This Intellectually Brain-dead America

If they weren't before, America's founding "constitutional principles" are now officially dead, and everyone is laughing at the funeral in Free Speech Tested Anew in Digital Age (WSJ):

On Oct. 6, the justices will weigh whether the First Amendment protects a Kansas church's campaign to publicize its beliefs by picketing military funerals with vulgar placards and insulting fallen soldiers' survivors in online screeds.

The father of a fallen Marine is seeking damages for emotional distress from the church, which believes that God is killing American soldiers to punish the U.S. for its tolerance of homosexuality.

A month later , the court is to consider whether states can bar minors from buying violent videogames, on the theory that these games cause damage to developing minds and this outweighs young people's constitutional rights.

Both cases add digital twists to constitutional doctrine. The church's Internet posting potentially exposes the entire world to its hurtful attack, while the videogame laws single out computer role-playing as uniquely dangerous to children while leaving violent music, films, comic books and other media unrestricted.

Meanwhile, what of the emotional distress I've suffered knowing that money that has been stolen from me has been used to pay all manner of hired-killers to go to foreign countries and murder and destroy in the name of "keeping me safe from X", after which I have to hear the "free speech" of these criminals' supporters that they are HEROES (!!)? This "free speech" comes in the form of harangues by public figures on public airwaves and/or at public events.

I also wasn't aware that Constitutional law was about utilitarian trade-offs. I thought the Constitution was legally absolute and insoluble barring an amendment to said law by the People (and their Elected Representatives)? No matter, we have young minds to protect, nevermind how we'll prove that what is potentially lost in ignoring Constitutional protections is less than what is potentially gained in trivial vanities such as shielding young minds from poor influences (says who?).

The Constitution is a legal document that applies to the territorial jursidiction within the imaginary borders of the United States of America. The fact that the Kansas church case is even being considered leads me to believe that the United States federal government now believes its borders encompass the entire globe, otherwise, what does it matter if the church's "screeds" can potentially expose the entire world?

The Constitution, 2010: even more irrelevant to the conduct of American society than it was in 1789.

Headline Juxtaposition: Faith In Government

Courtesy of the New York Times:

Obama Calls for $50 Billion Spending on Transportation
"President Obama, looking to jump-start the economy and create new jobs, called on Congress to approve a far-reaching plan to rebuild and modernize transportation networks over the next six years."

and

9 Years After 9/11, Public Safety Radio Is Not Ready
"Despite a $7 billion effort, experts say a nationwide public safety radio system may never become a reality."

Both from today's site.

A comment could be added to point out the irony of what is being proposed versus what has just been discovered to have failed, but it seems too obvious to bother. Clueless journalists and absurdist politicians will soon be the death of libertarian social observers everywhere.

Double Standards For Craziness

Does the Appleseed Project Teach Marksmanship or Something More? (NYT.com):

“When I hold a rifle in my hands, I can feel the choice that I’m making,” one Appleseeder, a computer programmer from Southern California, told me. “I know what I can do with this gun, but I also know I’m not going to do that. I have become death. When you have that power and that choice, you know what choice you’re going to make. When someone can be death over a quarter mile, that’s a tremendous responsibility.”

The exceptions to the rule of the responsible gun owner generate headlines and casualties. The largest threat that Appleseed poses is the possibility that some future gunmen will find their way from some dark-side message board to an Appleseed boot camp. “There’s always going to be someone who thinks the revolution is sooner rather than later,” Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center says. “Now they’re learning to be snipers. You would hope Appleseed would do some screening.”

Yes, you certainly hope they do. It would probably also be nice if the US Military did some screening, as well.

Also here, here and here.

And for a slight stretch of the concept for some who don't take liberty seriously, don't forget these people as well as these guys.

*UPDATE*

Totally unrelated Googling yields two more examples of careful US Military screening efforts, here and here.

Remember, folks, if people in government uniform teach future serial murderers and bandits how to use lethal force, that's an accident. But if private individuals do so, that's plain old recklessness and you can bet your ass the SPLC and other "civil rights" organizations will have something to say about it!

Polite Society

Have you ever seen a more polite environment on Earth than a Congressional hearing featuring the Federal Reserve chairman as the star, invited guest?

For those dupes who buy into the left-right, Republican-Democrat false dichotomy charade at face value, Washington is normally a place of great political animosity. Differing political ideologies result in intractable debates. Compromise is lost amongst some place between somewhere impossibly far away, and no place at all. Feelings run the gamut from intense disgust to near-violent hate. The Capitol is a place of soreness and gridlock.

