Category: crime and punishment

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crime and punishment general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies Popular The Draft

Daughter Draft

draft, registration, conscription, women, war

“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” 

For years, the Selective Service System — the friendly folks who bring us the military draft — used the above slogan to portray registering for the draft as a rite of manhood. 

If macho draft registration is now expanded to women, perhaps the slogan will change to: “Men and women have to do what they’re told — equally.” That’s where the issue is headed: to equality. Equality before the law is important, sure — but we don’t want equal servitude. Equal freedom is better.

“It appears that, for the most part, expanding registration for the draft to include women would enhance further the benefits presently associated with the Selective Service System,” stated a Pentagon report to Congress recommending the mandatory registration of women.

What benefits are those?

Spending $25 million each year on a Washington bureaucracy to keep a woefully inaccurate and incomplete list of young people between 18 and 25 years of age for a possible future military draft doesn’t hold any benefit for me.

If a draft were conducted, many observers believe the Selective Service would throw away its coerced list of young people (gathered by threatening and punishing and imprisoning young people*) and simply purchase a list or lists on the open list market.

But there is no need for conscription. Never has been. Citizens in these United States have always stepped forward. Today, the All Volunteer Force is the best military in the world.

Most of all, conscription is anathema to the idea of individual liberty. We can and will defend ourselves, but without registering or forcing our daughters into the military.

Or our sons.

Ending registration, forswearing conscription, that’s equal freedom.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

* I know, I was one of those prosecuted back in the 1980s.

 

Additional Reading:

Common Sense: For Genderless Freedom

Common Sense: Needless List?

Townhall: Obama’s New Rite

Common Sense: Equal or Free?

Common Sense: Junk the Law

Townhall: Draft the Congress and Leave My Kid Alone

Townhall: Americans Gung-Ho to Draft Congress

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crime and punishment folly general freedom ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Shadow Boxing with “Nazis”

Ben Shapiro, Jane Coaston, The New York Times, Nazis, violence, free speech, First Amendment

Voltaire’s prayer, “make my enemies ridiculous,” has been granted to Ben Shapiro.

The New York Times has graced its pages with the writings of one Jane Coaston, who, in “The Hollow Bravery of Ben Shapiro,” accuses the brilliant intellectual pugilist Mr. Shapiro for “shadow boxing meant to pander to his conservative fans.”

And while she admits the truth that “campuses tend to be hostile places to conservatives like Mr. Shapiro, Charles Murray and Heather Mac Donald,” she insists that “the notion that they are the cultural underdogs is bogus.”

Failing to back up her “cultural underdog” thesis in any way, Coaston’s essay wanders off, evading the street and campus violence by leftist activists who, until recently, were given de facto license by mayors and college administrators to shout down, beat up and “de-platform” people they called “fascists.”

By just glossing over all this, Ms. Coaston is pandering to her audience — certainly not challenging it, which is precisely what she accuses Mr. Shapiro of doing.

Amusingly, I noticed this journalist arguing earlier this year that “you should punch Nazis in the goddang face.”

But Antifa and other “Nazi-punchers” aren’t in the habit of sending out questionnaires before planting fist to face or bike lock to noggin.

Which brings us to the ridiculous. She minimizes the extent to which Ben Shapiro and others have been threatened (and their fans violently attacked) by mobs shouting against “fascism” and “Nazis.” And yet she provided not merely the intellectual ammunition for this practice, she provided the declaration of war.

Maybe she has a career in politics.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency insider corruption local leaders moral hazard porkbarrel politics

Interfering With a Sweet Racket?

Seattle, City Light, corruption, security, police, scandal, cronyism

One way for governments and enterprises to save money is to contract out some or all of their services. Towns, cities, counties, states — even the federal government — engage in such practices all the time.

It is really just outsourcing, as business lingo dubs it.* But, like any system for shifting responsibility away from direct management, it can be corrupted.

As Seattle citizens now learn, courtesy of Seattle Times reporters Mike Carter and Steve Miletich.

