Tag: Nanny State Knows Best

Congress Slipped in a Book Ban, Clever Girl

As with many things I find Snowflakes in Hell has a link to an article on the book ban Congress passed. I know what you’re thinking, how could Congress pass a ban on books? The first amendment protects the freedom of speech.

Although that’s true Congress didn’t base the ban on a book’s content but on the ink. Remember last year when there was a panic over Chinese toys that contained lead? As a knee jerk reaction Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. This act in essence banned any amount of lead from childrens’ items and it was retroactive. We’re not talking simply lead paint on toys but lead in any products aimed for use by children.

So how does this ban books? Well before 1985 there was no law regulating the use of lead in dyes and inks used in children’s books. This means any children’s book printed before 1985 must first be tested for lead before it can be sold. Failing to to this means you a used book you sell can be an illegal item for resale and you could face up to a $100,000 fine or even prison time.

This law was appalling to begin with but is doubly so to me since I’m an avid reader with books printed before 1985. If I should allow a child to read such a book I can be brought up on charges. And this is how the government works people. If they can outright ban something they do it through regulations. Granted I don’t believe banning childrens’ books was the intention of this law but due to its poor wording that’s what it has accomplished.

But government does use regulations to ban items directly. The assault weapon ban of 1994 a perfect example. The government knew it would be hard to flat out ban specific guns so they regulated the features hoping that would accomplish the ban. They made a list of features which were not illegal when a certain number of them were on a single gun. Everything from bayonet lugs to pistols grips fell on this list. Furthermore any magazine with a capacity beyond 10 cartridges was now illegal to produce. Unlike the law this article primarily aims at the assault weapon ban was not retroactive.

The scary thing is anything can be regulated so long as it can be found to be bad in some way. Lead ammunition is being restricted more and more in the Peoples’ Republic of California because it’s “harmful to the environment.” The federal government could pull the same thing. Being you can still get ink poisoning it is possible to regulate anything that uses ink period. Granted that’s an extreme case but it is meant to be to show the extent unregulated government to reach.

This is why we need to fight pointless and knee jerk laws. They never accomplish solving anything and always accomplish harming people whom were not criminals before the passing of the law.

Further Research

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. (PDF)

Even Permanently Disabled Guns are Scary in the United Kingdom

Ah yes the United Kingdom. This find conglomeration of government intrusion and control is so afraid of guns that even completely disabled ones are feared…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/8178254.stm

A person was selling two guns which were disabled, via being welded shut, and properly certified at a local market. Some moron calls the police because apparently even permanently disabled guns are scary in Wales. The police arrive and tell the owner to sell the guns “more appropriate channels.”

Now there was nothing illegal about these guns, all the accompanying paper work was with them and the guns were unable to be restored to their original working configuration. That’s right lawful commerce was being practiced which we know Oceania is completely against hence the police had to put a stop to it. And I love this quote by the officer…

We would like to reassure the public that the use of guns in south Wales remains extremely rare and immediate action is taken if information is received about the use, threat or sale of items.

Yes they sure do crack down on guns be it a use, threat, or sale. Heck apparently even non-functioning guns which can’t be used to shoot somebody are cracked down upon. Of course they also crack down on those who defend themselves with a firearm since self defense is also all but illegal in that region.

Senators Move to Make Texting While Driving Illegal

Remember that post yesterday about the study that said people who text while driving are 23 times more likely to crash their car? Well to prove once again that no tragedy (or study in this case) should be left unexploited some senators on capital hill are going to introduce legislation to make texting while driving illegal…

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jQIakqMFgrC0KAeMfxrWUQCz2U2QD99O2NL04

The legislation will use the federal government’s favorite weapon against state rights, money. Pretty much if a state doesn’t introduce a law making texting while driving illegal they lose their federal highway funding.

It’s funny how the states only have rights when it’s convenient for the federal government. For instance the states have a right to make their own gun laws when national reciprocity is being voted on but they don’t have the right to make their own gun laws when they want to make any gun sold and used in their state exempt from federal regulation. Well it looks like states don’t have the right to make legislation when it comes to their drivers either.

That said texting while driving is just fucking stupid. But just because something is fucking stupid doesn’t mean it should be made illegal. The fact of the matter is there is no way to enforce this law since phones can be used for a great many things. For instance my phone has Google Maps on it which I use to navigate my way around. But being I’m holding the phone to look at the map it looks like I’m texting.

Likewise reckless driving is already illegal hence if you are swerving around on the road while texting you are committing a crime and will most likely be pulled over. This law in effect will only exist to give police another reason to pull you over without having any actual reason to do so (sort of like Minnesota’s new mandatory seat belt law).

