Octopodial Chrome

Edward Cardinal Egan asks that you just look. Look at that picture, and answer three simple questions.

That’s all there is to the debate over infanticide. Is the infant a human being? Yes, it is. Is it an innocent human being? Yes, it is. Are the authorities in a civilised society duty-bound to protect innocent human beings should someone wish to kill them? Yes, they are so bound. End of story—nothing else matters.

The American Medical Association—known previously for such absurd positions as opposing gun rights—now wishes to outlaw home births because they are riskier than hospital births. That may or may not be true; I’ll accept that it probably is. But that’s immaterial: free citizens in a free society have the fundamental right to weigh the evidence and make their own choices.

I’m perhaps a bit biased: my youngest brother was delivered by midwives at home and my mother looks back on the experience fondly. Later those same midwives were driven out of business by the local physicians.

If parents wish to have their children at home, that is their business, not mine, not the medical profession’s and definitely not the State’s.

It appears that there is a novel drug-shipping method: ship the drugs to an innocent party, then have them retrieved by the deliveryman. Knowing this was going on, when a package containing 30 pounds of marijuana was addressed to the wife of the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, the county police did the only logical thing: he got a no-knock warrant, invaded the mayor’s home with a SWAT team, killed the mayor’s two black labs then bound & interrogated the mayor and his mother-in-law for hours. Because just executing a normal warrant would have been crazy: someone like a mayor has nothing to lose and might stage a shoot-out. Or he might flush thirty pounds of dope down the toilet in as many seconds. And of course if they’d executed a normal warrant then the mayor might have tied up his dogs, and what’s point of executing a drug raid if you can’t shoot someone’s pets?

Seriously though—while SWAT teams have a very valuable purpose to serve, this is not one of them. And while it is appropriate in some circumstances to shoot pets (say, if a suspect sets his dogs on one), shooting them as a precautionary measure is hardly called for. And while there are legitimate reasons for no-knock raids, this was not one of them. Besides, if they already know that there’s a false-shipping operation in town, mightn’t they have suspected that might be involved here?

On the 18th of June a young man was arrested by police; he died on Sunday. He certainly deserved to be arrested, but the manner and the results are unacceptable. While celebrating a home-team win, he and some friends passed a cluster of 10–12 police officers; he sarcastically commented, wow, it seems like there’s a lot of crime on this corner. Very dumb, considering that he was breaking the law by drinking in public. Kids, if you’re going to mock the police, don’t do it while breaking the law. But the police—from reports—violently over-reacted: eight officers and a supervisor piled onto him, beating him and driving off his friends. In the struggle, he stopped breathing, was rushed to a hospital and eventually died of his injuries.

As I noted, he deserved to be cited or arrested, for blatant stupidity if nothing else. But the right thing to do would have been for two or three policemen to have approached him and then cited or arrested him. The wrong thing was to pile on. If he had resisted arrest, then it would have been appropriate to subdue him.

We are free citizens in a free republic: the police are our public servants. They should use politeness first, and force only when necessary. They should not see us as cattle to be herded.

This ties in with the abuse of SWAT teams and warrant-serving by force. By default, warrants should be served by a few officers: knock on the door, serve the warrant and get on with life. Sending a SWAT team to arrest an optometrist for a non-violent crime escalates matters unreasonably.

Yes, there are instances (many instances, perhaps) where force is necessary. But when force becomes the default; when law enforcement is held to a lower standard of accountability (note that the eggshell skull rule holds that you’re responsible even for unforeseeable consequences—but it’s not applied to the police), when citizens are routinely slain by their public servants—in that case, something has to change.

Today is a great day, a red-letter day, a triumph for sanity and a victory for reason. Today a majority the Supreme Court of the United States decided to actually read their copies of the Constitution (something the justices too-rarely do). Today the Court affirmed that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

As the decision noted, the public-safety impact—whether positive or negative—is none of the Court’s business. All that matters is the constitutionality of a total gun ban. Those of you who hate guns: amend the federal constitution if you wish. I’d oppose your efforts, but I’d also applaud your honesty. If you don’t like what the Constitution says, change the Constitution—don’t pretend it says something else.

