Ken's Weblog

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

Tag: tyranny

  • Why good cops are so rare

    Officer Regina Tasca Goes “Rogue” [Pro Libertate]

    Every so often I run across a story about a good cop. These stories inevitably include a mention that the good cop isn’t a cop anymore because he or she was fired for being good. This particular article includes an unusually clear example of why it is that cops all seem to be vicious psychopaths–in Regina Tasca’s case, she stopped other cops from beating a defenseless man for no reason, and was then fired for being “psychologically unfit” to be a cop. Or in other words, cops tend to be vicious psychopaths because that’s a requirement of the job.

  • US courts are unjust? What a shock!

    Government trying to deny Megaupload fair legal representation. The United States government has adopted a take-no-prisoners attitude in its prosecution of Megaupload, seeming to raise every conceivable objection to Megaupload’s efforts to defend itself. We’ve already covered the government’s attempts to block Megaupload from spending money to preserve servers that the company says contains data needed for its defense.

    Now, the government has adopted a new tactic: making it as difficult as possible for Megaupload to obtain legal counsel. The prominent law firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart and Sullivan has sought permission to represent Megaupload in the case. But in a legal document filed on Wednesday, the government raised several objections to freeing up money to allow the law firm to represent Megaupload in court.

    As Quinn Emanuel noted in a Thursday response, the government’s objections are so broad that they would effectively prevent Megaupload from hiring any lawyer with experience litigating major copyright cases. Indeed, they could could make it impossible to hire any lawyer at all. It’s hard to see how Megaupload could get a fair trial if the government’s objections are sustained by the court. [Ars Technica]

    From Ars Technica’s coverage of this case, it’s pretty obvious that they’ve never paid any attention to the US legal system before. Everything that’s happening in this case is perfectly normal for a case in a US Federal Court. Megaupload isn’t supposed to get a fair trial–after all, if the government went around giving people fair trials, justice might leak into their legal system and they wouldn’t be able to keep up their 99.5% conviction rate. Nobody who has any say in the matter wants that to happen!

  • Protect and Serve who exactly?

    Scenes from a Militarized America.

    About a thousand protesters showed up at the Virginia state capital over the weekend to protest pending anti-abortion legislation. Courtesy of Style Weekly, here’s how the Virginia State Police responded:

    [The Agitator]

    The third picture, with the two masked soldiers (excuse me, “police”) standing in front of an abandoned sign saying “No War on Women” seems particularly appropriate.

  • Terrorists in the U.S.

    “I just happened to glance over and saw this huge chainsaw ripping down the side of my door.”. “I just happened to glance over and saw this huge chainsaw ripping down the side of my door.”

    […]

    If the purpose of these raids is to take dangerous people by surprise before they can shoot back at police, how exactly does taking the door down with a chainsaw fit that strategy? [The Agitator]

    As several people pointed out in the comments on that post, there is really nothing more ideally suited to making an armed citizen empty their gun through their front door than some maniac cutting through it with a chainsaw! As tactics to use against an armed drug dealer, I can’t think of anything more incredibly stupid.

    On the other hand, what this sort of thing is very good for is terrorizing a mother and her very young daughter and making sure that they will never make the mistake of thinking they live in anything other than a hideously oppressive police state. That, I think, is the real purpose of these raids–they’ve got nothing to do with policing, and everything to do with state terrorism.

    Sadly, it could have been even worse. They’re not called the Federal Baby Incinerators for nothing.

  • American justice is an oxymoron

    Rules of American justice: a tale of three cases. The Rules of American Justice are quite clear:

    (1) If you are a high-ranking government official who commits war crimes, you will receive full-scale immunity, both civil and criminal, and will have the American President demand that all citizens Look Forward, Not Backward.

    (2) If you are a low-ranking member of the military, you will receive relatively trivial punishments in order to protect higher-ranking officials and cast the appearance of accountability.

    (3) If you are a victim of American war crimes, you are a non-person with no legal rights or even any entitlement to see the inside of a courtroom.

