Fun Friday Poetry

On my last tax return, in the field where the IRS asked me to list my current occupation, I filled in "Steamboat Co-captain". The previous year it was "Freelance Breast-Density Analyst", and the year before that it was "Licensed Poet".

To be honest, though, I'm a lousy poet, and most everything I come up with is based on various rhymes for "Nantucket". A very good friend of mine, on the other hand, has a bard's soul in spades. Writing as "Jefferson T." and inspired by the film For Liberty, this poetic prose was sent to me titled For Wyatt:

The End is coming. We don't know exactly when it will be, but one thing is for certain: We will not forget what you did.

As for our children, they will be starving. They will have no shoes, but they will know Prudence. They will know hardship. And they will know Fortitude. To our children, we will confess our sins, without saying a word. And they will know Temperance.

And we will tell them about The Revolution. And they will know success. And they will know Justice.

And the next generation will carve your name into the trees. And they will know why.

My thanks to Jefferson T. for the contribution.

Public Masturbation, Maricopa County Style

You have got to be kidding me.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio rolled out the tanks to take down a man suspected of cockfighting.

West Valley residents in the neighborhood are crying foul after armored vehicles, including a tank, rolled into their neighborhood to make the bust.

Neighbor Debra Ross was so worried she called 911 and went outside where a nearby home had its windows blown out, was crawling with dozens of SWAT members in full gear, armored vehicles and a bomb robot.

“When the tank came in and pushed the wall over and you see what's in there, and all it is, is a bunch of chickens,” Ross said.

In a massive show of force on Monday, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant and arrested the homeowner, Jesus Llovera, on charges of suspected cockfighting.

Llovera was alone in the house at the time of the arrest, and he was unarmed.

“I think taxpayers should be shocked,” said Robert Campus, Llovera’s attorney. Campus said he believes the operation costs tens of thousands of dollars.

Deputies had no probable cause to believe Llovera was armed or dangerous, according to Campus.

Campus said he believes the entire scene was basically a stage, to help actor Steven Seagal’s TV show, “Lawman.”

Seagal was riding in the tank.

The Sheriff’s Department has entered into a contract with Seagal and part of that contract gives Seagal carte blanche to go along with the sheriff as he arrests people.

Thousands of dollars in damages were made to the property and 115 birds were euthanized on the spot.

Llovera was convicted of a misdemeanor last year of attending a cockfight and has no history of owning weapons.

Yet the sheriff’s office said they had reasons to believe Llovera might be armed.

“We're going to err on the side of caution. We're going to make sure that we have the appropriate amount of force in case we do run into anything like that,” said Sgt. Jesse Spurgin.[emphasis mine]

I don't know where to begin.

Joe Arpaio. Steven Segal. Tanks and stormtroopers descending on an American neighborhood to wrangle a man who has never even been accused of harming another human being. TV cameras glorifying it all. And Sgt. Spurgin calls it "err[ing] on the side of caution".

This isn't funny. It isn't wacky. And it isn't what life in a free society looks like.

Whole story via Channel 5 KPHO.

Doctors in the Senate = Better Soundbites

After last night's election, I am adding a shiny new quote to the "Freedom Quotes" section (right sidebar) of this blog:

America is exceptional, but it is not inherently so.

That subtle, insightful, and powerfully-true observation comes courtesy of Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-Ky).

No mountains, no plains, no hymn, no eagle, no star-spangled banner makes us great.  Only the carefully-crafted protections of the Constitution and the perpetual fight to maintain freedom as our highest ideal keeps us the most prosperous nation in history.  Here's hoping Paul & Co. have the necessary verve to escalate that fight in Congress.

Blogger Finds Himself in the 5000% Tax Bracket

Here is a quick list of activities in which you may have participated in 2009 that would have been more financially-successful "businesses" than the Scotticus Finch blog:

• Accepting gas money for a lift to the airport
• Returning a modest Christmas gift for a refund
• Checking vending machines for forgotten change
• Winning a bet that you couldn't eat a tablespoon of cinnamon

Certainly blogger Sean Barry of Philadelphia wishes he'd chosen one of those routes instead. Because of the $11 in Google AdSense revenue Barry earned over the course of two years, the City of Brotherly Love is hitting him up for a $300 business privilege license.