We have decades more work ahead of us before things change for the better. The next thing we need to do is to prove that the Second Amendment is incorporated by the Fourteenth and thus binding on the states. After that, we need to prove that onerous and expensive licensing requirements are unconstitutional (under decided law, one cannot license a right—can you imagine having to get a speech license, or a voting license?). Then we will need to demonstrate that machine guns, grenades, bazookas and other military arms are legitimately protected by the Second Amendment.

Only then will Americans once again be free with respect to firearms. If course, there are a lot of other things we need to work on (e.g. the over-expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause). But this is excellent news for almost everyone: excellent for gun owners, who are free to move into Washington, DC; excellent for the poor, who are most subject to violence and can now defend themselves; and excellent for women, who can better defend themselves against assailants. It’s only bad news for criminals, whose victims will now be armed, and for gun control advocates. Personally, I’m quite happy to see members of either or both of those groups have a rotten day.

The president of Blue Jeans Cables recently received a cease & desist letter from Monster Cable. His response is a stunning smackdown of them, their claims and their business. The best line is perhaps this: Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it. It’s a long read, but every bit is worth it.

Faced with exculpatory evidence in a robbery/carjacking case, prosecutors pressured a forensic technician to change her findings. Even worse, the judge in the trial told the defendant that if he continued to plead innocent and insisted on his right to a jury trial, then he would be sentenced to life. Faced with the choice between life and two years, the defendant plead guilty.

Only problem is, it turns out that he was innocent. He spent 16 months in jail and prison; he was stabbed; he suffered unknown other abuses—and all because the prosecutors and judge had no concern for justice.

It is every prosecutor's duty to provide all possible exculpatory evidence to the defense. It is every prosecutor's duty to ask that charges be dismissed when the defendant appears innocent. It is every defendant's right to a jury trial; no-one should feel pressured to plead guilty in order to avoid the possibility of a harsh sentence. It is every judge's duty to see that the law is followed and that both defense and prosecution enjoy all their rights and fulfil all their duties.

Let their punishment fit their crime: imprison each of them for 16 months. And let the inmate population know that they are prosecutors and a judge. If they survive, then maybe they will not be so quick to railroad suspects in the future.

Owing to some home repairs I had to visit the local Lowe’s hardware store twice today. The first time I bought a caulk gun, some tubes of caulk, a caulk-removal tool and a caulk-smoothing tool; the second time I bought a second caulk gun (a long, sad and ultimately irrelevant story) and a third tube of caulk—and a bottle of lye crystals.

Now, the only thing I added my second trip was the bottle of lye. I was asked for my phone number and (rather unthinkingly) I gave it. But immediately afterwards it occurred to me: I hadn’t been asked for my phone number earlier. This wasn’t some scheme by Lowe’s to get my customer details (perhaps to call me with free offers later on). Were that the case the earlier, priicer purchase would have resulted in the same question. No, this was in response to my purchase of lye.

You see, lye is a key ingredient in soap-making: a quantity of lye is mixed with water and the caustic solution is mixed in with oils and fats (which are themselves faintly acidic); the resulting chemical reaction (called saponification) produces a salt we know as soap. But lye’s not just used to make soap; it’s used to clear drains, clean stainless steel and more. Being a strong base, it’s also used to manipulate pH at various points in chemical syntheses (much like adding lemon juice to a recipe using baking soda), including one particular synthesis: that of methamphetamine. It can also be used in the production of gamma-hydroxybutyric acid.

This shouldn’t be a big deal. Water, for example, is used in the production of most if not all illegal substances; like sodium hydroxide (lye) it has legitimate and illegitimate uses; unlike lye, purchasers of water are not required to provide phone numbers. But apparently someone has determined that the purchase of a substance with numerous legitimate uses is to be recorded.

I don’t use any illegal drugs at all–they’re not my thing. I ingest alcohol, nicotine and caffeine in various liquid (mmm…beer!), solid (mmm…chocolate-covered coffee beans!) and aromatic (mmm…pipes!) forms. I have never made methamphetamine or GHB in my life, nor do I have any real desire to do so. I buy lye first of all to make soap; secondly to clean out beer kegs; thirdly to clear out clogged drains. And now my phone number (and name, and address) is in some jack-booted thug’s database, simply because I prefer to do for myself rather than hire others to do for me.

Certainly, I could buy soap at the supermarket. Of course, I could purchase a commercial cleansing solution. Definitely, I could acquire a proprietary drain-clearing solution. If we all did that, the one might hazard a guess that most buyers of lye are illegitimate. Of course, that soap we’d buy would be full of toxic substances; that cleaning solution might have who-knows-what nasties in it; that drain-unclogger might have some vicious things in it.

