Is a Bigger Bubble Looming?

This is 46 minutes but well worth it.

The Wesley Mouch of the Legal Profession

Here is an interesting video on the Commerce Clause and how the political classes have reinterpreted it to justify almost unlimited powers to the government: i.e., to themselves. Prof. Erwin Chemerinsky defends the broad interpretation of the commerce clause.

Over the years numerous people have ridiculed Ayn Rand for making her villians unappealing in every sense of the word. Even though William F. Buckley is dead, his vendetta against Rand continues with a new generation of conservatives. A recent issue of this conservative rag attacks Rand, among other things, because you know who is evil "by looking at them" with the physical signs of evil "being obesity, baldness, round-facedness, and soft- or watery-eyedness." Well, not quite, but lets roll with it.

That said, I couldn't help but watch this video with the distinct impression that Chemerinsky was one of Rand's villians in living form. Of course, many of her villians were in fact inspired by living people, though for obvious reasons Chemerinsky wasn't one of them. But he certainly could have been added to Rand's pantheon of evil.

Republican says law can use "sixth sense" to finger illegals

I continue to stand by my view that the Republican Party is the party of organized hate in America. The Democrats may be in the clutches of the greedy, unions of government employees, who are helping bankrupt America while giving us lousy service, or unnecessary service, but general speaking the bigots are attracted to the GOP. Once the Republican Party embraced the fundamentalist Christians it was bound to head down the bigoted road on numerous issues. I have long noticed that someone who is bigoted against one group tends to be bigoted against several groups.

The odd thing about haters is that people who dislike people for being black are more likely to dislike people who are Jewish, or people who are gay. They are more likely to see women as inferior to men. They tend to be more authoritarian, even if they pretend they support "less government."

Listen to Republican Congressvermin Steve King justify police using racial profiling to target "illegals" by comparing it to a taxi driver giving him a ride. The taxi driver saw King leave a government building, tapped his horn to see if King wanted a ride and King responded positively. That proves we are "profiled" all the time.

What King neglects, and which too many politicians neglect, is that there is a world of difference when government acts in this way. The taxi driver does not have a legal monopoly on the use of violence and force against others. He is not the State. Police agents are government, not private individuals offering services, but individuals who have the power to use force against other people.

I remember standing on the platform of the U-bahn in Berlin when the tracks were being repaired and the trains were being diverted. I saw a couple who looked very confused and were speaking English to one another. They had American accents and I assumed they were confused by the changes that were implemented. So I walked over and explained how the trains had been changed and asked them where they were going. I was getting off at Zoologischer Garten, and they had to go a couple stations further so I suggested they follow me. When I got off the train I explained they had to go two more stops for the station they wanted.

In a vague senses that was profiling. But I have no ability to restrain people. I couldn't violate their rights, only offer them assistance. When the power to violate rights, which is inherent in policing, is linked to entirely non-objective traits, such as King's "sixth sense," you have removed all concepts of the rule of law from the policing system.

Imagine a police officer stopping a man on the street because his "sixth sense" tells him the man is some sort of criminal. The officer demands ID based on his sixth sense. Legally speaking we are supposed to still have the right to walk the streets sans government paper. So assume our man is without ID. He tells the officer his name, as required and even volunteers that he is a citizen. But the officer's "sixth sense" is working, or maybe the suspects the man wears shoes that show he is "illegal" or has the haircut of an "illegal" (this is really Twilight Zone thinking). So, using his new powers under the Arizona law he takes the man into custody.

The man has done nothing! He has not violated any law. He has not assaulted anyone, or transgressed on the rights of any other person. He is peacefully minding his own business and a police officer, using King's justification, merely "senses" that the man is suspicious. No objective standard now exists. Officers are free to harass and grab people on the streets merely because they don't like a haircut, a pair of shoes, or because they just get a "feeling" about the person.

This is big government at it's worst. Big government is bad under all circumstances, in my opinion. But massive government without the restraint of objective definitions of criminal behavior is total tyranny. No armed agent of the government should be able to stop people and restrain them merely because he "senses" something. That is the complete annihilation of the rule of law. It also illustrates why I consider the xenophobic, anti-immigrant hysteria on the Right to be one of the biggest threats to Constitutional freedoms around today. And what is really disgusting is that the morons pretend to be doing in the name of the small government.

The "charming" morons hired by Immigration

A friend of mine, who is Canadian, lives there with her American husband. The husband's father recently died and they have had to come to the U.S. a couple of times to settle matters of the father's estate. Having just returned from one of those trips she told me what happened as they were driving down to the U.S.

At the U.S. border they had another one of the insufferably long waits that Immigrations now routinely inflicts, discouraging millions in revenue for the country. These waits have basically killed off the previously thriving industry of Canadians coming to America to do shopping.

At the border they were approached by a Immigration thug who shaves his head and wears military sunglasses—a look I suggest is consciously thought through to make a statement that is supposed to be intimidating. I still contend that many people attracted to this line of work are actually petty thugs and bullies who are attracted to the job because they like to order people around—perhaps it is to compensate for small dicks, I'm sure it is to compensate for small brains, however. The productive marketplace, that is non-government employment, does not have much demand for bullies, especially dumb bullies.

The border thug demands to know why they are visiting the U.S., remember the driver is a U.S. citizen and the Canadian is his wife. The husband informs the curt skinhead that the trip was to settle his father's estate. Having looked at the passports, that is government permission slips given to "free" people allowing them to do what they did for millenniums without permission, the skinhead knew very little, but enough for his next question, so he thought.

He then asks my friends, "What is the status of the father?" A truly odd question if you think about it. After all they just told him they were going to settle the father's estate. The husband was so baffled by the question he sat there trying to figure out what the skinhead was talking about.

My friend, the wife, was startled by the question because it seemed so patently absurd to her as well. She responded: "He's dead."

That was sufficient to "set the guard off. He tore into me with a lecture about how [her husband's] father needed a status to have a residence and an estate in America, etc., etc., etc."

Actually, owning an estate is entirely independent of having "a status." And by status it was now clear that the skinhead was demanding to know if my friend's father was an illegal alien. So, what would trigger that line of questioning?

One thing, and one thing only. His surname is Hispanic. Remember he is a U.S. citizen, born in the U.S., his father was NOT an illegal alien. His only crime was having a Hispanic surname. Racial profiling and skinheads go together, and only the government gives the skinheads authority like this. Normally when they engage in racial harassment it is illegal, but not when working for government.

I am sure that the surname was the reason this sort of profiling was done. I also suspect that there was a second factor: the skinhead didn't know what it meant to "settle the estate." Given the intelligence level of people attracted to government employment I suspect he gave the term no consideration at all. All he heard was "father" and "estate" and then wants to know the "status" of the father, without realizing that normal people don't equate the word "status" with having permission papers from the federal authorities.

When my friend blurted out, rather surprised by the question, that the father was dead the skinhead realized he made a stupid assumption. Actually he made two stupid assumptions. First he assumed that having a Hispanic surname would mean the father could be an illegal alien. Second, it didn't dawn on him that the father was not living in the U.S., but was dead and buried in the U.S.

