Tag: Law and Disorder

Being Inquisitive Versus Believing

William Blackstone expressed the popular idea that, “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” Although the concept that accused parties are innocent until proven guilty existed before Blackstone’s formulation, it describes the foundation upon which the concept was built. Innocent people should never have to suffer for a crime they did not commit even if the rigorous criteria that ensure that allows some guilty people to escape punishment.

This is a concept in which I strongly believe, which is why arguments like this make me uneasy:

The mask slips yet again. When challenged to defend flyers posted around an Oregon campus that warn of a widespread sexual assault problem, a college official said the following: “Believing survivors means let’s sit down and understand each other’s experience. Let’s believe what that person said, he or she has experienced, that we have experienced. It may not be the truth, as has been determined, but it is that person’s truth and what they were going through.”

When I express my agreement with William Blackstone, I’m often accused of also necessarily saying that victims of sexual assault shouldn’t be believed. After all, if you believe that accused parties are innocent until proven guilty, you necessarily believe that anybody who accused another of wrongdoing is lying unless they can prove otherwise, right? Not quite.

I think the biggest problem with arguments about whether individuals who accuse others of wrongdoing should be believed is the use of the word “believe.” I’m of the opinion that if one individual accuses another of sexual assault, outsiders shouldn’t automatically believe the accuser nor should they automatically believe that the accuser is lying. Instead outsiders should be inquisitive. They should want to pursue an investigation so that the truth may be discovered.

Far too often people claim that an individual who accuses another of sexual assault should be automatically believed. On the opposite side of the spectrum is the automatic assumption that an individual making such an accusation is lying in order to bring harm to the accused. Neither attitude is productive because both attitudes establish judgements without investigation. It would be akin to a scientist, upon making an observation, concocting a theory to explain that observation and declaring that theory as fact without testing their theory through experimentation to determine whether it’s plausible or incorrect.

Being inquisitive when an individual accuses another of wrongdoing guards against punishing the accused if it turns out they didn’t wrong the accuser while also allowing the accuser to be punished if it turns out that they did wrong the accuser.

You Child Is the Property of the State

Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four took place in London, which was part of the great police state of Oceania. It is only fitting then that the real Britain has turned into an Orwellian state.

The latest horror story to come from that island is the one of Alfie Evans. Alfie is suffering from a condition that has put him on life support. The doctors treating him have said that his situation cannot be cured and have therefore decided to pull the plug on his life support. When it was announced that Alfie’s life support would be pulled, the Vatican stepped in and offered to care for the boy. In order to make the process of transferring the child smoother, the Italian government granted him citizenship. This situation seems pretty straight forward. Britain doesn’t have to front any additional costs for treating the boy and doctors willing to try to treat the boy can do so. Win-win, right? Wrong. The doctors in Britain are not only unwilling to treat Alfie but they have decreed that Alfie must die and the courts have backed their call:

Pope Francis has been praying for the British toddler Alfie Evans — and the Italian government has granted the child Italian citizenship and lined up a transportation plan that could swiftly bring the sick little boy to a Vatican hospital.

But Alfie’s doctors say he cannot be healed and shouldn’t make the trip at all.

On Tuesday, a British judge sided with the doctors, saying that the family cannot accept the offer to take Alfie to the Vatican for treatment. An appeals court swiftly re-heard the case and upheld the previous day’s ruling, saying on Wednesday that Alfie cannot leave the country.

This is the point where Alfie’s parents would be entirely justified in taking up arms, storming the hospital, and liberating their child. I’m not the only person to express a belief that the use of force is justified in this situation, which has resulted in the local police department issuing an Orwellian statement:

We’ve issued the following statement following reports of social media posts being made in relation to Alder Hey Hospital and the ongoing situation with Alfie Evans:

Chief Inspector Chris Gibson said: “Merseyside Police has been made aware of a number of social media posts which have been made with reference to Alder Hey Hospital and the ongoing situation involving Alfie Evans.

