Both ways

Trying to make a good (if slightly delusional) argument for imposing draconian legislation on womens' bodies, SUZANNE points out that, what the hell, since we already have a lot of bullshit laws, we might as well have a few more:

Sure, what's a few more idiotic laws? Who'd even notice?? In my frothingly libertarian way, I argue that the fact that we have a lot of wrong and stupid laws already is hardly a compelling reason to have even more. SUZANNE responds:

"Are things so hard on people that we're on the verge of a fascist state?" Her words say "No", but her sidebar says:

I can has it both ways? No, I can't has it both ways.

Crime stats are in

According to StatsCan, Canada's crime rate is down for the third straight year:

"Canada's national crime rate declined for the third straight year in 2007, according to Statistics Canada, which attributed the drop largely to a decrease in counterfeiting and property offences such as break-ins and vehicle thefts.

StatsCan data released Thursday shows a seven per cent drop in the national crime rate, which the agency said also stems from fewer serious violent offences like homicides, attempted murders, sexual assaults and robberies."

...and all without the help of this guy (or one of his clones). Not bad! What's that tell you, Authoritarians? Maybe harsher punishment and more laws! more laws! more laws! aren't necessarily the answer? Ruminate on it.

The right to abuse drugs

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." (Hunter S. Thompson)

On FD today one of the anti-every-reproductive-choice-except-birth gang brings up an interesting side-issue while trying to drum up support for the "Pill Kills" protest happening on June 7 (mark your calendars). Predictably, not many endorse this ridiculous notion -- whatever you think of their conservative views, most FDers actually aren't totally batshit crazy. (Really!) Many of those responding to the thread rightfully insist that people can make decisions about their own bodies for themselves. Suddenly authoritarianism rears its ugly head and comes roaring full-throttle up the outside lane:


Good question -- why do we tolerate laws against drug abuse and suicide? Because they really serve no useful purpose.

That suicide is illegal is something too ridiculous to even contemplate, since someone who successfully commits the crime is obviously in no condition to be punished for it. As for drug laws, we're well over 1/4 century into the so-called War On Drugs, and no closer to winning than we were in 1972. Punitive drug laws have proven to be stupid and ineffective in almost every way possible, except keeping the corrections industry afloat, enriching drug dealers and satisfying the primitive authoritarian urge to punish "bad behaviour".

As weird as it sounds, we do have a right to abuse drugs -- it's just a right that, hopefully, we don't exercise, or at least not to the point where it becomes destructive. We're certainly up to the task of making decisions about drugs for ourselves -- most of us don't need a law to tell us that being a junkie is a bad deal, we can figure it out. Those who don't figure it out, or who figure it out but go ahead and do it anyway, need medical help for the disease of addiction, not incarceration and a lifelong criminal record dogging them. Should someone with heart disease from smoking and eating junk food be incarcerated? Duh. Oh right, Big Macs aren't illegal -- but so what? Heroin shouldn't be either.

Apart from the health issues, most of the problems around drug abuse originate with the Law, and the fact that drugs are illegal. Illegality makes for high legal liability which in turn makes for astronomical cost, and that's the cause of all the property crime and sex trade work. You can't support a habit slopping coffee and donuts at Tim Horton's.

After 36 years with no discernible progress, the stupidity of drug laws should be self-evident. We do have a right to abuse drugs if we so choose, just as we have a right to eat Big Macs and smoke cigarettes. They are all bad decisions, but they are our decisions to make, and ours alone.

Sounds familiar

(From FD, May 2008)

then there's

"The life of the people must be freed from the asphyxiating perfume of our modern eroticism, as it must be from unmanly and prudish refusal to face facts.... The right to personal freedom comes second in importance to the duty of sustaining the race."
(Adolph Hitler, "Mein Kampf", 1924)

Just sayin'.

Not him again!

Welcome to my new series: McVetywatch! I was right -- I've been derelict in my duty of keeping a close eye on this nitwit and now he's breaking out everywhere, like herpes. Here he is yet again, shrieking, swooning and squirting all over the crusty pages of the Calgary Herald that "We don't want to subsidize porn!"

"Opponents of subsidies for pornography face the same arguments given generations ago by defenders of government assistance for tobacco production. If you opposed tobacco subsidies, you were against farmers, against agriculture and probably against any government assistance to weak sectors of the economy."

What is it with these oh-so-tiresome religious crackpots and their idiotic analogies? First fetuses were like slaves, now we've got the puritanical, authoritarian dingbats who oppose free artistic expression being compared to anti-tobacco activists. Are these people completely and totally incapable of making their point on its own merit? Do they have a point and does it even have any merit!? (Okay, easy now hippie, don't get away from yourself here.) *ahem* Let's read on:

"As in the case of tobacco, defenders of porn subsidies use a kind of attempted character assassination in saying that only the religiously minded are against it. One doesn't have to be religious to recognize inanity.