The reason he "tore into" my friend so heavily was because he was trying to cover up his own ignorance. But why bother? Surely the skinhead-military-sunglasses look already revealed the kind of ignorant moron that he clearly was. Opening his mouth only confirmed the obvious.

Yes, assuming a Hispanic name means "illegal" is stupid, but government policy encourages that sort of thing. But having a name assumed to be Hispanic doesn't mean one is either Hispanic or an alien. I remember one incident where three people I knew well all received solicitations to subscribe to the Spanish edition of Time magazine. All three had surnames that are widely assumed to be Hispanic, none were Hispanic and none could speak or read Spanish. Such false assumptions, in the private sector, are just amusing anecdotes with no harmful consequences possible.

Such assumptions, when made by morons with guns and the authority to use them, have very bad potential consequences. For example, remember the case of the man in Chicago, who was incarcerated for days because the morons didn't realize that Puerto Rico is part of the United States, not that it should be.

The skinhead mentality is alive and well, and it is always unpleasant. In the private sector when it exhibits itself the law is supposed to restrain it to non-violent acts. But when the mentality is backed by government power it becomes quite dangerous and potentially lethal. And while my friends on the Left would applaud much of what I say here, I want to remind them that it is the concentration of state power that makes this a problem. Skinheads acting privately are restrained by the law, skinheads with government "authority" are set loose on the public. The same disgusting mentality is magnified when combined with big government.

Too many advocates of centralized power on the Left assume that only "good guys" will have that power. That is a very bad mistake to make. Reality shows that eventually the "bad guys," regardless of how you define them, will get that power and use it as they see fit. If you want to protect minorities and civil liberties you have to work for smaller government. Otherwise you do get skinheads running immigration policy and fundamentalist "abstinence" types teaching sex education. In the private sector both are jokes, endowed with state power they are a danger.

Does Obamacare push Abstinence?

One of the problems of passing legislation that no one has read is that no one is sure what it contains until it is too late. Now it appears that the professional abstinence pushers, that special interest group that sucks up taxpayer money to lie to schoolkids about sex, believe that clauses in it will refund their efforts. The Washington Post reports that "the rescue plan for the nation's health-care system will also save their programs..." [Please note that referring to the bill as a "rescue" plan is not objective reporting but media bias. It is the same as if the Post had said "disastrous plan." Journalists are supposed to report the facts and whether this is a rescue or disaster depends on your politics—but then the political bias of the Post has never been questioned.]

The Obama bill "includes $50 million for programs that states could use to try to reduce pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease among adolescents by teaching them to delayy when they start having sex. " Amazing that the government is involved in teaching people not to have sex.

Valarie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Assocation says they are "otpimtistic" about the Obama bill providing them funds. By the way, that there is now such an association shows just how quickly government funding creates special interest groups of parasites who then lobby to keep the program forever. This is why "temporary" government programs become permanent.

Hilariously only James Wagnoner of Advocates for Youth said: "This is a last-ditch attempt by conservatives to resuscitate a program that has been proven to be ineffective." First, this bill was proposed by conservatives but by statist progressives. Conservatives didn't support the bill, not that there aren't plenty of awful bills they would support. If the funding is provided then blame Obama for that one, not conservatives.

And since when did effectiveness become important in analysing government policy? Our foreign policy is ineffective and continues. The war on drugs is not just ineffective but also counter-productive. Ethanol subsidies do more harm than good, so do agricultural subsidies. If you made a line by line list of every project that government funded, put them all on a wall, and then randomly threw a dart at it, you would hit an ineffective program most of the time.

In essence the best of government is ineffective and at it's worst it is lethal and destructive. Calling a government program ineffective is a compliment since accuracy would probably be much harsher. Neither the Left, nor the Right, give a damn about effectiveness. Playing politics is not about solving problems but capturing resources and both sides do that very well to the detriment of the people.

Crony Capitalism

One of the great myths, pushed by both Right and Left, is that Big Business is needs Big Government to keep it under control. In reality, Big Business usually advocates Big Government because it knows that it is able to control the regulatory process for its own benefit. And it does. The political Left, some of whom are well-meaning but naive, often plays up this alleged conflict to their benefit. Obama, in his State of the Union speech, played that same note over and over. He denounced Wall Street and Big Banks yet he has lavished billions of dollars on the groups he attacked and his own administration is riddled with officials he picked directly out of the very companies he was deriding. It's a con job from start to finish.

John Stossel discussed crony capitalism in this episode of his new show and I thought it well worth watching.

That's what we do.

A modern day witch hunt.

This blog has covered how American sex laws have expanded to such a degree that hundreds of teens per year are incarcerated for what was once considered fairly normal behavior. The great irony of all this is that the laws in question found their genesis in a hysteria from a couple of decades ago, which used the mantra “its for the children” as its slogan.

The mid-to-late 1980s saw a hysteria literally sweep America. The claims were that thousands of children were being attacked sexually by secret satanic cells scattered across the United States. The news media actually bought into this B.S. and reported it with suitably horrified looks on their faces and a tinge of panic in their voice. Certain politicians flocked to the hysteria, as politicians are prone to do, demanding immediate action.

The most famous case was that of the McMartin Preschool. A woman with mental, as well as alcohol, problems claimed that her young son had been sodomized by her ex husband and by Ray Buckey, an employee of the school, run by his grandmother and mother. The woman also made claims that her dog was being sodomized, was diagnosed and hospitalized for acute paranoid schizophrenia and died from her drinking problems, all before the actual trial. None of this stopped the police who sent out a panicky letter to all McMartin parents telling them that molestation took place at the school. Horrified parents began questioning children, spreading the claims of the woman far and wide.

Hundreds of children were sent to an organization run by Kee McFarlane. Using techniques that have been criticized by professions, McFarlane was able to diagnose hundreds of children as victims. Therapeutic techniques were used that didn’t treat children for abuse, as much as convince them of it. Children, who had shown no symptoms of abuse prior to therapy, showed symptoms only after McFarlane and her team got their hands on them and subjected them to her form of therapy. The stories of the children were as bizarre as they were coerced. Kids told of sex orgies at a public car wash, Satanists running the local Episcopal Church, and secret tunnels beneath the school. Prosecutors even dug up the property to substantiate the stories but no such tunnels were ever found. In one incident, children claimed that actor Chuck Norris was a Satanist involved in abusing them.

ABC news local reporter Wayne Satz started the media hysteria on the case and continued reporting the “facts” even after he was sleeping with McFarlane. For seven years the trial dragged out costing taxpayers $15 million. In this case there were no convictions. Meanwhile agencies created to discover abuse saw their budgets increase ten-fold almost instantly.

But in other parts of the country the accused were not a lucky as the defendants in the McMartin case—if you can call what happened to them lucky. Not far from the McMartin case another hysteria was created in Bakersfield, California. A power-hungry, moralistic politician named Ed Jagels was the local prosecutor who got it in his thick skull that dozens of parents were involved in covens molesting children.

And that brings me to a new documentary that was recently released on DVD, entitled Witch Hunt. Dana Nachman and Don Hardy, Jr produced this documentary that looked at the Bakersfield cases. Under interrogation by the police and social workers various children began pointing their fingers at adults in court, often against their own parents. Many of those adults were then convicted and given sentences for hundreds of years.

