Tag: Your Government Doesn’t Love You

Shut Up Slave

Although they often claim to be working for us our representatives seems to really believe they are above us. For instance find out what happens when a lowly slave questions the mighty congressman Bob Etheridge:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v60oNUoHBYM]

You don’t ask questions, you shut up and do as you’re told.

And for those saying the Congressman didn’t physically harm the student I ask you this; what would have happened if the student had done the same to the Congressman? The answer is he’d probably be in jail on the charge of assault. I don’t ask for much but I do demand the elimination of double standards when it comes to our representatives. Remember they are not above us, they are not higher than us, they are our public servants. They answer to us.

Does this Mean More Warrantless Wiretapping

Apparently the Obamessiah is comparing the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico to the terrorist attack on 9/11:

“In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come,” he said in the Politico interview.

Does this mean the oil leak is going to be used an excuse to expand government power over the surfs citizenry? What am I saying, of course it is. I’m waiting for the next OIL LEAK Act (no idea what they’ll make that acronym mean but if they can come up with an acronym for PATRIOT they can do anything) which will expand government powers allowing even more warrantless wiretapping, harassment at airports, and detaining of citizens suspected of colluding with oil companies.

Because Taxing You Along Isn’t Enough

You know all those taxes your state and federal government steal from you (since you aren’t paying voluntarily it’s payment by force which is theft)? One of the things it’s supposed to pay for are public schools. The idea is a portion of your tax money goes to your local school and thus your kids get to go to school for free. Of course free is such an interesting term according to public schools since they make the parents pay for many things including notebooks, pencils, and other miscellaneous items.

Well Beverly High is kicking it up a notch by requiring all parents to buy MacBooks for their kids:

A new program at Beverly High will equip every student with a new laptop computer to prepare kids for a high-tech future. But there’s a catch.

The money for the $900 Apple MacBooks will come out of parents’ pockets.

Yes that’s right on top of taxes now parents have to purchase their kid an Apple MacBook. This is regardless of whether their kid already has a laptop if that laptop doesn’t happen to be a MacBook. Of course the benevolent school will provide a leasing mechanism for those poor unfortunates who can’t afford laptops. But anybody who has filled out and applied for financial aid from a public school knows it’s kind of like getting punched in the mouth for three hours straight. So how much will these laptops cost all together?

Providing laptops to all 1,200 students at Beverly High would cost the school about $1 million, Technology Director Judy Miller said. Last year, the district spent $66,569 on technology.

Wow that’s $1 million of wasted money if I’ve ever seen it. All that’s going to happen is kids will be playing Farmville in class instead of paying attention. Great. Your government at work people.

Our Government at Work

Whether you’re on Israel’s or the Gaza Strip’s side in the recent incident you should agree with my sentiment: why the fuck are we giving either of them taxpayer money:

US President Barack Obama has said the situation in Gaza is “unsustainable” and promised millions of dollars in new aid for the territory.

Seriously we have a massive national debt. I know $400 million isn’t even on the register of our debt by why the fuck are we giving money to other countries when we don’t have any money? Shouldn’t we use every dime we can get to lower our outrageous spending? Cripes!

Do as I Say Not as I Do

That was Obama’s message to a group of graduating Michigan high school students:

President Barack Obama is telling high school graduates in Michigan not to make excuses, and to take responsibility for failures as well as successes.

It’s OK I’m sure if this gets taken out of context Obama can just find a way to blame it on Bush.

Civil Disobedience

Is awesome! Somebody in Tennessee received a $90.00 speeding ticket and was none too happy about it. Being a savvy Internet type he also saw that the issuing police department’s domain name was about to expire so he purchased it and put up his own website detesting the victim-less crimes of traffic violations.

Good on you sir.

A hat tip goes to Uncle this post.

Drinking, It’ll Give You AIDS

Via No Agenda I learned that the World Health Organization has started a campaign against alcohol (because they research Prohibition in the United States and found that it worked so well). They have a page up titled Call for action to reduce the harmful use of alcohol. There are some real doozies on this page but my favorite is this:

Harmful drinking is also a major avoidable risk factor for noncommunicable diseases, in particular cardiovascular diseases, cirrhosis of the liver and various cancers. It is also associated with various infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS and TB, as well as road traffic accidents, violence and suicides.

Holy shit drinking can give you AIDS!

Making Recording the Police Illegal

There is a rather frightening article about the police and their love of cameras, so long as they’re the only ones who have them:

In response to a flood of Facebook and YouTube videos that depict police abuse, a new trend in law enforcement is gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer.

Even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.

