Liberty
stcynic | August 23, 2006It looks like Australia has a similar situation to Germany and many of our other allies when it comes to laws against criticizing religions, at least in one province. Victoria has something called the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act that prohibits "inciting hatred against a person or class of persons", and that act has been used to prosecute two Christian ministers who criticized Islam at a seminar a couple years ago.
In December 2004, VCAT judge Michael Higgins ruled that Nalliah and Scot had incited "hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of" Muslims, both…
stcynic | August 22, 2006From the "you can't be fucking serious" department...this will leave you staring at the screen in utter disbelief. Some idiot former military guy wants to bring treason charges against a sitting congressman for disagreeing with the Bush administration's foreign policy. Naturally, he gets quoted by Agape Press:
Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Buzz Patterson, an analyst with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, says during the Civil War era President Lincoln took far more drastic measures to preserve the union than any the Bush administration has taken in the war on terror. Lincoln suspended…
stcynic | August 8, 2006This time it's Chuck Humphrey. He's filed a Federal suit, attempting to act as a "private attorney general" (his words, not mine), against a range of companies who run fantasy football leagues. The companies include CBS, Disney (which owns ESPN), and others. See the actual complaint here. He is trying to end this "online gambling". Now, most people probably don't know who Chuck Humphrey is, but I do. He used to be a regular in the poker newsgroup. He was one of the investors in a poker tournament called the Tournament of Champions, which went belly up before the poker boom hit. He's an…
stcynic | August 2, 2006Ancient Brit left a comment on a thread below, and the answer became so long and involved - and important, in my view - that I decided to move it up here to its own post. He wrote:
I find it interesting that while Europe has exercised moderate control over hate groups, America has not, and is fast becoming a safe haven (and recruitment center) for all manner of nasty antisocial movements. That doesn't mean that all Americans believe that it's OK to be racist, or misogynist, or anti-Semitic, but it does mean that dangerous ideas flourish and prosper instead of withering and dying.
What you…
stcynic | July 25, 2006Here's a frightening report from a Denver TV station about the government requiring air marshalls to report at least one person a month for suspicious activity on a plane - reports that could put someone on a terrorist watchlist - regardless of whether they see any such activity.
You could be on a secret government database or watch list for simply taking a picture on an airplane. Some federal air marshals say they're reporting your actions to meet a quota, even though some top officials deny it.
The air marshals, whose identities are being concealed, told 7NEWS that they're required to…
stcynic | July 19, 2006Radley Balko is quoted in this ABC News story about the arrest of BetOnSports CEO David Carruthers. He points out the futility, the hypocrisy and oppressive nature of the coming crackdown on internet gambling. First, the futility and hypocrisy:
"It's wrong for about 1,000 reasons," said Balko, "but the main ones are it's not gonna work -- it'll just push it underground."
Balko argues that any attempts to curb Internet gambling are bound to fail and are hypocritical due to the legal nature of online horse and lottery betting, which benefit individual states.
And of course, he's right. Unless…
stcynic | July 18, 2006Jacob Sollum has an excellent article at Reason about Rep. Goodlatte's misguided and authoritarian bill to ban internet gambling. That bill passed the House recently, but has not come up in the Senate. Sollum points out the many ways in which Goodlatte's arguments for the bill are incoherent and hypocritical. For instance, he complains about internet gaming companies being offshore and unregulated while passing a law that insures that very result:
"These offshore, fly-by-night Internet gambling operators," Goodlatte complains, "are unlicensed, untaxed and unregulated and are sucking billions…
stcynic | July 17, 2006A whole bunch of religious right groups are pressing Bush to negotiate international treaties to outlaw obscenity, according to Agape Press. They're pushing a report from Bob Peters of Morality in Media. And you're gonna love one of the reasons for it:
Peters also noted in his communication that Muslim populations from across the world take great offense to infusion of pornography on the Internet. He cited a 2002 Gallup poll taken from surveys conducted in several Muslim-dominated countries (i.e., Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey).
Gee, I didn't think we…
stcynic | July 17, 2006This is absolutely outrageous. A reader sent me this report by email about BetonSports, an online gambling site that is based in the UK. The report is from MarketWatch:
Shares of online-gaming operators based in Britain dropped Monday, after BetOnSports' chief executive was detained while switching flights in the United States, raising the prospect that American authorities are moving to crack down on overseas Web sites that allow U.S. citizens to bet illegally...
