Category: crime and punishment

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crime and punishment general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies

Guantánamo Gestures

Guantánamo, detention, Cuba, Obama, terrorism

It’s a fun word to say: “Guantánamo!”

Almost like “Geronimo!”

Of course, Guantánamo and Geronimo are nearly opposites. Geronimo was an iconic Native American warrior against the U.S. military. Guantánamo is the famous — or infamous — American military prison located at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

President Obama wants to shut the prison down. Why? Symbolism. He argues the prison “undermines” our national security by reminding the world of the harsh interrogation techniques used on prisoners — the Red Cross called it “torture” — and the indefinite detention of people — so far for 14 years — without any due process.

Republican presidential candidates countered, with Ted Cruz telling Obama, “Don’t shut down Gitmo, expand it and let’s have some new terrorists there.” Donald Trump promised, “We’re going to load [Gitmo] up”

Meanwhile, Obama’s plan to close Gitmo lacks any destination for more than a third of the remaining 91 prisoners. Apparently, part of the plan is to come up with the rest of the plan.

What’s not part of Obama’s plan? Ending the American policy of indefinitely incarcerating suspected terrorists and denying them any opportunity to defend themselves in either a civilian or military court. The president’s scheme is simply to relocate these detainees to U.S. soil and continue to hold them without charge — forever.

That’s why lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights panned Obama’s plan, which “does not ‘close Guantanamo.’ It merely relocates it to a new ZIP Code.”

The Guantánamo Bay facility isn’t the problem. Shut down the policy of holding people indefinitely without any system of justice. Let’s show the world more than symbolism; let’s give them (and ourselves) a little peek at truth, justice and the American Way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Guantánamo, detention, Cuba, Obama, terrorism

 

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Accountability crime and punishment general freedom government transparency moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

Zetabytes and Zombies

Apple, iphone, security, police, NSA

Zombie government wants to eat our brains. Did I overstate this on Sunday?

Most folks don’t look at the Apple/FBI controversy over digital security quite that starkly.

The National Security Administration sure doesn’t see it that way. The NSA is in the “information harvesting business,” says Business Insider. And boy, “business is booming.” The NSA measures its operations in zetabytes. And in the acreage of its Maryland and Utah sprawls.

The idea is that the NSA protects us.

But notice that government, collecting all that information, and in trying to beat back malicious and sportive hacker attacks from around the world, treats computer companies antagonistically. And it doesn’t provide us, individually, with help on our personal cyber-security: we have to pay for our own cyber-security. When some thief (local or overseas) steals a digital identity and grabs a netizen’s wealth and credit, of what help is government?

Not much.

It’s little different from back in Herbert Spencer’s day, over a century ago, when he noted that government practiced “that miserable laissez faire,” making citizens bear the costs of their own protection, to financial ruin defending themselves in court.

Indeed, for all our reliance upon law enforcement, we have to notice that the real work of defense and conflict avoidance happens best outside of government “help” — as is the case in Detroit, Michigan, where it is private security that does what many expect the police to do.

As long as the police and the federal government operate mainly as antagonists to peaceful citizens as well as to criminals, then looking warily at police power and privilege (and thus the NSA and the FBI) seems like . . .

. . . Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies

Needless List?

Marco Rubio, draft, selective service

Are Republican presidential candidates getting the NFL draft and the military draft confused?

Get drafted by the NFL and you’re a millionaire. Participation is voluntary. Get “chosen” by the Selective Service System for the military draft and you could wind up in combat. Participation is involuntary.

Last Sunday at Townhall, I wondered why Republican presidential candidates keep talking about registering young females for a future draft like they are bestowing some great benefit, as if women are clamoring for the equal chance to be conscripted.

Sen. Marco Rubio first agreed that draft registration should be expanded to women. He then elaborated, “I’m open to Selective Service being opened up to women that want to be a part of it.”

Wait a second . . . the current male-only draft registration isn’t optional. It’s mandatory — under the threat of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. This I know first-hand.

After Sen. Ted Cruz suggested Rubio and other presidential contenders were “nuts” to support forcing women to register, Rubio tried to explain on Fox News Sunday: “What I’ve never said and I don’t support is that we are going to draft women and force them into combat roles. That’s absurd.”

The senator volunteered that he did not “believe anyone ever will” be drafted, because “that’s not the nature of modern warfare.”

“I’m actually in favor of a volunteer armed forces,” he told host Chris Wallace. “I’m not even sure we need Selective Service anymore.”

Calling it “just a registry of names for a draft that’s never going to happen,” Rubio added, “I don’t know why we still have Selective Service.”