It appears that Seattle City Light, the public utility providing electricity to the city, has been contracting exclusively with Seattle’s Finest Security & Traffic Control. For a half a decade. Despite there being direct competition from another firm.

The utility paid “more than $7.8 million over the past five years to provide off-duty police officers for traffic control or security work,” the Times tells us.

The whole story came to light (no pun intended) when a new outfit offering similar services, but based on “gig economy” principles, sought to enter the market. Seattle’s Finest challenged the firm’s licensing, and, allegedly, directed abuse at the firm’s chief executive officer.

A Seattle detective off-handedly described the dominance of Seattle’s Finest “in organized-crime terms — using the word ‘mafia’ — and said nobody would be allowed to interfere with it.”

The FBI has now been called in.

Usually, local government may seem rather humdrum. But a lot of money can go through powerful, privileged hands. Things can get exciting. Terms like “murky” and “intimidation” abound.

Is this a surprise?

Remember: power corrupts; local power corrupts locally.

Right there where we live.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* An economist, R. H. Coase, got a Nobel Prize in no small part for explaining why this sort of contract can work better than establishing a complete firm-employee wage system.

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency moral hazard responsibility too much government

Half a Win Is Better than None

Terrebonne Parish, Sheriff, Jerry Larpenter, free speech, First Amendment, abuse, ExposeDAT, Jennifer Anderson

Jennifer Anderson criticized her local sheriff. Her family’s home was raided in 2016 by the sheriff as a result.

Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter’s reaction to criticism was ugly and unconscionable, but it hasn’t been allowed to stand. On the other hand, the sheriff hasn’t been adequately punished, either.

Jennifer Anderson’s pseudonymous blog ExposeDAT criticized various public figures in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, including with respect to the business relationships between Larpenter and others. Bridling at the criticism — which had to do with assessment of publicly available facts — the sheriff submitted warrants to Facebook and AT&T to track down the identity of the blogger. Then he sent men to raid the Andersons’ home and grab computers and cell phones.

The Andersons fought back, suing in federal court. They wanted the raid and seizure and search of their private stuff to be declared unconstitutional.

Finally, this September, the Andersons reached an undisclosed settlement with Larpenter out of court. According to its terms, the Andersons aren’t allowed to discuss it any detail. But their attorney says the settlement is “a victory for citizens’ right to be critical of their elected officials without fear of retribution.” U.S. District Court Judge Lance Africk has said that “Jennifer Anderson’s speech [in her blog] falls squarely within the four corners of the First Amendment.”

All that’s fine, but why hasn’t this sheriff also at least been kicked out of his job for his blatant abuse of power?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment folly general freedom ideological culture local leaders media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies political challengers property rights Regulating Protest responsibility

Alt-Comparisons

Antifa, violence, Berkeley, free speech, fascists, alt-right, alt-left

“There is no comparison,” concluded Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan, after spending her entire column doing just that, i.e. comparing Antifa, the so-called “alt-left,” with Nazis and white supremacists, the so-called “alt-right.” 

When Trump spoke about Charlottesville violence on both sides, Sullivan argued, “He was comparing things that aren’t the least bit equal, neither in scale nor in intent.”

Sullivan trumpeted statistics compiled by the Anti-Defamation League. The U.S. had 372 politically motivated murders between 2007 and 2016, with 74 percent committed by right-wing extremists and only 2 percent by left-wing extremists.*

Yet, those perpetrating 2 percent of such slayings can legitimately be compared to those perpetrating 74 percent — and also likened to thugs who beat down opponents in the street (thankfully without murdering them).  

All of the above use violence to achieve political goals.** Some are more deadly than others, but the violent actions of all should be condemned. 

Sullivan acknowledged that “it’s safe to say that most news consumers, if they know anything about antifa, know what the president has told them, and what they’ve gleaned from the club-wielding protesters shown endlessly on TV . . .”

Are citizens not supposed to take note of the violence in living color right before their eyes?

