Teaching Gruber

John Gruber runs one of the most visited blogs on the entire internet. Most of your humble Devil's readers will never have heard of him, because he writes about technology in general and (largely) Apple in particular.

Today, John is outraged by a particularly stupid Grauniad article (and who isn't, eh?): the article is a comment on Apple by well-known fantasist, Mike Daisey.

But the serious problem is that The Guardian ran this piece (in the Tech section, not Opinion, no less) without any sort of note alluding to the fact that Mike Daisey is a known fabulist who completely made up stories about labor abuses in Apple’s Chinese supply chain.

Mike Daisey doesn’t have zero credibility regarding Apple — he has negative credibility. He’s a liar.

Shame on The Guardian.

Mr Gruber is an American, and so we cannot be surprised at his... well... surprise. Yes, yes—we Brits know that the Grauniad is a joke, whose articles are written by the kind of people on whom you would not piss were they ablaze.

But, as I said, Mr Gruber is an American. So, quite apart from comedically mis-spelling Grauniad, I would like to give John an insight into the British view of that newspaper. And that has been rendered remarkably easy by The Daily Mash, via their excellent line of searingly insightful merchandise.

Perhaps we can all club together to send one of these over the pond to John?

Otherwise, I have a spare somewhere...

Greece is like...

... according to John Redwood, another effectively bankrupt state... [Emphasis mine.]

If those countries are to have some hope of prosperity, they need to solve the two underlying problems. It is obvious to most external observers that the way to solve the problem of competitiveness quickly is to devalue. Normally, an IMF programme for a country in trouble not only asks it to cut its budget deficit and reduce its excess public spending, but suggests that it devalue its currency and move to a looser monetary policy domestically, so that there can be private sector-led growth, export-led growth—the kind of thing it needs to get out of its disastrous position. That is exactly what those countries are unable to do. That is why the IMF should not lend a country like Greece a single euro or a single dollar. Greece is to the euro area as California is to the dollar area: it is not an independent sovereign state, and it cannot do two of the three things that a country needs to do to get back into growth and prosperity, because it cannot devalue and it cannot create enough credit and money within its own system.

Exactly so.

Except that California is more like a quack doctor bleeding a perfectly healthy person—that patient is weakened, but still able to work and produce, to innovate and generate wealth.

Whereas the Greek situation is rather more akin to flogging a dead horse...

Herman Cain

Counting Cats—who's brief assessment is pretty good—has alerted me to the existence of GOP Presidential Candidate Herman Cain.

Whilst I don't agree with everything he says (the god-bothering in particular)—and nor am I sure that he can deliver what he promises (the President has, in fact, very little power)—I think that it would be incredible if one of our politicians came out with something like this...

Vision for Economic Growth

• The natural state of our economy is prosperity. Freedom ensures that.
• We must get the government off our backs, out of our pockets and out of our way in order to return to prosperity.
• Policy uncertainty is killing the economy.

Economic Guiding Principles

1. Production drives the economy, not spending.
   • We can not spend our way to prosperity.
   • Government spending IS taxation.
   • Government spending is like taking a bucket of water from the deep end of the pool, pouring it in the shallow end. Then they HOPE that the water level will CHANGE.
2. Risk taking drives growth.
   • Business formation and job creation are dependent on entrepreneurs taking risks.
   • Investors who fund those entrepreneurs likewise take risks.
3. Measurements must be dependable.
   • A dollar must always be a dollar just as an hour is always 60 minutes.
   • Sound money is crucial for prosperity.

We Must Unite Not Divide

• When one party seeks to spend so that the other party must focus on cutting, we must unite around economic growth.
• Unite all tax payers, don’t divide them into “income” tax payers vs. “payroll” tax payers.
• Unite those wanting to eliminate deductions with those seeking lower rates.
• As a first step, unite the “Flat-Taxers” with the “Fair-Taxers”

Economic Growth is the Key

• This is the worst recovery since the Depression.
• If the President’s goal was to tie for last place with the previous worst recovery, he failed by 6 million jobs.
• If we had a typical recovery, 13 million more Americans would be employed today.
• That means more tax revenue, less government spending and 13 million less people opposed to reasonable spending cuts.
• The Super Committee must deliver a robust growth solution.
• America can’t wait for 2012, we need growth NOW

Phase 1—9-9-9

• Current circumstances call for bolder action.
• The Phase 1 Enhanced Plan incorporates the features of Phase One and gets us a step closer to Phase two.
• I call on the Super Committee to pass the Phase 1 Enhanced Plan along with their spending cut package.
• The Phase 1 Enhanced Plan unites Flat Tax supporters with Fair tax supporters.
• Achieves the broadest possible tax base along with the lowest possible rate of 9%.
• It ends the Payroll Tax completely – a permanent holiday!
• Zero capital gains tax
• Ends the Death Tax.
• Eliminates double taxation of dividends
• Business Flat Tax—9%
  • Gross income less all investments, all purchases from other businesses and all dividends paid to shareholders.
  • Empowerment Zones will offer additional deductions for payroll employed in the zone.
• Individual Flat Tax—9%.
  • Gross income less charitable deductions.
  • Empowerment Zones will offer additional deductions for those living and/or working in the zone.
  
  
• National Sales Tax—9%.
• This gets the Fair Tax off the sidelines and into the game.

Phase 2—The Fair Tax

• Amidst a backdrop of the economic boom created by the Phase 1 Enhanced Plan, I will begin the process of educating the American people on the benefits of continuing the next step to the Fair Tax.
• The Fair Tax would ultimately replace individual and corporate income taxes.
• It would make it possible to end the IRS as we know it.
• The Fair Tax makes our exported goods and services the most competitively internationally than any other tax system.

Can you imagine Potato Cameron or any of his merry men coming out with anything like that? No—because they just had their chance at the Conservative Party Conference and they absolutely failed to do so.

Instead, Cameron pushed the virtues of the nationalised monopoly NHS and other centrist—or outright socialist—shit. And, whilst they promised new jobs, they absolutely failed to point out that the state cannot generate wealth or valuable jobs.

It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic—and serious.

So fuck the Conservatives—and good luck to Herman Cain...!

A stirring speech...

Can you guess who said this recently...?

Yeah, the permanent political class – they’re doing just fine. Ever notice how so many of them arrive in Washington, D.C. of modest means and then miraculously throughout the years they end up becoming very, very wealthy? Well, it’s because they derive power and their wealth from their access to our money – to taxpayer dollars. They use it to bail out their friends on Wall Street and their corporate cronies, and to reward campaign contributors, and to buy votes via earmarks. There is so much waste. And there is a name for this: It’s called corporate crony capitalism. This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk. No, this is the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts, of waste and influence peddling and corporate welfare. This is the crony capitalism that destroyed Europe’s economies. It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest – to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners – the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70% of the jobs in America, it’s you who own these small businesses, you’re the economic engine, but you don’t grease the wheels of government power.