Me neither.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Marco Rubio, draft, selective service

 

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crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture individual achievement judiciary media and media people national politics & policies obituary

Life After Scalia

Antonin Scalia, Justice, Supreme Court, battle, death, Common Sense

President Reagan appointed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to the nation’s highest court in 1986. Scalia served for 29 years before passing away over the weekend at age 79. May he rest in peace.

None of the rest of us will get any.

Why? An often conservative 5-4 majority is gone. The court is now tied, deadlocked, at 4-4.

“With the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia, President Barack Obama will make another nomination to the Supreme Court,” explained an email from the very liberal Democracy for America (I’m on a lot of lists). “It is critically important that President Obama choose a strongly progressive person who can lead the Supreme Court and our country in a new direction.”

That’s Obama’s prerogative, of course. But the president’s nominee must be approved by the United States Senate — controlled 54 to 46 by Republicans.

And guess what?

Almost as fast, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued this statement: “The American people‎ should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President.”

Now, our Democratic president could negotiate with the Republican Senate majority, come up with a consensus (yeah, right) or compromise choice (watch out).

But don’t hold your breath.

You may also want to plug your ears. There will be shouting. The media will overwhelmingly take Obama’s side — surprise, surprise— and berate Republicans for obstructing.

Republican Senators have a constitutional duty to provide advice and consent to the president’s pick. Unless Mr. Obama’s choice will improve the High Court, those senators should withhold their consent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture nannyism too much government

Potluck Rites, and Rights

potluck, food, inspection, safety, regulations, government, folly, Common Sense, illustration

Progressives are becoming increasingly defensive about nearly all forms of Big Government, relentlessly telling us that we need government for everything from money and roads to food inspection and subsidies and . . . well, the list is endless.

Food safety is one of their favorite subjects, but I’m increasingly skeptical. Do we really need to be protected from our neighbors’ produce and cooked goods, as can be found in community bake sales and potlucks?

In Arizona, legislators had long carved out an exemption from commercial food safety regulations for potluck and similar “noncommercial social events.” Great. But there was an unfortunate limitation to the exemption: it applied only to such events that took place at a workplace.

Home or church? Potlucks there are still against the law.

So of course officials took the occasion of said “loophole” to crack down on some neighborly events in an Apache Junction mobile home park, in Pinal County.

I’m sure hundreds, perhaps thousands of these events are routinely ignored by Arizona’s police. Indeed, I bet half of the state’s better cops engage in such activities themselves — just because potlucks are part of everyday life all over the country.

But the idiotic regulation allowed public servants (loosely so called) discretionary powers to attack a few people for reasons tangential to community safety. Thankfully, Rep. Kelly Townsend has introduced HB 2341, which would extend potluck freedom beyond the office or warehouse workplace.

Let us be clear: this was not a problem waiting to be solved by Big Government. It is a Big Government problem to be solved by new legislation to de-regulate home and community potlucks.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies political challengers U.S. Constitution

Faces Veiled, Fallacies Unveiled

Gary Johnson, libertarian, burka, Common Sense, illustration

A real-life politician has admitted to having been wrong, even going so far as to dismiss his own previous comment as “stupid.”

He wasn’t abject about it — didn’t “apologize.” He simply explained how and why he had erred.

This . . . from a presidential contender.

No, it wasn’t Hillary Clinton, she of many errors and untruths. It wasn’t Bernie Sanders, whose love of Big, Intrusive Government is an error in and of itself. And it wasn’t Trump, known hyperbolist.

The erring politician? Gary Johnson, a former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico.

Johnson, who is currently running for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination, told Reason last year that banning the burqa would be a reasonable step in protecting the rights of women. Here in America.

Sound sort of Trumpian?

Earlier this month, Johnson retracted his statement. Last week on Fox Business Network’s Kennedy, he explained why prohibiting the face-veil wouldn’t work.

“We need to differentiate between religious freedom, which is [sic] Islam, and Sharia law, which is politics,” he said — and I add a “sic” there because he is obviously driving at this point: religious freedom means we cannot prohibit the religion of Islam, but Sharia law amounts to a religious intrusion into the legal and political realm. And thus must be opposed as “contrary to the U. S. Constitution.”

The reason Johnson had earlier floated the banning of the Islamic face-veil was to save women from Islamofascist enforcement of Sharia’s mandate to go around in public only when completely covered.

“We cannot allow Sharia Law to, in any way, be a part of our lives.”