Marylin Bess received the same demand after claiming about $50 in revenue "over the last few years" from her green-living blog and other freelance writing online. And when Bess contacted the city: "I was told to hire an accountant," she says.

You can't blame the city for extorting every dime it can find, though. After all, Chinese hookers aren't just going to pay for their own responsible-drinking seminars.

Read the whole piece at the Philadelphia City Paper here.

You Think the House was "Disorderly" Before? Just Wait Until SWAT Gets Done with It

I'm already growing calloused to this never-ending parade of isolated incidences, so I'm going to start at the most important problem I found in this article, and that is:

What in the name of Poseidon's wet wedding tackle does the charge "disorderly house" mean?!?

CEDAR RAPIDS – Police in SWAT gear busted through a door and searched a Cedar Rapids home for drugs Thursday morning, but came up empty.

At least 12 officers surprised the tenants at 1135 33rdSt. NE when they arrived around 7 a.m. with a narcotics search warrant. Sgt. Cristy Hamblin, a police spokeswoman, later confirmed that nothing was seized from the house.

No one was taken to jail, but the tenants of the house, Justin Davis, 28, and his girlfriend, Erica Lewis, 26, were charged with disorderly house and signed a promise to appear in court, police said.[emphasis mine]

The end of the article goes on to explain that "'[d]isorderly house' is [a city ordinance] described as a building or room where someone 'resorted to for' illegal activity involving drugs, alcohol, gambling or prostitution..."

So, I ask again, what in the name of Pinocchio's splintered sphincter is "disorderly house", besides a consolation prize for homeowners who didn't satisfactorily play their role in the local police's action drama?

Coeds with Cell-Phone Guns Overrun Several Arizona Farms, Take Our Jobs, Begin Chemtrailing

My injuries are severe, but not fatal. (It takes more than a blast from Red Leader's feral wave inducer to stop ol' Finchy!) While I'm on the mend, please accept this post reprinted in its entirety from Radley Balko's blog The Agitator.

Another arrest for shooting video of an on-duty cop, this time in Ohio.

When a deputy sheriff began questioning Melissa Greenfield’s boyfriend at a Delaware County truck stop, she began recording video with her cell phone.

She never thought that she, or her phone, could be viewed as a danger as she documented the activities of public employees in a public place.

"I’m a 115-pound, 20-year-old girl wearing a cervical collar with nothing but a cell phone. I was not going to harm any officer," Greenfield said yesterday.

However, a sheriff’s sergeant saw the situation differently after Greenfield announced that she was recording video "for legal purposes and our own safety."

Sgt. Jonathan Burke wrote that he repeatedly ordered Greenfield to place the "unknown" object in her pocket and keep her hands free. When Greenfield refused, she was arrested and charged with obstructing official business and resisting arrest.

Burke wrote in his report that he feared that Greenfield could have been holding a dangerous object such as a "cell-phone gun"...

"Not knowing what the item in her hand was and having prior knowledge of all types of hidden weapons, including a cell-phone gun, I asked her several times to place it in her pocket and to keep her hands free," Burke wrote.

Greenfield said that, while driving her to the jail, Burke said that it was "unacceptable for me to be filming his activities."

"I wish I could be surprised," she said, "but I’ve heard so many stories of incidents like this happening before. ... There’s no law against videotaping police encounters."

Emphasis mine, to draw attention to the utter inanity of Dep. Burke’s report.

Greenfield is right. There’s no law in Ohio against videotaping police encounters. Unfortunately, there’s also no punishment for cops who violate the rights of Ohioans who try to do it. Delaware County Sheriff Walter L. Davis III is defending Dep. Burke and his cell-phone gun fears.

