Category: Libertarianism

Giving the Police Military Hardware

August 28, 2017 / / 0 Comments

The Trump administration is reversing an Obama administration decision and opening up the spigot for police agencies to receive surplus military equipment. What could go wrong?

Well, let’s look back at SWAT team histories. Originally they were developed for dealing with very specific, low occurrence, high threat situations. In that context, it makes sense to have a group available. Except the only place where SWAT teams are regularly taking down heavily armed bad guys is on television. Instead, SWAT teams are doing drug raids. And it’s not like they’re hitting the Cocaine Cowboys of 1980’s Miami.

Giving military equipment to police encourages those police to find new and inventive ways of using them. Usually in the highly violent world of SWAT.

Going To Do My Civic Duty

August 27, 2017 / / 0 Comments

I got something that I haven’t gotten for about fifteen years – a jury summons. It’s been even longer than that since I sat at the courthouse waiting to be called. That got me to thinking of what has changed in my thinking since the last time I sat in the pool.

1. I started carrying a gun on a regular basis. That alone has radically shifted my worldview, but then I attended trainings and started learning about the legalities of self defense – and the intricacies of the legal system.

2. I don’t have the automatic deference to police that my younger self had. Because of the powers that a police officer are granted, I’m more likely to hold them to a higher standard.

3. I don’t trust forensics as much as I used to. Some forensic tools, such as DNA testing, were developed through rigorous processes, and are generally reliable. Others, such as handwriting and hair analysis, were developed in crime labs, and are less reliable. Then there’s the small item of the numerous lab scandals.

4. I no longer expect the heroic prosecutors and scumbag defense attorneys. If anything, I don’t trust either side. Probably about as much as I trust MSNBC and Fox to present their cases.

And now I have to go through my EDC and start yanking out stuff that is not allowed at the courthouse. That may take a bit.

Florida Executed A Murderer, And That’s Not A Good Thing

August 24, 2017 / / 0 Comments

One of the many reasons I hate the current state of the judicial system – it has forced me to be against the death penalty.

I don’t think it’s morally wrong to put certain people to death. There are some crimes that are too heinous and some people who are too dangerous that I truly believe the death option needs to be there.

However, with something where someone is paying the one penalty with no reversal, the most rigorous safeguards should be in place to prevent an innocent person being executed. Except, the people charged with ensuring those protections are enforced are instead ignoring them. Particularly, the prosecutors.

Time and again we see prosecutors breaking evidentiary rules to win a conviction. We see people let off of death row because of evidence suppressed by the prosecution.

So thank you to all the scumbag prosecutors. Thank you for making me want to save the life of a murderer.

Story Idea – Narrative Cop

August 23, 2017 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been binging the latest season of Hawaii Five-O. I don’t know why I enjoy it.

The show’s tropie, oversimplified, and generally a popcorn action flick every episode.

While watching, an idea came to me. A cop show/novel/story where the protagonist is considered a brilliant detective. Why, because (s)he can identify the narrative and solve the crimes based on how it interacts with the current media narrative.

Uniform Cop: The deceased is a known gang member who was seen making a drug buy two days ago. Probably killed by a rival gang.

Narrative Detective: No, I talked to his relatives outside. He was turning his life around. This was a corporate hit. Probably some nefarious scheme to keep essentials out of the hands of the poor.

Language and Cultural Appropriation

August 23, 2017 / / 0 Comments

One of my weekly podcasts is Econtalk. This week’s was on the changing nature of language. Highly recommend, especially if you constantly feel the need to correct people’s grammar.

As a writer, it’s important to understand how language is used – especially for dialogue. Knowing the “rules” helps to properly convey the movies in my head to the reader’s. Much to the frustration of many an instructor or curmudgeon, language is not static. Especially not the English language. The meaning of words and the usage of words change. Trying to force people to use “proper” English (or whatever language) is in the end, foolish.

And now we get to the second half of today’s title. Culture, like language, is not static. No one practices the same culture as their ancestors did. Cultures change with technology and new ideas. Moreover, cultures share and absorb new things as their practitioners come into contact with others. In short, appropriation is a feature, not a bug.

Friday Quote- P. J. O’Rourke

March 25, 2016 / / 0 Comments

“It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights – the ‘right’ to education, the ‘right’ to healthcare, the ‘right’ to food and housing. That’s not freedom. That’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery – hay and barn for human cattle.”

P.J. O’Rourke

Michael Shermer Blasts Lack of Ideological Diversity in Social Sciences

February 18, 2016 / / 0 Comments

His article in Sci-Am is worth a read.

Shermer begins with saying the insanity taking place on college campuses can be laid at the feet of having no other ideologies to act as a reality balance. Locked in an echo chamber, it’s a race to the extremes – kind of like a primary race. 

Then Shermer lays out that bias affects not only the descriptive terms used during studies (conservative values as indicators of mental disorders), but in how the data is interpreted. 

RTWT