Good stuff, eh? I bet the answer will surprise you...

Hoping...

... that the North Carolina in-laws are not getting too badly battered by Hurricane Irene.

Good luck!

In a right state (but not in the bar)

Via @DickPuddlecote, it's good to see bar owners in Michigan taking some decisive action.

In an act of solidarity, Michigan bar and restaurant owners have banned state lawmakers from their property.

Effective September 1, the group Private Property Rights in Michigan said in a release Monday that lawmakers will be persona non grata in over 500 Michigan licensed establishments, across the state.

PPRM said it believes, however, even more will take part.

The group says bar owners and workers have grown frustrated with the Ron Davis law; also known as the private property tobacco use ban. PPRM claims the ban has collectively cost the state an estimated $200 million dollars in lost revenue through losses in jobs, taxes, business closings and to the state lottery.
...

In Michigan, bar owners have said that despite there being a large number of lawmakers supporting them, that they, the owners, must provide a 'level playing field', and are forced to prohibit all lawmakers from their establishments.
...

Bars will be posting signs on their entrances, and providing workers photographs of lawmakers to identify them should they, the lawmakers, choose to ignore the ban. Owners have indicated they will have lawmakers charged with trespassing on private property under MCL Sec. 750.552. One Alpena bar owners said, "politicians will learn pretty quick that our bars are private property [if they choose to ignore the ban and enter]."

Good for them.

Tapeworms and seals

Thanks to the ghost, dressed in a shabby Greek toga, who sent me this rather amusing story...

OLYMPIA -- James Vaughn of Orting doesn't think much of state government, judging from the initiative he filed with Secretary of State Sam Reed's office this week.

Vaughn's proposal consists mainly of a few pages of complaining about the many taxes businesses and individuals here have to pay.

In honor of those taxes, he proposes to change the Seal of the State of Washington - currently an image of George Washington - to "a tapeworm dressed in a three pieced suit attached to the taxpayer's rectum."

It won't get voted on, of course, but wouldn't it be nice if we had a similar, official mechanism?

As Reed spokesman David Ammons notes in the office's blog:

"For five bucks and an idea, anyone can file an Initiative to the People - and they do. Most are very serious, while others can be kooky or simply send a message."

And no, I don't think that sending a rude letter to your MP is really quite the same...

Obama: extra-judicial killings are the American way!

Obama: "Hey! Americans! Wave goodbye to your civil liberties, ya fuckin' mooks..."

Back in May, your humble Devil pointed out that America's great white hope—Obama, the Boy Blunder himself—was quite keen on ordering the extra-judicial killings of American citizens.

However, I am quite sure that Obama has reconsidered his position, and realises that due process and the rule of law were really important to people. After all, governments murdering their own citizens without any kind of trial is hardly in the great traditions of freedom, is it?

I mean, sure, just over the last century, many governments have spent a lot of their time wiping out their own countrymen —the USSR, Cambodia, Chile, Argentina, China, Germany, etc.—but it is not generally viewed as being A Good Thing by anyone except the murderous regime itself.

And given how Obama is a symbol of hope and change (not to mention change and hope), I reckon that the leader of theLand of the Free would never indulge in such authoritarian behaviour.

What's that?

Oh.

At this point, I didn't believe it was possible, but the Obama administration has just reached an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record. In response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki's father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process, the administration late last night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief [PDF] asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims. That's not surprising: both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality.

But what's most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is "state secrets": in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are "state secrets," and thus no court may adjudicate their legality.

As Timmy asks "So how’s that hopey, changey thing workin’ out for ya?", the Agitator elaborates on the point in question.

There are no mitigating factors, here. Obama is arguing the executive has the power to execute American citizens without a trial, without even so much as an airing of the charges against them, and that it can do so in complete secrecy, with no oversight from any court, and that the families of the executed have no legal recourse.

You can’t even make the weak argument that the executive at least has to claim this power in the course of protecting national security. Because it doesn’t matter. Obama is arguing that he has the right to keep everything about these executions secret—including the reasons they were ordered—merely by uttering the magic phrase “state secrets.” In other words, that this power would only arise under a national security context is deemed irrelevant by the fact that not only is Obama claiming the president’s word on what qualifies as “national security” is final, he’s claiming the power in such a way that there’s no audience to whom he would ever need to make that connection.

So yeah. Tyranny. If there’s more tyrannical power a president could possibly claim than the power to execute the citizens of his country at his sole discretion, with no oversight, no due process, and no ability for anyone to question the execution even after the fact . . . I can’t think of it.

Quite.

So, at the risk of this becoming repetitive, how is that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?

Or, to put it another way, is Obama progressive enough for you, punk...?

Oiled up

Yep: the US government is going to cap that well-head just as effectively as it evacuated people from New Orleans ahead of Hurricane Katrina. You may start panicking now.

One of the great things about bloggers is that most of us have real-life jobs and sometimes those jobs are directly relevant to news stories on hand. White Sun of the Desert, for instance, has been at the sharp end of the oil extraction industry for many years and, as such, is slightly more informed about BP's recent travails than most press release recyclers journalists.

I particularly like White Heat's very pertinent comment on the US Interior Secretary's promise that, should BP fail, the government would "push them out of the way". [Emphasis mine.]

So they’re going to boot BP off the job? And who, then, is going to plug the leak? Politicians? Perhaps we could put Hilary Clinton’s mouth over the wellhead? Or stuff the latest draft of the healthcare bill into the hole? Who else can muster a flotilla of cleanup vessels and the army of subsea experts BP currently have on the scene? Is Mr Salazar so completely deluded as to the capabilities of government— which, in case we forget, could not organise putting people onto buses three days before hurricane Katrina—that he thinks they are in a position to cap a leaking well a mile under the sea?

Apparently so. Or, via Daring Fireball, Richard Reich thinks that maybe the US government should go one step further. [Emphasis mine.]

It's time for the federal government to put BP under temporary receivership, which gives the government authority to take over BP's operations in the Gulf of Mexico until the gusher is stopped. This is the only way the public will know what's going on, be confident enough resources are being put to stopping the gusher, ensure BP's strategy is correct, know the government has enough clout to force BP to use a different one if necessary, and be sure the President is ultimately in charge.

Now, it's possible that BP isn't doing the best job and the problem certainly hasn't been fixed yet. But letting the government take over...?

That would definitely be reassuring to everyone—especially in the US, where the people hold their government is such high regard. Because BP (even if it isn't co-operating with the other oil majors) definitely doesn't have enough oil well experts and so they absolutely need some government officials to "ensure BP's strategy is correct", eh?