Greenfield says when she got the phone back, the video had been erased. Davis denies any of his deputies erased the video. Must have been a glitch.

Greenfield spent three days in jail. She pled no contest to the obstructing official business charge and was fined $20.

Also, depending on how you like the site redesign, it was either all my own inspired work, or the unauthorized meddling of the interns while I was bedridden.

Terrible Title, Depressing Themes, Susan Sarandon... HBO Must Hate Me

You Don’t Know Jack has been playing on a near-continuous loop on forty-two of the forty-six HBO stations lately. Starring Al Pacino as the infamous assisted-suicide advocate Dr Jack Kevorkian, Know Jack treats the viewer to an interminable* and macabre parade of heart-wrenchingly desperate invalids, each one begging Kevorkian for a means to end their suffering without leaving their loved ones to dig a bullet out of the headboard.

Liberty’s most basic premise is ownership of one’s body, so most of my gentle readers can likely extrapolate their own Finch-worthy argument in support of Kevorkian’s efforts. What struck me from the film, though, was the unexpected nausea induced by his methods. After losing access to the planned site for Kevorkian’s first assisted suicide at the last minute, the doctor carried out the procedure in the back of his VW van rather than pulling the plug* for the day and rescheduling. His apparatus for administering the lethal drug cocktail was jerry-rigged from secondhand bits of mismatched aluminum and binder clips, and –- in the most upsetting scene of the film -– when Kevorkian began trying to reduce how much gas it took to achieve termination, one elderly man was subjected to saying goodbye to his wife from inside a miserable-looking Scotch-tape and Saran Wrap gas-retention tent which bore striking resemblance to a grade-school astronaut costume.

Don’t misunderstand; the melodramatic pageantry of post-death rituals these days is atrocious and generally exploitative. But considering nearly every one of Kevorkian’s cases left behind the deceased’s loved ones who will forever struggle with their own decision to "let" the suicide happen, the doctor owed them a bit more effort in terms of professionalism. According to the film, Kevorkian himself reached this same epiphany from jail but was stymied by a government committed to suffocating* his plans to open an end-of-life clinic in the US.

A life so painful that death seems winsome is positively unimaginable, but an eternal solution that strips any dignity from one’s final moments manages to make it worse. Government needs to stand aside and let the market perfect this process.


*Get it?

Missouri Drug Raid Video

As promised, here is the video mentioned in (Redacted)'s post on the February Missouri SWAT raid. As the video plays out -- particularly as the man in custody realizes his family pet has been killed in his kitchen and his seven-year old son sits terrified on the floor -- ask yourself why on Earth he couldn't have just been arrested on his way to the mailbox.

Battlefield: Grover's Corners

Thanks, Scotticus, for making a little room for the O.G. freedom fighter. (Okay, okay, freedom grouser.) Let's just say I was grousing the good grouse back when Scotticus still thought GM and Goldman Sachs were run by Hank Reardon and not James Taggart. But enough with the intro and on with the show. I'll try to post something less painful in the near future to make up for this sucker punch.

First off, I strongly support the legalization of most, if not all, drugs that are currently illegal in the U.S. My fundamental reason for that position is that I believe we are not free while living under an authority that has control over our use of our own bodies in ways that do not violate the rights of others. To paraphrase Bosephus, if you get stoned and sing all night long, ain't none of my business. (Aside to make it painfully clear: I favor strict prosecution of any true crimes - those involving the violation of nonconsenting persons' rights - a person commits, regardless of their state of intoxication; that is, intoxication by any substance is no defense.) I also understand that reasonable people can disagree about drug legalization (though of course I'm right :-)

