Who’da Thunk It?

Police Statism, Technology
By / / 2 Comments / 1 minute of reading
Share

From CNET via Boing Boing, we find out something which should be shocking to no libertarian: the federal government lied about not keeping images from the body scanners installed in airports.

For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they’re viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.”

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

And to think that some people actually trust the government enough to despise Wikileaks and even support the death penalty for people who reveal state secrets. When you are dealing with a known liar, trusting the word of a complete stranger is probably preferable. And the state has the same relationship to truth that a prostitute does to chastity. Both will tell you whatever you want to hear, but only an idiot would take them at face value.

Who’da Thunk It? Read Post »

A Nation of Laws?

Legal System, Racism
By / / 1 minute of reading
Share

Another example, in a long line of abuses, of how “the law” is really only to be exalted so long as it serves the purposes of the government. When the state finds itself losing the legal battle, it can always find or invent new uses for laws to get around such pesky impediments. In this case, the homeowner won court battles to protect his home, but the city simply called his property a “blight,” and not only demolished his home, but will likely send him a bill for it. The most immediate parallel which comes to mind is China’s policy of executing people, and billing the family for the bullet.

Interesting how the talking head can say that there are two sides to this story and avoid laughing. There are two sides to this story in the same way that there are two sides to an armed robbery.

A Nation of Laws? Read Post »

Free Market Wealth Redistribution

(Austrian) Economics, Business, Humor
By / / 1 Comment / 1 minute of reading
Share

Look at this video featuring a brilliant young entrepreneur who is engaging in the only proper way to redistribute wealth: with full consent from all parties. In this case, no doubt, he is helping to move money from the pockets of professional athletes, entertainers, and heirs into his own and those from whom he purchases goods and services.

Free Market Wealth Redistribution Read Post »

“Getting Past” Race

Racism, Vulgar Politics
By / / 1 minute of reading
Share

NYTimes.com has an article about, the Obama election notwithstanding, Americans’ hysterical reactions to racial issues. There have been many articles and blog postings lately about whether or not this is “post-racial America.” I think the furor over Shirley Sherrod’s speech is a clear indication that race is as much a current issue as ever. This really should come as no surprise. Race has always been a government issue in the USA. From the state-sponsored slave trade through to affirmative action, in America, race and the state have always been intimately intertwined. Considering this, it is hardly a surprise that people “never get past it.” You might as well say “why haven’t we gotten past war?”

“Getting Past” Race Read Post »

Serving Two Masters

War
By / / 2 minutes of reading
Share

MSNBC, a media outfit not known for pro-liberty sentiments, is reporting that there are 3100 organizations involved in the war on terror. The original report comes to us from The Washington Post, another entity not commonly regarded as champions of laissez faire. According to the Post, 1271 government organizations and 1931 private ones are working on counterterrorism. 854,000 people hold top secret clearance. When government programs have become so large that even liberals can’t help but notice, you know you’ve got a problem.

Though liberals are normally (and accurately) described as “big government freaks,” it is difficult to imagine any way to more intractably install big government than to simply make it all secret. This is where those in favor of both small government and “a strong national defense” are simply out of touch with reality. There simply is no way to have both small government and high levels of secrecy about what that government is doing. This is a point Dan Carlin makes in his podcast. Vietnam-era documents which are only now being declassified appear to have only been classified in the first place to avoid embarrassing the people covered in the documents, not for anything we would normally call “national security.” As Carlin points out, these things were intended to be buried until the Congressmen quoted in them were all dead.

Allowing the state to keep secrets is a sure path to expansion of that state. The government regards the leaking of information which undermines people’s confidence in the actions of government employees to be “a threat to national security.” If even pointing out that a course of action is a bad idea is itself considered a bad idea, what hope can there possibly be of learning and improvement? And since the national security advocates all seem to believe that the government should have the right to keep secrets, how can they honestly also believe that it is possible to effectively limit a largely secret government?

Serving Two Masters Read Post »

Scroll to Top