But almost immediately the children were trying to convince authority figures that they didn’t tell the truth. This documentary doesn’t just tell the story of the convicted, but of their accusers as well. These children, now adults, say they spent their entire life tormented by the guilt of having sent innocent people to prison; even though they were just children, coerced into lying in court by a zealous team of prosecutors and police. Those convictions ruined their lives as well. Yes, there was abuse. But, it wasn’t sexual; it wasn’t committed by the defendants. It was an abuse of children conducted by the U.S. justice system at the behest of one politician wanting to make a name for himself as “tough on crime” in order to win over conservative voters.

Nachman and Hardy got a call from the Innocence Project, an important private effort to exonerate individuals falsely convicted of crimes by our legal systems. The Project was working on the case of John Stoll. Stoll remembers the night of his arrest. He awoke to find police officers standing in his room. From that moment, for the next couple of decades, Stoll was a prisoner of the justice system. When Stoll was eventually exonerated he told Hardy and Nachman of dozens of other people who had been convicted in the same witch hunt.

The story told in this documentary is a frightening one. Innocent people are caught up in a politically induced hysteria, fed by an immoral new media. They are convicted and have their lives ripped apart. Over the next few decades the facts, swept under the rug because of the panic, come to light. More and more of the children demand to be heard and the way the authorities coerced false testimony from them comes to light. But the justice system is reluctant to admit error and some of the falsely convicted languished in prison long after it was known they were innocent.

Witch Hunt is a chilling look at the dangers of big government. Individuals like Ed Jagels are given immense power and power corrupts in every sense of the word. When it does it is the innocent who suffer the most. Witch Hunt exposes the suffering of the innocent. In this case the innocent are not just the men and women sentences to inhumane prison terms for crimes that didn’t even happen, it is also the children who were subjected to legal manipulation and coercion to falsely testify, and then left to live with the guilt of their actions.

I highly recommend Witch Hunt. It is 91 minutes and the best price for it, that I have found, is here. Below are excerpts. I suggest you get the full film yourself. It is one of the best new films for libertarians that I have found.

Now the TSA gets off its ass

After the travel gestapo working for Homeland Security totally flubbed the warning they received about would-be terrorist Umar Abdullmutallab they have finally gotten off their fat asses and done something. Once again, it is the wrong thing.

As you will remember they imposed these new absurd travel regulations stripping people of the right to pee during the last hour of a flight. Well, that information was made public through some blogs. So what do the Travel Nazis do? They go after the blogs with subpoenas.

The writer Christopher Elliot, found a TSA agent at his front door with a subpoena saying: "You are hereby commanded by the administrator, Transportation Security Administration, United States Department of Homeland Security to produce and permit inspection of the records described below...."

While the TSA didn't have time to investigate someone reported by his own family as a terrorist, who flew without luggage and who appeared on a list of suspected terrorists, they do have time to harass bloggers. Why? The bloggers printed the new TSA "guidelines" on "How to Harass Innocent People Why Ignoring Real Threats." Okay, maybe the TSA called it SD 1544-09-06. They are demanding the bloggers reveal the source of their information. It is a pathetic commentary on the Homeland Security State of Napolitano and Obama, when instead of fixing what went wrong, they concentrate on unimportant issues while harassing bloggers.

The TSA sent two of their thugs to visit travel blogger Steve Frischling as well. They confiscated his lap top computer. Frischling said that they threatened to "interfer" with his contract to write a blog for an airline if he refused to cooperate with them. They wanted him to name names. Is Joe McCarthey running TSA? The New York Times is reporting that the TSA refuses to say how many American bloggers are being harassed under this new fishing expedition. What they want is to silence anyone exposing TSA stupidity—which would be a full time job.

So, all you morons who thought Obama would be different than Bush, you are right. He's worse. I could be wrong, but I don't remember TSA thugs harassing bloggers under Bush. That seems to be an Obama innovation. Certainly this contempt for the First Amendment is not unique it was used before—by men like Stalin, Mao, Mussolini and Hitler.

Huffington Post says:

The agents threatened to get Frischling -- a blogger for KLM airlines -- fired from his job, confiscate all his electronic devices -- phones, computers, and iPods -- and declare him a security risk -- which would get him on the No Fly list -- unless he cooperated.

Frischling -- who has worked for Life, Time, Newsweek, New York Times, and was embedded with troops in Iraq -- didn't know what to do. He couldn't reach a lawyer.

The civil subpoena threatened a fine and up to a year in jail for failure to comply.

The TSA has been under fire lately for failure to stop the Christmas Bomber from boarding the NW flight. Frischling told the Huffington Post that he didn't know who sent him the memo and that it is not in any of his computers. The memo was hardly secret. It was sent to approximately 10,000 airlines, airports, and security firms around the world, including locations in Riyadh, Islamabad, and Lagos.

So the TSA sends out a directive to thousands of places, which is seen by tens of thousands of people, and then starts harassing two people for knowing what is in the directive. This is par for the bungling, authoritarian perfomance of Napolitano. She really does want to be another Janet Reno. Now all she needs is to kill some women and children by buring down their "compound" and send in armed thugs to terrorize a small child. Janet Reno Lives. Be Afriad. Be Very Afraid.

Image: Janet Reno showing the world some of her "tools of persuasion." She promised to later show reporters the "rack," "iron maiden" and other tools she finds usesful as first security reichfürher.

Flubbed terrorists known to government.

The Nigerian who tried to light explosive strapped to his leg was known to the U.S. government. Umar Abdulmutallab's name was added to a list of known or suspsected terrorists by the government a month ago. However, when the man's name was run through the database, before he could board his flight, it came up with a green light. There was no warning of any kind. There wasn't even a suggestion that he be put under additional scrutiny. Instead of focusing on people the government KNOWS to be risks the bureaucrats prefer to go after everyone.

There are new restrictions on hand luggage put into place—yet the explosives the man carried were strapped to his leg and never in hand luggage. There is the new regulation confining passengers to their seats yet the man was in his seat when he tried to light the explosive. Abdulmutallab would have been in compliance with all the new restrictions imposed by the government had they been put in place before he boarded the plane. In other words, NONE of the new regulations would have had any impact on the incident. These regulations do not prevent incidents such as the one that happened, that is clear. The incident is merely an excuse for the additional regulations not a justification.

Take the new rule on one piece of carry-on luggage only as an example. Abdulmutallab had only one piece of carry-on luggage. In fact, it was the only luggage he had. Apparently no one found a man flying thousands of miles, with just one piece of hand luggage unusual. His ticket showed him being on his trip for almost two weeks—yet he had no luggage and no one found that unusual. He was on a list of suspected terrorists which exists to allegedly warn airport security about yet the U.S. government gave the man the green light so security staff were not even warned to give the man a bit of additional scrutiny.

Instead of focusing on ways in which the existing failed the bureaucrats like Napolitano look for ways to complicate the lives of innocent people. One month ago our government listed Abdulmutallab as a potential terrorist and yet they approved him to fly without even a hint that he might be a problem. The failure was not the result of too little regulation, as Napolitano is always inclined to think, it was the failure of government. Having the travel gestapo spend more time hassling flyers is no help. All it does is tie up security staff with millions of innocent people.