And why are folks uninformed? Could the mainstream media’s failure adequately to cover, say, previous Antifa rioting at Berkeley and elsewhere have something to do with it?

Lastly, Sullivan called on the media “to resist conflating [Antifa] with liberal groups.” Agreed. And let’s have the same fairness in not conflating Nazis and the KKK with conservatives.   

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

*  By the process of elimination, “moderate extremists” are apparently committing close to a quarter of all political killings.

** I’ve not drilled down into these stats, or figured out what, precisely, qualifies as “political.”

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Accountability crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights responsibility too much government

Google: Disagreement

Google, censorship, Boycott, Competition, free market, be evil

Once upon a time, Google penned a stern note to self: “Don’t be evil.”

What you regard as avoiding evil, though, depends on what you regard as doing good.

Does Google think it’s “good” to fire someone for offering reasoned objections to vapid pieties about why there are more men than women working as programmers, and about how to fix the problem? Assuming it is a problem.

If the answer is yes, then it’s up to more reasonable people to say, “No, Google, stomping on candid internal discussion of your (bad) politics and policies is not ‘doing good.’”

Alas, some Google critics push for a “remedy” worse than the problem: government force. They want government to impose new prohibitions and mandates on large private firms that help people to spread their opinions.

I don’t necessarily agree when a firm — Google, Twitter, PayPal or anybody else — stops providing services to persons expressing views that managers and HR departments disdain. Yet I may agree. No one is morally obligated — and no one should be legally compelled — to help spread the views of others.

I certainly refuse to distribute any installment of “Common Sense” guest-authored by The Anti-Paul-Jacob Club.

When market actors make bad decisions without violating anyone’s rights, others have many powerful and peaceful means of opposing those decisions. Criticism. Boycott. Competition.

But we shouldn’t seek to outlaw the decision-making.

The right to freedom includes no guarantee that one will always do the right thing as others see it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism

Loco Micro Repression

Close but no cakewalk prize.

Modern social justice advocates sometimes come up with legitimate complaints . . . only to wander off terra firma and into cloud-cuckoo land.

“Microaggressions” is one of these airy wanderings, and Katherine Timpf has spotted another in the ever-growing catalog of social justice beefs:

The size of our society’s chairs is now being considered a “microaggression” against overweight people, according to a guide released by The New School, a private college in New York City.

Proponents of this cause, Timpf notes, insist that “Microaggression is not ‘Micro’ in Impact,” and that the best response to faux pas, slights, indelicacies, and what-have-you is snitching to the administration and intervention from same. Quite overbearing, if you ask me. During my too brief college stint it would have been considered an insult — a microaggression? — to think that young adults could not handle minor affronts such as so helpfully listed at The New School.

But let’s get real here. Microaggressions do not justify treating adults as children and setting up college administrators as in loco parentis tribunals — much less Molotov cocktails, sucker punches or bike locks in socks. At best, as has been pointed out elsewhere, Ned’s microaggression justifies Zed’s microretaliation. Nothing more.

So how does one micro-respond?

Manners; etiquette.

In olden times, a well-mannered person, when snubbed or otherwise insulted had the option of responding with a cutting remark . . . without any actual cutting, without even raising the tone of his or her voice.

Activists and collegians really should look into it.

And not bring up chair size: the micro-chair/macro-posterior issue has too many “microaggressive” jokes built into it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies Regulating Protest responsibility U.S. Constitution

Saturday’s Violence

police, violence, Charlottesville, white supremacist, Nazi, protest, counter protest, law and order

After delivering the final address at the Liberty International World Conference in Puerto Rico, Friday night, I learned that there had been violent clashes between white nationalists and counter-demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia.

A dozen people required medical treatment after being sprayed with mace.

Then, after traveling to the airport with new friends from Kazakhstan, China, and socialist-torn Venezuela, I began my eight-hour trek home. I had the subject for my weekend column, I decided: the lack of reports of even one arrest.

