The Last Farmer

http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/2003/Everything-Is-Illegal1esp03.htm Here we have a real citizen-farmer, not an industrial food producer, but a man who owns his own land and generates a sufficient variety of food to live on it exclusively. A traditional farm, in other words. Men like this and farms like these were part of the foundation of this country. Between the various bureaucracies weaving their webs through his life and livelihood and the ingrate public succumbing to the marketing magic of big agribusiness--what happens when this species of American is finally extinct? We are losing both our right and our capacity to sustain any semblance of life free of government support and oversight and intervention. It is a one-way street: citizens are managed and held to account, bureaucracies are the managers and effectively unaccountable. How does this not represent a soft, slow slide into tyranny?

The Legal Morass

http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_howard.html This guy does a great job of defining the problems afflicting our system; the solutions he proposes are more questionable. The risk he invites is transforming our system from one abused by litigious individuals and aggressive tort lawyers to one that may be abused by the authority figures to whom he would shift power. At this point, I suspect it is worth the risk; it seems time for the pendulum to swing back (and this would involve a retracing of our legal history to some extent). A vital point, lost on many people, is the pervasive impact of the mere threat of lawsuits in our time. Even where the courts hold the line on imposing the theoretical standard of "reasonable action under the circumstances," trigger-happy plaintiffs and attorneys circumscribe our freedoms ever more narrowly with each threat they make. In other words, the people behind these threats are engaged in de facto legislation for the rest of us--they superimpose a suffocating layer of unwritten laws on the endless millions of written ones. Another key point: the laws are far too extensive for anyone to understand--and many are also too complicated for anyone but professionals to understand. This is not necessary--in fact, it is an invitation to tyranny. If the people do not know the laws--and they do not--then the state can arbitrarily fine or imprison anyone it chooses. The definition of tyranny is unchecked executive power. And, be it noted, our hives of bureaucrats exercise far more executive power than the President.

Tyrants of the Soul

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/bc0129ll.html The suggestion that we treat Sharia as a "dangerous totalitarian ideology" just as we did communism in the Cold War is one I support. Unfortunately, I do not see much progress in the work of liberating the Muslim mind from the Koran's medieval mindset.

A New Known Unknown

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/science/18dna.html?ref=science
I should think the committed conspiracy theorists ought to find this development most exciting. And, if they can reincarnate DNA, how hard could fingerprints be?

Teacher's Unions

This book review is about as clear and concise as it gets on this issue: http://www.vdare.com/pb/worm_review_19.htm

The double monopoly system inflicted upon all Americans is particularly unfortunate for the primary clientele of the Democratic party (the poor). Yet, ironically, that is the very party defending the status quo with religious fervor. The middle classes also find themselves largely at the mercy of this tyranny--but, predominantly middle class public schools perform much better than those the poor typically find themselves shipped off to. The result is a trap of mediocrity for the middle and a trap of idiocracy for the poor.

End the monopolies that make our education system a trap for the majority of children. This is not difficult in concept or in execution. It simply requires the will to facilitate upward mobility by encouraging and supporting merit. In other words, outlaw teacher's unions and permit families to choose their preferred schools (whether they be public, private, parochial, home, or otherwise). A voucher valued at a level comparable to public school spending ought to be offered for those not attending public school. Also, it would be needful to impose reasonable regulations on all schools to safeguard the children and taxpayer's money.

More Paternalism

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/us/09salvia.html?hp Salvia is a natural hallucinogen that causes intense psychedelic experience that lasts for 5 minutes. Florida recently made possession or sale of it a felony with a maximum prison term of 15 years. This really enters upon the territory of tyrannical overreach. It is insanely disproportionate to any threat to the citizenry--there's no evidence that anyone in Florida has ever harmed himself or anyone else under influence of this plant. It is not even considered addictive. The only hope of keeping it legal is to tax it promptly to give government a stake in its continued availability. This is why the legality of alcohol and tobacco are not threatened (despite the fact that they are far more deadly to their users and to non-users in proximity to users than salvia or marijuana). This illegalizing fetish of our governments is symbolic: it is one of many strategies employed to chip away, bit by bit, at liberty. We are ever more overwatched, regulated, classified, tracked, lied to, protected from ourselves, infantilized.   I've always been inclined to Jefferson's view: the tree of liberty must be fertilized per occasion with the blood of tyrants and patriots. Tyranny waxes all ways. The tree desiccates. Blood is wanted.