The board of BetOnSports said in a statement it was seeking "clarification" on the move. David Davidson, assistant chief deputy of…
stcynic | July 17, 2006Round 3 with Mark Olson over the meaning of the liberty in the Declaration of Independence. Unfortunately, I don't think there's anything really being added to the argument at this point in his new post on the subject. He begins:
As I had enjoyed, and I think learned much, from Mr Fischer's book Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America ... I bought a few more of Mr Fischer's extant works. Specifically on this question, the book Liberty and Freedom which I have only read a few dozen or more pages. This book is an exploration of the diverse meanings and symbols which American's have…
stcynic | July 15, 2006Mark Olson has written a response to my reply to his post on the meaning of the word 'liberty' in the Declaration of Independence. Unfortunately, I don't think he has mitigated any of the logical difficulties with the original post. He begins:
First, I didn't look at the corpus of writings of those particular men because it was a blog essay and not a term paper or thesis. I had just finished a fine book which had some striking things to say about these "folkways" and in particular the section about Liberty was striking as it did have different meanings, now mostly lost, in those different…
stcynic | July 14, 2006Over at PseudoPolymath, Mark Olson has what I regard as a very oddly reasoned post about the meaning of liberty in the Declaration of Independence. He has been reading a book called Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Fischer, which according to his recounting, details 4 different waves of immigration to America in 4 different areas of the country and how their views on various things differed. In particular, he notes that they had different conceptions of what the word "liberty" meant. Based upon this, he makes a rather odd argument that concludes that the word "liberty…
stcynic | July 13, 2006Tuesday's vote in the House on HR 4411, the bill that bans internet gambling nationwide, was supported, to no one's surprise, by those denizens of moral rectitude on the religious right. Agape Press reports on the strong support that "family" (read: anti-fun) organizations had for the bill, including Focus on the Family and Concerned Shrews Women for America. No doubt a sizable percentage of those in Congress who supported the legislation take a view similar to this:
"Right now, we have enough problem and pathological gamblers to fill more than 214 NFL stadiums to capacity," Hills says. "…
stcynic | July 12, 2006Once again, the ban on internet gambling in Washington state has a pernicious effect. After seeing the state issue cease and desist letters to publications that even mention online gambling, at least two magazines have been forced to pull all subscriptions to that state. Happy 4th of July, eh?
stcynic | July 11, 2006The House is set to vote today on a bill to ban online gambling in the United States. And you've gotta love the sober, logical analysis of those who support such legislation:
John Kindt, a business professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who has studied the issue, calls the Internet "the crack cocaine" of gambling.
"There are no needle marks. There's no alcohol on the breath. You just click the mouse and lose your house," he said.
Wow, it's that simple? Just click your mouse and lose your house? That will make a great ad campaign for the gaming sites. You know, because it…
stcynic | July 8, 2006The state of Washington may soon not be alone in its ban on internet gaming. Republicans in the House are pushing a bill to make that ban nationwide. The bill has made it through committee and will be coming to a floor vote this summer. And predictably, they're trying to sell the bill with two marketing campaigns. The first, of course, is "values":
The majority leader, Representative John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, announced a few days ago that the measure would be voted on this summer as part of what the Republicans call their American Values Agenda.
The "American Values Agenda", of…
stcynic | July 7, 2006One of the most fascinating aspects of the Hamdan case was that it was argued not by a prominent legal scholar or law professor, nor by a private defense attorney, but by a military lawyer from the JAG office, Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift. Think about the position this put him in as an officer, taking a public stand against the policy of the Commander in Chief and against the Pentagon. And he didn't just do it because he believed that all defendants deserve legal representation; he did it because he truly believes that if we do not remain consistent in applying the rule of law, we will have lost…
stcynic | July 5, 2006Christopher Hitchens has an engaging essay in opposition to an amendment banning flag burning. I particularly like this part:
I would perhaps be suspected of excess Fourth of July zeal if I said that the First Amendment is my life as well as the source of my living, but I swear that it would not be that far from the truth. No other country has such a terse and comprehensive statement of the case for free expression: considered important enough to rank first, and also to rank with the freedom of religious conscience. The jewel in the crown of the Bill of Rights does not say that Congress shall…
stcynic | July 4, 2006I remember a poll from several years ago that showed that a staggering percentage of the American public had no idea what event the 4th of July was meant to celebrate. That event, of course, was the signing of the Declaration of Independence, easily among the most important documents in the history of mankind. In declaring our separation from the rule of King George of England, the founders also declared, for the first time in history, that the only legitimate purpose of government is to protect those unalienable rights which preexist its formation. That declaration was more profound and…
stcynic | June 30, 2006This is classic. Thanks to Jon Rowe and 386sx for pointing out this video of John Lofton debating Frank Zappa on Crossfire in 1986. Lofton calls for government censorship of rock music. His arguments are ridiculous. He claims that it's okay to censor music because "words mean something" and "have impact." He claims that America suddenly had an "incest problem" in the 20 years before that because it was mentioned in songs. What songs? You got me. He makes a total fool of himself, with Zappa's help.