Since the government knew that Abdulmutallab was a potential risk the most sensible thing to do was to ask security staff to check him out thoroughly. When the man checked-in, was on a list of potential terrorists AND had no checked luggage that should have sent alarm bells ringing. But no one, other than the bureaucrats, knew he was on the list. Security at the airport was never told.

Notice that the failure in security belongs heavily to the bureaucrats in Washington for failing to sound the alarm bell for extra scrutinty. It partially belongs to security staff for not wondering about the absence of luggage. Instead of addressing precisely where security failed, Napolitano pretends the problem was not enough state control and ups the level of regulations stripping Americans of freedom. This is why I don't think there is a war on terrorism, there is a war on freedom however. Everytime some would-be terrorists does something the U.S. government, instead of actually focusing on the individuals with a known tie to terrorism, clamp down on the traveling public.

Photo: Janet Napolitano illustrating how to slowly grab liberty by the throat.

There is a fury and and sadness inside that I cannot express.

This is not the blog entry I intended to write. Something very disturbing happened to me that has forced me to change my topic completely. It is not a new topic, but it is one that hit me with a new sense of urgency. I saw an image earlier today, while reading an article that someone suggested to me. That image broke me down emotionally.

I looked at it for a second and turned away, not because it was horrific or grotesque, but because another few seconds of viewing it and I would have been sitting in my office in tears. Even now I fear adding the image to my blog because of the impact it had on me—it is so disturbing to me that I literally wish to avoid looking at it again, even if to share it with you. I will force myself to do it. I know that I am compelled to do it because of the great injustice that is being done.

I just wish it were not necessary. I just wish I knew how to speak so people understood this issue. Between the tears all I feel is rage, an uncontrollable rage. I want to grab our “society” by the shoulders, shake it violently, and scream at the top of my voice: “Don’t you fucking understand what you are doing? How can you let this happen? How can you demand that it happen?”

Here is the photo. I’ve looked at it again. I can’t look at it and type at the same time, it is too upsetting. This boy is one of the many kids that our society says are sex offenders. The interfering politicans, the would-be Nannies and do-gooders, passed ill-conceived laws to protect our young, and instead, they are devouring the young and sacrificing them to the god of safety.
What was once considering a normal rite of passage, typical curiosity that the newly sexualized young have about themselves, their bodies, and the bodies of others, has become a heinous crime. Not long ago a curious adolescent or child, caught exploring, or playing doctor in the back yard, was given a talking-to, sent to bed early, and warned to not do it again—a warning most heeded for at least another few years, after which time warnings were useless. Today, it has been criminalized, and criminalized in a way far exceeding crimes of violence. A youth who has sex with another youth, even if voluntary, could well face legal sentences far worse than if they had killed their friend.

Consider two young people, confused by their own budding sexuality, curious as to the dynamics of sex, terrified by it, but drawn to it anyway. Nature, or God, if you prefer, built the human body so that that the young are flooded with hormones that inspire lust and a need for release. Perhaps the mind is not ready to grasp what is happening, but the body demands it. At the very least, it is NOT very intelligent design. But it is what it is. Wishing won’t make it different.

These two young people seek some seclusion. “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.” Nervous hands unzip zippers. Tentative touching, complete silence as they forget to even breathe. A door suddenly opens. They try to cover up. They don’t understand why they did it or what it means. That is part of what they were trying to figure out. Something from deep within compelled them to seek something they didn’t understand. Perhaps they are too young to fully understand.

These days we let the special interest groups and politicians terrorize us about the “threat to our children.” We have passed hundreds of ill-conceived pieces of legislation “to protect our children.” Now we are sacrificing our children on the very political altars that we helped build.

Just as Abraham was willing to tie up his beloved son, Isaac, and stab a knife into the boy’s chest as a sacrifice to his God, the American public has made their children a sacrifice to the god of big government. We have allowed the politicians, no—we didn’t allow it, we demanded that the politicians abuse and torture thousands of children per year because we were afraid of monsters that we imagined, far worse than those that really lurked in our neighborhoods. To solve a bad, but thankfully small problem, we decided to take a sledgehammer to it.

One can always kill flies with sledgehammers. It’s very effective. It will kill the fly. But in the process the damage that is done is far worse than the problem that it solves. To protect our kids we take sledgehammers to them and smash their lives.

Consider what happens today to the sexually inquisitive young. The intruding adult feels compelled to take this private matter and make it a case of the criminal law. The sledgehammer is called in. No matter that no violence or threats were used. No matter that both “victims” were very willing partners in crime.

In our new bizarre world of sexual offender legislation each child is a victim and a perpetrator. As the victim, they get no help, of course. The victim status is the excuse needed so that the sledgehammer may be used on the other child. So each becomes a perpetrator. They will be arrested; they will be forced into court. They are likely to be convicted and sentenced. They may be placed into the various prisons for children that have been established—places where they will learn what unwilling, sexual attacks are really like. They will be tortured by therapists and eventually released—maybe. Even that is no longer guaranteed under our sex panic. Today, someone who has served their sentence can then be held in preventative detention for the rest of their natural life because the mob demands it. And the politicians give the mob what it wants.

If our children happen to be released then the real torture begins. They are branded by the cruel laws that opportunistic politicians imposed to satisfy fearful voters. First, the child will be photographed. His or her photo will be published for the world to see, much like the poor boy above. The government hit lists, called sex offender registries, will tell any would-be vigilante where to find this child. The address will be given, if the child is lucky enough to be able to live at home, and not institutionalized.

The sex offender laws will kick in and are guaranteed to destroy any ambition your child may have for success. Any attempts to better themselves, or become productive members of your community, will be throttled by these laws. Every road they try to pursue will become a dead end. It may be impossible for them to finish school. Any job they seek will require them to reveal their “sex offender” status to their employer. Any curious neighbor can find out the “crime” that was committed, though not the circumstances. Years down the road, this child, now an adult, will be listed as someone who committed lewd acts on a child. People will imagine an adult raping a child, not two children playing doctor.

Each time the child moves the police will help him feel welcomed by handing out fliers to the neighbors warning them that a “sex offender” is now living nearby. Rocks thrown through windows can be mild compared to some welcomes that are given. One young man in Maine, opened his door to be executed on the spot, by a stranger. His crime was that he, as a teen, had sex with his girlfriend. In puritanical America that is enough to make him a sex offender. For that he was murdered with his mother only a few feet away. In jurisdiction after jurisdiction this “offender” will find that most of the community is zoned off limits to him. He can’t live too close to a school, too close to a park, too close to a bus stop, too close to…., the list is almost endless and growing all the time.

Every so often he will be required to visit the police and report to them. They may show up at his home anytime they want and demand to inspect it. He could be banned from social networking websites, or from the Internet completely.

If you child grows up to have a family, a normal relationship will be forbidden. He may well be banned from all activities at his children’s school. They may be in a play; he won’t be allowed to watch it. If the kids play on a sport’s team, their father won’t be allowed to attend. Ditto for Little League. Forget having friends over for a birthday party. Dad is a pariah until he dies and his children, and his wife, will be forced to endure the torture with him.