What I think is indefensible, and a point on which I do not believe reasonable people can disagree, are the tactics increasingly used in the prosecution of this "War on (Some) Drugs". Through the explosive use of SWAT teams over the past 30 years our police have become militarized and are being deployed in ways fit for a battlefield in Afghanistan, not against nonviolent citizens of Grover's Corners, USA (nor South-Central LA) who may posses intoxicating substances not granted the Big Brother Seal of Approval. Tactics include: predawn raids on family homes (yes, with small children present); teams of SWAT police armed with fully automatic rifles, tear gas, and flash-bang grenades (these ain't firecrackers - they are so bright they blind you for 5 seconds and explode with a blast louder than a 747 on takeoff, but in your living room); no-knock entry; and basing raids on the testimony of known liars who receive reduced sentences for providing information - true or not. These raids were conducted over 100 times a day as of 2006 and based on SWAT team funding have likely increased in frequency since then. They have resulted in the violent deaths of "criminals" guilty of nothing but possessing an intoxicant unapproved by our overlords, as well as people innocent of even that "crime" who were unlucky enough to live at an address raided incorrectly. Don't forget the many family pets killed, and even some of the raiding police officers. And it is entirely because the police themselves are taking a nonviolent situation and making it intensely violent.

Unfortunately, most of these incidents go unreported by the majority of our state-tonguebathing media. When they do make news, reporters almost never question the accounts provided by the police involved, regardless of those accounts' preposterousness. There are some true reporters who dig deeper (as Scotticus has mentioned, Radley Balko is exhibit A: www.theagitator.com; he also writes for Reason and for the Cato Institute), so thankfully there is some information available. But as much as all those stories can boil the blood, a video brings it home like nothing else. Presented now for your edification is a 5 minute video of a nighttime SWAT raid of a family home in Columbia, MO with the suspect - a nonviolent man suspected of possession of marijuana - and his wife and 7-year-old child at home. Please watch the video and ask yourself what crime would justify these police actions. I am going to assume possession of a small amount of an intoxicating substance far less dangerous than alcohol makes the list.

Here's the newspaper account.

Bottom line: Police are not soldiers, drug users are not an opposition force, U.S. neighborhoods are not battlegrounds. There is no war and dead citizens are not collateral damage.

Jonathan Swift - Sarcasm = California

Ask any Tea Partier; there is plenty to dislike in the details of health care reform.

But we of the tinfoil hat brigade have long insisted that the principal problem with government-subsidized health insurance is broad: When government pays for health care, government will inevitably regulate anything and everything that can be even tenuously linked to health.

By ceding the responsibility for the cost of health care, we have sacrificed the freedom to make our own decisions about our health. A nauseating argument to be sure, but that doesn't make it any less true. We saw it happen with seat belts; we saw it happen with motorcycle helmets; we saw it happen with cigarettes. Now, just to prove that no caricature or paranoia could ever be as asinine as reality, we will witness within our lifetimes the end of Happy Meal toys.

...[C]ounty officials in Silicon Valley [Calif.] are poised to outlaw the little toys that often come with high-calorie offerings.
...
Believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, the proposal would forbid the inclusion of a toy in any restaurant meal that has more than 485 calories, more than 600 mg of salt or high amounts of sugar or fat. In the case of McDonald's, the limits would include all of the chain's Happy Meals — even those that include apple sticks instead of French fries.

Ken Yeager, president of the authoritarian nitwits Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, knows unequivocally that you are too stupid and/or incompetent -- all of you -- to spurn the siren song of a Shrek IV wind-up toy, so he is stepping in.

"People ask why I want to take toys out of the hands of children," said Yeager.... "But we now know that 70% of the kids that are overweight or obese will be overweight or obese as adults. Why would we want to burden anybody with a lifetime of chronic illness?"

Did you see that leap? Fast-food toys are responsible for a lifetime of chronic illness. Unless the McDonald's in Yeager's neighborhood has been offering polio pops or asbestos action figures, then he can take his hyperbole and insert it posteriorly.

Even then, whence does Yeager draw his justification for the crackdown? You guessed it:

"We're responsible for paying for healthcare in the whole county," Yeager said. "We pay close to $2 billion annually on healthcare, and the costs have done nothing but rise." A big part of the increase, he said, is costs related to obesity.

The slippery slope is not a logical fallacy; it is the undeniable nature of government power.