Irony Defined, Knife Crime Up During Anti-Knife Campaign

Since Britain has all but banned guns they are now targeting the next evil weapon criminals use, knifes…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8161880.stm

They have run into a problem though. Knife crime is actually going up in areas they are targeting with their anti-knife campaign. This implies that telling criminals not to do something doesn’t prevent them from doing it. Who would have guessed that?

I wonder what will happen next. I’m betting some kind of ban on all knifes that can’t be used for sporting or cooking purposes. Eventually there will be a requirement to register all kitchen knives with the government and licenses will be required to own them. After that a total ban on all knives will occur. Afterwards they will go after blunt instruments. This will lead to law abiding citizens having no objects as most things can be used as a weapon while the criminals will still have guns, knives, and blunt instruments.

Fresh Statistical Numbers from Britain

It looks like we have some new violent crime numbers for Oceania…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8153392.stm

They are claiming killings are at a 20 year low and gun crime along with other violent crimes are down…

But overall crime is down by 5% and violent crime has fallen by 6%, and gun crime has seen a 17% fall.

Of course since guns are illegal in Oceania shouldn’t gun crime be at 0% of all crimes? I mean the magical gun ban barrier stops all guns from coming into the country. Oh wait there are more statistics…

The number of attempted murders is also down 7%, but attempted murders with knives is up 11%.

Oh Hell now people using knives in murder attempts are up. Oceania better get on banning all knives quickly.

Other violent offences were up, however, including a 5% increase in the number of women raped to 12,165.

You know it’s much harder to rape a woman when she has a gun. I’m just saying.

Police recorded 284,000 domestic burglaries – the first increase in six years.

And criminals are more likely to break into your domicile if they know that not only do you not have any means of self defense but defending yourself against the intruder can nail you a prison sentence.

The British Crime Survey suggests the risk of being a victim of crime has risen from 22% to 23%.

Once again the risk of being victimized greatly increases when you are unable to defend yourself against an attacker. The strong prey on the weak. There is no likely way I’m going to be able to defend myself against a man with a gun unless I to have a gun. God made man but Samuel Colt made them equal is the right saying for this.

But BBC Home Affairs correspondent Andy Tighe said the survey showed overall crime and robbery appeared to be stable.

Wow if that’s not lying through numbers I don’t know what is. I’m sure they defined a certain percentage as being stable such as 5%. Now to me any increase in crime (for the likelihood of being a victim in a crime as they state) is not stable but an increase. Likewise if there were a drop it wouldn’t be stable but a decrease, which is what you want.

And now for the money quote provided by Mr. Chris Grayling…

It looks like the government is trying to cover up the scale of the problem we face with knife crime, little wonder given its policies have failed to get to grips with the challenge. Massaging the figures on knife crime twice in two years is just an insult to the families of those who have been tragically murdered in knife attacks and who are campaigning for real action to get knives off our streets.

I guess it’s time for Oceania to raise a magical knife ban barrier. Once that’s up and all knives, like all guns, are out of the country they can work on all blunt interments. Of course it’s going to be hard to cook without knives but who cares it’s for the protection of yourself and others.

More Overreaction in Everybody’s Favorite Fascist State

Only in Britain people…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5732821/Parents-banned-from-sports-day-over-paedophile-fears.html

Parents are not being allowed to attend their kids’ events because of the pedophile scare. Yes you heard that right because of potential pedophiles parent are not being allowed to attend their own kids’ events.

And because I like pointing out bad quotes…

“I would have taken time off work to support my child. It would have meant a lot to me. I’m all for measures to protect the safety of children but lines must be drawn and common sense must prevail.”

This in itself is a very good concept the problem is that it’s coming from Oceania where common sense doesn’t exist. I mean this is the same country who decided to fight crime by disarming the law abiding populace and placed closed circuit television cameras on every street corner.

Source: http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2009/07/15/parents-excluded-from-school-events-because-pedaphiles-might-get-in/

Remember Your Nanny Knows Best

So apparently the Food and Drug Administration is working to ban a whole butt load of painkillers…

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/homepage/20090702_Painkillers_at_a_crossroads_as_FDA_decision_
looms.html

From the article…

The FDA advisory panel recommended banning Vicodin and Percocet because they contain acetaminophen, which can cause liver damage if taken at higher-than-recommended doses. The panel also urged the FDA to lower maximum doses for acetaminophen, best known as the branded drug Tylenol.

Yes they want to ban widely used drugs such as Vocdin because if it’s abused it can damage your liver. Well with that reasoning we have a whole list of things we need to start banning. If you abuse alcohol you can die, strangely enough from liver damage as well. The FDA better get a move on to ban alcohol because that worked so well in the past to prevent alcohol abuse.

