Given my extremely low expectations, it takes a lot for a British government to actually amaze me.
Well they have managed to do exactly that. The people who rule us are not misguided, they are actually evil.
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The Register talks about an attempt by the EU to railroad through the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive. It appears to give the ‘rights holder’ carte blanche… almost the right to set up a private police force. The interesting thing is that the rapporteur did an end-run around any debate. She also happens to be the wife of the head of Vivendi Universal. Slowjoe March 3rd, 2004 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
 What does the FBI do if it has a search warrant to track down one miscreant on a network? Why they seize the whole data centre of course! I’ll attempt to make the seriousness of this more apparent in a non-cyber world example. Imagine the local police are looking for a document that is evidence of a possible crime. The Judge gives them a warrant based on probable cause. When they search the file cabinet at that address, they can’t find what they are looking for. So they corden off the entire apartment building and seize all the file cabinets containing all of the personal and business records of everyone living there. They cart those off with total disregard to the impact on lives and businesses. Then they tell everyone their file cabinets will be returned as soon as they’ve made a permanent State copy of their entire contents. What sort of society would you say you were living in if that happened? February 24th, 2004 | 42 comments - (Comments are closed)
Just as the Tory Party (the party that has given us Chris Patten, Edward Heath and Ken Clarke) cannot be counted on to reverse the march into regulatory Euro-statism (they at best slow the rate at which it happens), similarly the Tory reaction to plans by Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett to lower the burden of proof in criminal cases where the state really wants to convict someone is one of essential support. So… we are left with only one half-way significant party who seems to care even the slightest about civil liberties in the court room: The LibDems. But then again, when it comes to regulatory statism and abridging economic free association in society at large, the LibDems are even more keen than Labour to replace all social interaction with politically derived formulae for just about any kind of behaviour you can think of. And people wonder why I urge folks not to vote for anyone? So how does one resist the increasingly panoptic regulatory state? Good question. February 10th, 2004 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
There is a sense in which I pity this government. No, really I do. When someone is prepared to exploit any sort of human tragedy in order to get what they want, one is forced to conclude that they have very little left in the way of self-respect or decency. I don’t think any of us truly appreciate just how badly our Home Secretary, David Blunkett, wants a national ID card system but the desire must be intense enough to burn a hole in his soul. It has now got to the stage where there is no bad news too pathetic enough not to be manipulated into a ID card propoganda opportunity, be it a shooting in Shropshire, a murder in Manchester or a child-abduction in Cheltenham. The latest ghastly incident to be turned into a government rhetorical tool is the 19 illegal Chinese immigrants who were drowned off the coast of Lancashire over the weekend:
Alongside the calls for ‘more regulation’ (the chief reflexive response), Mr Blunkett popped up on the late evening news (sorry, no link) in a laughable attempt to persuade everyone that a national ID card would prevent this sort of thing happening again. Complete and utter rubbish, of course. But that does not matter. What matters is the drip-drip propoganda required to facilitate ‘acculturation’. Mr Blunkett and his underlings must trawl through the daily news bulletins desperately seeking the kind of heartstring-tugging stories that they use to piggy-back their pet project into the public realm. Like teenage crack-whores, there is no part of their dignity these people will not sacrifice in order to get their fix. How sad, how pathetic. February 9th, 2004 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
Reproduced below is the text of yesterday’s press release from the Libertarian Alliance:
Perhaps that is now how they think of themselves. [This article has been cross-posted to White Rose.] February 4th, 2004 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
If it was not so late and if I had not had such a long day, I would launch myself into a rooftop-raising rant about this. But it is late and I am weary and, besides all of that, I am beginning to wonder precisely what good a rant from me (or anybody else for that matter) would do anymore:
Is there any significance to the fact that David ‘Mugabe’ Blunkett elected to unveil his sinister plans on a trip to South Asia? Was he driven into delirium by the heat and the dust? Or maybe a particularly acute case of Delhi-belly left him feeling all bilious and vengeful.