More or less the same group of individuals who often say nobody should fear being under surveillance unless they’re doing something wrong doesn’t like being under surveillance. This seems to imply they know they are doing something wrong using their logic. The justification for these laws is also sickening:

The legal justification for arresting the “shooter” rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested. Most all-party-consent states also include an exception for recording in public places where “no expectation of privacy exists” (Illinois does not) but in practice this exception is not being recognized.

If you or I are out in public we can’t sue somebody for recording us specifically because there is no expectation of privacy under the law. Apparently since the police are better than us lowly surfs they are getting an exception in some states. This is a classic case of rules being applied differently depending on your status (in this case a police officer is a civilian but since they’re employees of the government the government is giving them special treatment). Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying all police officers are beating people on street corners but any officer supporting laws banning citizens from recording their actions while on duty makes it appear as though they have something to hide (by many officers’ own logic).

Society and technology are now at a point where a majority of people are carrying video recording devices in the form of cell phones. Coupled with the cellular Internet access we can share recorded videos with the entire world instantly. Even if the police confiscate your cell phone upon discovering you are recording them the video can already be uploaded to any number of websites making the confiscation meaningless.

This has been used quite a few times to record instances of police abuse which is later used to reprimand the recorded officers. So now the citizens can monitor the police force instead of only the police force being able to monitor the citizens. Some people join the police force because they want the authority and power that goes along with it. Of course these same people don’t want to responsibility and accountability that also goes along with it hence empowered citizens are a bad thing to them.

Banning the recording of police officers (or any public servant) while they are on duty is nothing more than government empowerment at the sacrifice of the peoples’ liberty (which is always the case). It’s one of the few methods we have at our disposal to play checks and balances with the police force. Otherwise it simply becomes a case of our word against theirs which almost always goes the way of the officer under question.

Weapons Heading to Mexico Seized

Apparently a large quantity of weapons has been seized on it’s way to Mexico:

Texas police say they acted on a tip-off and stopped a truck. Inside, they found 147 assault rifles, 53 bayonets and more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition they believe were heading across the border to Mexico.

Oh no not bayonets! You could seriously poke somebody’s eye out with one of those. I’m sure the anti-gunners are going to be all over this in about five minutes. Of course they will harp how this is proof we need to ban “assault weapons” here although I’m betting most of those seized weapons were fully automatic and thus already heavily restricted (if produced before 1986, otherwise illegal).

Here’s my favorite part though:

President Obama has said that US demand for drugs has contributed to the violence in Mexico, and that the flow of guns from the US to Mexico must be stopped.

I have a better solution. Instead of wasting our money and resources protecting another country how about we just dump the prohibition on currently illegal drugs? The government can tax them thus creating a revenue source, our prisons will no longer be overflowing with people who harmed nobody besides themselves, and best of all it will eliminate the power of the drug cartels overnight. Seriously this war on drugs has accomplished nothing besides putting many American citizens in prison for victimless crimes and empowering the drug cartels.

Inexperience and Government

Yesterday I posted a good article that related to Minnesota’s own “gun show loophole” that isn’t a loophole. Something has been eating at me about that article, namely this:

Paymar has never fired a handgun, nor has he ever attended a gun show. He was moved to act, he says, after seeing a YouTube clip. In it, Colin Goddard, a Virginia Tech massacre survivor who was shot four times, attends gun shows and successfully buys firearms without undergoing a background check or even being asked to show identification.

I touched on it briefly in yesterday’s post but it’s something that has bugged me about government forever. Why do we find it acceptable to allow people with no knowledge or experience in a field to legislate that field? Paymar isn’t the only example. Ted “Series of Tubes” Stevens we put in charge of Internet regulation even though he obviously had no knowledge in the field.

This seems to be a common thing with government. We find the most incompetent people and let them be in charge of something. This kind of incompetence doesn’t fly anywhere else but government (normally). Generally if you’re put in charge of something at a company it’s because you portrayed some kind of competence in the area of concern. If you’re not competent you are eventually fired.

But here Paymar has never been to a gun show in his life yet he feels justified in creating legislation that would affect gun shows. Now his bill was shot down in committee thankfully but he’s vowed to reintroduce the bill at a later time. This raises the question, what the Hell is he thinking? He can’t claim it’s to get voter favor since the bill doesn’t seem to have much traction here in Minnesota. The only people who really seem to care are us pro-gunners and the anti-gunners who generally don’t know what they’re talking about.

We shouldn’t stand for this. Instead we should demand that in order to legislate something the person writing the law much either have direct experience with the topic or have hired independent consultants who have said experience.