Did you know that apple seeds contain cyanide…

http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/apples.asp

Of course it takes a massive number of seeds to ingest enough cyanide to kill you but still it could be abused. We need to ban apples in all forms.

Yes the FDA is playing nanny state again trying to save us from ourselves. I wish our government would spend their time worrying about things that are actually a problem instead of wasting their time banning things that people can die from if abused (which is pretty much everything that falls under the jurisdiction of the FDA).

The Supreme Court did it Right and Wrong in One Case

A story I’m glad to see printed in the slowly dying New York Times…

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/us/politics/26scotus.html?_r=2&hp

Back in 2003 a school’s zero tolerance policy (a.k.a. complete stupidity) went beyond too far. Savana Redding was suspect of having prescription strength drugs (you know for a prescription) which the school apparently frowns upon. They decided to search her backpack and outer clothes. But they didn’t stop there, no they went for the full strip search, on a 13 year old girl.

They ended up finding nothing of course. But I find it down right despicable that a school performed a strip search on a student. This in my opinion is a complete violation of a person’s rights. But schools love to claim you have no rights until you turn 18 years old, which is bullshit.

Anyways the Supreme Court found, by an 8 to 1 vote, that her rights had in fact been violated.

Now for the part they did wrong. The Supreme Court decided, but a 7 to 2 vote, that the individuals who performed the search should not be prosecuted. Personally I think if you’re unwilling to say “Fuck no I’m not doing that, I’ll quite first.” in a situation such as this then you are as guilty as the person ordering it.

Either way there is a pending lawsuit against the school which I hope the girl’s family wins. This kind of shit needs to be put down.

Germany will Sensor the Internet

But of course it’s “for the children.” Germany passed an Internet censorship bill under the guise of stopping child pornography…

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4406608,00.html

This is always the first set in full government censorship. Find something almost everybody decries, make a law banning it, and further use that law to censor all free information exchange where that now illegal item can be obtained.

The bill as it stands right now doesn’t prevent a person from viewing a site deemed to contain child pornography it just makes them click through a displayed stop sign (and I’m sure record their IP address for government agents can come arrest them).

The problem I have with a bill involving any kind of censorship is this. If you give a government an inch they’ll take a mile. This is true of every government. Right now they will only censor child pornography but next it will be anything deeming sexually abnormal and eventually it will involve anything that speaks badly about the German government.

More Stupidity from Across the Pond

Two stories of idiocy coming from The Commonwealth of Britain (also known as Oceania). First off we have a story from Bruce Schneier’s own blog…

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/blackburn/4425941.East_Lancashire_youngsters_see_film_on_
terrorism_danger/

The Party is showing videos to children aged at 10 and 11 years. From the article…

More than 2,000 10 and 11-year-olds will see a short film, which urges them to tell the police, their parents or a teacher if they hear anyone expressing extremist views.

This is stupid on enough levels to recreate Dante’s Inferno. First of all you know “extremist views” are anything The Party doesn’t agree with. I’m sure most people who read this blog would fall under this category, I know I do.

The terrorism message is also illustrated with a re-telling of the story of Guy Fawkes, saying that his strong views began forming when he was at school in York. It has been designed to deliver the message of fighting terrorism in [an] accessible way for children.

It’s funny I know Britain celebrates Guy Fawke’s Day. It’s celebrating by lighting bonfires (at least it was, I know many cities have outlawed bonfires). But now The Party is saying he’s an example of terrorism. I’m sure us Americans are terrorists two since we broke away from Oceania long ago.

Source: http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/blackburn/4425941.East_Lancashire_youngsters_see_film_on_
terrorism_danger/

But that’s not all ladies and gentlemen. From Say Uncle we have another story involving Oceania’s stupidity…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/5310445/Golfers-arrested-after-fighting-off-gang-attempting-to-steal-clubs.html

In the story some teenagers wielding planks of wood (I thought no violent crime could happen once you took away guns) tried to rob several people playing golf. Apparently they didn’t realize that golf clubs are equally effective at bludgeoning people as wood planks. The golfers defended themselves as they should have the right to.

Being this is across the pond though they were arrested for defending themselves. And of course the golden quote…

Mr Walden said: “I cannot say who was at fault and who was not at fault yesterday.

Maybe I can tell you what happened, some punk kids thought they saw some easy targets, they were wrong. Man I hope the people of Oceania rebel sooner rather then later.

Source: http://www.saysuncle.com/2009/06/09/where-defense-is-outlawed/