But when the Fed chairman comes by, Congresscritters march to the beat of a different drum. Suddenly, there's something everyone can agree on-- the Fed chairman is a pretty swell guy!

Politicians stumble over each other trying to heap praise and approbation on this visiting gentlemanly scholar. Perpetual thanks and appreciation for the monetary sage abound. Any criticism that might be aired is wrapped in a shroud of thoughtful, apologetic and considerate suggestiveness.

What's this all about? How does it go from hatefest to lovefest with the simple prescence of one (admittedly GREAT!) man?

I'll tell you what it is. Look below and beyond the self-serving statements, the gross gratitude of the Fed chairman and everything he does and represents and all of his many supposedly wonderful gifts, talents and mortal characteristics and the attempts to gain the official Federal Reserve stamp of approval for yet another proposed regulation or governmental intervention -- all in the name of preserving the safety, stability and soundness of the general economy, of course! -- and this is what you will hear:

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, Mr. Fed Chairman, for keeping this great Ponzi scheme going just a while longer. Thank you for allowing my predecessors an opportunity to kick the can down the road just long enough for me to get elected and join this prestigious, fun and all-expenses-paid joyride of a club called the United States CONgress. Thank you, also, for managing to keep this leaky bucket afloat just long enough for me to slip out the back door before it sinks, so I don't have to deal with it on my watch. Thank you, Mr. Fed Chairman, for allowing us all to be as irresponsible, corrupt and dastardly as we can possibly be. Without you, we'd be half the crooks we are today. You, sir, make it all possible. We are eternally grateful!

Robert Byrd, Longest-Running Career Super Criminal, Dies

The NYT has the details on the departure of this beloved icon of the redistributionist-thief class:

Robert C. Byrd, who used his record tenure as a United States senator to fight for the primacy of the legislative branch of government and to build a modern West Virginia with vast amounts of federal money, died at about 3 a.m. Monday, his office said. He was 92.

[...]

Mr. Byrd served 51 years in the Senate, longer than anyone in American history, and with his six years in the House, he was the longest-serving member of Congress. He held a number of Senate offices, including majority and minority leader and president pro tem.

But the post that gave him the most satisfaction was chairman of the Appropriations Committee, with its power of the purse — a post he gave up only last year as his health declined. A New Deal Democrat, Mr. Byrd used the position in large part to battle persistent poverty in West Virginia, which he called “one of the rock bottomest of states.”

How many people's hopes, dreams and ambitions were torn down to provide the fuel for Mr. Byrd's "[Ex]propriations Committee"-handouts to his bought-and-paid-for "friends" in West Virginia?

He lived that poverty growing up in mining towns, and it fueled his ambition. As he wrote in his autobiography, “Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields” (West Virginia University Press, 2005), “it has been my constant desire to improve the lives of the people who have sent me to Washington time and time again.”

“I lost no opportunity,” he added, “to promote funding for programs and projects of benefit to the people back home.”

That attention brought the state billions of dollars for highways, federal offices, research institutes and dams.

"I lost no opportunity to steal, trick and connive any chance I got, all carried out under the 'honor' and 'prestige' of my noble, public office. My preferred form of largess granted to my constituents was highways no one wanted to drive on, federal offices that did no useful work, research institutes that bolstered the State's agenda through ceaseless propagation of propaganda posing as science and a series of dams that diverted the flow of natural watercourses, destroying natural ecosystems and forcing local residents to relocate at the point of a gun. Yes, they called me a hero for this, and more!"

Mr. Byrd was the valedictorian of his high school class but was unable to afford college. It was not until he was in his 30s and 40s that he took college courses. But he was profoundly self-educated and well read. His Senate speeches sparkled with citations from Shakespeare, the King James version of the Bible and the histories of England, Greece and Rome.

Well, gosh, if a cranky, belligerent amateur-racist-cum-professional-robber, poor as a sack of West Virginian coal, could educate himself in the middle of the Great Depression in backwards, bucktooth West Virginia, I am not sure why it is we need a bunch of State-supported public [re-]education for everybody else?

Circumstantial Justice

Where there are differences in legal doctrines between countries, one might ask oneself why this "crime" is a crime in one system and completely non-abhorrent in another.

For example:

"We are bringing order to prices," Trade Minister Richard Canan told Reuters during the Catia raid. "There are traders who are taking these products to the black market ... That is a crime and our government will continue to target these stores."