And with the President ultimately in charge... well... At least the citizens of the US will know that if BP can't cap the well, then Obama can at least accuse a few BP executives of being terrorists and thus order an extra-judicial killing or two.

Sorry, what was it that Reagan said were the ten most terrifying words in the English language? Oh, yeah...

"Hi, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

A phrase which, under Obama's Presidency, is presumably followed by the short cough of a silenced pistol being fired into your head...

Obama and the Hopey-Changey Fairy

A few weeks ago, Timmy highlighted an article by Glenn Greenwald that ran through some of the continued abuses and illiberal actions by the wonderful new Obama-Caring government of the US.

The most recent liberty-abridging, Terrorism-justified controversies have focused on diluting the legal rights of American citizens (in part because the rights of non-citizens are largely gone already and there are none left to attack).  A bipartisan group from Congress sponsors legislation to strip Americans of their citizenship based on Terrorism accusations.  Barack Obama claims the right to assassinate Americans far from any battlefield and with no due process of any kind.  The Obama administration begins covertly abandoning long-standing Miranda protections for American suspects by vastly expanding what had long been a very narrow "public safety" exception, and now Eric Holder explicitly advocates legislation to codify that erosion.  John McCain and Joe Lieberman introduce legislation to bar all Terrorism suspects, including Americans arrested on U.S. soil, from being tried in civilian courts, and former Bush officials Bill Burck and Dana Perino -- while noting (correctly) that Holder's Miranda proposal constitutes a concession to the right-wing claim that Miranda is too restrictive -- today demand that U.S. citizens accused of Terrorism and arrested on U.S. soil be treated as enemy combatants and thus denied even the most basic legal protections (including the right to be charged and have access to a lawyer).

This shift in focus from non-citizens to citizens is as glaring as it is dangerous.  As Digby put it last week:

The frighting reality is that not even Dick Cheney thought of stripping Americans of their citizenship so that you could torture and imprison them forever --- even right after 9/11 when the whole country was petrified and he could have gotten away with anything. You'll recall even John Walker Lindh, who was literally captured on the battlefield fighting with the Taliban, was tried in civilian court. They even read him his rights.

I think this says something fairly alarming about the current state of our politics.

No shit.

Even further back, the wife highlighted the fact that Obama has not even restored the freedoms that Bush removed through the Patriot Act, for example—a piece of legislation that Obama specifically promised to repeal.

Having campaigned on a platform that consisted largely of reversing the mahoosive mistakes of the Bush administration, once in office, he immediately set out to… not reverse any of them. Patriot Act? Still there. Guantanamo? Still there. Wars? Still there. Bailouts and stimuli? Still there.

Bella even commented on Obama's approval of extra-judicial killings of US citizens on foreign soil.

Several weeks ago I saw a story on a blog somewhere about Obama’s authorising the assassination of an American citizen abroad (sans due process, naturally) because he was suspected of terrorist activity. I didn’t write about it then because I was sure it was a right-wing conspiracy lie.

Apparently it’s not.

Other restorations of our civil liberties include proposals to deny terrorist suspects arrested on US soil their Miranda rights, strip American citizens accused of terrorism of their citizenship, and treating American citizens arrested for terrorism as enemy combatants and barring them from trial in normal American courts.

I’m a bit confused about this, because while I obviously think restoring civil rights is a wonderful thing, these plans all sound to me like stripping Americans of every possible legal and Constitutional protection based solely on an accusation of a particular crime.

Perhaps the definition of ‘civil liberties’ has Changed™ since 2008. Perhaps, as appears to be the case, this legislation has been proposed by eeeevil Republicans. But if the latter is so, why are the good and kind Democrats in charge not screaming bloody murder about it? Why are they not swearing with their every last breath to use their Congressional majority to kill these bills stone dead?

And why, in the name of all that is holy, has the era of Hope and Change not only not reversed any of the rights-abuses perpetrated by the previous administration, as was promised, but perpetrated new ones itself?

So, I think that it's fair to say that Obama has not been an unmitigated boon for the citizens of the US: indeed, when touching base with friends and relations in that country, the wife reports that even Bush wasn't hated as much as some people loathe Obama.

And, it seems, they have good reason. Because one thing that The Boy Blunder most definitely is not is some kind of libertarian, liberal, liberty-loving chappie who definitely won't take more freedoms away from the US people.

But despite the litany of shit (of which the horrors listed above are but a fraction of the infractions), via Obo, I see that The Keepers Of The One True Libertarianism™ have decided that any libertarians who don't praise Obama—even had they not noticed the story—for allowing openly gay people in the military are, in fact, traitors to the cause.

Which is slightly bizarre because only a few weeks ago, The Keepers Of The One True Libertarianism™ were complaining that libertarian bloggers who extended a cautious welcome to the stated intentions of Our New Coalition Overlords™ were, in fact, traitors to the cause.

All my fellow libertarians are either celebrating, silent, or seemingly willing to give the new guys a go.

What does this mean? Well, it means there will be less reason to listen to libertarian bloggers and less reason to visit their sites.
...

And where is the fun if there is no counter-authority sentiment, no insurgency, no angry voice of revolution to rally around? People have flocked to libertarian bloggers because they generally attack 'the Man' and create a vibe.

So, welcoming the promises for more freedom, fewer laws and more transparency in the people who have taken over our government is a betrayal of the libertarian cause because Our New Coalition Overlords™ are "statist, high taxation, anti-individual, social democratic, social engineering, tinkering, meddling authoritarians. I.e. more of the same."

However, failing to "applaud and give credit" to Barack "The Man" Obama—a man who is so far from being libertarian that he... Ah, fuck it. The man's authorised extra-judicial killings of his own citizens merely because they have been accused of a crime, for crying out loud!—because the Obama's US has "taken an important step" that "paves the way" to allow openly gay people into the military (replacing the current "don't ask, don't tell" policy) is "weirdly partisan and aggressive" and a failure "to support and encourage the rights, freedoms and liberties of people regardless of their wealth, standing and status as property owners".

Well, here we go, boys: I wouldn't want anyone to question my commitment to libertarianism, least of all you two, so here's my tribute to The Boy Blunder.

"Well done, Obama, for offering this derisory fig leaf of freedom to gay people, whilst fucking everyone else up the arse with the rest of the tree."

As for the whole issue of gays in the military...



OK? 'Kay? 'Kay.

So you'd like to emigrate to America?

British libertarians must be wary of advocating any action which presents itself as an escape clause to the present body-political cancer currently infecting in the U.K.

Emigration to an apparently slightly more free polity is one such escape clause. Some Britons go to France, some to Australia, some to New Zealand. Fine; chacun a son gout.