But who cares? It doesn’t matter how badly we treat our environment, our property or ourselves, as long as we keep people from living as free citizens in a free country. I mean, next thing you know people are going to start sewing their own clothes and planting their own food, and then where will we be?

New York City is trying to ban Geiger counters, pollution detectors and so forth . Residents will have to be approved for permits to own them. Why? Because the city is worried that if people know too much then they will stir up panic.

Whatever happened to being a free nation of free adults?

It is legal in Colorado to prescribe, use and grow marijuana for medical purposes. The state and local police are not permitted to interfere, and if they do confiscate marijuana or paraphernalia they must be returned to their rightful owners.

An Auroran Marine who served in Desert Shield is a certified grower, prescribed marijuana to deal with pain caused by grenade shrapnel. The Aurora police raided his home, confiscated 71 plants and charged him with felony cultivation. After eight months the district attorney determined that the Marine was breaking no law and dismissed the charges.

However, in the interim the plants had all died. The Colorado Constitution requires that any property used in connexion with medical marijuana may not be harmed, neglected, injured or destroyed by the police. So the Marine is suing the city of Aurora for restitution. Here’s the great bit: for years the government has used the absurd sum of $5,200 per marijuana plant in order to pursue harsher charges against drug users, growers and dealers. But the tables are turned: Aurora is being sued for that much per plant: $369,200 in all.

They deserve it. They stole medicine from a wounded Marine; they destroyed his property; the refuse to compensate him. Pay him his money, plus damages. If they have to let a few police officers go to pay for it, let the first fired be the ones who requested, approved and led the raid. Culp&ælig; pœn&ælig; par esto: let the punishment fit the crime.

The car manufacturer claims that taking a picture of your Ford car violates its trademarks. Twits.

Alexander Wolfe has an interesting response to the RIAA’s most recent egregious behaviour: cut copyright terms to five years. Most money is probably made in the first five years anyway, and it would certainly hit the RIAA where it hurts.

Patrick Smith writes about the absurdity of our airport security measures. They are intrusive, they are ineffective, they are simply an exercise in theatre: the TSA pretend to do things that will protect us; we pretend that we are protected.

The DEA proudly announces that they have made their first arrest for buying cold medicine.

It’s fairly probably that Mr. Fousse did actually intend to produce methamphetamine from the cold medicine. I’m puzzled, however, as to which provision of the federal constitution gives Congress the right to forbid said manufacture, or to forbid the purchase of more than a certain amount of cold medicine in a month.

Messrs. Gilbride and Flynn should be ashamed of themselves. I wonder how they sleep at night.

Mark Steyn suggests some incremental improvements to the American legal system. Here are my own thoughts:

Elimination of plea bargains

Plea bargains do encourage defendants to plead guilty to lesser charges rather exercising their rights to jury trials and that is a miscarriage of justice. Plea bargains are often used at a prosecutor’s discretion for first-time or middle-class offenders; a better system would simply have straightforward first-time penalties. They are also used to encourage guilty pleas on lesser charges in order to get testimony on greater charges against some other defendant. This is pretty wrong, essentially paying one defendant to testify against another. A jury would look askance at a witness paid $500,000 by the prosecution; they should be as sceptical of a witness given a six-month plea bargain instead of a six-year sentence.

Elimination of technical charges

Steyn’s example is mail or wire fraud: the crime is not the crime itself but the crime of send a letter or authorising a bank transfer in the course of a crime. If there was a crime, let the jury convict on that charge. This to me is similar to convicting Martha Stewart not for insider trading but for lying to investigators (IMHO lying to investigators shouldn’t be a crime; it’s not sworn testimony, just talking): she didn’t actually commit the crime being investigated, but was sent to jail anyway—essentially for annoying agents of the state.

Elimination of prosecutorial advantage

Yes, yes, yes! One of the great features of the Anglo-American justice system is that the defense is advantaged: the defendant is presumed innocent; the prosecution presents a case first, and a defendant can simply move that no case was made; if a case was made, the defendant can respond. Steyn indicates that assets can be frozen by the prosecution, making it impossible for a defendant to pay for a good lawyer—that’s obscene. He also notes that unlike the rest of the trial (where the prosecution goes first and the defense always answers), closing arguments are ended by the prosecution. I remember how surprised I was by that when first I served on a jury: here was a trial where every benefit of the doubt and advantage was given to the defendant, and suddenly at the end all that was upturned. As Steyn notes, every civilised legal system allows the defendant the last word.

