Tag: freedom

A SWAT team in Florida decided to test their new military equipment by breaking into someone’s home on Friday.

8:51 am

Fascists: A SWAT team in Florida decided to test their new military equipment by breaking into someone’s home on Friday.

After conducting surveillance and gathering information for a judge to sign a search warrant, LPD called in its SWAT team to execute the warrant at a house on Empress Way in the neighborhood near Kelly Recreation Center, Sgt. Mike Lewis said. “We did not know if anyone was inside and we had information that the persons involved were armed,” Lewis said. “It was a safety issue.”

It was an opportunity for police to see how well their newly acquired Lenco BearCat armored vehicle would perform. City commissioners last year approved the purchase of the 22,000-pound bullet-resistant vehicle to replace a 1967 armored vehicle. The BearCat features new technologies, air-conditioning, cameras and seating for 12 officers instead of six.

On Friday, the SWAT team drove the BearCat down Lakeland streets and onto the front lawn of the house. The officers crouched behind and inside the vehicle, unsure of what was inside the house. The officers used tactical maneuvers to blow out the front windows, leaving curtains lying in the yard, and they gained entry into the attached garage.

From the story, it is very unclear whether they found any incriminating evidence at all. Mostly, it sounds like a bunch of stormtroopers getting a chance to play with their toys at the expense of an innocent private citizen.

4 comments

When asked if Arizona’s gun laws need changing, 86% chose the answer “We have too many laws, and most of them should be eliminated.”

6:15 pm

We have consensus! When asked if Arizona’s gun laws need changing, 86% chose the answer “We have too many laws, and most of them should be eliminated.”

Only 5% of those polled thought stronger gun laws were necessary.

The irony here is that the story at which this newspaper poll is being taken is about a protest by a Tucson gun control group. They might be noisy, but these gun control protestors are very much in the minority, despite any claims they might make.

2 comments

What happens to you if you decide you wish to control the education your children get in a public school

2:19 pm

What happens to you if you decide you want to control the education your children get in a public school.

In addition to the repeated refusal of school officials to obey your commands, you get approached by police officers who tell you that you are trespassing on school property, even though you are there as per a pre-arranged appointment with the school principal.

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The Obama administration’s culture of intimidation.

9:59 pm

The Obama administration’s culture of intimidation.

Sending scores of armed agents along with helicopters and dogs to confront an elderly Nevada rancher over grazing fees may seem like overkill, but critics say it’s not inconsistent with the federal government’s recent approach to environmental enforcement.

The simmering truce between the Bundys and the Bureau of Land Management comes after high-profile raids last year by armed federal agents on small-time gold miners in tiny Chicken, Alaska, and guitar makers at the Gibson Guitar facilities in Tennessee.

I should also note that this behavior is not exclusive to the Obama administration. Under Bush the federal government was playing these same games, though somewhat less aggressively.

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What I learned as a liberal talking head on Fox.

10:59 am

If only more liberals were this open-minded: What I learned as a liberal talking head on Fox.

Read it all. Her essay gives me hope. The key quote:

But if I want that viewpoint – and those who share it – to get more powerful, so that we can fix these systemic problems once and for all, then demonizing people who disagree with me won’t help. In fact, I need to persuade them. And no one will even listen to your argument, let alone agree with you, if they think you don’t like them.

If only the teachers at Brandeis and the fascists that got the CEO of Mozilla fired understood this.

2 comments

The slow death of free speech.

9:13 am

The slow death of free speech.

I heard a lot of that kind of talk during my battles with the Canadian ‘human rights’ commissions a few years ago: of course, we all believe in free speech, but it’s a question of how you ‘strike the balance’, where you ‘draw the line’… which all sounds terribly reasonable and Canadian, and apparently Australian, too. But in reality the point of free speech is for the stuff that’s over the line, and strikingly unbalanced. If free speech is only for polite persons of mild temperament within government-policed parameters, it isn’t free at all. So screw that.

But I don’t really think that many people these days are genuinely interested in ‘striking the balance’; they’ve drawn the line and they’re increasingly unashamed about which side of it they stand. What all the above stories have in common, whether nominally about Israel, gay marriage, climate change, Islam, or even freedom of the press, is that one side has cheerfully swapped that apocryphal Voltaire quote about disagreeing with what you say but defending to the death your right to say it for the pithier Ring Lardner line: ‘“Shut up,” he explained.’

1 comment

China’s president calls for the increased military use of that country’s space assets.

8:45 am

China’s president calls for the increased military use of that country’s space assets.

The article itself is not very informative, other than noting these comments. In fact, it has some errors that suggest the writer knows very little about China’s space effort, both civilian or military.

Nonetheless, China’s president did make this statement, which tells us that it is definitely Chinese policy. Not good.

4 comments

Why we should be sympathetic to the Bundy family in Nevada.

8:28 am

Why we should be sympathetic to the Bundy family in Nevada.

The author notes that the Bundy’s don’t have a legal leg to stand on, but then explains why what is happening to them is still unjust. The best quote:

So let’s have some sympathy for Cliven Bundy and his family. They don’t have a chance on the law, because under the Endangered Species Act and many other federal statutes, the agencies are always in the right. And their way of life is one that, frankly, is on the outs. They don’t develop apps. They don’t ask for food stamps. It probably has never occurred to them to bribe a politician. They don’t subsist by virtue of government subsidies or regulations that hamstring competitors. They aren’t illegal immigrants. They have never even gone to law school. So what possible place is there for the Bundys in the Age of Obama?

8 comments

Another look at the BLM’s range war with the last remaining rancher in Nevada.

10:23 am

Another look at the BLM’s range war with the last remaining rancher in Nevada.

“Years ago, I used to have 52 neighboring ranchers,” [rancher Cliven Bundy] said. “I’m the last man standing. How come? Because BLM regulated these people off the land and out of business.” This is why the whole question of whether he “paid his fees” is a red herring. The government changed the rules in an effort to drive people like him out of business. Even if he had paid them, he’d still have had to break their rules to survive. That’s the position they put him in. Obey our silly, arbitrary rules designed to protect a desert tortoise that no one can show he’s hurting in any way or give up your way of life.

9 comments

A comprehensive list of Lois Lerner’s partisan effort to use the IRS to attack conservatives.

10:09 am

Working for the Democratic Party: A comprehensive list of Lois Lerner’s partisan effort to use the IRS to attack conservatives.

The Democrats in Congress, who have been circling the wagons to defend Lerner, really do remind me here of the Republicans in Congress in 1973. At that time, the Watergate scandal was unfolding, and Republicans were doing everything they could to defend Nixon, even though the evidence was very much against him. The consequence then for the Republican Party was election day 1974, when they experienced devastating losses.

In the end those loses forced reform in the Republican Party. The time has come for the Democratic Party to undergo the same reform process.

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