But many British libertarians look to the United States as a low-tax, smaller-government paradise, at least when compared to the United Kingdom. Do not succumb to this error, for erroneous it is.

British people, as anyone who's anyone knows, are far better educated about the US than Americans are about Britain. But do not be fooled by this into thinking that Americans are poorly educated. No, we can't locate Montenegro on a map, but that's because few Americans will ever even contemplate going there. Most Americans never leave the US, and content themselves with domestic holidays that provide by far more geological and cultural diversity than domestic holidays in Britain. From Florida to Oregon is a greater distance than Britain to Montenegro.

And one thing Americans understand as if born with the knowledge is the federalist nature of their home country. They know that there is greater political variation from state to state than there is between Wales and Scotland, for example; and they comprehend that not only is that variation acceptable, it's practically mandatory.

When Britons think of the United States as a kind of Mecca for the free and the brave, they are rarely taking into account that this view depends entirely on the specific destination envisioned. Consider, as an example, Delaware and Maryland. Two small states (at least by comparison with other American states) that share a border and a coastline. Delaware levies no state income tax or state corporation tax; as a result, a tremendously large number of American businesses have their headquarters incorporated there, and the average Delawarean taxpayer has to file (almost uniquely within the union) only one tax return every April. Delaware, by virtue of levying little tax, has a small state bureaucracy, which can be observed in the simplicity of procedures such as getting a driver's licence or purchasing a house.

Maryland, by comparison, is heavily bureaucratised. It levies taxes and fees for everything; it regulates practically all aspects of commercial and social interaction, at high cost to its residents in both personal income tax, simony, and corporation tax. (Not many businesses are incorporated in Maryland, though this is unsurprising, considering that 90% of Maryland acts as a residential suburb for federal government employees.) Maryland residents, to give one example, are required to bear number plates on both the front and rear bumpers of their automobiles. Car insurance companies will not insure a Maryland driver unless this condition is met; a car will not pass the Maryland equivalent of the MOT unless this condition is met; failure to meet these conditions will also result in heavy fines from the traffic police.

Therefore whether or not America is a paradise of freedom and prosperity depends entirely upon where you live within it.

Fortunately, if you have the clout, wherewithal, and minority status to get into the US (which is harder to enter than a Vestal virgin, unless you come via Mexico, in which case America is a bigger slut than your first high-school girlfriend), moving from place to place is easy. So is trade: the much-praised US constitution does not permit of interstate protectionism. You might fetch up in Maryland, but to move to Delaware would be easier than moving between England and Scotland.

There are currently-newsworthy exceptions to this rule, however. The most significant is health insurance. One of the things the Great Healthcare Bill does nothing about is the fact that health insurance consumers may only purchase health insurance within state lines; and health insurance companies, as a corollary to this unconstitutional privilege, are also granted exemption from anti-trust legislation specifically set up to prohibit the kind of monopoly the federal government permits in this one area of domestic commerce. As with all industries given state protection from competition, health insurance has soared in cost since the New Deal. The Obama administration's solution to same is to prevent such companies from not selling policies to sick people but without, naturally, controlling the cost of such policies, the Great Healthcare Bill promising to pick up the tab for those who can't afford to purchase policies on their own. And so the insurance companies cry like Brer Rabbit in the briar patch, 'Please, please don't give us more customers!'

It is a cry that goes unanswered; the federal government will give the health insurance companies more customers, goddammit, whether they like it or not.

British libertarians, do not deceive yourselves: the United States is the largest and best-run fascist nation the world has ever seen. It is not as overt about it as Mussolini, perhaps, but it makes him look like a rank amateur. Do you think that the health-insurance lobby would for one second permit their pocket Congressmen to pass the Great Healthcare Bill if it were truly detrimental to their interests? Of course not. The Great Healthcare Bill does nothing to help the consumer of healthcare. If it did, it would revoke the monopoly exemptions of health insurance companies and encourage a great flourishing of insurance competition, which as we all know would serve to decrease the price of same. It would allow consumers to purchase plans covering only healthcare they expected to need, rather than mandating that every plan include e.g. gender reassignment surgery, chemical birth control, and cognitive behavioural therapy. Instead, what it actually does is *gasp* force health insurance companies by law to take on new customers. Way to stick it to big business, there, Obama.

The fact of the matter is that all politicians, British or American, are subject to the same pressures from corporate interests. The corporate interests might differ—witness the cash-recirculation scheme operated between the Labour party and the unions—but the pressures never change. Large businesses, be they unions or health insurance companies, have money and influence individual voters can only dream of. As the left wing are so fond of emphasising, collective action is powerful. Whether the collective in question is businesses seeking legislative protection from competition or unions seeking public funding for their oh-so-necessary efforts not to be sacked makes no difference. The individual voter serves one real purpose, and that is to provide democratic legitimacy for whatever the legislature does to service its well-organised and well-funded corporate paymasters.

If this is true in Britain, it is doubly true in the United States, which has bigger corporations and more money. There is no better proof of this than the Great Healthcare Bill, which will enrich the monopolistic insurance companies at the expense of both the individual consumer and the taxpayer. Perhaps, being a non-federalist Briton, you think this bill will help the poor who cannot afford insurance. If so, I urge you to rethink your view.

One of the most prevalent criticisms of American health insurance is that insurance companies are reluctant to take on customers with the much-publicised 'pre-existing conditions' and to pay out for procedures not even tangentially related to same. What do you think will happen to insurance premiums when insurance companies are no longer permitted to refuse customers who will cost the company more than they will pay in? What do you think will happen to the Medicaid budget when it is forced to purchase the healthcare of those who can no longer afford private insurance premiums? If you think the answer is anything other than 'There will be a gigantic increase,' you are living in cloud-cuckoo land.

An interesting unintended consequence of the Great Healthcare Bill has been the resolution passed by various Southern and Mid-western states to ignore federal action they deem to be outwith the 10th Amendment of the US constitution. We will not implement these programs, they say, or penalise federal offices that do not implement these programs. And in fairness to them, nothing in the constitution makes provision for vast incursions by the federal government into the American economy, regardless of the perceived importance of a particular commercial sector. By and large the states that have passed this resolution are ethnically homogeneous and economically self-sufficient, with a few notable (and notably contrarian) exceptions such as Alabama and South Carolina.