“I would like to make people aware that these posts are being monitored and remind social media users that any offences including malicious communications and threatening behaviour will be investigated and where necessary will be acted upon.”

In other words, shut up, slaves.

The doctors have decreed that Alfie must die, the courts have backed the doctors, and now the law enforcers are backing the doctors and the courts. What this means is that the government, in no uncertain terms, has claimed ownership over the child. The “rights” of the parents have been declared irrelevant. This precedent should scare the shit out of every parent in Britain.

The Shit Show of Shit Shows

Yesterday it was announced that Officer Noor is pleading not guilty to the charges against him:

The former Minneapolis police officer charged in the fatal shooting of Justine Damond last July plans to plead not guilty, using self-defense and reasonable force as a defense during trial, according to court documents.

I’m very curious to see what evidence will be presented by Noor’s defense to support their claim that he was acting in self-defense and used reasonable force. However, the courts tend to side heavily with law enforcers so I wouldn’t be surprised if he beats the charges even with the flimsiest of evidence.

What I do know is that this case is going to be a shit show.

The Devil Is in the Details

I, probably like most people who travel in libertarian circles likely, have friends on both sides of the abortion aisle. The last few days my friends who are against abortion have been celebrating this piece of news:

Michael Bowman, a 53-year-old self-employed computer software developer from Columbia City, Oregon, hasn’t paid his federal income taxes since 1999.

He says it’s because his Christian ideals don’t allow him to pay into a system that funds abortions. In a YouTube video explainer of his defense, he likened paying taxes that then go toward funding abortions to German citizens under Nazi rule who outed Jewish citizens, sending them to their deaths.

And according to The Associated Press, he beat the feds in court this week.

Unfortunately, many of my friends celebrating this piece of news apparently stopped reading at this point. If they had read further, they would have learned that Bowman didn’t win an argument saying that being forced to pay for something that are at odds with his religious beliefs is wrong. He won an argument saying that he didn’t commit felony tax evasion:

To be clear, Bowman won the battle, not the war he’s fighting with the IRS and the Oregon U.S. District Court, when federal Judge Michael W. Mosman dismissed a felony tax evasion charge against Bowman.

Mosman ruled that the government’s indictment failed to provide any evidence that Bowman tried to conceal money from or misled the IRS by cashing his paychecks instead of depositing them and keeping a low bank balance so tax collectors couldn’t garnish wages from it to pay what it says are back taxes owed.

From what I’ve been able to ascertain, Bowman hasn’t made any effort to conceal the fact that he’s not paying taxes. He’s not evading taxes, he’s outright refusing to pay them. However, this decision doesn’t mean that his battle is over and that people can now avoid paying taxes by declaring that they’re Christian and therefore unwilling to pay taxes due to their opposition to abortion. The charge was dismissed without prejudice, which means prosecutors can seek a new indictment. Moreover, Bowman is still facing misdemeanor charges for willfully refusing to pay taxes.

I believe that people shouldn’t be forced to pay for something they don’t want. If Bowman doesn’t want his money going towards supporting abortion, he shouldn’t be forced to pay money that goes towards supporting abortion. Unfortunately, the legal system in the United States doesn’t believe as I do, which means Bowman will likely be found guilty and be forced to pay the taxes he owes along with the penalty.

Facebook Demonstrates the Irrelevancy of Laws

Laws are irrelevant so I became curious about how companies would get around the European Union’s new privacy laws. Facebook announced its plan and it will likely be the blueprint other companies will follow:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – If a new European law restricting what companies can do with people’s online data went into effect tomorrow, almost 1.9 billion Facebook Inc users around the world would be protected by it. The online social network is making changes that ensure the number will be much smaller.

[…]

Facebook members outside the United States and Canada, whether they know it or not, are currently governed by terms of service agreed with the company’s international headquarters in Ireland.

Next month, Facebook is planning to make that the case for only European users, meaning 1.5 billion members in Africa, Asia, Australia and Latin America will not fall under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which takes effect on May 25.