The Simpsons Proudly Declares Cowardice

The Simpsons has a running gag in the opening credits where Bart repeatedly writes something pithy on the blackboard at school.

Here was last night's:

If you are not familiar with the recent South Park controversy, get caught up here.

I don't know what to make of the Simpsons statement. My initial interpretation is that the writers -- and not necessarily the FOX network -- admire South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker's courage, but admit they have none of their own, which is a decidedly odd message to advertise.

So far FOX has not commented, and judging by the implied message I assume they never will. Were I Stone or Parker, my response would have to be "Thanks... for nothing."

Rockets' Red Glare

Sunburn crept down my unprotected scalp, its progress imperceptible save for the stinging pain left behind every time I wiped the sweat from my forehead. Shaving my head was a dumb idea this time of year; forgetting the sunscreen was even dumber. Just ahead of me, a man in full woodland camouflage struggled to walk -- likely a symptom of the enormous cantaloupe-sized growth protruding from his ilium. A combat shotgun hung taut on a strap across the cripple's back, and I absently fingered the .38 special on my belt. It felt strange to be envious of him.

Sharp, overlapping machine-gun blasts vibrated in my foam earplugs with regularity, but no one in this area was paying any attention. They were here to buy. A hand-drawn tag Scotch-taped to the leviathan rifle in front of me read simply "$56,000" and was set directly behind an upturned Nazi SS helmet overflowing with brass knuckles: "$6 each". A rack of silk-screened t-shirts caught my eye -- the classic Che Guevara design re-imagined with President Obama in relief and letters added to spell "douCHEbag". Noticing my line of sight, the vendor piped up, grinning with half his mouth as he drew me in.

"A colored fella' looked at that one earlier. He said he loved it! Said he hated liberals!"

I've no reason to believe the t-shirt and brass-knuckle salesman was in any way representative of the hundreds of friendly, freakishly-knowledgeable vendors hawking their hawk-wares at the Knob Creek (KY) Machine Gun Shoot last Saturday. In fact, beyond the anachronistic (and innocuous) use of the term "colored", there was nothing terribly offensive about his observation or his shirts. And while crazies were out in force -- I can't shake the image of a man enthusiastically greeting an eight-year-old boy to his booth with a crisp Hitlergruß -- in aggregate the event was more Paula Dean than Anarchist Cookbook.

Firearms unquestionably outnumbered attendees by a factor of ten, both for sale and in personal possession, and I'm fairly certain I've never felt so safe in all my life. Vendors routinely turned their backs on unsecured items worth tens of thousands of dollars; after all, who would try to rob these people? Even US Senate candidate Rand Paul made an early appearance, pressing the flesh with hobbyists and kooks alike with no visible security entourage of any kind.

Had MSNBC been on the scene (like the New Zealand Herald?), it would have been easy to cherry-pick a ratings-grabbing hodgepodge of militants and racists, but the reality is that Knob Creek was ideal family fare. Between rich historical displays, a live band, "feel-free-to-touch!" meteorites, a light-and-sound show that puts fireworks to shame, and a swiftboatload of genuine experts teaching respect for and healthy caution toward weapons, the Machine Gun Shoot is exactly the kind of event Washington, Adams, and Jefferson would have enjoyed.

At eighty-seven degrees, less parking than your average Hawaiian Shave Ice hut, and no beer for sale, 8000 people certainly didn't come all this way just to whisper about "colored" people.

President Bush's Third Term Turning Out Worse than Feared

Glenn Greenwald hits the nail on the head concerning President (and Nobel Peace Prize winner) Obama's chilling decision to authorize the assassination of an American citizen without due process of any kind. Greenwald's plenty good at what he does, so I'll just parse out the best bits:

Today, both The New York Times and The Washington Post confirm that the Obama White House has now expressly authorized the CIA to kill [American-born Islamic cleric Anwar] al-Alwaki no matter where he is found, no matter his distance from a battlefield.
...
No due process is accorded. No charges or trials are necessary. No evidence is offered, nor any opportunity for him to deny these accusations (which he has done vehemently through his family). None of that.