The lucky ones barely manage to hold on. Those who are not so lucky simply end their lives. Others have the option of suicide robbed from them by vigilantes. They quickly learn to give up ambitions and dreams. To excel in life is not possible. To merely survive is hard enough. And some, robbed of all normality, robbed of all hope, mentally and emotionally raped by the state, decide they may as well become the monsters that they are imagined to be.

It takes so little for this happen to a child. A girl in school has oral sex with a boy in school. She becomes a sex offender for the rest of her life. Streaking a school event, as a practical joke, becomes a sex crime in the new America. Two kids “moon” a passerby and are incarcerated in jail as sex offenders. A teenager, who takes a sexy of photo of him, or herself, is paraded around the community as a “child pornographer” for the rest of his or her life. Two kids in the back seat of a car have fumbling sex. The law says one is an offender because the other is a “victim.” One week later, a birthday passes, and it is no longer a crime. One week’s difference and a life is ruined. In other cases an act that is legal on Monday is illegal on Tuesday because the older of the two turned one year older. That becomes enough to qualify him, or her, as an offender.

These laws are not so much protecting children from predators as they are turning them into predators. Look at this chart (see note at bottom of article). Individuals who are legally defined as sex offenders. When you look at the ages of the offenders you see that 14-year-olds are apparently the most sexually dangerous group in America. The rate declines from there, but throughout adolescence the law is far more likely to deem kids as offenders. You may imagine the dirty old man down the street. But with age people are less likely to “offend”. One reason is that they are more mature. But another reason is clear. Once you reach a certain age, having sex with people your own age is normally not considered a crime. The explosion of “youthful sex offenders” is not the result of our kids becoming perverts. It is the result of the law criminalizing what is a normal part of growing up.

These kids are criminals, not necessarily because they violated the life, liberty or property of another person. They are criminals because the politicians defined them as criminals. These damned “family values” conservatives, and compassionate feminist Leftists, who banded together to “save the children,” turned America’s kids into sex offenders by fiat. And they feel good about it. They are satisfied by it and only wish more had been rounded up earlier. The Left wants everyone in therapy and under the perpetual care of the state, and the Right wants everyone in prison, or in fear of the law, and under the thumb of the police. And that is what is happening.

Don’t think you can even explain to your kids all the ways in which the State can turn them into sex offenders. I doubt that even a qualified attorney can do that. The laws are constantly changing, usually for the worse. The mob brays for ritual sacrifices and your child is the Isaac they want placed on the altar. They will only be happy when they see the knife plunge downward, hear the tortured scream of the child; watch the blood drain from the trembling body. Then they will be satiated, until the next Isaac comes along. Unlike Jehovah, the political mob will not stay the hand that holds the knife. They will, instead, demand bigger knives, sharper knives, and more stabs into the heart, more children on the altar, even more altars. They want someone to suffer. After all, we have to protect the children.

Damn them all. Damn John Walsh and his perverted justice. Damn the politicians who don’t give a fuck about hurting kids so long as they can win votes. Damn the hysterics in the churches, the media and the special interest groups, who preach fear to terrify the mob into searching for monsters. Damn them all. If they really want to find the monsters they only need look in the mirror. Me, I can barely look into the faces of these victims of the American witch-hunt without breaking down.

Note: These photos are real. They are kids who are marked for life and displayed on the internet, by our government, for every vigilante to hunt down. Look at them. Look at then closely. They could be your kid, your neighbor, your nephew, your little brother, or yourself at a younger age. Why do we let this happen?

UPDATE: A film producer has expressed interest in a documentary based on the accumulated evidence that this blog has produced on these sorts of cases. (This wasn't our first article on the topic just the most read one.) The estimated cost to produce a documentary on this horrendous situation is about $100,000. If you would like to help fund the film, or if you have a story that should be included, please contact the film company at documentarykids@gmail.com.

First, I want to recommend some books for those interested. You can click on the link and order them online if you want. First is Harmful to Minors by Judith Levine. The book covers some of the areas discussed in this article and a lot more. Next is Dr. Richard Epstein's book The Case Against Adolescence, which documents how society has turned adolescents into children. He argues persuasively that most adolescents are capable individuals and that treating teens like children is unwarranted and harmful. The third books is Dr. Marty Klein's work, America's War on Sex, which covers the general intrusion into sexuality by Big Brother. All can be ordered from our friends at Laissez Faire Books, or you can call and order them at 1-866-686-7210. Given that this article is pulling in a couple thousand readers per hour, you might want to order on line lest the phone lines be busy.

For a response on the impact of this article and for answers to a couple of questions, go here. A list of the numerous articles previously posted on this topic can now be found here. This is not a complete list but fairly complete and documents the claims made on this blog.

Note regarding Chart: This is to correct an error, not ours but the Department of Justice. The chart is from page 8 of a DOJ report and is marked as Figure 6. However, in typesetting, in the report, someone had made a series of charts about the "age of victim," which appear on the preceding pages. At this point in the report the information shifts to the "age of offender" but the person who labeled the charts continued with the previous label in error. This is clear when you read the report as it specifically refers to Figure 6 as showing, not the age of victims but is a "detailed age profile of offenders." It says the "greatest number of offenders from the perspective of law enforcement was age 14 (figure 6). The frequency of offenders within age groups declined gradually with age, reaching half the peak frequency by the late 30s."

Some people have latched on to the error and are claiming the error proves that this site doctored the evidence (some people are very desparate to cling to these bad laws). However, they did not read the information which appears below Figure 6 which clearly shows it is a chart of offender's ages not the ages of victims. An error was made but not here. I should also note that one person is running from site to site, which mention this article, and telling people there that the DOJ reports says statutory offenses are not included in these reports. That is not true. In the comments section I quote from two different passages of the report clearly indicating that statutory offenses are included, contrary to the claims by this person. However, even though they were given exact quotes from the report they still persist in misreporting what the contents of the report.

World should mourn the loss of the world's greatest man.

In this writer's opinion, it is no exaggeration to say that the world has just lost one of the greatest human beings who has ever lived, perhaps the greatest. We often judge the nature of evil by the number of human lives that were extinguished. Names that come to mind, of such cruel killers include Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Che, and Castro. In the name of some "greater good" these individuals extinguished the lives of others.

Conversely I would argue that saving lives is a sign of human good. And I can not think of anyone responsible for saving more lives than Normal Borlaug. Borlaug died at the age of 95, while still working on saving lives.

Borlaug spent his life trying to figure out how to increase food production. Through his research on plant breeding and crop management Borlaug expanded the world's food supply faster than the populations grew. The LA Times notes:

In 1960, the world produced 692 million tons of grain for 2.2 billion people. By 1992, largely as a result of Borlaug's pioneering techniques, it was producing 1.9 billion tons for 5.6 billion people -- using only 1% more land.

On the occasion of Borlaug's 90th birthday, former President Jimmy Carter said that he "has been demonstrating practical ways to give people of the entire world a higher quality of life. . . . He is a true humanitarian."

Added former Sen. George McGovern (D-S.D.), Borlaug's "scientific leadership not only saved people from starvation, but the high-yield seeds he bred saved millions of square miles of wildlife from being plowed down. He is one of the great men of our age."