This move will make the new European Union regulations only apply to users living in the European Union. And fear not! After a few court cases have been fought over this law, Facebook’s lawyers will have judges’ interpretations of the law to work with, which will give them the wiggle room they need to make the law irrelevant to people living in the European Union as well.

Once again, if you want to defend your privacy against Facebook, you have to take matters into your own hands. No amount of legislation is going to protect you.

Justice in the United States

When I discuss the justice system in the United States, I use the word justice with a heavy dose of sarcasm. Justice, at least in my book, implies that a wronged party has been compensated for the damages they suffered by the party that wronged them. Here in the United States justice tends to imply that a governmental body has been compensated for the damages suffered by another party:

T-Mobile USA has agreed to pay a $40 million fine after admitting that it failed to complete phone calls in rural areas and used “false ring tones” that created the appearance that the calls were going through and no one was picking up.

“To settle this matter, T-Mobile admits that it violated the Commission’s prohibition against the insertion of false ring tones and that it did not correct problems with delivery of calls to certain rural areas,” states an order issued by the Federal Communications Commission today.

T-Mobile will pay the $40 million fine into the US Treasury. FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn criticized the commission for not getting refunds for customers.

According to the Fascist Communications Club (FCC), T-Mobile wronged rural customers by inserting false ring tones on their lines and failing to correct issues that resulted in calls not being delivered. To punish T-Mobile the FCC fined it $40 million. However, that entire post is going to the FCC. The wrong parties, the rural individuals who had to deal with false ring tones and calls not being delivered, won’t receive a penny. T-Mobile isn’t even required to issue refunds.

This isn’t uncommon. Government regulators often accuse companies of harming individuals. The result of such accusations tends to be fines that are payable to the accusing agency while the parties that the accuser claimed were the actual wronged parties go without compensation. That doesn’t qualify as justice in my book. It’s just a scam for government busybodies to line their pockets while pretending to represent “the people.”

Backing the Thin Blue Line

Backing the thin blue line, at least in Minnesota, is an expensive proposition:

Over the past 11 years, at least $60.8 million has been paid out statewide to people who have made misconduct allegations, according to data compiled by the Star Tribune.

From 2007 to 2017, jurisdictions in Minnesota have made at least 933 payouts to citizens for alleged misconduct. And they’re on the rise. The average has grown from about 50 payouts per year to around 100.

It’s just a few bad apples though!

If so much money is spent on police misconduct, why hasn’t the government made efforts to restrain its law enforcers? I think history can illustrate the core problem here. Let’s rewind to Ancient Rome. Ancient Rome, like pretty much every regime throughout history, declared that individuals within its territory owed it taxes. Unlike the modern United States though, Ancient Rome had no government tax collectors. Instead it contracted the job out to publicani. Tax collection contracts required collectors to raise a specified amount of money to send to Rome. What made these contracts lucrative was that the collectors were allowed to keep any additional money that they raise for themselves. If, for example, a contract required collectors to collect 1 million sestertii and the collectors collected 1.5 million sestertii, they were allowed to keep the extra half million. As you can imagine, this system was rife with corruption. Tax collectors squeeze every sestertius they could from the population. While the populations being bleed would often complain to Rome, Rome was reluctant to restrain its primary revenue generators so the abuses continued.

The same holds true for modern governments. Law enforcers are a major revenue generator for governments. While $60.8 million may sound like a lot of money even spread out over 10 years, it’s certainly a paltry sum compared to the amount of revenue generated by Minnesota law enforcers in the same span of time. Until the amount being paid out for misconduct allegations exceeds the amount being generated by law enforcers, that status quo will continue.

Three May Keep a Secret, If Two of Them Are Dead

Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard’s Almanack wrote, “Three may keep a Secret, if two of them are dead.” This quote rings true time and time again. The most recent example is the legal mess surrounding the now shuttered website Backpage:

Carl Ferrer, the co-founder of Backpage, the notorious and now-shuttered site that once hosted a vast quantity of prostitution-related ads, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and money laundering charges.