Instead, in Barack Obama's America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens -- and a death penalty imposed -- is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone's guilt as a Terrorist. He then dispatches his aides to run to America's newspapers -- cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they're granted -- to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist. It is simply asserted that Awlaki has converted from a cleric who expresses anti-American views and advocates attacks on American military targets (advocacy which happens to be Constitutionally protected) to Actual Terrorist "involved in plots." These newspapers then print this Executive Verdict with no questioning, no opposition, no investigation, no refutation as to its truth. And the punishment is thus decreed: this American citizen will now be murdered by the CIA because Barack Obama has ordered that it be done. What kind of person could possibly justify this or think that this is a legitimate government power?

As Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit would say: "Remember when they told us if we voted for John McCain, we'd get Orwellian tactics and an increased police state? Turns out they were right."

And just for the record, here's candidate Obama in 2007 proving once again that he has never even played a game of cards or shared a cab with President Obama:

[Boston Globe]: Does the Constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants?

[Obama]: No. I reject the Bush Administration's claim that the President has plenary authority under the Constitution to detain U.S. citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants.

I suppose the quandary surrounding the detention of citizens is moot if you grant yourself the authority to simply assassinate them instead.

Jury Cat, Penny Pursuers, Racist Rhyming, and Mind-Reading Policemen

It's NCAA tournament time, so here's a few quick stories you can skim while Verne Lundquist struggles to pronounce "Mouphtaou Yarou" and "Othyus Jeffers".

• A Boston couple's cat is summonsed for jury duty. The owners filed the appropriate paperwork for disqualification, but were denied exemption. Reminder: These are the people we're being asked to trust to run our health care system.



• IRS agents (multiple) descend in person last week to collect past-due taxes from a Sacramento businessman. Tax amount: four cents. Penalty amount: $202.31. The taxee has an October letter from the IRS stating his taxes were already paid in full.



• An East Sussex (UK) man was arrested, fingerprinted, and DNA-sampled after someone else in his office used the phrase "do-as-you-likey attitude" in an email to the district planning department. Sussex Police said the man was arrested on "suspicion of committing a racial or religious-aggravated offence" because "likey" rhymes with "pikey", which is a derogatory term for gypsies.
  
  Think the US will never slip down this slope? Really? Really? Really? Really? Really:



• Oregonian David Pyles woke up to two SWAT teams pointing guns at his home and demanding he surrender himself. Police admit he had committed no crime. But, Pyles had recently been placed on administrative leave from work, then legally purchased firearms (which he collects) with his recent income tax return.
  
  Police say Pyles was "disgruntled", but did not bother to seek a warrant for either the arrest or the search of Pyles's home. Chillingly, Oregon State Police Sgt. Jeff Proulx proudly explained: "Instead of being reactive, we took a proactive approach."

I don't know about the rest of you, but I need a drink. Enjoy the games!

Leading Saudi Scientists Say Earth "Probably Less Flat" than Once Believed, Possibly Toroidal

Check out this interesting translation from a 16th-Century Babylonian manuscript. The ancient text chronicles the journey of a Lebanese fortuneteller named Ali Sibat, who was something of a celebrity in his day:

[W]hile on pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia last year, Sibat was spotted by religious police in the holy city of Medina. Their job it is to battle vice and uphold virtue in the ultraconservative kingdom. So they arrested Sibat in his room at the Medina Hotel on charges of sorcery.

...Sibat was given a death sentence by a Mecca court for allegedly practicing witchcraft.

Sibat’s fate is common in Saudi Arabia.

Scores of alleged witch doctors, fortunetellers, and black magicians each year are dragged through the Saudi courts, including Fawza Falih, who’s been on death row since 2006 for witchcraft.

Wait a tick. Did that last line say Falih has been on death row since 2006? As in Anno Domini?

