Ken's Weblog

People should not fear their governments; governments should fear their people.

Tag: tyranny

  • The reason for the masks

    In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.

    Theodore Dalrymple

  • The reality of the American legal system

    There’s overwhelming evidence that the criminal-justice system is racist. Here’s the proof. [The Washington Post]

    Radley Balko, one of the few real journalists in America, has compiled a long, long, long list of studies showing the racism of the American criminal “justice” system. This is a bit old, but was recently updated with yet more studies. Criminal Defense lawyer Scott Greenfield wrote a response to this pointing out that as racist as the system is, it’s fundamentally flawed for everyone.

  • Quote of the Day

    I am convinced that any organization with a “Trust and Safety Council” is neither trustworthy nor safe unless you fit into a political ideology.

    RMHansen

  • Another reason to like Uber

    What Do You Call a Tool to Help Uber Avoid Gov’t Stings? A Good Start. Uber uses a tool called “Greyball” to circumvent officials. It’s a tool that Uber says is designed to help it deny ride requests to people who violate their terms of service, disrupt the system, or threaten their drivers. They also have been using it to operate in places where government officials have been trying to shut them down.

    […]

    Uber used this tool to operate in Portland, Oregon, as regulators attempted to use sting operations to catch them and shut them down. As the story explains, this all bothered authorities because Uber was employing people and putting them to work outside of their purview… [Hit & Run]

    This is pretty old news now, but it’s another reason to prefer Uber over other ride sharing services: they were willing to do something to protect their drivers from corrupt and oppressive local governments who were paid off by the taxi cartels to attack them.

  • Cops get away with murder yet again

    Arizona Cop Acquitted for Killing Man Crawling Down Hotel Hallway While Begging for His Life. Arizona jurors watched the video below, which shows former Mesa, Arizona, police officer Philip Mitchell Brailsford shooting and killing a man who was begging for his life and attempting to follow the officer’s orders to crawl down a hotel hallway.

    Yesterday, the jurors found Brailsford not guilty of second-degree murder and reckless manslaughter.

    The incident occurred in January 2016. Daniel Shaver apparently was showing off a pellet gun, and it was visible through the hotel room window. This prompted somebody to call to the hotel front desk, which prompted a call to the police. [Hit & Run]

    It’s perfectly legal to carry real guns either openly or concealed in Arizona, to say nothing of a pellet gun in a temporary residence. Of course, cops don’t care about the law.

  • Not so offline as the Gestapo would like

    Court: Group’s 3D printer gun files must stay offline for now The federal civil suit originated three years ago when Cody Wilson and his group, Defense Distributed, published designs for the “Liberator,” the world’s first 3D-printed handgun. Within months, Defense Distributed received a letter from the United States Department of State’s Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance, stating that 10 files, including the designs of the Liberator, were in violation of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). This letter came despite the fact that these files had already been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times and continue to circulate online. [Ars Technica]

    This reminds me of the 1990s, when the Evil Empire tried to keep encryption technology away from people using the same tactics. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. Here’s a BitTorrent link to download the files in question.

  • Cops can’t even fabricate charges right

    Cops record themselves allegedly fabricating charges with suspect’s camera. In a federal civil rights lawsuit, a Connecticut man has shared footage to bolster his claims that police illegally confronted the pedestrian because he was filming one of them. Authorities seized Michael Picard’s camera and his permitted pistol, and the officers involved then accidentally recorded themselves allegedly fabricating charges against the man.

    […]

    The tickets Picard got were for the alleged use of a highway by a pedestrian and for allegedly creating a public disturbance for carrying an “exposed loaded sidearm in plain view of passing motorists.” The authorities eventually dismissed the tickets. [Ars Technica]

    Note that carrying an exposed loaded sidearm in plain view of passing motorists is perfectly legal in Connecticut as long as you have a carry permit, which Picard did. Not only did the jackboots get caught fabricating charges, they were so stupid that they couldn’t even come up with something that was actually illegal for their lies.

  • Apparently his message was heard

    Ferguson Activist Darren Seals Found Shot and Dead in Burning Car in St. Louis. 29-year-old activist Darren Seals was found dead in a burning car in the Riverview section of St. Louis this week, as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Seals became an anti-gun violence activist after being shot in 2013, and in 2014 was among the first protesters in Ferguson, according to the Washington Post.

    Seals helped found the group Hands Up United and was a vocal opponent of African-Americans voting Democrat as a bloc. “Just because they’ve got the D next to their name, that don’t mean nothing,” Seals told the Washington Post in 2014. “The world is watching us right now. It’s time to send a message of our power.” [Hit & Run)]

    The danger of sending messages like that in a police state is that the people in charge might actually get the message and decide to send back one of their own.

  • Going green: Morocco bans use of plastic bags

    Going green: Morocco bans use of plastic bags [AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)]

    I’ve written in the past about how absurd it is for Americans to worry about Muslims imposing Shariah law in the US. Now, it seems that it’s the Muslims who have to worry about American Shariah laws being imposed in their countries.

  • People used to go the other way

    Developer Of Anonymous Tor Software Dodges FBI, Leaves US. An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: FBI agents are currently trying to subpoena one of Tor’s core software developers to testify in a criminal hacking investigation, CNNMoney has learned. But the developer, who goes by the name Isis Agora Lovecruft, fears that federal agents will coerce her to undermine the Tor system — and expose Tor users around the world to potential spying. That’s why, when FBI agents approached her and her family over Thanksgiving break last year, she immediately packed her suitcase and left the United States for Germany. “I was worried they’d ask me to do something that hurts innocent people — and prevent me from telling people it’s happening,” she said in an exclusive interview with CNNMoney. Earlier in the month, Tech Dirt reported the Department of Homeland Security wants to subpoena the site over the identity of a hyperbolic commenter. [Slashdot]

    It’s depressing that I can now say that I’m old enough to remember when people defected to the US.