Last I checked, dousing folks with a chemical agent was a crime.

“Men in combat gear, some waring [sic] bicycle and motorcycle helmets and carrying clubs and sticks and makeshift shields,” the Washington Post reported as I landed for my connecting flight home, “fought each other on the downtown streets, with little police interference.”

By the time I touched down in Washington, DC, James Field had driven his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer and seriously wounding many others. A searing and sobering event.

My column, mostly written in transit, focused on the police response to political violence. From Trump rallies last year to the events at UC-Berkeley that “shut down” planned speeches . . . to attacks on Charles Murray and others at Middlebury College . . . to this Saturday’s events in Charlottesville, policing has been tepid at best.

People have a right to speak, to assemble, to protest, to let out a primal political scream. Our governments must protect that right, without regard to viewpoint, by preventing and policing against acts of violence.

When violence succeeds without consequences — garnering tons of attention for its perpetrators — we are likely to see more violence.

Government is not doing job one.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment folly ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility

Excepting Responsibility

Google, memo, sexism, discrimination, responsibility, guilt, justice, crime

Responsibility: demand it of others, expect it demanded of you.

So you might think that those who try to redress old grievances with compensatory (“reverse”) discrimination would be a bit more careful.

Yesterday I wrote about the bizarre Google Memo case, wherein an employee was fired for (basically) warning of a groupthink ideological monoculture at Google . . . thus proving him right.*

Last weekend I wrote about racial quotas in college entrance.

In both cases, there’s this idea that moderns in general and white males in particular must “accept responsibility” for the past.

And the evidence is undeniable: Our pale-faced ancestors — or more likely a very small percentage of other white people’s ancestors — held human beings in bondage. So, too, did almost all peoples around the world; slavery’s old. Here in these United States, after our bloodiest war, our forebears ended that ancient crime. Then there was another century of Jim Crow discrimination, with systemic violence committed against blacks in many areas of the country, often with government acquiescence or involvement.

Harvard and other educational institutions are trying to right those wrongs.

But there’s a problem: the principle behind their affirmative action schemes is lunatic: Each person of one race bears responsibility for the crimes committed by any person of that same race.

Far better is individual responsibility. Individuals have every right to compensation for any harm another has caused them, certainly. But folks have no right to create new harms against innocent people who happen merely to be of the same race or gender as those who have caused them past harm.

Justice is supposed to be blind, not crazy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The author, it is worth noting, addressed this monoculture in his title, “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber.” I wonder if being proven right by one’s enemies compensates for job loss.

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crime and punishment general freedom local leaders moral hazard nannyism responsibility too much government

Decriminalizing Balloon Release

California, Jerry Brown, law, balloon, metallic, criminal liability

I’m sure I disagree with most of the policies California Governor Jerry Brown seeks to propose and impose. But let’s give credit where credit is due. He’s right that people should not be treated like criminals when in a burst of celebratory excess they commit the sin of unleashing helium balloons.

California lawmakers thought it would be smart to make criminals out of toddlers and other Snidely Whiplashes who “willfully release” helium balloons made of electrically conductive material.

The potential problem is real enough. When the balloons collide with power lines, they may cause power surges or brief power outages. Squirrels and birds can also cause power outages, and are far more likely to do so. Luckily, though, nobody (so far) has thought of prosecuting wayward warblers.

In vetoing the legislation to criminalize balloon release, Governor Brown said he didn’t believe “that expanded criminal liability is the best solution to the problem of electrically conductive balloons interfering with power lines. As I have said before, our Penal Code is already far too complex and unnecessarily proscriptive. Criminal penalties are not the solution to every problem.”

Correct.

Brown’s veto message may seem like simple common sense. But in an age in which kids can be suspended from school for doodling a gun or carrying a maple leaf, we have learned that rudimentary reasonableness is not necessarily standard operating procedure.

Hence, any instance of firmly refraining from lunacy must receive our heartfelt thanks and appreciation.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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