[…]

Ferrer agreed, in combined plea deals with both Texas and California authorities, where he faced outstanding charges, that he will shut down Backpage “throughout the world,” will aid authorities in ongoing prosecutions of his co-conspirators, and will make all Backpage data available to authorities.

This outcome is very common in cases involving multiple suspects. The first suspect to offer their services as a snitch against the others is usually handed a sweetheart deal.

Benjamin Franklin’s point should be taken to heart by anybody performing illegal activities. For example, if you’re an agorist who is selling cannabis, you probably don’t want to enter a partnership with another cannabis dealer. You can’t control the actions of another person. Even if you take every precaution to avoid being caught by the authorities, you can’t guarantee that a partner will do the same. And if their mistake causes them to be arrested, there’s a good chance that they’ll offer you up in exchange for a sweetheart deal.

Regulations Make Medical Tourism a Necessity

The United States was once a leader in medical technology. However, increases in bureaucracy have pulled back that lead. Many new and experimental medial treatments remain illegal in the United States, which has created a significant medical tourism industry. Every year numerous Americans travel to foreign lands to seek treatment for their ailments. The latest example of this is opioid addicts traveling to Mexico to seek treatment:

As America’s opioid and heroin crisis rages, some struggling with addiction are turning to a drug illegal in the US. Jonathan Levinson went to one clinic offering the treatment in Mexico.

At the end of a dead end street in a town near the US-Mexico border, Emily Albert is in the basement of a drug treatment clinic, hallucinating about her son as a heroin addict. She imagines him going through rehab and desperately trying to get clean.

But Albert is the one with the addiction. She’s in the middle of a psychedelic treatment for opioid addiction.

[…]

The drug is illegal in the US, but several studies have suggested it is effective in alleviating opioid withdrawals and curbing addiction.

[…]

Ibogaine, along with other hallucinogenics, such as LSD and psilocybin (magic mushrooms), are schedule I substances in the US – drugs which have no medical application and are not safe for use, even under medical supervision.

The medical potential of psychedelics has been known for decades. Timothy Leary performed research on their psychological benefits in the ’50’s and ’60’s. His research discovered that psychedelics did have a lot of positive aspects. Modern research has shown that psychedelics offer a lot of potential for people suffering from depression. And now clinics in Mexico are using psychedelics to help people kick their opioid addiction.

But even with all of this information at hand, the United States government continues to claim that psychedelics have no medial application whatsoever. So long as they maintain that attitude, it is mostly illegal to experiment with psychedelics for medical purposes in the United States, which creates an impasse. A researcher can’t experiment with psychedelics to determine if they can be used in medical applications so they continue to have no medial applications, which prevents researchers from determining if they can have medical applications.

Because of this impasse, the only way to gain access to psychedelics for medical use is to travel to a country less burdened by such regulations.

You Can’t Take the Sky from Me

The United States government suffers from delusions of grandeur. The latest of these delusions is the belief that it owns space:

The story behind the missing live feed is a muddy bureaucratic affair. It appears that NOAA has recently decided to start interpreting or enforcing a decades-old law in a new way. The agency says SpaceX and other commercial space companies must apply for a license to broadcast video from orbit.

“The National and Commercial Space Program Act requires a commercial remote sensing license for companies having the capacity to take an image of Earth while on orbit,” NOAA said in a statement last week. “Now that launch companies are putting video cameras on stage 2 rockets that reach an on-orbit status, all such launches will be held to the requirements of the law and its conditions.”

If you launch something into orbit with the ability to broadcast a signal, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, perhaps the agency with the title containing the most hubris considering it states that the agency can administer nature) believes that you have to pay it for a license. Apparently it’s position as an agency of the United States government gives it command over all of space.

This decree would be irrelevant except the individuals who are launching payload into orbit are stuck on the ground where government goons can get them. Fortunately, there are tracts of land run by goons who are less deluded. Were I interested in launching rockets into space, I’d do so from one of those tracts of land. While NOAA might be able to enforce it’s delusion in the United States, it would have a harder time enforcing it in, say, India.