Borlaug received support from the large foundation. But with the rise of the environmental movement pressure was put on the foundations to stop funding Borlaug's work. Gregg Easterbrook wrote:

The Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and the World Bank, once sponsors of his work, have recently given Borlaug the cold shoulder. Funding institutions have also cut support for the International Maize and Wheat Center -- located in Mexico and known by its Spanish acronym, CIMMYT -- where Borlaug helped to develop the high-yield, low-pesticide dwarf wheat upon which a substantial portion of the world's population now depends for sustenance. And though Borlaug's achievements are arguably the greatest that Ford or Rockefeller has ever funded, both foundations have retreated from the last effort of Borlaug's long life: the attempt to bring high-yield agriculture to Africa.

The African continent is the main place where food production has not kept pace with population growth: its potential for a Malthusian catastrophe is great. Borlaug's initial efforts in a few African nations have yielded the same rapid increases in food production as did his initial efforts on the Indian subcontinent in the 1960s. Nevertheless, Western environmental groups have campaigned against introducing high-yield farming techniques to Africa, and have persuaded image-sensitive organizations such as the Ford Foundation and the World Bank to steer clear of Borlaug. So far the only prominent support for Borlaug's Africa project has come from former President Jimmy Carter, a humanist and himself a farmer, and from the late mediagenic multimillionaire Japanese industrialist Ryoichi Sasakawa.

The great enemy of Borlaug turned out to be government bureaucracies which often stood in the way of his work. The Times wrote that when scientists, using Borlaug's techniques produced a new variety of rice, corn and wheat they went to India and Pakistan with the information. But in both nations the seed distribution was under the control of the governments. The Times says the scientists were "unable to convince the state-owned seed companies to adopt" the new seeds. By the mid 60s both India and Pakistan were facing famine and finally decided to accept the new seed. Borlaug "organized a shipment of 35 truckloads of dwarf wheat seeds." But the seeds, produced in Mexico ran into problsm with Customs and "couldn't be shipped from Mexico" so Borlaug sent them to Los Angeles instead for shipping. That wasn't the end of government bungling however:

U.S. customs officials held them up at the border before finally permitting them to cross. Then National Guard troops detoured them from Los Angeles because of the Watts riots. Finally, the $100,000 check drawn on the Pakistani ministry bounced because of three misspelled words on its face.

Ultimately, the cargo ship set sail for Karachi and Bombay and Borlaug went to bed relieved, only to wake the next morning to word that India and Pakistan had gone to war.

Because of the delays, the team had no time for germination studies and planting was started immediately, often in sight of artillery flashes. "We did a lot of praying," he later recalled.

Despite the problems, the new crop was 98% bigger than the previous year's and the Asian subcontinent was placed on a new path. India ordered 18,000 tons of seed from Mexico and the harvest was so big that there was a shortage of labor to harvest it, too few bullock carts to haul it to the threshing floor, and an insufficiency of jute bags, trucks, rail cars and torage facilities.

By 1968, Pakistan was self-sufficient in food production. India joined it in 1974.

It is no exaggeration to say that Norman Borlaug saved the lives of hundreds of millions of people, perhaps billions. And the saving of lives will go on for generations to come. I suggest that future efforts to expand his work will meet the same two enemies: state bureaucracy and the environmental movement.

Witness how both those groups have stripped the third world of needed food, in order to produce fuel in wealthy nations that no one wants, which is unprofitable to produce, and which is more damaging than the fuel it replaces. Borlaug himself had warned, decades ago: "One of the greatest threats to mankind today is that the world may be choked by an explosively pervading but well camouflaged bureaucracy." Attacks by environmentalist doomsayer Paul Ehrlich, Borlaug said, probably effected his funding. He said foundations would "hear his criticisms, and I'm sure there were some people at Rockefeller saying, 'Maybe we shouldn't fund that program anymore.' It always has adverse effects on budgeting."

Borlaug warned that the Green elites tended to be wealthy, urban individuals who saw the "wilderness" as a place to vacation, but wouldn't want to live there. "Our elites live in big cities and are far removed from the fields. Whether it's [Lester] Brown, or [Paul] Ehrlich or the head of the Sierra Club or the head of Greenpeace, they've never been hungry." Borlaug warned that the urban elites in the West "are easily swayed by these scare stories that we are on the verge of being poisoned out of existence by farm chemicals."

Environmentalists have long championed coercive measures "to make the world a better place." Normal Borlaug actually did make the world a better place. His only crime was that he wasn't saving insects, but the lives of people in Asia, Africa, and Central America. And in the Green hierarchy of values humans come last. Save the snail, the tree frog or some bug but let the people die. So, in the end, I tend to see these Browns and Ehrlich's of the world in the same category as people like Castro and Che. Che's methods were more brutal but the environmental movement has been far more deadly -- just their lobbying against DDT to stop malaria alone resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people. When South Africa followed the advice of environmentalists and banned DDT use to control mosquitoes the death rate from malaria jumped 400%. In KwaZulu Natal, when DDT was reintroduced the deaths per year dropped to zero from 340 previously. When it comes to Borlaug he is the perfect antithesis of Mao, Stalin or Hitler. Where they killed people by the millions, Borlaug saved the lives of people by the millions.

If ever a man deserved all the honors that the world could heap, in unmeasurable proportions, that man would be Norman Borlaug.

Dangerous underwear dancers arrested: Atlanta saved.

The police attack on the Stonewall Inn, in 1969, is credited with the start of the gay rights movement in the United States. It was the first time that gays fought back and the police were horrified. The police like to pick on people especially if they feel the people won't fight back. The cops also like to use their power to indulge their own small-minded prejudices and bigotry. And it isn't just gays that they attack.

A few weeks back the Fort Worth police, in conjuction with agents from the liquor authority, attacked a gay bar. They swarmed into the bar in force and started cuffing people. One man was thrown to the ground and suffered a brain concussion that hospitalized him in serious condition. The police claimed it was because on a previous night people were seen leaving the bar who police thought might be drunk. Really? Drinking? In a bar?

Patrons made lots of accusations which the police and liquor authority denied. Alas evidence later came out that pretty much showed that the cops were liars—you would think that this was assumed given the reputation of American police officers for being dishonest, bigoted and violent. The liquor authority ended up with egg on its face and admitted their agents had falsified statements and acted in ways against departmental policy. The ruckus in Fort Worth just died down. So now the police in Atlanta engage in something similar against a gay bar there, although not quite as violently.

Once again the charges the police concocted are less than convincing. First the police claim that the raid against the patrons of the bar was done at the behest of the patrons of the bar. They claim customers of the bar filed a "volume of complaints." In another statement the police said they received "several complaints with descriptive information about alleged criminal conduct" in the bar. Remember this is the American South so "criminal conduct" could be something as dangerous as offering to sell someone a dildo. Georgia is infested with Jesus-addicts which means the legislation there particularly intrusive in people's private lives. Moralists tend to want a state as omnipotent as their alleged deity.