It’s not an ‘affront’, it’s a point-blank dismissal. ‘Lowering the standard of proof’? ‘Pre-emptive action’? ‘Secret trials’? ‘Vetted Judges’? What next? Trial by Ordeal, Ducking stools, Iron Maidens and The Rack? The truly frustrating thing here is that not only is Big Blunkett unlikely to be opposed to any meaningful degree (the Conservatives are already weighing in on his side) but his ripping up of our last remaining bulwarks of civil liberty is probably going to make him more popular. That is because civil liberties are unpopular. They are merely the boring obsession of pot-smoking hippies and wishy-washy do-gooders; a shielding sanctuary behind which terrorists and child-molestors can hide from justice. So, go ahead, Mr Blunkett, kick the crap out of them. With a bit of luck nobody will miss them until they have gone (by which time it will be too late). February 3rd, 2004 | 36 comments - (Comments are closed)
Cecile du Bois is getting grief at her school for opposing affirmative action. Her teacher asked her what she thought about it, and Cecile told her the truth. She is against it. And for that, she got all the grief.
Go to Cecile’s blog and read the whole thing. I can just about understand (although I despise) the way that Cecile’s classmates (if that is the right word) are treating Cecile, but some way ought to be found of communicating to Cecile’s ‘teacher’ that she is now being deservedly trashed for profoundly unprofessional conduct on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, and everywhere else in the world where the blogosphere counts for anything if this posting has the desired effect. Isn’t education supposed to encourage people to tell the truth and to stick up for their ideas? Someone she can not manipulate and ridicule should also tell this Grade A Bitch of a teacher that there are impeccably non-racist arguments against affirmative action, like: affirmative action exposes all those people from ethnic minorities who do get ahead to the accusation that they are only did well because they were given an unfair advantage, even if they actually got ahead entirely on their own merits and by their own efforts. Affirmative action encourages racism, in other words. Hasn’t this ignorant woman even heard of this line of argument? And even if she has not, she has no damned business encouraging all her other pupils to pick on one pupil, just for expressing an opinion, honestly and courageously. If you agree with me about this, please do at least one of the following things.
It is not strictly relevant to the rights and wrongs of how she is now being (mis)treated, but since it may cheer her up, I will add it anyway. In my opinion Cecile is a terrific writer, and very possibly destined for literary superstardom. (She is certainly obeying rule number one for being a writer, which is to Live Interestingly, and rule number two, which is to get started with Living Interestingly good and early.) Be sure to scroll down, past all her links to other people, to the links to her own archives and previous postings. I particularly enjoyed her description of going to the movies with her Dad and brother, which Cecile’s Mum also liked. LOR: LOL. If only for coining the phrase prostitute college, Cecile du Bois is destined for world fame sooner or later.  January 31st, 2004 | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)
Paul Smith is a man with a profound interest in driving and road safety. As a driver myself I, too, have a vested interest in these matters. Whenever I depart from point A I much prefer it to be overwhelmingly probable that I will reach point B with all my favourite limbs and organs in situ and functioning as nature intended. The British government and its various agencies claim that they share this interest as well. Moreover, they assure us that the solution to the problem lies with forcing everyone to drive more slowly and punish those drivers who fail to comply. Hence the virus-like proliferation of the ‘GATSO’ or ‘Speed Camera’ which (just by complete coincidence I am sure) has also raised tens of millions of pounds for the public coffers from already over-taxed motorists who infringe blanket and arbitrary speed limits. In response to the wave of discontent this has caused, the government, the police and the various lobbyists that support them, have doggedly stood their ground and explained that, yes, it is all very regrettable but the point of the GATSO’s is most assuredly not to raise revenue (no, perish the thought!) but merely to save lives. In other words, they are relying on the canard that freedom must be sacrificed in order to achieve safety. Well, they are wrong and Paul Smith has made it his business to prove, publicly and beyond argument, that they are wrong. His website, Safe Speed, cuts a swathe through the cant and the piety:
I am shocked, SHOCKED I tell you! Mr Smith has amassed a treasure trove of documentary, audio and video evidence that entirely discredits the myth that
So if you are one of those people who thinks that the GATSO is a life-saver, you know exactly what to do. In the meantime, more power to Paul Smith and his campaign for common sense and reason. When we eventually win this battle, the victory will be due in no small part to the dedication and integrity of people like him. Cross-posted on White Rose. January 28th, 2004 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
Are politicians actually capable of thought and articulation or they merely making noises in return for which they think they are going to get rewards? Barely two weeks after Michael Howard trumpeted his alleged belief that “the people should be big and the state should be small“, he weighs in on the side of big state and against the little citizen:
Well, there is a germ of truth here in that HMG is most certainly in a ‘muddle’ but at least it is a muddle which is shambling along, after a fashion, in a sort-of, vaguely right direction. The motives may not be entirely logical or even honourable but I think it’s results that count here. But am I to believe that Mr Howard has thought about this ‘very carefully’? Cannabis is only illegal because people like Mr Howard demand that it be so and the question of whether or not it is ‘safe’ (whatever that means) is entirely irrelevant. If he genuinely wants to the state to be small then he is hardly likely to achieve that aim by reinforcing the principle rubric behind big government, i.e. that it is necessary in order to manage the citizen’s health and welfare. So is Mr Howard (a) disingenuous or (b) really not thought this through at all? I think we have a right to know. January 22nd, 2004 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
According to this Guardian article and the this one in the Independent the Labour MP turned talk show host, Robert Kilroy-Silk, is under fire for having written an anti-Arab article. I have read the Sunday Express article concerned on a forum but have not been able to find it in linkable form. Predictably the Commission for Racial Equality is making noises about lawyers and prosecutions and public order. I will be amazed if they actually do anything. The point of the CRE’s threats is not to carry them out, but to have a chilling effect on the next person who wants to write in a similar vein. (The issue of whether Mr Kilroy-Silk should write as a freelance while working for the BBC is a separate one which I shall ignore here.) Here is something the CRE and other race relations bodies ought to remember but will not: freedom of speech and relatively good race relations go together. In fact it is broader than that. Freedom and relatively good race relations go together. Pogroms happen under tyrannies. I call it the “pressure-cooker effect.” → Continue reading: Robert Kilroy-Silk, freedom of speech and the pressure-cooker effect January 8th, 2004 | 172 comments - (Comments are closed)
Today, the US Supreme Court issued a decision that will live in infamy. It upheld the core provisions of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. I confess I have not yet digested the full 300 page turd dropped on the Constitution by our masters at the Supreme Court, but I would observe that any decision of this length is bound to be flawed. It does not take many words to apply the simple phrase “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech” to overturn legislation; it does, however, take many, many words to obfuscate the meaning of that phrase sufficiently to uphold legislation that, in part, prohibits the airing of campaign commercials in the weeks before an election. I will address one of the fundamental flaws underlying the entire project of regulating campaign finance – the claim that money does not equal speech. First, though, allow me to state that it is perfectly consistent with freedom of speech to outlaw bribery and other permutations of the quid pro quo that may crop up in connection with campaign finance activities. Outlawing bribery in such circumstances is no more a restriction on freedom of speech than outlawing the fencing of stolen property is a restriction on freedom of contract. It is a fundamental premise of campaign finance regulation that such laws do not restrict speech, but rather restrict only the raising and spending of money. This distinction between speaking and expending resources on speaking is utterly fallacious, unless you believe that guarantees of free speech extend only to the fine art of conversation. Any attempt to distribute your thoughts to persons who are not in the room with you when you utter them requires the use of resources, and thus the expenditure of money. Allowing the state to prohibit the use of resources to broadcast or distribute speech means that freedom of speech is no more than freedom to converse. Speech, for all practical purposes, is the distribution to an audience of your thoughts. In the political realm (and most others as well) this distribution cannot be made to any meaningful audience without applying resources, that is, spending money. You cannot print a newspaper, distribute a flyer, operate a website, or stand on a streetcorner ranting through a bullhorn, without using money to distribute your speech. Even bullhorns cost money, after all. The use of resources, the expenditure of money, to distribute your speech, is an absolutely indivisible part of freedom of speech. Yet campaign finance regulation is nothing more than state limitations on the use of resources to distribute political speech, which is to say, state limitations on political speech. No one would say that a prohibition on expenditures by a publisher to print and mail a magazine, or on a publisher charging for subscriptions or advertising, are consistent with freedom of speech, yet these limitations are closely analogous to the campaign finance restrictions now blessed by the Supreme Court. UPDATE: I was grousing about this to one of my partners, and he pointed out that apparently the Supreme Court was just being somewhat over-literal. The Constitution protects “free speech,” and they thought that meant it protected FREE speech. If you see what I mean. Sadly, that seems to be about the level of comprehension on display in the opinion. December 10th, 2003 | 33 comments - (Comments are closed)
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