Such resolutions are in one sense laughable; state legislatures have absolutely no power to impede federal directives, or to impede the activities of the multiplicity of federal offices that abound within every American state. They might as well try to dam a river with a pebble. On the other hand, these resolutions are a powerful signal. American states, after all, have a history of secession, a will to the kind of self-government the United States supports everywhere else in the world. It requires virtually no stretch of imagination to view these 10th-Amendment resolutions as a waving flag to the other states of the union declaiming, 'We are ready to secede, if the rest of you are.' Eleven states have done this; they represent much greater than 20% of American land area, though not 20% of the American population. Alaska is one such; known for its bloody-mindedness and eccentric independence, it would not find it at all difficult to secede. Not only are there few people in Alaska, they are badass too. Even federal employees are more Alaskan than they are federal. Five minutes after secession would see drills all over the ANWR reserve and the start of a pipeline to Russia (who still unfashionably persist in this oil-drilling business). Dead caribou would represent what is commonly known as a bumper harvest. Mind you, the Alaskans wouldn't allow them to become extinct; they would farm them for their succulent meat and durable furs.

Ask yourself, after all: how many of our current domesticated mammal species would have been extinct hundreds of years ago if we didn't husband them for other purposes? Do you think the average sheep would have survived in wolf-filled Europe if we hadn't killed all the wolves in the name of protecting the wool-bearing, tasty-lamb-producing sheep?

Louisiana and Alabama are more puzzling in these terms; both those states are the recipients of considerable federal largesse as well as having an uncomfortable history of fighting for the continued enslavement of the black man. On the other hand, they possess access to Gulf oil. The Mid-western states produce a giant proportion of the world's grain. At the moment, they are subsidised by the federal government which places restrictions on where and how they can trade. Imagine how prosperous they might be if they could junk the restrictions and sell vast loads of wheat at rock-bottom prices to places like India, China, and Japan!

So there are some places in the United States that reject, if only implicitly, the fascist union of the federal government to federal business. But their resistance will be a long time in coming, if ever; do not count on emigrating to Wyoming to provide you with the libertarian paradise about which you have always fantasised. Better to go to Montana, where state troopers can scarcely enforce speed limits. You'll be branded as a Militiaman, of course (something which the New Hampshire Free Staters have not yet experienced, if only because New Hampshire is a miniscule state filled with agricultural white smallholders—or perhaps in spite of this, now that I consider it), but Montana is filled with vast open ranges wherein nobody lives and thus no federal officials intrude. It also happens to host numerous Native American reservations, where federal taxes and regulations are something that happens to somebody else.

Allow me to be reactionary, therefore, and say the following: America is great, if you can go there, and if you go where there are basically no poor people or immigrants. (Native Americans, ghettoised as they are, don't count.) Where the country is Anglo-white, suburban/rural, and largely comprises the descendants of doughty homesteaders, it is a vaguely low-tax, smaller-government paradise. But this cannot last. For one thing, places like California are getting a bit bolshie. Why? It turns out that, for decades, they've been fulfilling their moral mandate by subsidising states less rich than themselves though their federal taxes. Now suddenly they find themselves in a budgetary hole, and they can't convince those less-rich states to pull them out. You owe us a debt, they claim, despite the fact that the inhabitants of those less-rich states are still, per capita, less rich than Californians. Redistribution, it seems, is not a moral good, but a store of credit, much like a medieval indulgence. The Californians never helped the Louisianans (some of the poorest Americans) out of the goodness of their hearts; they helped in the implicit expectation of getting a return when they fucked themselves. And with their bizarre government-by-plebiscite-and-an-Austrian-movie-star, they did indeed fuck themselves, and now they expect the dispossessed poor of Louisiana (and Mississippi, and Alabama) to help them out of the hole.

Is this what a nation is all about? Monopolistic concessions to health insurance companies, preludes to secession, poor states bailing out rich ones, a government that ignores its own Prime Directive? Where big governments override smaller governments and vice versa, and the only thing holding the place together is the fact that breaking it apart has been tried and failed, and besides, it's still the best place in the world for making money, if making money is what you happen to want?

British libertarians, do not look to America for succour, for it is a sink of redundancy, corruption and fascism. Even if you manage to get in, which would be hard enough even for my husband who is married to an American citizen, expect not an end to ills. Recognise that it is a nation more moribund, more steeped in procedure, tax, and waste than even the United Kingdom. If you think Scotland is a millstone around your neck, imagine the weight of the shackles of California. You will have no relief, no extra freedom unless by accident, no respite from the predations of the moneyed and powerful. Take my word for it. I am an American in Britain. I see no difference, except that as a percentage of my income, I actually pay less tax here. There are many things wrong with the British body politic, but moving to the United States will cure none of them.

Briton: heal thyself.

How many of me?

Via Timmy, whose score of 1 person is most impressive—especially since that person is probably the very same Tim Worstall...

HowManyOfMe.com

There are people with the name Christopher Mounsey in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Cass Sunstein: a very dangerous man

Cass Sunstein: I would say that he was placed on this Earth by aliens who wished to have the governments of the world enslave all of mankind prior to the alien invasion, but Cass'd probably have me taxed or locked up. Well, I, for one, welcome our new world government overlords; I’d like to remind them that as a trusted blogging personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their gulags and salt mines (at least we'd get the roads gritted).

The wife has written a severe fisking of a sinister gentleman called Cass Sunstein, head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the US.

You might have heard of him recently, for he is the gentleman who wrote about the best way to deal with conspiracy theorists.

1. Government might ban conspiracy theorizing.


2. Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories.

Sounds like a lovely chap! What other whacky ideas does he have? Fear not, Bella has extracted some of his bon mots...

‘Without taxes, there would be no liberty.’

‘Rights are meaningless unless enforced by government.’

‘There is no liberty without dependency.’

And there is no tyranny without sophistry. This man is now Obama’s sophist extraordinaire.

Sunstein’s Wikipedia page informs me, as well, that he is ‘known for’ soft paternalism and choice architecture: our old friend libertarian paternalism, advocated in Britain by Sunstein’s counterpart Julian le Grand...

Ah yes: I think that we remember Julian "smoking licences" Le Grand, do we not...?

Anyway, Cass Sunstein also co-wrote Nudge, a book that effectively lays out the concepts of "libertarian paternalism" and which has been heartily adopted by Call Me Dave's party of Tory wets, fascists and know-it-alls.

But, as the wife concludes...

I would like to note that Sunstein’s calls to ban ‘conspiracy theories’ if necessary are wholly inconsistent with libertarian paternalism, involving as they do not a nudge but an outright prohibition. A tax seems more in agreement with his philosophy of choice architecture, requiring people to ‘opt out’ of not holding objectionable opinions. But one has to wonder: if there is no liberty without taxation, what are we to do about a tax that directly suppress one of our fundamental freedoms? Is that liberty, too? Is not-liberty liberty?

Yes: it is the liberty to live as the government wants you to—how is that not the sweetest liberty on earth? For do the government not do all that they do in your name and for your benefit?*

Still, dear ol' Cass is the gift that keeps on giving and the lovely Bella launches into another happy-slapping upon the works of this latter-day J. S. Mill.