Elimination of massive indictments

Apparently prosecutors tend to charge as many crimes as possible in hopes that a jury will be psychologically persuaded to give some to the prosecution and some to the defense. This is quite possible, and if it is in fact true needs to be changed. On the one hand it would be very expensive to mount a defense against a dozen charges one at a time (with jury selections for each and so forth); OTOH it seems very wrong to set up a system that takes advantage of psychological weaknesses on the part of jurors to convict defendants.

Elimination of statute creep

Yes, yes, yes! This is seen all the time: unreasonably harsh laws are proposed, but we are assured that they will only be used against the worst of the worst (e.g. terrorists or drug dealers or mafiosi); then we get used to them and they start being used against other criminals; then they start being used against innocent people who have committed no crime but are annoying the State (e.g. the use of RICO against non-violent, non-criminal pro-life groups).

Elimination of double jeopardy

Yes, yes, yes! This is even in the Constitution, and yet it’s a common feature of the current legal system. It’s bad enough when a man can be found not guilty of criminal charges but found civilly guilty of the exact same crime (this is a miscarriage of justice); it’s even worse when the State convicts a man twice by using two separate arms (in the case Steyn mentions, the US Attorney and the Securities and Exchange Commission).

Be sure to read the entire article yourself; it’s worth it.

Radley Balko points out how excessive regulations are killing small businesses and helping big business. I see the same thing in the brewing industry: the law is designed to aid Coors and Budweiser at the expense of the start-up brewery.

Tim Wu examines areas of American life in which lawbreaking is accepted, even expected. An interesting investigation of some cultural blindspots.

Over ten years, more people were arrested on marijuana charges than the populations of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming combined. I wonder what the equivalent number for Alcohol Prohibition was?

A six-year-old girl has been threatened with a $300 fine for chalking her sidewalk. Seriously, this is bleeding insane: there’s nothing wrong with kids scrawling on sidewalks. I’ll even further: with the property owner’s permission, there’s nothing wrong with anyone scrawling on sidewalks.

Seventy years ago today, marijuana (then spelt Marihuana) was made semi-illegal. The federal government not having the right to outlaw it (note the Constitutional amendment required to outlaw alcohol; note too that there is no amendment giving the Congress the ability to outlaw it even today), they instead levied a modest tax ($1), and imposed gargantuan fines ($2,000—a large sum in 1937—and five years of prison) for violations of any provisions of the labyrinthine regulations imposed.

I don’t think marijuana is a particularly good thing—but it should be a legal thing. I don’t think that Congregationalism is a particularly good thing either, but it too should be legal. Lots of folks don’t think alcohol is a good thing—it is, for the moment, legal.

An Assistant Director of the FBI thinks it’s more important to prosecute drug crimes than murder. The FBI would rather that innocent men rot in prison in order to protect drug informants. Hurray for Prohibition, Version 2!

Apparently, US publishers are allowed to publish enemy propaganda, but cannot publish the works of dissidents from the enemy’s party line. Someone please tell me how this doesn’t run afoul of the First Amendment!

Peggy Noonan writes that the Transportation Security Administration’s mission seems to be the ritual abuse of passengers. Travelling by air in this country today is like travelling in the Soviet Bloc once was: shouting, angry, petty clerks; families abused; private citizens seeing their valuables stolen by agents of an uncaring state. This is the end of America, the Land of the Free. The mind boggles and the spirit rebels at the thought that a once-proud nation has allowed that TSA’s boot to stamp on its face for so long.

As seen on Eggshells and Miracle Grow, apparently dope is the number eight agricultural commodity in Washington state. As John points out, they should regulate and tax that crop, and make a bundle in the process.

What really galls me is that the state is proud of assaulting farmers and stealing & destroying their crops. It even perverts the National Guard to that end, by using their helicopters to look for marijuana farms. I have said it before, and I’ll say it again: the policeman who arrests a pot grower or smoker is not fundamentally different from any other thug foot-soldier of a repressive regime. Rich Wiley of Washington State Patrol’s narcotics programme is no different in a certain sense from one of Saddam Hussein’s torturers.