Why is the "hoarding" of food illegal in Venezuela (furthermore, why do some even find it necessary)? Why is it a  "crime" to sell food at a price other than that designated by the central authorities in Venezuela, whereas in other parts of the world individuals sell food for whatever price they like without causing any gross injustice punishable by the law?

Trenchant Observations On The Past From Deep Thinking Readers At The NYT

If you post a comment at the New York Times' website, chances are good that you're a dim-witted imbecile.

As I survey the absolute savaging of Ron and Rand Paul, libertarianism and the philosophy of Ayn Rand taking place in the comments of a recent profile of Ron and Rand Paul's family life (which, by the way, was not mentioned in the article yet somehow appears to be relevant strawman for the incensed NYT-commenters), I can't help but to imagine these same commenters writing bitterly about people trapped behind the Iron Curtain circa-1950s:

The average Soviet citizen claims he wants freedom and liberty from his "oppressive" government, following mindlessly the ignorant and immature philosophy of the ex-patriate hypocrite Ayn Rand. But what would happen if these whiny Soviets got their wishes? With their food produced by the "evil" communist state and their livelihoods dependent upon its factories, with its policemen watching their neighborhoods and its schools educating their children, Soviet citizens seem to want to enjoy the benefits of the Soviet state without the Soviet state itself.

How can they be so oblivious as to miss the fact that without the Soviet government, they'd be lost and reduced to fighting over what few scraps of food remain outside their mud huts?

Of course, the Soviet Union is gone now, it has been for a long time and yet many of the citizens of that former Leviathan have managed to get by without it. For some, it's hard to imagine how or why, but one day, hopefully, many in the United States of America will manage to do just the same.

Cops Are Villains

Nothing more.

Oxymoronic Oil

Here's a funny picture from the NYT.com, take a look at this:

Hey! That's a bird covered in oil from the recent oil spill in the Gulf, getting cleaned off by a bunch of environmentalist volunteers-- that's not funny, that's horrible!

Except for the fact that the volunteers are wearing rubber gloves and rubber suits, which are by-products of the oil refining process.

Today, some birds and some fish and some other sea creatures are dying from an accident on an oil rig. Just don't forget that without oil at all, there'll be no rubber protective gear for environmentalist clean-up crews, hospital workers, waste disposal technicians, etc.

Unless you like chopping down rubber trees?

Thoughts on Dow 11,000

Oh Dow, you've grown so big! I remember when you were just a tiny stock market index, only 6,600 points tall! Now look at you! 11,000 points, with no limits in sight for your astounding growth...

In season two of the television show South Park there is an episode where underpants gnomes employ an absurd business model involving the theft of people's underpants, leading them to massive profits. The business plan is as follows:

1. Collect underpants
2. ?
3. Profit

Considering the rise of the Dow over the last year from the lows in March of 2009, it seems like whoever it is that's punting this market is operating off of a similarly flimsy business plan, witness:

1. Entire banking system insolvent; unofficial unemployment at nearly 20%; massive government spending and intervention
2. ?
3. Dow 11,000

Robert Wadlow was the tallest man in the world. From his birth in 1918 to his death in 1940, Wadlow grew to a height of 8ft, 11.1in. Like most people of extreme height, Wadlow's was not natural. He suffered from a hypertrophied pituitary gland which resulted in an overabundance of growth hormone within his body.

Sadly, it was Wadlow's very unabated growth that was ultimately the source of his undoing. Wadlow's body developed irregularly over the course of his life and he was unable to walk without braces around his legs which added support to his massive frame. Although he was heralded and cheered everywhere he went for his massive size, the braces he had to wear as a result one day injured his ankle, wearing through his flesh and leaving a sore that became infected. The infection spread throughout his body and Wadlow was hospitalized, sadly succumbing to death following an emergency blood transfusion and an attempt at surgery.

It seems the markets will follow the path of the world's tallest man, who, it is said, was still growing even when he died. Like Wadlow, this market requires massive braces simply to stand up. These braces come explicitly in the form of numerous government bailouts, subsidies and indirect and direct supports to share and asset prices from the likes of Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Some skeptics (and I am one of them) also question whether the Fed's various currency swaps with foreign central banks is leading to covert manipulation of the stock futures markets, as well.

And like Wadlow, it is the very braces of the market that will be the proximate cause of its undoing, while like Wadlow it will be the markets massive, unnatural and inflated size that will be the indirect cause of its own death.

The important question that remains, however is this:

Will investors be able to discern that the body-economy has in fact died even as, like Wadlow, the stock market that represents it continues to grow thanks to the hypertrophied pituitary-like effect of a Federal Reserve bent on mass inflation?