How does the average American twerp distinguish between false theories that public officials rightly undermine, and true theories that public officials undermine in the name of security? After all, public officials have been known to do just that. How do we know whether a public official is telling us the truth or lying to us? Perhaps Sunstein will tell us…

He sort of does, in fact, when he discusses the distinction between justified and unjustified false belief. For example:

… the false belief in Santa Claus is justified, because children generally have good reason to believe what their parents tell them and follow a sensible heuristic (“if my parents say it, it is probably true”)…

I posit that the belief (true or false) that politicians lie to the electorate is also a ’sensible heuristic.’ It has been known to happen rather more often than is comfortable to the electorate. Politicians wishing to disseminate true information to dispel conspiracy theories are caught in a trap of their own devising: they are the Boy Who Cried Wolf. People would be far more willing to trust the establishment if the establishment were more trustworthy, and if its members were not caught lying, misrepresenting, prevaricating, and peculating so depressingly often.
...

[Sunstein's] mistake is to lay the responsibility for false beliefs and conspiracy theories entirely on the shoulders of those who hold them, and absolve the establishment of any responsibility for the phenomena. Indeed, for Sunstein, conspiracy theories are a problem which government officials must solve, seeking out ways to promote the right sources of information and improve people’s ‘crippled’ epistemologies.

And isn’t that always how it is for people like this? The Herd have a pathology! Government must fix!

Until people like Sunstein realise that it takes two to tango, they’re never going to reach their solution, whether it be through nudging, taxes, prohibitions, bans, thought crimes or any other ridiculous measure that fails to take into account that public officials are part of the problem. So, the government wants people to believe the information it gives them, to trust them, to feel that society is open and transparent free? Public officials, I’ve got your solution right here:

STOP LYING TO US.

Amen to that, frankly.

Please don't be under any illusions: Cass Sunstein is a very dangerous man. His declared aim is to tax or ban your thoughts—and he is an official in the US government.

He has also co-authored a book that David "Hug A Husky" Cameron seems to have taken on as a bit of a guiding light.

Do not expect the years ahead to be any more beacons for liberty than the last few decades gone. Do prepare to be very, very afraid...

* As long as you are not a suspected drug-dealer, fisherman, brown person, possible Muslim, banker, etc. etc.

Saint Obama and the Crock of Shit

The lovely Bella has been busy today, assessing—amongst other things—the state of Saint Obama's presidency to date...

I suspect that much of the negativity and cynicism stems from the fact that Obama has gone about his presidency in entirely back-asswards fashion. Having campaigned on a platform that consisted largely of reversing the mahoosive mistakes of the Bush administration, once in office, he immediately set out to… not reverse any of them. Patriot Act? Still there. Guantanamo? Still there. Wars? Still there. Bailouts and stimuli? Still there. Discontinuing these things, while difficult, would have been popular on both sides of the political divide, as well as with the mythical ‘independent’ voters. Obama would have been seen to be cleaning up the mess and providing himself with a fresh slate, correcting the massive loss of civil liberties and doing his best to get the country back on its economic feet.

Instead of pursuing these popular campaign policies, however, he has spent the vast majority of the last year shilling for his Congressional party members and their ridiculous healthcare reform. A task as huge as the overhaul of the nation’s health infrastructure should have been begun cautiously, slowly, and thoroughly, with cost/benefit analyses, input from providers and consumers, multiple scenarios of best practice, and above all, genuine bi-partisan contribution. What Obama has allowed to happen, however, is the creation of a massive, cobbled-together bill based on the barest minimum of research into the health market, the barest minimum of input from the industry as a whole, and containing almost innumerable lines inserted solely to get this or that special interest group onside, or this or that senator. The legislation is a gigantic fucked-up mess that appears designed, not to represent a unified vision of healthcare or emulate best practice elsewhere in the world, but to prove that the Democrats in Congress have done something, dammit, and it looks plausible if you stand back from it and squint a bit.

That sounds about right...

Sorry—once again, your humble Devil is up to his eyeballs in work. Naturally, if I see some utter fucknuts waffling on and proposing some enragingly illiberal crap, then I shall put fingers to keyboard: but, alas, it seems that Gordon's doctors are keeping his inside and under heavy sedation at present.

Education spending

Now, as we all know, if you don't spend lots and lots of money—increasing amounts, in fact—on public services, then they just won't get any better. And, by extension, if you cut spending then public services will get worse, right?

But the question is always—better or worse for whom? NuLabour has splurged vast amounts of cash on education, the NHS, etc. and yet there is very little indication that the quality of the outcomes has changed.

Sure, the people employed in those sectors have got handsome pay rises but then I don't see why the rest of us should be impoverished because the state is a shit employer—or because people were willing to work for less money than they might.

Whilst all nurses are angels and every teacher is a positive saint, but public services do not—in theory—exist for the benefit of teachers or nurses. No, the justification for the state's extortion is that these are public benefits—that the outcomes are a public good. These services are run for the education of children or the healing of the sick—the staff who work within these professions are entirely incidental and are absolutely fucking not the reason why such servives exist.

So, does increased spending increase the outcomes? Has, for instance, the massive growth of spending on state schools in the US—known there as "public schools"—increased the quality of the education?

Well, via the toothy clown, your humble Devil finds this interesting graph from the Cato Institute.

I blogged this morning that the research shows higher public school spending slows the economy, and explained that this is because spending more on public schools doesn’t increase students’ academic performance. Some readers no doubt find that hard to accept. With them in mind, I present the following chart:


If public schools had merely maintained the level of productivity they exhibited in 1970, Americans would enjoy a permanent $300 billion annual tax cut. Now THAT would stimulate economic growth.

So, in the US, a massive increase in education spending has not increased the quality of outcome. We cannot necessarily say that without the spending the outcomes would not have dropped—it may be that this huge wodge of cash was required simply to keep the outcomes roughly even. For what it's worth though, I severely fucking doubt it.

So, can we expect lots of public service cuts here—when the Tories get in, perhaps?

I wouldn't bet on it.

Dear FBI...

The Longrider has utterly fisked this bleating arsewipe from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, sent to Scottish Minister Kenny MacAskill regarding the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.

But your humble Devil would like to add a few words...

Dear Robert S Mueller, III,

You mention that you were complicit in the Lockerbie bombing invesgtigation.

Over the years I have been a prosecutor, and recently as the Director of the FBI, I have made it a practice not to comment on the actions of other prosecutors, since only the prosecutor handling the case has all the facts and the law before him in reaching the appropriate decision.

Your decision to release Megrahi causes me to abandon that practice in this case. I do so because I am familiar with the facts, and the law, having been the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the investigation and indictment of Megrahi in 1991.