Indeed it did. Because -- believe it or not -- the whole passage is actually from a 2009 Los Angeles Times piece about contemporary human beings and a 21st-Century state that still murders its citizens on suspicion of devilry. So what constitutes evidence of buddying up to Beelzebub? Bilingualism, apparently:

Take the case of Muhammad Burhan, who carried a phone booklet with writings in the Tigrinya alphabet from his native Eritrea. Perhaps it was his way of protecting himself against the evil forces out there. Maybe it was his lucky charm for a little extra success in his love life or in business.

But the booklet convinced Saudi authorities that Burhan was a black magician and charged him with "charlatanry," for which he was lashed 300 times and sentenced to 20 months behind bars. He was then deported after having served more than double the prison term he was sentenced to, according to Human Rights Watch.

As I've pointed out before, Saudi Arabia is still considered among the least-free places on Earth. Evidently, their goal is to move up that list, rather than off of it.

A is A

Dear Radley Balko,

First off: huge fan. In a world of stenographers, you remain a journalist; and without journalists, the Republic falls.

Having said that, I take issue with the issue you've taken over the use of the word "looting" in the aftermath of Chile's massive earthquake Saturday. You say, instead, these people are simply "surviving", as long as what they purloin consists of food, water, and clothing. Lifting iPods would be another story, you concede.

Two points of contention, one semantic and one ethical: First, whether the storefront is open, vacant, abandoned, or not, that storefront and the goods within -- Evian and iPods alike -- have a rightful owner. I would hope that the owner gives his absentee blessing to those who steal his property as an alternative to dying -- and shame on him if he does not -- but that decision is his. If he were standing there, present and defiant, as people disregarded his rights and confiscated his goods, what else would be dismissed as "survival"? Trespassing? Assault? Murder? And if he were to defend himself with lethal force, which one then is the "survivor"?

Which brings me to the semantics. A lie is a lie, even if it eases someone's pain. Speeding, in a legal sense, is still speeding even if you're trying to escape a pursuing Decepticon. How individuals (and the state) choose to react to others' actions can -- and should -- vary based on circumstances, but to redefine those actions as not only moral, but also beyond reproach is a step too far, especially in such a broad sense where individual motives are indiscernible.

I would steal to keep from starving. It doesn't make me less of a thief.

(Image via NY Daily News.)

I Don't Think All "People" Are Idiots, But All "Homo Sapiens" Are

Thankfully, President Obama is attempting to follow through on his 2008 campaign promise to repeal the ridiculous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy regarding gays serving in the US military.

Despite the fact that DADT is a Bill Clinton political brainchild from the go-along-to-get-along days of the early 1990s, the push to scrap it has mostly come from the political left, whose insistence that all homosexuals aren't necessarily shaved Chupacabra brings some sanity to one of America's fiercest debates.

Or at least that's what I thought. Turns out, though, that liberals are just as irrational as conservatives when it comes to Adam and Steve sharing a foxhole. Look upon these poll numbers and weep:

79% of Democrats support allowing gay men and women to serve openly.
43% of Democrats support allowing homosexuals to serve openly.

That is not a typo. I checked.

Sixty years after the Mattachine Society, forty-one years after the Stonewall Inn raid, thirty-three years after Anita Bryant, and seven years after Lawrence v Texas, there is a thirty-six percentage-point difference in what employment liberals think "homosexuals" should be allowed to pursue versus "gays".

Whence comes the discrepancy? We can speculate that the term "gay" elicits a much friendlier (literally) image than the taxonomic "homosexual", but doing so insinuates such an immense level of epidemic puerility that even my epic misanthropy won't abide it. In order to prevent the impending voluntary collision between my head and the nearest brick wall, I'm going with "transcription error" and calling it a day.

Shape up, folks. If anyone wants to start his own army that won't allow gays, or blacks, or Jews, or even homosexuals (!) to serve, then I'll help him pick out snazzy uniforms. The right to set up whatever backward, bigoted clubhouse that revs your engine is inviolate, but the United States Armed Forces -- a public institution -- has no more right to bar qualified homosexuals than they have to bar Catholics or Jersey Shore fans.

