense, I don’t think this female Democrat understands the subtext of what she said:

A female Democratic lawmaker in footage released Sunday said Congress could pass healthcare if female lawmakers “sent the men home.”

Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.) said that both Republican and Democratic women members of Congress understand how to care for relatives and thus want the healthcare system to change.

“We go to the ladies room and the Republican women and the Democratic women and we just roll our eyes,” she said. “And the Republican women said when we were fighting over the healthcare bill, if we sent the men home…” at which point she was interrupted by loud applause.

I’m all for this idea. In fact, I think it should be significantly expanded. I think every male politician in America should resign his office and let the womenfolk run things for as long as they want to do so. Because that will be the fastest and easiest way to end the disastrous women’s suffrage experiment that I can imagine. There are two words that describe a matriarchal society and those two words are “grass huts”.

First, voting is not freedom. Second, voting is far from the defining aspect of a society. Would you rather have the right to vote between eating leeches and eating worms accompanied by dirty rainwater, or be served an excellent steak accompanied by an elegant red wine? The states are supposed to be the laboratory of democracy. So, let’s try a scientific experiment. In ten states, only women vote for women leaders. In ten states, only men vote for male leaders. In ten states, everyone votes everyone like it is now. In ten states, only women vote in a direct democracy. In ten states, only men vote in a direct democracy.

I would bet that the superior system would be apparent within 7 years and conclusive within two decades.

I’m not a fan of Jon Stewart, but I’ll say this for him. The more the Democratic Party disintegrates under the pressure of wielding power, the more bitter and funny he becomes.

And Cramer… nice call!

In which I explain some political realities to Mr. Scalzi:

From a purely strategic point of view, I’m not sure why they don’t just ram the thing through the House as is, fiddle with it a bit during reconciliation and get to Obama to sign it. To put it bluntly, the Democrats will look better by flipping the GOP the bird and then using the ten months until the 2010 election to get voters back on their side than showing to the voters that despite a large majority in both houses, they collapse like a flan in the cupboard at the first setback.

They don’t because they know they’ll get utterly slaughtered in the 2010 elections if they do that. Contrary to what many progressives believe, what passes for health care reform is just not massively popular in America. As it stands, Democrats should hang onto the House in the fall. If they are so foolish as to flip the GOP and the Tea Party movement the bird, they will lose it.

Of course, all either party has to do to become dominant in the near-term is run against the banks on a platform of financial and economic reform, but both are too in Wall Street’s pocket to do so.

It took a while, but Daniel Hannan’s summary of the BNP’s ideology has finally percolated up to the front pages:

The trouble is that it is a national socialist party. Take a look at its 2005 election manifesto. You won’t find much about reducing the power of the state and increasing that of the individual. It has a curiously dated air of the 1960s and 1970s, with talk of controlling the commanding heights of the economy and building barriers to trade. To be kind to the BNP, one might call it a corporatist party. To put it more roughly, one might say that it is a fascist party, a Left-wing authoritarian party. One thing is certain. As a socialist party, the BNP can only be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

The important point to note is that the problem with the BNP is not that it’s a national party, but that it is a socialist one. That is why it takes votes from Labor, not the Conservatives, much less UKIP. Basically, if someone is talking about “commanding heights” in any non-military sense, there is approximately zero chance he is right-wing.

Or it will be soon, anyhow. The media director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition sends the following email:

As you may know, just moments ago, the California Assembly Public Safety Committee approved a marijuana legalization bill, AB 390, by a vote of 4 – 3.

This is the first time that a state legislative committee has voted to legalize marijuana for non-medical purposes. Judge Jim Gray, who retired last year from the California Superior Court in Orange County and is a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, released this statement:

“The mere fact that there was a vote in the Assembly to regulate and control the sale and distribution of marijuana would have been unthinkable even one year ago. And if the bill isn’t fully enacted into law this year, it will be soon. Or, the bill will be irrelevant because the voters will have passed the measure to regulate and tax marijuana that will be on the ballot this November.”

This may be the first intelligent thing California has done in decades. It’s about time; now the rest of the country should legalize it too. Of course, a cynical economist might suggest that the only reason marijuana is being legalized now is that the PTBs are very eager to ensure that the citizenry is as mellow as possible before the next meltdown. Anyhow, I find it more than a little ironic that pot will probably end up being more socially acceptable than tobacco in another decade or three.

I don’t partake of the herb myself, but I am a strong supporter of drug legalization on libertarian grounds. So, this is good news even if it’s probably more driven by California’s desperate need to increase tax revenue and decrease prison spending than anything else.

I found it difficult to believe that Uganda was on the verge of passing a law that would require the death penalty for merely being homosexual as various atheist sites have been reporting, especially since by all reports it is an extremely popular law. Unsurprisingly, about thirty seconds of research revealed that the critics of the law have played a little fast and loose in their portrayal of it. While homosexuality is illegal in Uganda and has been for more than 100 years, the death penalty attached to the new law is primarily intended to stop the homosexual rape of children and the disabled and passing on the HIV virus.

Given that Uganda is one of the third-world countries presently targeted by sex tourists and the country also passed laws against cannibalism and sex tourism recently, it should be perfectly clear that the law involves more than societal hatred for homosexuals. Now, I don’t support capital punishment in criminal law because I believe giving the state the power of life or death over its citizens is an inherently dangerous idea. Nor do I understand how locking up homosexuals in same-sex prisons is supposed to be an effective deterrent. I would not support a law like the anti-homosexuality bill being enacted in the United States since legality is not morality and homosexuals should be free to choose Hell in their own way, just like everyone else is.

However, the more pressing question is not why some Western Christians would fail to denounce this law, but rather, why those who so vehemently oppose it are defending the right of gay pedophiles to rape children. Now, it’s perfectly reasonable to take a position opposing the long-term jailing of individuals for the crime – and in Uganda, it has long been a crime – of engaging in homosexual acts, although it’s not actually all that reasonable unless you are normally in the position of expressing your opinion regarding Ugandan law. But life sentences for practicing homosexuals is clearly not the only thing most of these sites are complaining about because they are specifically referencing the death penalty.

This reaction against what is clearly a very popular law in Uganda highlights the anti-democratic aspect of Western progressivism. If the great majority of people in Uganda don’t want to put up with homosexuality, why should they? It’s clearly the sacred Will of the People, after all. And more importantly, how is this of concern to anyone who doesn’t live in Uganda, barring those who will have to give up their pedophile safaris in the future? Given their opposition to such laws, you would think that banning the mass importation of Ugandans and other like-minded third-worlders who will support similar laws here in the United States would be a more urgent issue, but ironically, importing third-worlders is a policy favored by most progressives.

There is, of course, a perfectly rational solution to the situation. Since Uganda doesn’t want its gays, and American progressives insist that gays and immigrants are good for a community, why don’t progressive communities across America simply encourage gay immigration from Uganda? Everyone wins! And it’s eminently practical too, since Uganda’s estimated 500,000 gays would make up less than one-third of the 1.8 million foreigners who annually immigrate to America.