In another statement police claimed it was "illicit sex" that was what they putting a stop to. Good thing, I feel safer already. But elsewhere they said they were after drugs. I sincerely doubt that any actual complainants will ever be identified. Why? Because when cops want to justify a particular action they take against a particular place or person they invent such complaints. They will refer to them as the reason they had to take action. The cops invent the complaints and then act on them.

In one statement police claimed that police officers "observed criminal behavior taking place" but, they don't explain what behavior or why those "criminals" were not arrested. The police then absurdly claimed that their actions against dancing is to "deter criminal activity in order to create a safe environment." Safe? From what? Dancing? For the record, I don't feel unsafe because people dance. I do feel unsafe anytime a cop is within 200 feet of me.

Of course, anonymous complaints about "drugs" in any establishment that caters to the clubbing scene (gay or straight) which has a significant number of people present at any time, is likely to have someone there who has some illegal drugs on them. I would bet if you searched the purses of every Jesus-monger at a large Baptist Church you would find some illegal drugs along the way as well. No particular individual was being targeted, which means the police had no information about any specific drug dealing going on at the club. But they raided the club and then searched every single patron in the hope of finding some illegal drugs to justify their attack.

The problem was that they didn't find any. Personally I consider that a miracle. These days you couldn't search a cub scout pack without finding drugs. But according to news reports "no drugs were found, and none of those arrested face narcotics charges." That has to be embarrassing.

Update: Atlanta police are having a damn hard time keeping their story straight. The latest report I've read now have the police claiming that the complaints came, not from patrons, but from neighbors. A check of the satellite photos from Google show almost no neighbors at all. The building adjacent to the club is vacant. On the other side is a parking lot. Across the street is a park. A doughnut shop is half a block away. And now they claimed it "public sex" that was the criminal act, not drugs as they previously claimed. But they still haven't explained why no one was ever arrested for the crime that the cops claim took place.

In yet another version a spokeswoman for the department says that there were two complaints, one each at two different "tip lines." Anyone want to bet the same person made both calls? The anonymous caller claimed that Thursdays were "sex night" at the club. And, even more bizarre is the claim that the club took loud speakers and pointed them toward apartment buildings a distance away "playing sounces of gay men having sex." However the local "Security Alliance" of businesses and residents in the general area says that they did not initiate the complaint and "we never have received any complaints, reports, or observations about criminal activity in any way associated with the Eagle. The spokesman said: "I have spent much time on the streets of Midtown, and look under every rock to identify problem spots. Eagle is not one of those problem spots, and we have always considered the Eagle to be a good neighbor."

My guess is the one demented individual made up all these accusations, made both calls to two different lines, and then relied on the natural bigotry and thuggery of the police department to do their work for them. In essence, the police were fag bashers by proxy, which doesn't mean they wouldn't have enjoyed the task on their own.

So why was the staff of the bar arrested? That evening the bar sponsored an "underwear" party. This meant some people were dancing in their underwear. Good lord, underwear today tends to be less revealing than the swimsuits of my youth-when Speedos were the fashion. Mark Spitz posed in less for his famous Olympics photo. However, the creative thugs in blue, argued that people dancing in underwear is "adult entertainment" and the bar was not licensed for "adult entertainment." No doubt the morons in Atlanta's police department would say the following video is thus hard-core pornography.



For the record, a quick search on Youtube shows over 10,000 vidoes posted by criminals showing themselves dancing in their underwear. It is my suspicion that none of these dangerous criminals were in possession of a government license allowing them to so dance.

Press reports say the police literally searched every person in the bar. Exactly what "reasonable cause" did they have to conduct searches on every person in a business? Apparently anonymous drug complaints, or sex complaints (they haven't gotten their story straight yet to decide which one they will use). Of course this is the same police department that manufactured a false statement to a judge in order to secure a search warrant on an elderly woman who lived alone. The police lied about the circumstances completely and then conducted an armed raid on the woman's home where she was killed. Only because this old woman died was a thorough investigation done and it was proven that the cops had lied throughout the process and had no reason to raid the woman's home. They claimed an anonymous tip told them it was a drug dealers house. Liars!

According to the reports I've read about a dozen or more police officers swept into the bar and forced all patrons to lie on the floor. Each individual was searched for the non-existent drugs. And staff members were carted off to jail for allowing patrons to dance in their underwear. In addition to the dozen or more uniformed officers it is believed that ten other officers were inside the club in plain clothes. So they had 10 officers inside. Notice that no one was arrested for any of the crimes used as an excuse to raid the bar. No one was arrested for "illicit sex" and in Georgia that doesn't take much. No one was arrested for possessing or distributing drugs. And the only "criminal activity" the police officers could find was people dancing while wearing underwear—no nudity even.

Patrons who were inside said that after the first search, which turned up NO drugs, the police then searched most the patrons a second time—in the hope, no doubt, of getting lucky and justifying the "complaints" they invented. One patron said: "I was held in the bar for over an hour; they were going through and searching people. They tore the bar apart. They searched the cash register, they searched the ice machine they were ripping things off the walls. It was ridiculous. They were in full SWAT gear." I bet as the searches progressed, and no drugs were found, the police got more and more desperate. They just assumed that searching enough would turn up somebody with drugs. Whoops! Didn't happen and instead they were caught making up tales to justify their thuggery.

For the Atlanta police this is a step toward civility. At least they were murdering old ladies this time. But they did get some dangerous people who were dancing without a permit. Fuck! Really, do we need these assholes? The honest truth is that I'd rather take my risks with criminals than cops. The criminals aren't as violent and they don't have the politicial system trying to protect them. If I shoot a criminal who attacks me it's called "self-defense." If the criminal is wearing a cop's uniform is called assaulting an office and usually brings about the death penalty inflicted on the spot, without judge or jury.

Government imprisons old couple and steals their property

The State of Texas, about whom I have nothing good to say, swooped into the lives of an elderly couple and robbed them of their home and their liberty, all in the name of compassion. Watch the story in horror.

The Government Can

And now for something different.

When everyone wants freedom.

At times you will find political figures who are willing to fight for freedom. Those, unfortunately, are rare occasions. Few individuals are willing to do this consistently. Most are, at best, sunshine libertarians —those who advocate freedom when it is safe and bright and appealing; when it has the sanction of the majority; when even the mob can applaud the virtues of liberty.

There are some trends that we can discern regarding support for freedom. And I should state that by freedom, I mean the right of the individual to control their own life, liberty and property, restricted only by the equal rights of others. This is classical liberalism, which is not the same thing that the illiberal Left promotes. And by illiberal Left I refer to such people as Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

On the Right we saw figures like Goldwater and Reagan, who were more liberal than not, and certainly more liberal than most on the Right. George Bush and the advocates of the Religious Right were part of the illiberal Right. Liberals want to expand freedom not restrict it. And there are people on both the Right and the Left who wish to do that.

In my view liberals on what is called the Left, and what is called the Right, are inconsistent liberals. They are advocates of freedom sometimes, and advocates of authoritarianism other times. These are liberals who fail to live up to their own principles.

Most politicians, however, lack principles. They are not advocates of great principles at all, just advocates of power, particularly power in their own hands. They are the people who see humanity as a great lump of clay and themselves as the God-chosen sculptors, with the vision and the right necessary to beat that clay into shape. And “beat” is the operative word when political power is wielded.