"Downhill" Policing Trend in the UK

The sarcasm is on the shelf. The snark is switched to "off". This is good policing:

Some British bobbies have been reprimanded after they used their riot shields as makeshift sleds during the country’s cold snap.

A passer-by filmed the bobbies goofing around on a snowy hill in Oxford and posted the clip on YouTube. It shows a policeman barreling downhill while another shouts, “Whatever happens, keep smiling!”

Rick Latham, who filmed the scene on Tuesday, said he was pleasantly surprised by the officers’ actions. He thought they were going to scold him for trying to slide down the hill in a kayak.

Still don't believe I'm being earnest in my praise? I am. Consider the American plainclothes officer who recently felt it necessary to pull out his gun in response to a snowball fight*, and tell me which kind of officer would make you feel safer in your neighborhood.

Violent crime rates are way down, and policework is no longer triage. Effective police must be part of the communities they serve, and it wouldn't hurt to be trusted, respected, and liked by their fellow citizens. (A good start would be to stop bragging about how much they enjoy beating people up.) There is something undeniably heartening about a policeman taking five minutes to have some fun with a member of his community, especially when the tool he uses is the same one designed to facilitate domestic warfare. It is strikingly reminiscent of Flower Power, even if it was entirely unintentional.

Sure, this isn't Norman Rockwell's America. But it also isn't J Edgar Hoover's. Cheers to the Thames Valley Police.

Watch the bobsledding bobbies here.

*The snowball fight participants were punks itching for a fight, which is why I didn't blog in their defense.

In Communist Russia, TSA Plays with You!

Presenting the Playmobil Security Checkpoint:As Christmas 2009 came and went, I often lamented the fact that I couldn't find an appropriate toy to help me illustrate the realities of the police state to baby Wyatt. Granted, the happy little Playmobil traveler is unable to remove his shoes, open his bag, or relinquish his fingernail clippers -- which is misleading -- but the basics are covered.

Assuming the tiny plastic globetrotter didn't refuse to disclose his salary, attempt to carry on boomerangs, request to actually watch the screener rifle through his belongings, dare to carry cash, or consort with suspicious eight-year-olds, he will make his flight just fine.

Rumor has it a Playmobil S.W.A.T. No-Knock Raid playset is in the works, complete with a terrorized old woman, dead dogs, and a County Executive who thinks everyone involved deserves a pat on the back.

Are You Sure Officer O'Malley Was the One Who Broke Your Camera?

The growing national frustration with municipal police departments is not couched in a belief that all -- or even most -- officers act inappropriately. Rather, the frustration stems from the apparent unwillingness among police departments to recognize, condemn, and respond to misconduct when it arises.

In fact, police departments continue to innovate ways to make accountability more chimeric. Consider Chicago's new policy threatening criminal charges against people whose official claims of police misconduct are found to be without merit. While most people agree it would be satisfying to slap a fine on the Richard Heenes of the world, we have to remember exactly who's guarding the henhouse here:

A 2008 study by University of Chicago law professor Craig B. Futterman found 10,000 complaints filed against Chicago police officers between 2002 and 2004. That's more than any city in the country, and proportionally it's 40 percent above the national average. Of those 10,000 complaints, just 19 resulted in significant disciplinary action [suspension of a week or more]. In 85 percent of the cases, the complaint was dismissed without even interviewing the accused officer.

Furthermore, the 19-in-10,000 statistic deals only with complaints that were actually filed. According to the June 2006 US Department of Justice report on citizen complaints about police use of force, only one in ten people who believe that they have been abused by the police ever report the abuse.

Threats -- both explicit and implicit -- of financial and legal retribution are certainly one reason why.

Police officers are necessarily entrusted with authority over life and freedom, the two most important concepts in existence. It is unprecedented madness to also extend to them the continual benefit of the doubt. An officer wrongfully losing his job is terrible; a man wrongfully losing his life or his freedom is irreparable.