Your piss-poor whining does not alter the fact that you know as well as I do that the entire investigation was a farce. You will know, as I do, that the investigation—which was, at the time, pointing towards Syrian terrorist with links to Iran—was suspended during the first Gulf War. And you will know the reasons for this, whilst I can only guess (pretty fucking accurately).

You will also know that crucial evidence—including parts of the bomb itself—went "missing" in this intervening period of suspension.

You will also know that the course of the case was dictated by spooks—your men in the FBI, who were with the prosecutors in court but not mentioned in the court papers—who dictated the availability of evidence, redacted crucial parts of documents and generally lied.

If you do not know any of this, might I point you to the report of Dr Hans Kochler, the UN observer, who laid all of this out in plain English?

Your action in releasing Megrahi is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law.

Why don't you shut the fuck up about the rule of law? You—you thrice-cursed shitstain—know damn well that the only thing that makes a mockery of the rule of law is the trial of this man.

You know damn fucking well that there is not a single shred of evidence to convict him: you know damn well that he is, in fact, innocent.

Your attitude is disgusting—you and the US administration knowingly imprisoned an innocent man because it was politically expedient to do so. And our government, to its eternal shame, was complicit in an act of disgusting US dishonesty—not for the first (or last) time.

Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world...

Oh really?

Tell me, you fuck: which country sent millions of pounds to the IRA when they were busy blowing up innocent men, women and children in Northern Ireland and on the British mainland?

Oh, yeah: that was you fucks, wasn't it? Got to help the mother country, eh? Who cares that they are terrorists? Who cares that they are ruining innocent lives, eh? As long as good old Oirland can hold her head high? After all, we're still waiting for you to put the IRA on your list of terrorist organisations.

So don't talk to us about giving "comfort to terrorists around the world", you fucking little shit.

Oh, and while we are about it, let's look at an Iranian motive for blowing up Pan-Am Flight 103, shall we? Many have claimed that this atrocity was in response to the USS Vincennes' 1988 shooting down of Iranian Flight 655—a civilian passenger plane—which killed all 290 passengers.

Whilst we are discussing giving "comfort to terrorists", Bob (can I call you "Bob"? Cheers), let's see what the US government's reaction to that was, shall we?

The men of the Vincennes were all awarded Combat Action Ribbons for completion of their tours in a combat zone. Lustig, the air-warfare coordinator, received the Navy Commendation Medal, often given for acts of heroism or meritorious service, but a not-uncommon end-of-tour medal for a second tour division officer. According to the History Channel, the medal citation noted his ability to "quickly and precisely complete the firing procedure."
...

In 1990, Rogers was awarded the Legion of Merit "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer ... from April 1987 to May 1989." The award was given for his service as the Commanding Officer of the Vincennes, and the citation made no mention of the downing of Iran Air 655.

Oh, yeah: you gave them medals. Nice one, Bob: that was extremely appropriate.

So, I don't normally comment on the pig-ignorant witterings of FBI agents but, in this case, I shall make an exception, because I know damn well that you know all of the above.

So, my duly considered response is this: shut the fuck up, you cunt.

Regards,

DK

Oh, and just in case Bob should read this, I would just like to add this: fuck you too, you dishonest little shit. Go fuck yourself.

Change you can believe in...

I picked this up on Twitter, and it seems to be pretty fresh—here's the Washington Post.

White House Is Drafting Executive Order to Allow Indefinite Detention of Terror Suspects

The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, is drafting an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war.

Now, ain't that change you can believe in, eh?

Fucking hellski: I knew this clown was going to be a fucking disaster, but Obama really is exceeding my expectations in terms of total, uncompromising fuck-wittery...


Yep: that's how you save the world, Barack: by imprisoning people without trial for just as long as you fucking please.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: fuck. Ing. Hell. Ski.

Mind what you say

As those of you who read Private Eye on a regular basis might have noticed, this country's fucking stupid libel laws have made the UK a haven for so-called "libel tourists"—people who bring libel cases through the British courts, even though they have little to do with British citizens.

Despite the takedowns of various high(ish)-profile blogs, there has been a surprising lack of co-ordinated action in the blogosphere around this issue. After all, despite the bitching and moaning of the MSM, the politicians and their ghastly hangers-on, we bloggers are subject to libel laws, just like everyone else. I was, at one point, involved in campaign discussions with Manic and Unity but my involvement petered out due to time restrictions.

So, these were the two bloggers that I emailed back at the beginning of May, when I spotted this item on the govtrack.us website.

To create a Federal cause of action to determine whether defamation exists under United States law in cases in which defamation actions have been brought in foreign courts against United States persons on the basis of publications or speech in the United States.

A-ha! I thought. This is the US fighting back against these libel tourists—or, at least, ensuring that their own citizens are protected (something that the US is pretty good at doing).

Now, via @bengoldacre, your humble Devil has noticed that the US government's move has made it into The Times.

American politicians are pushing through free speech laws to protect US citizens from libel rulings in British courts that have been accused of stifling criticism of oligarchs and dictators.

The development follows claims that foreigners flock to the UK to begin hugely expensive defamation cases even though they have little to do with this country.

Claimants who have indulged in so-called “libel tourism” include a Ukrainian businessman who sued a Ukrainian language website based in his homeland for £50,000, simply because its contents could be viewed in Britain.

An Icelandic bank successfully sued a Danish newspaper in the British courts for publishing unflattering stories about the advice it gave to clients, despite collapsing six months later.

Now lawmakers in several American states, including New York and Illinois, have moved to block the enforcement of British libel judgments in the United States.

Congress is also considering a bill that will allow defendants of foreign libel suits to counter-sue for up to three times the damages sought by a claimant if their right to free speech, enshrined in the First Amendment, has been violated.

Excellent. Now, just possibly, we could get a campaign together and get our weakened MPs to change this utterly unjust law.

“Our libel laws have made Britain a place where any of the world’s bullies and wealthy celebrities can wander into court 13 \ and launder their reputations,” said Mark Stephens, a partner at the law firm Finers Stephens Innocent, which advises many non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

“In the US you can still be sued but claimants pay for their own lawyers, fewer spurious claims go to court and freedom of speech is enshrined in law

by the First Amendment. Some NGOs are seriously considering moving their publication people out to the States to protect themselves.”

London has long been regarded as a claimant-friendly place for libel actions because defendants are deemed “guilty” until they have proved their innocence, the opposite of the usual burden of proof in criminal cases. Damages are also typically higher in the UK and the costs so expensive that defendants often feel compelled to settle out of court, even though they may be in the right.

Because there is no legal aid for such cases, the government has allowed libel and privacy claimants to sue under “no win, no fee” arrangements. This enables lawyers to claim a 100% “uplift” on their normal rates. One of London’s leading libel lawyers charges up to a total of £1,200 an hour.