Most politicians, like most people, are of mixed premises. More importantly, they are people of contradictory premises. Your typical human holds political values that conflict with one another. They neatly compartmentalize these issues so as to avoid the cognitive dissonance that comes from holding conflicting values. In other words, they avoid thinking about how their own politics is a conflicting jumble of values that ultimate undermines the good values that they do hold.

Take the so-called “Tea Bag” meetings as an example. Many of these people, while shouting wildly about freedom, advocate Big Brotherism in the bedroom. They are not advocates of freedom in principle; they are advocates of their freedom, not your freedom.

That most politicians hold conflicting values of freedom is no surprise. In fact, I should not say most, I should say all. I honestly don’t know of one single prominent politician who consistently advocates freedom—not one. Some do so more than others but all apply their principles inconsistently and often, incoherently.

But there are times when most people, and most politicians, are quite libertarian, or quite liberal in the true sense of the word. When are those times? Is there a consistent pattern of activity that allows us to predict when and where someone is more likely to be libertarian? In one word: Yes.

There are two times when we know that someone will take a more libertarian position than usual. (There may be more, but there are two such occasions that I have identified and perhaps others that others would identify that I have not thought of.)

The first is what I called the gored ox issue. When an individual’s ox is the one being gored they are most likely to demand it stops. Individuals who are authors, or who like books, erotica, etc., will demand the end of censorship more than individuals who have no such interests. Farmers want the freedom to farm their land as they see best. Business owners want the right to hire the employees they think best suited for their company.

Everyone wants freedom for himself or herself. That is never the controversy. What they have problem with is freedom for others. So many authors of more erotic material may advocate hate speech regulations because they don’t write such material. Certainly the purveyors of hate typically want censorship of erotic material while demanding the absolute right to prove their own stupidity in public.

The farmer who demands the right to farm his land as he see fits may well advocate protectionist barriers to prevent the farm products of others from entering the country. The business owner who staunchly defends his own freedom of association may be quite willing to restrict your freedom of association.

Consider the misnamed book, The Conscience of a Libertarian, as an example. Author, Wayne Root, a social conservative for sure, has an entire chapter on the dangers of prohibition. Yet the chapter is not about the war on drugs, but about gambling. Mr. Root made his living convincing gamblers that they should purchase his advice—advice that many of them says is no better than average. Root’s salesmen would use high-pressure techniques to convince people to “subscribe” at high fees to Roots advice service.

A side note: I put these handicappers in the same category as many investment newsletters. When someone is making his money selling you advice on how to make money, be suspicious. If their advice were of real value then they would be getting rich, not by selling their advice, but by implementing it themselves.

The second time that we find individuals more actively promoting libertarian principles is when they are out of power. Everyone wants to deny power to his or her opponents but grab power for him or herself. Consider the perfect example of modern conservatives in the form of the Republican Party. Out of power they wail about small government.

When Big Brother Georgie was in power, over the last two terms of office, these Republicans rolled over, dropped their drawers and shouted: “Give it to me Big Boy, give it to me!” Unfortunately for us, when they got screwed, so did we. At no point did the Republicans find the guts to stand up for a single one of those “limited government” principles that they claimed to support.

The moment George Bush was consigned to the trash heap of history, and the Republicans lost control of government to the authoritarian Left, they started screaming about out-of-control government. Basically these Republicans took the government, severed the brakes completely on the downhill drive, handed the wheel to Obama and then started whining about the speed.

Outrage is the proper response.

I don't normally turn the blog over to others to run. And generally I do all the posting. Today I will make an exception. Lia Grippo runs a private sort of school. She is being put out of business. I will let her explain how this happened.

By Lia Grippo

My name is Lia Grippo. I am an early childhood educator with 20 years of experience. For the past 11 years, a large part of my work here in Santa Barbara has been taking young children into local wild spaces where we forage, track animals, climb trees, build forts, etc. For the last two years I have been running a small school that meets at my home 3 days a week and in the woods 2 days per week — safely.

I have two sons, age 7 and 4. My 7-year-old has been climbing to heights since he was a baby. My husband and I mentored this skill early on first by staying close while pretending to watch something else, and later by having some simple guidelines. For climbing trees, our guidelines include teaching children to know how to tell a dead branch from a living one, and then teaching them never to climb on dead branches or any limb “thinner than your arm.” We never help a child to climb up but are willing to help as much as necessary on the climb down.

A few weeks ago my school met at a local beach. The beach is sandwiched between the ocean and some steep hills and bluffs. The hills sit in the sand, not above the water. My 7-year-old and his 6-year-old friend – an equally competent as a climber and also the son of my dearest friend and school teaching assistant — climbed to the top of one of these hills. As they climbed they chatted, and moved at a steady pace, which meant to me that they were not at the edge of their abilities, which would have been evidenced by their silence or by announcements of fear, tense body language, or frequent stops in search of how to proceed next. In imitation of the older boys, the younger children began to climb the hill as well.

I stopped them by saying, “That’s high enough,” when I saw they had reached the point where they would not be able to come down by themselves if they were to continue. The three younger ones (ages 4, 5, & 5) stopped and began to climb down. By this time, a group of people had gathered to watch. My 4-year-old son slid a little down the hill on his bottom. I was right below him to catch him should he continue to slide. But with the combination of the sliding and, I believe, a frightened group of strangers staring up at him, he became too afraid to come down the rest of the way. So I climbed up and coached him down, staying just beneath him. He calmed down to the point where we were laughing and joking as we made our way down.

As we neared the bottom, I noticed there was a lifeguard beneath me on the hill about 3-4 feet off the ground. When we reached him he asked if I wanted to pass my son off to him and I did and he put him down on the ground. Then the lifeguard told me he would take the trail around the side of the hill to get the other boys down and I agreed, not because I thought those boys couldn’t make it down on their own — I was certain they could — but because of the fear of the folks watching. We went around to meet the kids as they came down the trail. The lifeguard seemed annoyed and said, “Don’t do that again,” before walking off.

During all of this the police were called. The police officer took a statement from me and left. As the parents arrived at the end of our morning, I told each one the story and each of them said, “I’m so sorry that happened to you. Why are people so afraid these days?”

A few days later the agency that licenses my school came to my door to begin an investigation. This included calling all of the parents at the school, who were all in complete support of me and thought the incident was blown completely out of proportion. Each parent called me afterward to lend support and to share their outrage at this agency.

At the end of this process, the agency has revoked my license saying that I endangered the children by “exposing them to the natural hazard of the hill and the ocean front,” and by allowing them to climb, made worse by the fact that I allowed them to climb in beach attire, and my son was naked. (As result of ditching his freezing wet pair of jeans.)

The families have surrounded me with support and outrage and are willing to help pay attorney’s fees to appeal this process.

A couple of nights ago, my 7-year-old said to me, “Mama, I know why those people were afraid. They couldn’t climb that hill themselves.”

I could use whatever support, resources, or ideas, folks might have to offer. Especially helpful would be an attorney who had had experience with this sort of situation or someone who works in California’s Community Care Licensing Division who may be able to offer advice.

Thank you, Lia