I’m with him. Let’s hold tight to both religious and political freedom. And how refreshing for a politician to admit an error.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly general freedom ideological culture meme property rights too much government

Human Interest Story

Income inequality, newspaper clipping, humor, satire, social justice, socialism, Common Sense, meme, illustration, Jim Gill, Paul Jacob

“Local Moralist Doing His Part to End Income Inequality”

Click below for high resolution version of this image:

Income inequality, newspaper clipping, humor, satire, social justice, socialism, Common Sense, meme, illustration, Jim Gill, Paul Jacob

Mugger photo by Flikr user cometstarmoon

 

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crime and punishment general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies The Draft too much government U.S. Constitution

Junk the Law

conscription, draft, selective service, Common Sense, Paul Jacob

Would your favorite presidential candidate force women to register for the military draft?

A federal court case, National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System, is bouncing around the Ninth Circuit. It challenges the male-only draft registration program as discriminatory against men.

Thirty-five years ago, when yours truly was fighting the draft, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a male-only program because women were then barred from combat. Now the All-Volunteer Force has opened all military fields to women, including combat roles. It follows that the federal courts will likely strike down male-only registration.

What will Congress do? What will the next commander-in-chief advocate? Allow the program to end — or mandate that both young men and young women register?

Hillary Clinton answered this question in 2008, during her first run for the presidency: yes, register women for the military draft.

What about the other presidential hopefuls?

Back in 1980, then-candidate Ronald Reagan pledged to end it, saying that conscription (and registration for it) “destroys the very values our society is committed to defending.”

Sadly, President Reagan continued draft registration, prosecuting me and others.

“The question is nothing less, than whether the most essential rights of personal liberty shall be surrendered,” the great Daniel Webster railed against conscription, “and despotism embraced in its worst form.”

Men and women have an equal right to freedom — not conscription. Free people will always volunteer to defend their country.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly free trade & free markets general freedom nannyism too much government

Law in the Tooth

donkey, grinning, dentist, laws, Common Sense, illustration

Why did Dr. Ben Burris give up his orthodontic license? Where did he go wrong?

Dr. Burris broke the law. He flagrantly violated the hallowed precepts of the Arkansas Dental Practices Act. Let me rinse and spit out the truth: This dentist illegally cleaned people’s teeth.

Not just once — he did it again and again. Often twice a year per patient — or victim, depending on your viewpoint.

Plus, brace yourself, he didn’t merely scrub their choppers, he did so — get this — at very low cost.

We need strong laws to stop such scoundrels.

That bastion of wisdom, the State of Arkansas, has no qualms about Dr. Burris’s qualifications to remove plaque from our incisors, canines and molars, having licensed him to practice dentistry. The problem is actually that Dr. Burris is over-qualified.

Especially to charge low prices!

Burris got licensed in a specialty: Orthodontia. You see, according to state law, a dentist so licensed “must limit his or her practice to the specialty in which he or she is licensed except in an emergency situation.”

Only after terrorist attacks or earthquakes can society risk allowing Orthodontists to daringly and brazenly polish people’s teeth. For less.

This particular statutory tyranny aims to close healthcare markets, minimize patient choice and keep dental costs artificially high. Luckily, beyond being maliciously wrongheaded, Arkansas’s dental law is absurdly foolish.

Dr. Burris dropped the federal court challenge being litigated by the Institute for Justice. Why? He discovered that by simply relinquishing his orthodontic license, he could legally practice orthodontics and clean people’s teeth at low cost.

He just can’t call himself an Orthodontist — but can call the law an ass.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly free trade & free markets ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

Subsidizing Illegal Aliens

Rand Paul, subsidy, aliens, illegals

In The Mouse That Roared, a 1955 comic novel by Leonard Wibberley, a tiny English-speaking country in Europe loses market share for its only export, a wine label, to a cheap American knock-off. Seeking compensation for the loss, the duchy decides to do the only rational thing: declare war on America, and then, after the inevitable defeat, reap the rewards of reconstruction financing.

I was reminded of the book when reading about another of the Obama Administration’s subsidy programs, uncovered by Sen. Rand Paul. The program gives money to illegal aliens deported to their country of origin, El Salvador, to start small businesses.

Sort of a Small Business Administration program for deportees.

But Congress’s involvement is nil, and the SBA has nothing to do with it, either. The program, according to the Rand Paul press release, “is administered by the non-profit Instituto Salvadorno Del Migrante (INSMI — translated to Institute of Salvadorian Migrants) and funded through a $50,000 grant from the taxpayer-backed Inter-American Foundation.”

It is not big money, certainly not by profligate Washington standards. Nor is the premise of the program likely to win it praise from anyone looking for a solution to illegal immigration. Indeed, the best way to describe the program is how Rand Paul’s team did describe it: “absurd.”

In The Mouse That Roared, the Duchy of Grand Fenwick makes a crucial mistake in its plan to profit from American largesse: it wins the war.

But some things haven’t changed since then. The American government throws around money absurdly.

And little countries make fools of Big America.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Rand Paul, subsidy, aliens, illegals