A Compas poll released this past week shows that three-quarters of Canadians oppose subsidies for porn films..."

Hold the phone! "Compas poll"? He can't mean the poll that got a 75% opposed response by asking the impossibly absurd question "Should the government fund child pornography?" He should know better than to cite a poll that only a few days ago got him spanked and ridiculed:

In closing, ridiculous asshole McVety sobs:

"Instead, the free speech of 75 per cent of Canadians is oppressed as we are vilified, accusations of censorship are levelled, and yet no one can give a good reason to allow tax dollars to fund pornography, or to fund films focusing on sex with corpses, or others with memorable names like Young People F---ing and The Masturbators."

Oh, here we go, flavour of the week, the Free fucking Speech canard. You know their argument is weak-to-nonexistent when they trot this one out. Yet you have to be in awe of the kind of psychological gymnastics it must have taken McVety to arrive at the conclusion that his free speech is being oppressed... because he isn't being allowed to oppress the free speech of someone else! Oh well, I'll concede that he showed remarkable restraint in getting almost the entire article barfed out before he finally broke down and said his favourite phrase, "Young People F--ing", but I bet he had to smack his hands a few times to do it.

The more things change

While surfing around aimlessly, I found these McCarthy-era propaganda posters. Check this out:

The "unholy three": flouridated water, polio serum and "mental hygiene", a "diabolical plan by the enemy to turn a free and intelligent people into a cringing horde of zombies". Sounds ridiculous: flouridated water and polio shots are things we now know to be perfectly safe and good, and since people started dancing on the Berlin Wall, so much for the commies turning us into cringing zombies. But its hard not to notice we have modern-day equivalents that would fit right into the "unholy three": the HPV vaccine and gay marriage, say. The Enemy, with a different face, is still "The Other" with the same diabolical plan -- a worldwide caliphate in cringing submission to Sharia Law!

Replace "Communism" with "Islam", and this poster is something you might find on any wingnut website. It's amazing how long we've been manipulated by the same politics of fear and hate, only the players have changed. The McCarthy era is over in name only.

"Excited Delirium" - Orwell's "political language"

The police-induced TASER® deaths keep piling up:

"OTTAWA (AFP) — A third death in five weeks linked to the use of Taser stun guns by police in Canada on Thursday prompted a ministerial inquiry in easternmost Nova Scotia province.

Justice Minister Cecil Clarke ordered the review into the use of Tasers in Nova Scotia, he said, following the death of a 45-year-old man who died in police custody Wednesday, hours after being zapped.

"I have ordered Police Services officials in my department to immediately begin a review of policies and procedures regarding Taser use in Nova Scotia" by law enforcement, corrections staff and sheriffs, Clarke said in a statement.

"At the same time, RCMP are being called in to investigate the circumstances of the death at the correctional facility and I understand Halifax Regional Police will also have the RCMP conduct an external investigation into the arrest."

And the public has had to raise shit just to get these incidents independently investigated. Meanwhile, while we were sleeping, newly-discovered medical conditions began working their way into law enforcement lexicon. Conditions like "Excited Delirium":

"Excited delirium is a controversial term used to explain deaths of individuals in police custody, in which the person being arrested, detained, or restrained is highly agitated and may be under the influence of stimulants. The term is not recognized in DSM-IV-TR, but has been listed as the cause of death by some medical examiners." (emphasis mine)

"Not recognized in DSM-IV-TR" -- no indeed. So why are law enforcement officials citing this as an actual "condition" if it isn't recognized by any credible medical source?

I hate to keep banging this drum, but that's tough, because it's true: one of the first signs of authoritarianism bullying its way into our society is apologist propaganda, including the invention of new quasi-credible-sounding terminology to rationalize inhumane treatment... "unlawful combatant" springs immediately to mind. Orwell referred to it as "political language":

"Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

It's all part of the stealthy training process that gradually changes how we as a society think of our rights, and allows us to unquestioningly accept casual authoritative aggression like this:

"An officer guarding RCMP cells in Pukatawagan in northern Manitoba warned an offending prisoner: "Let me introduce you to the Taser. It is able to produce 50,000 volts of electricity. Co-operate with us and you will not be stunned."

Without further noted intervention, the unarmed suspect was touch stunned – a close-range zap likened to leaning on a hot stove."

Orwell also said "Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip." If we accept that the state has a right to zap us at will, we're turning big time somersaults.

Tall dark and dead

Something caught my eye in the story about the Robert Dziekanski video that ran on Thursday in the Star:

"... a tall and swarthy Dziekanski..." Swarthy. New crime of the 21st century bullshit post-9/11 law enforcement world: "Acting Up While Swarthy". Wow, I better watch it, I'm a little swarthy myself by mid-summer.

The new millenium's version of "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful" -- "Don't tase me because I'm swarthy... bro".