Archive for the ‘Fascism’ Category
Lynch mobs, stones, and glass houses
Friday, July 4th, 2008I urge you to read this column published at Wendy McElroy's website ifeminists.net, written by one WolfmanMac, about the increasing criminalization of being male: Lynch mobs, stones, and glass houses. The nuanced insight and analysis of one man's child-porn charges in particular and society's attitude about sexual predators in general ...
Inside the Statolatrist mind
Saturday, June 21st, 2008In New Scientist magazine, Owen Flanagan reviews the book The Political Mind by George Lakoff. Flanagan provides a surprising and refreshing non-Statolatrist perspective on science and politics in this review, but that might be typical in New Scientist—it certainly isn't in primary scientific journals. Flanagan is especially skeptical of this ...
Gonzalo Guizan: another death by drug war
Friday, June 13th, 2008Radley Balko writes of another victim of the paramilitary-style drug raids that Republocrats and their myrmidon voters continue to support in the name of protecting our liberties or our morals or some such. On May 18, police in Easton, Connecticut conducted a heavily-armed drug raid on the home of Ronald Terebesi, ...
Child faces prosecution for calling the Cult of Scientology a cult
Saturday, May 24th, 2008Jacob Sullum reports at Reason's Hit and Run that a British teenager has been summoned to court and faces a fine (and, presumably, a mark on his criminal record) for holding a sign outside of the Cult of Scientology London headquarters with the word "cult" on it. I don't understand ...
To the Home Office, everyone is a terrorist suspect
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008It's a shame George Orwell didn't foresee the advent of computers and the computer age because if he had, 1984 would have been so much more frightening. The Home Office of Great Britain plans to create "Big brother" database for phones calls, emails and web use. This fascism hasn't been ...
Protest = Terrorism
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008That's the point we're coming to under this national-security state in 21st-century America. Republicans and Democrats and the people who continue to support them like a battered wife who won't leave her abusive husband are to blame. Karen De Coster on the LRC blag: If you are going to St. ...
Defeating their own arguments
Saturday, May 10th, 2008I'm surprised I haven't blagged about any of the posts on one of my new favorite libertarian sites, Rad Geek People's Daily, Charles Johnson's blag. He wrote a long and entertaining post about three rural-Minnesota 8th-graders who were suspended for sitting during the Pledge of Allegiance. My favorite part of ...
“But the State has to protect the children!”
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008"Or else stupid and negligent parents would cause all sorts of harm to them!" It is an understandable position, one I used to take in my darker, minarchist days. However, it is hard to deny the reality that often, the harm that a parent does to a child is not even ...
Orwellian Real ID tyranny
Sunday, April 6th, 2008After Anthony Gregory's announcements on the LRC blag and Mises blag introducing the Independent Institute's new blag, The Beacon, I realized that my recent lament that Gregory has only recently resumed regular blagging was misinformed; he has apparently been writing for that blag since October and was, in fact, its ...
Libertarians and Godwin’s Law
Friday, March 14th, 2008Libertarian writers need to learn Godwin's Law. It states that as a discussion on an internet forum grows longer, the probability of someone comparing another group or ideology to Hitler or the Nazis approaches 1. It might be more appropriately called Godwin's Rule nowadays, because the rule is that you ...
Smoking ban prediction
Monday, March 10th, 2008As far as I am aware, the only friend or semi-close acquaintance of mine who opposes bans on smoking in "public" (i.e., private) businesses is Kelly. I wouldn't be surprised if some of my family did, because they are pretty libertarian, but it's never come up. Then there's the college ...
California criminalizes home-schooling
Monday, March 10th, 2008I keep telling you, it IS happening here. Charles Johnson has some excellent commentary, as usual, on this.
Flu shots: “recommended” to “mandatory”?
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008Karen De Coster made a prediction that I made to myself when I read this announcement this morning: The Imperial Federal Government is now recommending that all children between the ages of 6 months and 18 years get a flu shot once a year. I predict that within our lifetimes, ...
Fatal asthma attacks and smoking bans
Monday, February 25th, 2008Recently I blagged about a poor girl who suffered a fatal asthma attack induced by the cigarette smoke at the restaurant she worked at, and that this would surely lead to a state-wide smoking ban in "public" (i.e., private) businesses. While I haven't heard any news about such fascist legislation ...
It IS happening here
Friday, February 1st, 2008Republocrats currently use fear-mongering on two big issues to garner support for their various State interventions into our lives—terrorism for some, global warming for others. Perhaps it can be said that libertarians also use something akin to fear-mongering in our debate and discussion, though of course I think it is ...
Habeas Wha?
Friday, December 28th, 2007Is posting a speech a total cop out when it comes to submitting a post? You bet. But that doesn't make this speech, concerning the ever growing disdain the Federal Government has for every American's natural right to habeas corpus, any less relevant. Please, enjoy the wonderful Judge Napolitano. ...
Home air fascism
Thursday, December 27th, 2007The December 14, 2007 edition of NPR's "Science Friday" with Ira Flatow was a veritable orgy of statolatrist megalomania and top-rate fodder for libertarian ranting. Their topic during the hour in question was toxins in the air in our homes. You can listen to the entire hour here (click the play ...
Bueno para los venezolanos
Wednesday, December 26th, 2007There was an article from Time magazine that was published at Yahoo.com, Why Venezuelans Turned on Chavez. Obviously Hugo Chavez is a fascist maniac who wants to become a totalitarian dictator because of how well that's worked in Latin America's past. That, I gathered from the article, is the ...
Eric Hoffer on the neocons
Tuesday, December 25th, 2007If I were in a position of importance at a university and I was able to specify three books that every incoming student must have read before enrolling, I would choose The Law, The True Believer, and The Law again. The True Believer by Eric Hoffer (1951) is about mass ...