Indeed.

And up to their necks in this disgusting defence of (often) deeply unpleasant people are our old friends Schillings, and Lord Justice Eady (a fucking turd even by the standards of judges)—the latter ruled in the case, detailed below, which the Eye keeps returning to.

Mr Justice Eady, a High Court judge, has delivered a series of rulings that have bolstered privacy laws and encouraged libel tourism. He awarded Max Mosley, the Formula One president, privacy damages of £60,000 over the News of the World’s exposé of his sex life.

Most recently, Eady has been accused of “stifling” scientific debate after he ruled in favour of a trade body for chiropractors against a science writer who had accused the body of promoting “bogus treatments”. Eady said that Simon Singh, the writer, had effectively accused the body of dishonesty.

In a landmark decision five years ago Eady gave judgment for Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi banker, who had sued Rachel Ehrenfeld, an American academic. She suggested in a book that the banker had links to the financing of terrorist groups.Ehrenfeld had not published or promoted the book in this country but 23 copies sold over the internet were shipped to Britain. She decided not to defend the case, but Eady ordered her to pay £130,000 in costs and damages.

He also ruled that any copies of her book must be pulped. This judgment almost single- handedly launched the American freedom of speech backlash against UK libel laws.

Well, good for the Americans, I say. And it's typical that not only should they move to stop our courts interfering with their citizens, but they are adding a counter-sue option. Excellent.

And, given that the Americans have now drawn attention to the fact that our libel laws are deeply unjust and archaic, what will our MPs do...?

I'm guessing that the answer to that is "fuck all".

P.S. The article also mentions the case of Simon Singh, who is being sued for libel by a bunch of fucking woo peddlers, which Unity has an update on.

Land of the Free. Not.

Bella Gerens reports on the fact that the US government is using the Patriot Act against its own citizens.

When the recent Bush administration rammed the Patriot Act through Congress, ostensibly to deal with cases of suspected terrorism without exposing the public to unnecessary risk, there were those who said, ‘This is horrible. The Patriot Act makes a mockery of due process. Soon, we’ll see Bush’s political enemies languishing without trial in detention centres all over the country!’

Those same people, who tended to count themselves amongst Bush’s political enemies, breathed sighs of relief audible 4,000 miles away when Obama was elected, and then again when Obama took office. ‘Thank God,’ they said to one another gratefully. ‘No need to worry about terrorism gulags any more.’

Now, obviously, under Obama—since he's the fucking messiah and a nice, cuddly Democrat, an' all—the government would never use this disgraceful Act; in fact, they've probably abolished it, right? Er...

A 16-year-old boy from East Buddhafuckshire in my home state was dragged out of his house by federal officers on 5 March (for allegedly making prank bomb threats over internet telephone) and removed to a juvenile detention centre half a continent away. No explanation has been given; no formal charges have been laid; no evidence has been put before any judicial figure; there is a gag order on the case – and even now, two months later, this child is still in prison under the provisions of the Patriot Act.

Fuck me: throwing people into prison without a charge, a judge or trial, and terrorist legislation misused by heavy-handed government stormtroopers officials... You know what? There's something about this that sounds very familiar—I just can't put my finger on it...

Anyway, Bella's fucking annoyed...

His mother says she feels like she’s living in a Third World country. She never expected to have to protect her children from her own government.

Well, I have some messages to deliver.

To the child’s mother: If you really believed you were safe from your own government, you’re an idiot. Who the fuck but the US government could get at you in the redneck-infested wasteland that is Granville County?

To those who supported the Patriot Act: You dangerous, self-righteous, hypocritical lunatics. Let’s see how you like it when Obama turns it against you, as he inevitably will. Why do you think his government has been re-labelling libertarians as domestic terrorists? And you’ll have only your stupid selves to blame.

To those who loathed the Patriot Act until their christus gloriosus seized the helm of the ship of state: You spineless, hypocritical maggots. Civil liberties are evidently not so important once the jackboot is on your foot! Where is your fucking freedom crusade now?

Do wander over and read the whole thing, or find out more about the so-called Patriot Martyr.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."—Benjamin Franklin

Or, of course, perhaps we should try a little Bill Hicks...

"I think the puppet on the right shares my views. I think the puppet on the left shares my views. Hey there's one guy holding up both puppets!

"SHUT UP!

"Go back to bed, America, your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed America, your government is in control.

"Here—here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up, go back to bed America, here is American Gladiators, here is 56 channels of it!

"Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on the living in the land of freedom.

"Here you go America—you are free to do what we tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!"

How different it all is in this fine country, the cradle of freedom. Hey! Wait a minute: our government is trampling all over our...

SHUT UP! Go back to bed, people of Britain: your government is in control. Here, watch the Britain's Got Freaks and The Apprentice Arsehole. Sit back and watch these talentless know-nothing weirdos prance about like fucking tits; sit back, get fat and forget about RIPA, and detention without charge, and illegal wars, and expenses frauds.

You just fucking sit there, you fucking morons: when we want you to vote, we'll tell you what to do and which one of us to vote for. Until that time, you just sit there on your fucking credit-bought sofa and shut the fuck up.

And remember, you are free to do what we tell you, you fucking saps.

+++ THIS HAS BEEN A POLITICAL BROADCAST ON BEHALF OF YOUR GOVERNMENT, WHICHEVER IDENTIKIT MAINSTREAM PARTY HAPPENS TO BE RUNNING IT AT THE TIME. +++

And next...

Hopping around the govtrack.us website this evening, I was pointed to this rather amusing Bill proposal.

To establish a Department of Peace.

As with many of the pieces of crap that float through our Parliament, I have to wonder: "don't these people in government have anything better to do with their time?"

At this rate, next up will be a Bill to create a Department of Love, and a Department of Truth. Yikes.

Your humble Devil is going to retreat back behind the looking-glass, methinks...

UPDATE: Bella has a far more in-depth and amusing look at the whole thing.

If I force my brain through massive self-deception to ignore the heavy, in fact wholly unsubtle, Orwellian connotations of this bill—and even if I approach the idea of ‘peacemaking’ as a worthwhile endeavour on a federal scale—still I can see and hear nothing but (a) the laughter of the rest of the world as life imitates art, and (b) the ever-higher-licking flames of yet more piles of dollars burning on the altar of government expansion.

I mean, a new Cabinet department? Is Dennis on crack? Look what happened that last time we allowed that! Or am I wrong in thinking that the department of Homeland Security has not been a staggering success?

Go and read the rest. Especially because the whole thing gets, if possible, even more sinister—encompassing the now near-obligatory state slavery option (I assume that's ticked by default these days)...