    (4) If you talk publicly about any of these war crimes, you have committed the Gravest Crime — you are guilty of espionage – and will have the full weight of the American criminal justice system come crashing down upon you. [Glenn Greenwald]

    It’s pretty obvious that the U.S. legal system really has nothing to do with justice except through the occasional coincidence, in much the same way that the U.S. Constitution has nothing to do with the U.S. government.

  • Changing standards of “scary”

    Scared Sober: LAPD Planning at Least 2 DUI Checkpoints this Halloween Weekend. The Los Angeles Police Department wants to remind revelers this Halloweekend that there are few things scarier than drunk drivers. In addition to issuing a reminder about ways to stay safe while celebrating, they will be operating at least two DUI checkpoints this weekend. [LAist]

    I can remember when authoritarian governments that set up internal checkpoints of heavily armed police were one of those scarier things–they were shown that way in movies set in the Third Reich and Soviet Union, at least. Of course, that was back in the 1980s when people were afraid of being conquered by the Soviet Union. They should have been more afraid that the country would voluntarily turn itself into the Soviet Union.

  • Donating to WikiLeaks

    The Evil Empire has done everything it can to shut down donations to WikiLeaks, and it’s been pretty successful. I decided to try making a donation of $100 using one of the alternative methods available: Bitcoin. This was a multi-step process. First, I had to transfer money from my checking account to Dwolla, which took four days. From there, I transferred the money to Mt. Gox, which took another day. Once it was there I purchased $100 worth of bitcoins, which was about 7.14 at the time. Finally, I sent those bitcoins to the donation address for WikiLeaks. The last two steps took just a few minutes, most of which was spent dealing with the Mt. Gox interface.

    Overall, this was rather inconvenient due to the hassle involved in actually getting the bitcoins. I expect this will only get worse in the future, as Bitcoin is something of a competitor for Dwolla. Paypal has a long-standing policy of cutting off businesses which are in any way involved with alternative currencies (stealing their balances in the process)–we saw that with e-gold well before they were attacked by the Evil Empire. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Dwolla either adopted an anticompetitive policy themselves, or else were ordered to by Gestapo agents.

    The good news that once I actually got my hands (figuratively) on the bitcoins, it was trivial to bypass the blockade on WikiLeaks.

  • Be afraid! Be very afraid!

    Anime Expo 2011 Special Guest Appearance: The LAPD Bomb Squad! [LAist]

    The cops love these phony “bomb scares,” as they get an excuse to throw their weight around and bully people, while also terrorizing anyone gullible enough to take them seriously. Not too long ago I had the opportunity to take an up-close photograph of a terrorist attack in progress (as defined by the LAPD). Caution: if you are a cop, the following image may cause shortness of breath, heart attack, loss of bowel control, and general hysteria. Run away!

    Terrorist attack

  • Yet another senseless ban

    Postrel: Need a Light Bulb? Uncle Sam Chooses. in California, where I live, this plenitude no longer includes what most shoppers want: an inexpensive, plain-vanilla 100-watt incandescent bulb. Selling them is now illegal here. The rest of the country has until the end of the year to stock up before a federal ban kicks in. (I have a stash in storage.) Over the next two years, most lower-wattage incandescents will also disappear.

    […]

    The bulb ban makes sense only one of two ways: either as an expression of cultural sanctimony, with a little technophilia thrown in for added glamour, or as a roundabout way to transfer wealth from the general public to the few businesses with the know-how to produce the light bulbs consumers don’t really want to buy.

    Or, of course, as both. [Bloomberg]

    Not content with banning capitalism, agriculture, and chemistry (aka “the War on Drugs”), the Evil Empire is now banning light bulbs. Of course, this is the same country that previously banned toilets–there’s really nothing so minor or silly that the government won’t threaten to murder people over it.

  • Some perspective

    Did you know that six people were murdered in a brutal attack just a few days ago? The answer is almost certainly “no,” because the attack I’m referring to happened in a foreign country, and the only U.S. Government officials involved were the ones who ordered it and carried it out.